“Whatever your political views, let’s not sacrifice care of creation on the altar of ideology.”

This was accompanied by a link to this article:  Santorum Obliquely Suggests Obama Worships Earth, Not God 

29 comments later….

Now, my point in this post isn’t to address the comments made thusly.  Nor do I really want to wade into the point the article was making.  Rather, I wanted to, in a sense, (a) set the record straight about what I meant and (b) why it matters.  In other words, why I’m “Green.”  Likewise, (c) I want to make a comment or two about the heretical nature of taking an alternative view, and why that’s a very good (and Jesus-like) think to do.  Yes, you read that right, Jesus was a heretic and we love him for it.

(a)  What I Meant

I meant that my fervent desire was to see care of creation, environmental stewardship, ecological mindfulness – whatever you want to call it – transcend the “he said, she said”, argumentativeness of partisan politics.  Now, perhaps that is a naive desire and unrealistic.  Creation, and the resources we gain from it, will always be political.  It will always be something that the body politic must wrestle with.  Somehow we have to debate, negotiate, and even argue our way to a common understanding of what resource gets used by what community or individual.  That’s fine and to be expected.  But using creation as a bludgeoning weapon to hit one another over the head with is just wrong.  We can have fervent disagreement over the role of government to regulate (or not), use (or not), manage (or not) a given resource from the earth, but can we agree that we have one planet that we live on and we need to respect that fact.

In other words, one political party shouldn’t be the environmental party and the other the non-environmental party.  One party, or leader, ought not lambaste another for being concerned about the environment.  Again, it’s fine to have a fierce debate about how we engage the environment.  But using the environment as a litmus test for whether you are in or out of our group is pathetic.

(b)  Why I’m Green

I’m Green, because God is Green.  God made and loves and cares for creation.  And by creation I mean the whole kit and kaboodle, the cosmos, you, me, and everything we see.  He called it very good – not just humanity, the whole shootin match, all things made that were made.  Check the tape.

Here’s a couple of examples, key texts if you will:

• Genesis 1-2 – God hovers over waters, makes humanity in His image, calls it all very good, makes a dude out of mud, gives the dude mouth-to-mouth, plants a garden, gives us a job to do, takes a walk, talks with His creation – all in the first 2 chapters.
• John 3:16 – You’ve heard this one, right?  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Well, “world” there is κόσμον or κόσμος.  That’s right, the cosmos.  The whole ordered creation.  God loves it all and Jesus came for the whole thing.  Not just us humans.  He incarnated, lived, died, resurrected and redeems you and me and earthworms and dalmatians and ficus trees and orchards and microbes and molecules.  Paul has a bit to say about this too, but that’s for another time.

Which leads us, of coure, to Global Warming.  Er… wait.  It does?  Really?  No, actually it doesn’t.  There is good debate about Global Warming – is it happening? is it real? do humans cause it? can we stop it? does driving a Prius really help? will I get beach front property in Ohio?  I think it is fair to say that the mainstream of the scientific community is persuaded that it is real and we are causing and we may or may not be able to do anything about it.  That, of course, doesn’t make them right.  And frankly, for the purpose of this discussion at the moment, I don’t care.

Being Green for me has very little, maybe nothing, to do with Global Warming, Climate Change, or Saving the World.  It has everything to do with my heart being captured by the Creator who loves and cares and sacrifices for His creation.  I am persuaded to live as gently as possible on the earth because I respect it.  I respect it because the God who made me made it.  And more!  I’m made out of it – dust to dust.  I care about the earth because I’m embedded in it and connected to it – because that’s how it was ordered or designed to be.

(c)  and other heresies

Ok, I’ve gone on long enough for now.  This point briefly.  I recognize that what I’m suggesting is not in keeping with the status quo.  It is an alternative view.  Probably one that wouldn’t play well in a political campaign, dinner party, or even some (maybe most!?) churches.  You might even say that what I’m suggesting is heretical.  That’s fine.

Methinks I’m in good company.  Jesus was a heretic too.  Status quo was for him to be a good Jew.  Maybe bitch and moan about the Roman occupation.  Maybe train with the Zealots to beef up on his hand to hand combat.  Maybe retreat to the desert for a holy huddle with the Essenes.  Or maybe just capitulate with the powers that be, keep his head down, obey the Torah, marry a nice girl, have a few kids and, you know, settle down.

Except he didn’t.

He went around talking about the Kingdom coming on earth as in heaven.  He touched untouchables.  And he loved the unlovable.  I mean really!  Crazy heretic!

This whole Jesus versus Religion thing is getting to me.  There’s been plenty of buzz of late about the whole mess.  I’m sure by now most of you have seen the viral video via YouTube or Facebook, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word.”  If not here you go:

I’m not going to wade into a response or a critique of the video, or the response to the video, except to say 2 (perhaps 3) things:

1.  For a thorough-going reflection – pro, con, and otherwise – see Mike Morrell’s well researched post here – “Jesus and Religion’s Relationship Status: It’s Complicated”

2.  What I find most interesting is the response to the video.  It has become a pervasive reoccurring and persnickety meme.

