Category: church

And His Government Shall Have No End

Through most of my adult life I have essentially withdrawn from the formal political process.  This has been the result, I think, mainly of my inability to understand political process and my theological hesitancy in viewing government as the means to what God is doing in the world.  It seems I have been able to do little correcting the former and I have tried not to take a militant position on the latter as I have encountered many for whom political process has made constructive contributions.

In Revelation 5 we hear about the new song sung by the four living creatures and the 24 elders.  They praise the lamb who was slain whose blood purchased people for God.  These people come from every tribe, language, ethnicity, and nation.  They are made a priestly kingdom and will rule the earth.  Revelation of course is shot through with the conflict around the earth’s rule.  Spending more time in this text I have begun to reflect again what it might mean or look like for the ‘lamb’s people’ to rule.

What came to me was really quite a simple and unoriginal contrast.  Traditional government is always willing to put others at risk.  Soldiers are themselves at risk and they put foreigners at risk.  Police themselves are at risk and they put other citizens at risk.  Who are these risked lives trying to secure.  I think they are trying to secure a type of non-life or static life.  This structure of government secures those who are passive as well as those who are able to risk others.  There is a brave refrain among the families of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan believing in the greater good of what is being fought for.  But their lives are not secured.  Their lives are shattered, at times it appears irredeemably broken.  So they say it is for their children but this fighting poses no guarantee of that belief.  And so the ones secured are only in the present, only those who do not need to fight and probably do not really care about it.  Those secured are the stabilizing block, masse, that government needs for support and credence.

So what of the ‘lamb’s people?’  They themselves rule by placing their lives in temporal risk for eternal security.  When they witness risked people they engage themselves directly for the securing of others.  Their authority then is acknowledged through their sacrifice . . . worthy is the lamb.  Kierkegaard’s notion of the eternal is significant here as it functions in the rupturing of every moment which humanly tends towards the temporal and the securing of the self at the cost of others.  Here there can be no allegiance to tribe, language, culture, or nation for all are represented in the call of the lamb.

It should also be noted that this is not a mindless risking on the part of the faithful it is rather a willing risk in light of and in discerning response to the ills and risks manifest around them.  This is where critical discussion and charitable response can join.

How to Answer a Question

As I mentioned below I was at an interviewing weekend at a church recently.  After my sermon the floor was opened up for questions directed at me (there were about 350 people there).  I was quite surprised at the range of topics.  Now bear in mind I do not have a traditional church or education background for this particular church so I suspect at least a few individuals felt some red flags go up over my resume.  One question was whether I held to the reformed doctrine of predestination (the right answer here is no).  Another question was whether I took a literalistic reading of the Bible.  There were of course other questions.  Some had to do with my background and intention for this position.  After a day or two of reflecting on this part of the weekend I began to feel how problematic this was.  In almost all cases I think I knew what they were really asking but the questions themselves placed unnecessary parameters on how the question could be answered.  Ultimately the questions were of a yes/no nature.  And perhaps I should have simply answered them as such.  Do you hold to the doctrine of predestination . . . no.  This, I suspect, would not have been well received and so I tried to build context around my response framing out why my yes or no could be intelligible for my particular situation.  But this was framing from nowhere as I did not know what was really being sought after.

In the end this was a highly unsatisfying time.  I think for these formats to have any validity congregations must learn the basic posture of invitation as opposed to inquisition.  Share with us . . . Describe for me . . . As it stood this environment seemed to enforce the sort of subtle and indirect communication that can leave people inside and outside of churches wondering whether they are in fact inside or outside (or perhaps upside down).

Being clear in communication does not mean being blunt it means being clear first of all with yourself.  Why are you asking this, have you expressed this motivation in the question?  Do you already have a pre-determined answer you are looking for?  Does this question aim at helping you to know and understand the person you am talking with better?  Does this question place inappropriate parameters on how the person is able to respond?

I don’t actually mind being in the hot seat I just find that in situations where someone’s potential livelihood is at stake care should be taken educating a group towards an appropriate method of inquiry (well, appropriate by my standards).

Taking the Slow Train

Descriptive pastoral theology is a patient task.  DPT takes seriously the situatedness of the practitioner but also believes that the situation can always be more thoroughly described.  Most of our experiences are processed automatically through various influences.  DPT also does not limit the influences that may have potentially influenced the practitioner.  These influences are also to be described.

In order to enter into this descriptive process the practitioner must continually learn to slow the process down so that pauses and therefore breaks in our default modes of understanding can be created.  There is no appeal or claim to effectiveness or results in this process.  DPT believes that there is already more than enough at play and so shifts and breaks and questions will be automatically generative.  The task begins when basic questions are asked.

What is happening here?  How do I interpret what is going on and why? What am I bringing into my description that should not be here? Etc.

I don’t think there is any great secret or anything new in the particular articulation of these questions (though description should take note of which questions we tend to ask!)  It is the attentiveness that counts and the ability to describe carefully and slowly and repetitively.  The imagery can be drawn easily from family systems.

