:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, so my typical cure is a theology book. I picked up Willimon and Hauerwas’ book Resident Aliens, a self-described “provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know something is wrong.”

Unfortunately, it’s a very compelling, beautifully written book that left my head spinning . . . in a good way.

For someone who has been wrestling with ways to humbly share the good news of the Gospel, Hauerwas and Willimon are solid food. Take this quote for instance. Building on the theology of Karl Barth, they state:

“The theological task is not merely the interpretive matter of translating Jesus into modern categories but rather to translate the world to him. The theologian’s job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel” (24).

What a refreshing way to consider Christianity. We go into the world to bring God’s reality and to transform the world.

And if I may backpeddle a little, they also have quite a bit to say about theology and the ways we can botch things up. For example, I was taught in college that Bible study is a three-part process where we understand the ancient world, distill the basic truth, and then recontextualize it into today’s world.

I’m not a fan of this approach for no other reason than the sheer impossibility of such a task. But Hauerwas and Willimon have much more to say:

“The theology of translation assumes that there is some kernel of real Christianity, some abstract essence that can be preserved even while changing some of the old Near Eastern labels. Yet such a view distorts the nature of Christianity. In Jesus we meet humanity, but an invitation to join up, to become part of a movement, a people. By the very act of our modern theological attempts at translation, we have unconsciously distorted the gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be–ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people” (21).

That is a mouthful, earful, and pageful, but I think this insight is so important. Isn’t it tempting to boil Christianity down to doctrines and principles? It is far too easy to make the Bible into a book of rules that can be clearly followed.

The fact of the matter is the Bible and Jesus are far more concerned with revealing God and uniting us with God. The Bible tells us about God, but it cannot be reduced to simple abstract truth about God.

I love that last line of the quoted section: “Jesus with his people.” That’s so simple and beautiful that we’re bound to mess it up.

I’m breezing my way through Dr. Bart Ehrman’s lectures on the News Testament through the learning company and have hit the mid-way point. Here’s what I think so far.

First the mundane: Ehrman is a scholar and a teacher . . . he is most definitely not a comedian.

Imagine you’re watching a baseball game. Randy Johnson is hurling fast balls past the batters at a blistering 95 MPH. And then, as if in an instant, Johnson turns into a squirrelly little 13-year-old little league pitcher who laboriously toes at the dirt, carefully sets his foot in position, initiates an ungainly wind-up, and then lobs a wobbling dud of a pitch that lands with a thud right in front of home plate. After that unreal moment, Johnson quickly returns to the mound.

That’s what Ehrman’s attempts at comedy feel like: long, drawn out, and painful, oh so painful. Perhaps someone like Garrison Keeler could give him some pointers, but until then, drop the jokes please. You’re killing me!

As to Dr. Ehrman’s actual content, I have mixed reviews.

On one hand he’s approaching the Bible as a historian, so he’s trying to find reliable historical information. This means that he sicks upon any contradictions or inconsistencies in the New Testament. So far he’s been pretty rough on the Gospels and the book of Acts. He still sees value in them, but he casts a dark shadow over their historical accuracy.

On the plus side, I felt he did a very good job of literary analysis. He talked about the themes in each book and how each author portrays Jesus. That is helpful for anyone because it shows the Bible isn’t just some strange book about God, miracles, demons, lepers, and commandments. The books of the NT are ancient literary treasures that artfully tell the story of Jesus and the early church.

Of course I would no stop there. Ehrman strikes me as a bit jaded and frustrated toward conservative scholarship. He apparently had enough of that at Wheaton. So when he encounters problems in the Bible, he seems to really hammer the point that discrepancies cannot be reconciled.

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Shevet Achim provides life-saving surgery for children. The operation, based in Israel, provides heart surgery for children from countries throughout the Middle East.

You can read about Santa Maria’s surgery at her family’s blog.

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The fall colors are coming slowly but surely. You can see the yellows, oranges, and reds up in the mountains and the vines and small trees (especially in wet lands) are turning a brilliant red. It’s hard to capture such faint smatterings of color, but I think the below pictures give a little taste of what’s happening in southern Vermont.

