intersections

Summer Reading Group: Deep Church

Spectrum and the re-church network will together be hosting a summer reading group. We will be blogging our way through Deep Church by Jim Belcher. In this book, Belcher maps out, in a very accessible way, the critiques made of the traditional church by those in the emergent movement and the criticisms of the emergent movement that has ensued from the traditionalists in response. He attempts to articulate a third alternative between the two approaches to being and doing church. We are hoping that reading this book together will be a good way to come to a better understanding of the emergent movement, but also to thoughtfully discuss the important issues that are raised in it in the context of the Adventist community.

I'm a social justice Christian - the latest news

Thank you to everyone who has watched our PSA and shared it with others. In under 48 hours we have over 4,200 views between our YouTube feed and our Vimeo feed! There have also been some other nice developments.

First, I was invited to blog about "I'm a social justice Christian" at The Huffington Post. That post appeared yesterday. Here's an excerpt:

When I talk to Christians about justice, many will say it's the responsibility of the church to take care of people; we shouldn't expect the government to do that. There is a partial truth to this. But here's the rub. First of all, we live in a pluralistic society and not everyone is a Christian, to say the least. Do we really mean to say that only people who belong to a church can receive the care they need? And secondly, even if you grant that people outside the church should be cared for (as most Christians would), some issues, like health care, are too big for a local congregation to handle alone. In many cases, such as human rights and public health, our person-to-person solutions are too small.

Read the whole thing here.

Yesterday evening I was invited, along with the director of the PSA, Leslie Muse, and one of the pastors that appeared in the PSA, Rev. Neil Thomas, to speak live with Ian Masters radio program on KPFK called Daily Briefing. You can listen to our conversation here.

Please help us keep this going by sharing these pieces with others!

A Year of Daily Illustrations

Elysabeth Nikolic Bell (my talented wife) has started a new blog where she is posting her recent paintings and illustrations. I've known Elysabeth for 15 years to be an outstanding artist. These collections are a new turn for her and I'm really excited to tell you about them.

Very soon you'll be able to purchase these paintings in various forms, so stay tuned, visit her blog often, and give her some love in the comments.

You can also follower her on Twitter (@babettebell) and find her on Facebook.

A Felicitous Journey

Part two of our 6-part blog series over at the re-church blog has been up for a couple of days and the conversation has begun. This week's essay is written by Samir Selmanovic, founder of Faith House Manhattan and the author of the forthcoming Jossey-Bass book, It's Really All About God.

I'd love to have you head over there and check it out. Especially those of you who have been reading along with us and know the subject of the chapter, your comments are especially helpful. I think Samir has posed some vitally important questions for us to consider, especially as pastors and Christian leaders in our world today. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite.

I ask myself, why would I then take up this journey of deconstruction? Why not turn the tools of deconstruction against itself (deconstruct the deconstruction) and settle for something of substance? Life is short. I want to die in one piece, constructed and whole, with my family and friends around me, also constructed and whole. And my hope within me, also constructed and whole.

Think of it. He describes people on this journey as “people who crash-landed,” “frightened by the mysterious” and always partially “lost.” We are supposed to live under “hauntological principle?” We are invited to embrace “contingency” on a journey that has “teeth” and “bite,” a path seeded with “interrupted passages and missteps,” maps with “multiple tracks” and “counterpaths” on every turn. And to live in the world where other people are “shores we will never reach!” He calls this place, our very own lives (yes Christian lives too) “very spooky.” He brings ghost back into the Holy Ghost. He summarizes the situation we find ourselves in as the “postmodern condition.” It does not sound like a journey or a path to me. It sounds like a chronic disease.

Read the whole thing here.

New Design

Typepad finally added Los Angeles to their Cityscape themes. I kinda like this, and since I'm poor and can't afford to hire a designer to give me my own look, I think I'll settle for this.

So, gentle reader, what do you think of this design?

P.S. Who want's to do some pro-bono design work for my blog???

Can We Handle the Truth?

A few weeks ago I announced a Summer Reading Group though the re-church network, a collective of emerging, missional Adventist leaders that I co-founded back in 2000. The book I chose is What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church, by John D. Caputo. Caputo is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University and is known for his work on Derrida and deconstruction (a quick look at his faculty page at the Syracuse website makes we want to drop everything and enroll to study with him).

What Would Jesus Deconstruct? is the winner of the ForeWord Magazine Best Philosophy Book of 2007 award.

The book discussion is taking place at the re-church blog and starts today with a post by me on the first chapter.

Here is an excerpt from the first post which went up today.

Summer Reading Group :: What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

It’s hard to believe…but, summer is here. And with summer comes time spent with great books. So, re-church is announcing a Summer Reading Group. We will be blogging through What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, by John D. Caputo. This is an enjoyable and challenge jaunt into postmodernism, Derridian deconstruction and the gospel. Caputo has a playful, sharp and ironic style that is sure to rub us the wrong way and spark some great conversation.
There are 6 chapters and we will blog one chapter a week for six weeks, starting July 13, so you have time to get the book and start reading. Our bloggers will be:

::Ryan Bell, Senior Pastor of the Hollywood Adventist Church
::Samir Selmanovic, founder of Faith House Manhattan and Pastor of City Lights
::Zane Yi, Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Fordham University in New York City.

Please drop a comment at the re-church blog if you plan to read along with us. The blogs will be posted there and we invite your comments, questions, challenges and insights. This will be a much more enjoyable experience if you participate in the comments.

Please invite anyone you know that might be interested in this group and lets have some fun this summer reading together.

Following Jesus

The post-modern spiritual seeker's dilemma.

GenderAnalyzer.com

Over at GenderAnalyzer you enter your URL and it determines of your website is written primarily by a man or a woman. It said this blog fit their profile for a man by 80%.

Am I disappointed that I fit their profile so closely. Hmm...

I wonder what my friend over at SDA Gender Justice will think of this.

Who's reading?

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Here's a look at the diversity of Intersections readers out there. Below are the top 20 cities to visit this site out of a total of 11,700 visits so far this year.* And, we just passed the 40,000 mark for unique visits to this site since I started it in the Spring of 2005. That's not nearly as many as some of my friends, but I like to think of this as a boutique blog! :) Thanks, everyone!