intersections

I'm tele-commuting to Walla Walla tonight

...and you can join me, online.

The Walla Walla University chaplain, Paddy McCoy, has invited me to do a short interview, by Skype, at the Friday night vespers service. He sent over some really great questions about our congregation's theology and self-understanding, how we think about ministry in a post-Christian world and God's live among us. I'm really excited about this. I've only got about 8-10 min, but we do the best we can with what we have.

If you want to listen in, I understand they have a live streaming video feed of their worship service. The service starts at 8:00 pm. I will go on around 8:20 pm.

Click here after 8:00 pm and it should work. You will need QuickTime Player, or some equivalent video player. Hope you can join us.

Following Jesus

The post-modern spiritual seeker's dilemma.

Marked by Ashes, by Walter Brueggeman

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
     halfway back to committees and memos,
     halfway back to calls and appointments,
     halfway on to next Sunday,
     halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
     half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
   but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
     we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
       of failed hope and broken promises,
       of forgotten children and frightened women,
     we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
     we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
   some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
   anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
   you Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

An Ash Wednesday Meditation

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent, which begins the long 40-day journey to Easter (not counting Sabbaths). I barely remember celebrating Easter growing up. I never heard of Lent until I was much older. Today I can’t imagine the experience of Easter without the long, arduous journey of repentance and confession the church calls Lent. And for the first time I am officiating two Ash Wednesday services in my church in Hollywood. This is new for us. Some will say that this is not biblical (I’m not even going to get into that here). Others will say that this is foreign to our tradition. To that I would say that the actual practice of Ash Wednesday and Lent is, indeed, foreign to our tradition, but the Wesleyan commitment to soul-searching, confession of sin and sanctification is very much a part of my Adventist upbringing and theological heritage. I believe the practice of Lent locates this tradition in a concrete practice and helps me (and I hope, my community) to redeem the time and make Easter about something besides Easter eggs and bunnies.

Pray for Baha'i Prisoners of Conscience

On Wednesday night I had the privilege of representing the Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Interreligious Council (IRC), along with 4 other IRC members at a special prayer gathering at the Los Angeles Baha'i Center. The purpose of this gathering was to raise awareness about and pray for the seven leaders of the Baha'i Faith in Iran (pictured above). These individuals have been held in prison for 9 months without being charged and without access to legal council. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Laureate, is serving as legal council for the accused but she has not been allow access to her clients.

Just last week they were finally charged with "espionage for Israel, insulting sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic republic." The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom stated in their February 13 report, "The accusation of "spying" against these five men and two women is contrived, and has been used as a pretext to persecute Baha'is for more than three quarters of a century."

In my brief comments to the large crowd that assembled at the Los Angeles Baha'i Center I read an excerpt from an Official Statement of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists entitled, "Religious Minorities and Religious Freedom: A Statement of Commitment and Concern"

Throughout history religious minorities have often been subject to discrimination and outright persecution. Today religious intolerance and prejudice are again on the rise. Notwithstanding the affirmation of the freedom of everyone to hold and disseminate religious views and to change one's religion--an affirmation sustained in the United Nations instruments and documents comprising an "International Bill of Rights"--many countries deny this right to their citizens....

In support of Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments, and in harmony with its beliefs and its history, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is fully committed to promote, defend, and protect religious freedom for everyone, everywhere. To that end, we will continue to cooperate with the United Nations Human Rights Commission and other international agencies and religious organizations to encourage every nation to implement the fundamental right of religious freedom. In addition, we will continue to promote dialogue and better understanding between governmental authorities and people who belong to religious minorities.

I was proud to stand with my colleague, Randy Dobbs, in support of his community at this time of crisis and to know that my religious community, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has a rich tradition of religious liberty. After the jump you can read an incredible Baha'i prayer that was read at the service.

Please consider taking some action on behalf of these Baha'i in Iran who are being held unjustly and face execution if convicted.

Click here to learn how you can help and please spread the word!

Jesus People: The Movie

Last night I attended the Cast & Crew Premiere of Jesus People: The Movie at the American Film Institute, which just happens to be walking distance from the Hollywood Adventist Church.

Aside from the fact that the film itself is amazing (more on that later) this was especially wonderful event for me because it is intimately connected to the Purple Church. The co-writer, Rajeev Sigamoney, is a friend and member of our faith community. The trailer (above) was edited by Julia Alty, another dear friend and Hollywood Church member. There are at least a dozen church members who are extras, including my daughter, Zoe, and The Purple Church gets a “Special Thanks” in the credits. So, to celebrate this premier with Rajeev and the entire cast and crew was a rare privilege. This 90-minute comedy is a surprising combination of compelling characters and superb acting, hilarious and provocative writing and visionary directing. I can’t say enough good things about this film. Please visit the website – www.jesuspeoplefilm.com - where you can not only view the trailer but you can learn about the cast and crew and keep abreast of future screenings coming to your community. Word is that this film will be screened at the 2009 SONscreen Film Festival in Simi Valley, CA (April 16-18).

Current reading

It's only mid-February and already I'm off track with my ambitious 2009 Reading List.

While I have completed a few of the titles on my list I've gotten "sidetracked" into a few books that weren't on my list. I knew this would happen, but I always naively underestimate the degree to which it will happen.

 

Currently I'm reading...

• Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, by Colin Greene and Martin Robinson
• The Orthodox Heretic and other Impossible Tales, by Peter Rollins (advance proof copy from the publisher). Available March 1.
• Manuscript of a the forthcoming Pacific Press publication, The Promise of Peace, by Charles Scriven.