The first is a tree in Shaftsbury just north of North Bennington, the other is a wet land in Shaftsbury to the east of route 7A.

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Someone on the CT web site actually wrote an article about rabbits, their wonders as house pets, and the cruel ways they are treated today. The article also provides a commentary on today’s culture.

As the owners of pet rabbits, we certainly agree with the article and found it to be true of our experiences. Of course our rabbits have been bad of late, so they’re locked up in their cage. They usually do have free reign of the house though.

Here’s the more entertaining part of the article:

“Few have had the thrill of watching a bunny do the binky—a supreme tribute from rabbits to their creator, as if to shout, with their whole bodies, “God, life is good!” Have you ever witnessed this spur-of-the-moment dance, in which rabbits leap up, spin in mid-air, and land facing the opposite direction—sometimes several times in a row? And how many of us have received the soft little kisses with which these affectionate and social creatures are happy to groom, comfort, and even, if necessary (as is often in my case), wake up their human companions?

Have you seen the way rabbits, upon hearing the soothing voice of their owner, forget the sixth sense inside their heads that warns them, “Be alert, you are, first and foremost, a prey animal! Don’t tease hawks with your white belly!”—and flop over on their side, rolling back their eyes in bliss? How many Playboy bunnies have heard the chatter of a euphoric rabbit’s teeth? Who among the lapin stew epicures has put a rabbit in a trance—his belly up and his lip twitching as he frolics in bunny dreamland, all trust and no fear? And how many touch-starved loners have received the consoling warmth of the velveteen body, propped against their backs or legs? How many pet store owners know the chasm that separates rabbits from rodents? Do they pay attention to the remarkably loud thumps rabbits make when scared or angry?”

And just because you probably are wondering about our rabbits Eva and Bailey:
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I have to give the Philadelphia Inquirer a hat tip today. There is a tremendous editorial on Pope Benedict’s speach on theology and reason that has been used as grounds for protest and violence.

The author, Christopher Levenick, notes that Benedict’s speech was more about Europe than Islam.

Levenick goes on the summarize the major points of the address, and makes this brilliant observation about the Pope:

“Second, he reflects on the place of reason in Christian theology. Theology, he proposes, must be genuinely intellectually rigorous. A faith that lacks intellectual rigor will either harden into fanaticism or soften in sentimentalism. In either event, it will cease to be authentically Christian. This is not to equate theological rigor with the strict canons of the scientific method. Rather, it means that theology must proceed from the conviction that faith is deepened through, and disciplined by, the human intellect’s unflinching pursuit of understanding.”

Good work.

To see the village of Weston is to like it. A few classic Vermont stores, a beautiful playhouse, an idyllic town green, a bubbling brook and a handful of old homes create cheerful community that is an absolute delight.

During the late weeks of September we enjoyed the transition from Summer to Fall with red, orange, and yellow leaves among the stubborn green leaves who clung to the sinewy branches. The surrounding mountains peeked out behind fog, and the grass exhibited a bright, healthy shine in the midst of intermittent rain.

We pulled into town and parked by the playhouse. A small company of trees and a solitary gazebo adorned the town green that dotted the middle of the circle that encompassed the majority of downtown Weston. Immediately after leaving the central circle, one stumbles upon several shops and galleries, including the Vermont Country Store along Route 100.

I have heard much about the Vermont Country Store, but have known next to nothing about. They have a slogan that rings something like, “Purveyors in the Practical and Hard to Find.” I needed to find out for myself what this icon is all about.
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During dinner last night Julie brought up that illiteracy has been strongly linked with crime.

Shortly after that, Julie’s parents, who have been involved in prison ministry for over 6 years now, mentioned how some of the inmates in their church tend to be rather quiet during a meeting. They began to wonder how much literacy affects the ability of some inmates to participate in the church.

That led to a discussion about the centrality of the Bible for Christianity in a mostly literate culture. Christianity survived in cultures for years where the majority of the people were illiterate. So we know that Christianity can work for people who can’t read.

But what are the implications for ministry among the illiterate. If we hand out free Bibles, but the recipients can’t read them . . . then what?