3.  This isn’t new, nor is it a simple binary, black/white issue.

Let’s break that third bit down a bit.  The idea of a “Religionless Christianity” was, to my knowledge (which I admit is partial and incomplete) a unique contribution by Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he sat awaiting death in a Nazi prison. John Wesley had some inklings about such things with his emphasis on being a “Real” or “True” Christian.  As I suspect Luther had some things to say about this as well. Bonhoeffer didn’t get to flesh out all his ideas about what a “religionless Christianity” would entail, but he left some intriguing notes that have been slowly making their way into the theological and (dare I say) religious discourse ever since.

About a month ago I got Peter Rollins’ new book, Insurrection: To Believe is Human To Doubt, Divine, in the mail.  I wrote some initial observations over here.  I quickly realized I need to get up to speed on some Bonhoeffer, so I read a basic overview of his life and work.  I also picked up Greg Boyd’s Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgement to the Love of God.

Boyd and Rollins share some particularly notable similarities and obvious differences.  But at the end of the day I find them complementary rather than oppositional (but not sure if they would hold the same opinion of the other or not).  They both emphasize the need for a thorough embrace of LOVE as the operative reality in God’s engagement with us – and ours with God and one another.

Religion is rightly critiqued, convicted and found deficient as a system of accessing God.  When religion is conceived as a construct that operates as a bounded-set that keeps certain people “out” and protects those who are “in,” then religion is ripe for deconstruction and a critical eye.  The image of Jesus in the Gospels, even more so God throughout scripture, is one of upsetting the status quo, of provoking the standard categories, of welcoming outsiders “in” by demolishing the (perceived) boundary.

At the end of the day, God’s relationality is affirmed.  How we interact with that kind of God – a relational one – is a perennially persistent problem (how’s that for an alliteration!).  Religion – as a system of behavioral constraints that mediate our access to the divine – majors on hurdles and hoops that require a certain kind of existential technology to “achieve.”  The relationality of God in Christ majors on grace, grace, grace.

The rub, of course, is how do you work that kind of thing out in practice.  It is one thing to say that our practices don’t determine our worthiness relative to God, it is quite another to live out a workable spirituality (i.e. our life with God).  My hunch is that it is the place of community of faith, the role of prophetic art and imagination, and the upturning of conscientious social do-gooding (i.e. service and communion with the poor and marginalized) that open us to the possibility of God-sans-religion.  Even if the result looks to those on the outside (of such a religiousless mindset) like religious activity.

Today’s workplace brought to you by Mammoth Cafe in Newport, KY. Met with a couple NKU students about our Spring Break Mission Trip and going to meet with the Illustrative Isaac Karns in a bit about a Worship Experiment we’re scheming. Also wrangling emails and social media and blogging.

Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament by Ellen Davis
- Chapter 16 – “Good-faith Springs Up from the Earth: Learning Ecology from the Bible”

Thesis – The Bible equips us theologically to think ecologically about the world.

Overview

The Old Testament, and the creation narratives in particular, have a prophetic call for the church around the ecological crisis of our day. Ecology is the “study of relationships” (185) and the OT is all about our relationships – human, divine, and creation. We learn that we are humans made of humus and as such have a unique responsibility with and for the soil.  We are to “work” and “watch over” (192) the earth.  This is a call to righteousness – or right-living and right relationship – for the sake of others, particularly those who are dependent upon us.  Our right relationships then have direct implications for how we grow and eat food.  There are, not surprisingly, props given to Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson.

Quotables

“The Bible can teach us or (better, perhaps) help us to understand all the fundamentals of ecology.  The Bible can enable us to graps the depth dimensions of the ecological crisi because the ecological crisis is essentially not a technological crisis, but a theological one.  It is a massive disordering in our relationshi with God, the Creator of heaven and earth.” (185)

“The religiously resonant language of this first job description from Eden suggests the remarkable teaching that in showing proper regard for the fertile earth, we meet the two great goals of all Torah observance: serving God and protecting the week.  This indeed is Torah of the earth.” (195)

Notoable References

Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, eds., Meeting the Expectations of the Land (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984).

Implications

First, I need to say that reading this one chapter makes me really want to read the rest of the book.  I have a growing respect for how God interacts with Israel and creation in the Hebrew Bible.  My hunch is that this book would provide both a great overview of the OT and the implications for ecology theologically composed.  I’ve also come to hold Ellen Davis in the same mental category as Walter Brueggemann and John Goldingay as preeminent and helpful scholars and guides for the OT.

Second, I this chapter is a great foundational piece for how to conceive of our relationship to God and creation – all within the framework of a careful reading of the Bible.  One would be hard pressed to assume that this is simply a liberal, left-leaning diatribe about “saving the earth.”  Our care and tending of creation – the soil, in particular – bespeaks of our core values and beliefs in much the same way as our checking account is a theological statement about what we really believe and value.