I need to finish Scriven's manuscript this week to submit a blurb. So far this is a very good book that I am looking forward to using in my ministry with new members.

The Orthodox Heretic is outstanding so far. This is a book of short parables followed by equally short commentaries about the parables. Some are original with Rollins. Others are his adaptations of previously existing stories. Still others are retellings of biblical stories with major plot twists designed to draw attention to neglected aspects of God and faith.

As you probably know we will be hosting Peter Rollins here in Hollywood in two weeks for a gathering we've entitled Beyond Evandalism. You can read more about that here.

I'm about one third of the way through Metavista and I need more time before I can write anything cogent about this book. So far it has revisited the philosphical ground that I've read several times before in different ways about modernity and postmodernity. However, I would say if you feel you've been playing around the edges of philosophy and want to go deeper into this issues this book can help you. If you are not familiar with the various philosophers and their key ideas you will find yourself getting lost from time to time, but it is important to wrestle with these thoughts at this level. I will say more about this book soon.

The Ordinary Radicals

To learn more about The Ordinary Radicals, click here. h/t - Kori Galvan

Faithful Eisegesis

(cross posted at the Spectrum Blog. Check out the conversation there.)

In seminary, I learned from Dr. Jon Paulien the difference between exegesis and eisegesis. It’s hard to believe that these were new words to me just over 10 years ago. The difference between these two words is vitally important for anyone who wants to read and interpret the Bible (I’ll just say here without defending it that you can’t read the Bible without interpreting it. Perhaps this is a subject for a separate post). But it is especially important for pastors who read the sacred text week-by-week and lead their congregations in the interpretive exercise of preaching.

Wikipedia says that eisegesis is

the process of misinterpreting a text in such a way that it introduces one's own ideas, reading into the text. This is best understood when contrasted with exegesis. While exegesis draws out the meaning from the text, eisegesis occurs when a reader reads his/her interpretation into the text. As a result, exegesis tends to be objective when employed effectively while eisegesis is regarded as highly subjective.(1)

Eisegesis can be a trap for pastors. Faced with having to preach a good sermon every week (and not every-so-often), we can sometimes get the process turned around backwards. I have fallen into this trap many times. I know my congregation well – better than anyone else – and I know what I want/need to say to them. But I know that the worship service is a time to open God’s Word with people, not just give my opinions, so I need scriptural authority. We can find ourselves looking for the right text to support what we want to say. The text might be a good fit, or not. But the process is fraught with danger. Dr. Paulien taught us that to get beyond our own defense mechanisms regarding the text – the ways we psychologically shield ourselves from what we don’t want to hear – we needed to take a more objective view. Read in the original languages. Understand the author’s original intent, not just what “I think” it means to me as a self-actualizing, self-referential individual. I learned these lessons well and my sermons (I think) have been consistently better since that time.

I have learned, however, the process of interpretation is infinitely more challenging than this. Interpreting scripture is never a matter of simply discovering the meaning of the text and giving it to a modern group of people. This became so much clearer to me in a recent staff meeting. We are attempting to build what we call a “community of interpreters” at the Hollywood Adventist Church. This means that I am not the only one who preaches. The preacher doesn’t own the text or control the text. If we believe our own rhetoric, the scripture lives in the community. So, we’re helping each other be better interpreters.

Empire Remixed

I'm preparing to give a lecture on the emerging church at La Sierra tomorrow. I'm a guest in Drs. John Jones and Charles Teal's class, "The Experience of Religion in Three Cultures." It's a section of the course on Protestantism and I'm supposed to engage with the students around the emerging church phenomenon. I don't like being the resident expert on emerging church, mainly because I'm not an expert on it.

Anyway, in thinking about how to structure my hour tomorrow I've been catching up on blogs that I've been meaning to read and I've run across a new blog that I'm so excited about. I think two of the most creative theological and political minds in the church today have got to be the husband wife duo of Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh. Together they wrote Colossians Remixed, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Their forthcoming book is, Romans Disarmed. Better still is the fact that Walsh and Keesmaat will be the speakers for the annual Keough Lectures at Columbia Union College.

All that is set up to tell you about a new blog I discovered called Empire Remixed, where Brian and Sylvia are writing. (FYI - if you're in the Toronto area next month you really should take in Evolving Church: Amidst the Powers).

In a recent post, Brian Walsh writes thoughts that are so similar to my own in this post-election season.

I know and I appreciate that today is a day of hope. Today is a day of promises fulfilled. Today is a day that, for many Americans, begins to take away the shame and the embarrassment of the last eight years. I stood, without reservation, with everyone else in the room as Mr. Obama took the oath of office. and I put my hands together in applause.

 

And I appreciated the wisdom and the seriousness of Mr. Obama’s address. I heard him when he called America to humility and restraint. I appreciated his insistence that America can no longer consume more of the world’s resources than is just or fair. And he is right in saying that America has been a child and it is time to grow up.

 

But I worried when he said that America is ready to “lead once more.” I was deeply concerned when he said that America “will not apologize for our way of life.” And while I appreciated his statement that the issue wasn’t the size of the GDP “but the reach of our prosperity” I’m not sure that he has quite understood that American prosperity has consistently been bought at the expense of both freedom and prosperity for much of the world.

 

When Mr. Obama says to America’s enemies that he is confident that they will suffer defeat and yet, “we will extend the hand if you unclench your fist” I confess that I am appalled. Appalled at the lack of understanding of his so-called enemies. Fists get clenched for a reason and they will seldom open because the threat is uttered with greater intensity. The bullshit of the clenched fist can only be transformed into the open hand when the reasons for the clenching of that fist in the first place are redemptively addressed.

Read more...