That is a really challenging question for me and it forces me to move beyond my assumptions and preconceived notions.

Obviously we should help fight illiteracy, but for the time being, we will also need to consider if some are afraid to approach God because they cannot read his book.

I just recieved a nice little newspaper in the mail today from Bernie Sanders, the wild-haired guy who always talks about health care in Congress.

I looked at the education section just praying to find an error . . . and I found one. How wonderful. How glore-ee-us. It says,

“Bernie is fighting to make sure that our kids have decent paying jobs and educational opportunity.”

Note that last word? “opportunity.” It’s a singular noun paired up with a plural noun “jobs.” I guess you could possibly make “opportunity” pass, but I was always taught to make the nouns parallel. It should read “opportunities.”

This is what happens when Julie goes to knitting night. Now everyone is going to scan this post for errors . . . I may have to put some in just to make it more fun.

With my curiosity going, I decided to do some research into the Sanders and Tarrant campaigns and decided to compile a list of innane issues for comparison.

Why do this you ask? Because in Vermont you can’t tell Republicans and Democrats apart. No angry battles over abortion, no rainbow flags waving over gay rights, and no vocal Christian right worth noticing. BORING!

This is nothing like elections in Pennsylvania. How am I supposed to know who to vote for? I mean, if it doesn’t boil down to one or two issues, I’ll actually have to do research and think. Everybody in Vermont who wants to be elected to any kind of office has to:

1. Work for better health care and use vague terms about how to improve it.
2. Work for more affordable homes in Vermont.
3. Work for better jobs just in case they can’t make homes more affordable.
4. Work for a cleaner environment. (And may I take a moment to poo poo all of the oil-lovin’ folk out there who oppose wind power for the sake of the “skyline”. Wilkes-Barre, PA is ahead of you on this one. For shame.)
5. Support farmers and say how much they like farmers. Milking a cow is mandatory.

So with everyone taking the same basic approach to “THE ISSUES,” I’ve decided to find my own issues.

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As if being entangled in a never-ending intafada and war with Lebanon didn’t ruin the tourism economy of Israel enough, now this happens:

“Jerusalem. There is no such city!” the Jerusalem municipality said in the English-language version of a sightseeing brochure it had published originally in Hebrew.

The correct translation: “Jerusalem. There is no city like it!”
From Reuters: Oddly Enough

10,000 of these were distributed before the mistake was found. I will gladly offer proofreading services to Israel.

Ah yes, America the free, elect and chosen by God just got whipped in the U.N. by a tyrant who’s not afraid of the big bad Yankee wolf.

And you know what? We had it coming. After Bush waves his Christian flag with our just cause to stand up against evil doers and the Axis of Evil, after invading two countries, and after torturing suspected enemies . . . what do we expect???

The world is waiting for someone, anyone to stand up and call a spade a spade, even if it’s a little over the top. And Chavez is waaaayyyy over the top. But that doesn’t matter. He at least is saying what A LOT of people are thinking. His sarcastic prayer in the U.N. may not have been diplomatic, but it resonated with many in the rest of the world.

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And this should teach us a lesson. If you’re going to bully the rest of the world around, the world will find its own bully to hit back. We can’t expect the world to be cheerful and diplomatic because we’ve already taken our gloves off and hit first.

America has initiated quite a bit of name-calling and generated enough ill-will that anyone on the margins, even in America itself, will turn to a champion, any champion in fact to take on the American “tyrant.” And so our bad policies and ill-advised diplomacy have forced the world to turn to dictators and tyrants to deal with us. That explains Iran and Venezuela.

In my own view, the U.N. has essentially failed. It should have been able to stop the Iraq war, it should be doing a heck of a lot more in Sudan and in Somalia. Many in the world view the U.N. as the lap dog of the U.S. anyway, so what does it matter if Chavez comes into this inept international body (that many don’t care a fig for anyway), drops all protocol, and lays into whoever he chooses?

This is a wake-up call to America. Drop the “God is with us and our just cause” talk. Nobody buys it. Many Americans don’t anyway.

Chavez is no friend to America, but he has, in fact, done us a great favor. He delivered what we had coming for a long time: a clear picture of how ridiculous we appear to the rest of the world.