When my father said this (1) why did not I say something?  When I stop to think about what he said this (2) is what I understand it to mean.  Understanding it this (2) way I should have said something because I also believe this (3).  Do I often neglect to say something in these sorts of situations?  Was there something in my family that we were trained to neglect?  Next time I need to slow my interaction with my father down and hear what my father is saying in congruence with as much of myself as possible.

My basic appeal in this approach is grounded in the biblical eschatology of the book of Revelation.  This reading is most clearly interpreted in John Howard Yoder’s thesis that all Christian aims and purposes have already been secured around the throne of God.  The greatest virtue then is patience and attentiveness.  This, though, is not enough as even John (twice!) at the end of Revelation almost falls into idolatry and worships the messenger of the revelation.  Therefore the practitioner must take great pains not to close of the description or own the description but continue pausing and questioning so that open hands would remain for the gift of revelation and also the gift of worship.

Naaman and the Parable of Academic Theology

In a couple of weeks I will be preaching on 2 Kings 5:1-19.  This is the story of Naaman a great commander of the army of Aram.  Naaman, however, is a leper.  In one of his conquests Naaman captures a ‘small girl’ who ends up as a servant for Naaman’s wife.  As the small girl sees Naaman’s affliction she says that Naaman should send word to the prophet in Samaria and he would heal him.  This is Naaman’s initial posture.  By almost all accounts he is a man of status and power and yet he is afflicted in such a way that everything is tainted.  In that position he is able to hear from the ‘small girl’ who in every way is his contrast.

Once Naaman hears of this possibility he does not send word to the prophet but immediately reverts to the ‘appropriate’ channels.  He sends word to the king.  He brings a large sum of money.  He travels with horses and chariots.  And the king of Israel upon hearing word tears his clothes.  What can he do for this powerful man?  Surely Naaman is trying gain some advantage through this encounter.  Naaman must a shrewd and clever dialogue partner looking for advantage in this relationship.  But Elisha the prophet simply asks that Naaman come and see him.  So Naaman arrives at the entrance of the prophet’s home with all his pomp and procession.  But Elisha does not even greet Naaman.  Instead he sends his messenger to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed.  Naaman is infuriated by this action.  He goes on to describe what he imagined should have happened.  Elisha should have come out to greet him and standing their he would call on the name of his God and wave his hand and heal him.  The scene again is one in which the grandness of the result should be accomplished by a grand action.  There should be a proportional relationship.

This story reminded me of my academic development.  I began post-secondary education as though listening to a ‘small girl’.  I had a felt need and desire that this process could be a work of healing or restoration (it was all of course more convoluted than that but for the sake of contrast it is not entirely inaccurate).  Perhaps it did not happen as quickly as with Naaman but I began veering off course away from the prophet and towards the king.  This path called for a demonstration, a pageantry displaying the validity of my presence and purposes.  I saw around me that small and simple acts were inadequate.  One needed to call on the name of rigorous thinkers and wave the hand dense and nuanced argumentation.

Of course this parable falls apart on any number of levels.  Any Naaman could come across this post and demonstrate its inadequacies.  But it is only an attempt to begin writing in the spirit of a ‘small girl’.    There are many important things going on among important people who are able to sustain important discourses.  And these things are important as they affect many people.  I, however, suspect I have plugged the ears that once heard small things. I no longer know where the Jordan River is and I may not even have the patience to wash seven times in it.  And to what end would that accomplish in any event?  Naaman was convinced and he washed himself.  What happened?  His flesh became like that of a ‘small boy’.  This is no cult of beauty.  This is a reversion or a return to a way discounted by our culture.  It is a path not noticed.  A path not seen.

An Introduction

While I have been active in online forums and blogging for almost a decade it has only recently become clear to me that a shift occurred (that I was not a part of!).  When I began blogging and interacting there were very few grad students and fewer professors blogging and so (in my circles) there was a relatively equal playing field for interaction.

Over time those undergrad students continued their academic careers and others joined in.  This has resulted in some truly high level and consequently specialized online spaces for critical and confessional theology.  I did not continue along the same path and it took me some time to realize I was no longer ‘one of the gang’.  To the extent that I continued trying to fit into these modes I found myself frustrated (and frustrating) while my intellectual pursuits became increasingly divorced from my professional role as a pastor.

This blog is my attempt at opening a space for what, at this point, I can only call descriptive pastoral theology.  I hope to not abandon my interests in critical theology and theory but I do hope to work from a clear ‘place’ which is as a pastor.  I call this work descriptive for personal reasons.  Some of the most formative works of fiction, theology and philosophy have been those which are simple and profound acts of description.  I realize that this term and idea needs much more unpacking . . . but that is the whole point.

And what haunts this all is Jesus’ relentless call to all those with eyes to see.  And so I am hoping de-scribe in the double movement away from the scribal task of securing discourse towards the eternal posture of seeing and therefore enacting the biblical vision of heaven.