Thanks Hugo! And watch out for that Pat Robertson!

Scott was thinking about church yesterday. So now I’m thinking churchy thoughts. I’ll let Scott go first.

Scott said that Stanley Grenz, noted evangelical theologian, said that evangelicals do not have an ecclesiology. In other words, evangelicals don’t know much about the doctrine of the church.

This causes some musing on Scott’s part:

“What I’ve found interesting is the number of people who have left that church who have not reconnected anywhere, who have not yet joined another community of faith or who have but remain relationally and spiritually disconnected. And I have to wonder at this, on some level, even as I understand quite intimately how difficult that process of reconnecting is. Is it that there are no communities of faith in our area where people can find a home? Or is it that there isn’t enough of a sense of the significance of the ekklesia to push them to reconnect?”

He goes on to take his own stab at church:
“Here’s what I think the church is: The church is the community of people who are gathered in Christ to image God to a watching world.”

To a certain extent, I would agree with Scott and/or Stan. The evangelical church’s sense of ecclesiology is weak. How else could business principles infiltrate the church to such an extent?

My own view is that we have settled for far less when it comes to church. That is why a lot of Christians find themselves on the fringe of church. It’s not so much that they lack a conept of the church, they have a rough idea at least. The problem is they cannot reconcile their own congregations with the true function of the church.

That helps explain why we have lots of Christians who complain about church, but don’t do anything proactive.

I have already stated on this blog that the church is God’s people. Our first responsibility is to be the church wherever we find ourselves. That includes worship of God and loving one another.

Unless we can figure out how to live as the church with one another, then I can’t see our gatherings having much value. That is why large congregations are back-peddling to build small groups. We have learned that just squishing everyone under the same roof is not enough in order “to be” the church.

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The Rutland Herald has a great review of the exhibit, Memories of WWII: Archives of the Associated Press, at the Southern Vermont Arts Center.

I’m not sure I can sleep tonight after reading this:

“Agonizing as it is to admit, Göring himself made a statement during the Nuremberg trials that is unnervingly germane to the state of the world today.

He said, ‘It is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.’”

That sounds way too true and way too familiar.

Some have rightfully critiqued the emerging church for its lack of diversity. Though the emerging church is a global movement (I know, Tony doesn’t like that word), us white American males sometimes act like we’re the only ones talking.

I think the emerging church’s diversity is being addressed and many other voices are entering the conversation. It’s not diverse enough, but we can certainly say the emerging church is more diverse than its critics. (link via)

I bring this up to make a point: we’re going somewhere with the emerging church. I can’t think of any other tribe to call my own. We’re working on the diversity issue and discovering new possiblities as God brings his Kingdom into our lives.

Though the critics of the emerging church do have some great intentions and even better advice, I am far more interested in finding ways to take Christianity out into the margins.

I would rather flirt with heresy than nestle at home snug and sound with my orthodoxy. Unless I put my orthodoxy to the test of immersion into the world, how will I know if it is solid?

There is a sense in which caution in our doctrines can stagnate us. We fear that we’ll lose God if we lose this or that doctrine.

If I’m going to give my life to Christianity, I want to doubt it, question it, drag it through the mud in my daily life, and then cling to my rough, calloused faith that has seen me through.

None of this sounds quite right. Perhaps my point is that I want to cling to God alone and let my doctrines fall where he leads.

Am I overstating myself here? Yeah, probably.

My neck of the woods in South West Vermont finally got a little press today:

• Walter Cronkite paid a visit to the Southern Vermont Arts Center to kick off the new exhibit with pictures from the Associated Press Archives of World War II. It’s a stellar exhibit with cheap frames, but priceless images that we should never forget.
• The Battenkill River in our backyard is undergoing a restoration that will hopefully bring trout back to what used to be the top fly fishing spot in the USA.

And by the way, we hit the Dorset Farmer’s Market and stopped at the quarry. It was a beautiful, clear day in the 80’s.

We dipped our feet into the frigid quarry water and it felt magnificent. That’s one of the last times I can probably say that this season.

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