Opening Night – Stations 1-7

Opening Night – Stations 8-14

First off, as soon as I opened the book I realized that Bonhoeffer was foundational (can I use that word?) for Rollins’ premise.  So, I stopped by 1801 Mills and grabbed a couple relevant books - Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians by Stephen R. Haynes, Lori Brandt Hale and 2 of Greg Boyd’s books, Repenting of Religion and God of the Possible (mainly the first, but have been wanting to read the other one too).

Sadly, I’m not up on my Bonhoeffer, so I’ve got some work to do.

Now, as I read the first couple chapters of Insurrection I could tell this book was the following:

• a) the real deal
• b) surprisingly accessible (more so than How (Not) to Speak of God)
• c) Explosions in the Sky would be an appropriate soundtrack to the book

That said, the push (because that’s what it feels like) to “religionless Christianity” that Bonhoeffer and Rollins are advocating is deeply compelling.  I admit that I’m still struggling to grasp the tangibleness of what that could look like.  But the drive toward peeling back the layers of accumulated religion is a good one, but one that I fear too often ends too quickly in some kind of sentimentality.  By which I mean, the nostalgia of “restorationism” that doesn’t actually restore nor move us forward.  I recognize this isn’t whatRollins (or Bonhoeffer, I reckon) are doing, but my concern is that that is how it will be appropriated by others (myself not withstanding).

The last bit to share for now is the sense that this move to Insurrection is a deeply human (that’s a good thing) endeavor.  Too often our “religionFULL Christianity” does not leave room for grief, pain, suffering, brokenness, or the like.  If the move that Rollins is driving toward would allow for this I would be very grateful.  Again, I’m wondering what that would look like in practice (in the mainline, liturgical, and mega/evangelical).

That’s it for now… more to come….

Oh, also reading (and very much enjoying) Sean Gladding’s, The Story of God, the Story of Us!

a parenting moment

When 2010 clicked over to 2011 lots of folks were making Top Ten lists.  Sarah and I were pondering what top ten parenting books we’d recommend to new parents or parents with small children (like ourselves).  Here’s our list.  What would you add?

1. Happiest Baby on the Block – seriously, the 5 S’s saved all of our lives (swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing sounds, swinging, sucking)
2. The Baby Book by Dr. Sears – and anything by the Sears family – the basics, great primer for attachment parenting
3. Siblings without Rivalry - yes, yes you can.
4. Raising your Spirited Child – for the kids who are MORE of everything!  Transitions, transitions, transitions…
5. Relationship Empowerment Parenting – We had the Balswicks for a class at Fuller.  Big takeaway – parent like scaffolding…
6. Myth of the Perfect Mother – not just for moms, we’ve seriously messed up the notion of what mothering is and can be.  This book helps frame the question and offers a new perspective.
7. No-Cry Sleep Solution – big thanks to the Odens for recommending this.  You DO NOT have to let kids “cry it out” – it ain’t healthy, normal, or more godly to do so.
8. Attachment Parenting – like I said, we’re big Dr. Sears fans.
9. Positive Discipline for Preschoolers – discipline is about learning, not power or punishment.
10. Growing Strong Daughters – got girls?  Read this.

Here’s my contention.  We don’t know squat about Community.  We just don’t.  We are, myself certainly included, dumb when it comes to Community.  Not only is our Civic Community in disarray, but we have almost no idea what it means to live in Christian Community.  Those two, Civic and Christian Community, by the way, aren’t the same, but overlap like a good Venndiagram.  We live as Technomadic Monads, but are designed to live as Pneumasomatic Triads.  Let’s unpack that shall we…

Even as a self-professed technophile I find it disconcerting and frustrating the emotional and spiritual distance created by the 24/7, always connected, digital world.  That’s the “tech” part of the phrase.  The constant barrage of technology streaming and screaming all around us effects us, even if we don’t think we’re paying attention to it.  At the minimum it changes our perception of life.  When I ride my bike I notice things that I would never even see if I were driving.  Likewise, we’re nomadic.  We flit from this to that like bees in a clover field.  We trick ourselves into believing that proximity or placefulness doesn’t really matter.  We assume that social media connection is qualitatively the same as a meal together.  I’m not saying that a social media connection has no value, just not the same as a slow meal together with friends and family.

We’re also monads.  A monad, of course, is a single, solitary, isolated, unconnected unit.  It is, by definition, not in relationship to something else.  It is the cult of the individual.  It is me, myself, and I and the rest of the world goes blind – or might as well, since we don’t really notice one another whilst we text in the car at 60 miles an hour.  Again, I’m not saying that individuals or individuality doesn’t matter.  It does.  It just isn’t the end all, be all of my existence.

I’m convinced that we’re really supposed to be living as Pneumasomatic Triads.  A pneumatic drill is a drill powered by air.  We are designed to be powered by the Spirit.  We are spirit-ual beings, but we are not disembodied spirits.  We have a “soma,” a body.  Psychosomatic disorders are a

bodily ailment or symptom, caused by mental or emotional disturbance, in which psychological stresses adversely affect physiological (somatic) functioning to the point of distress.

Conversely, a Pneumasomatic person is a healthy, holistic Spirit-embedded, flesh and blood, human.  But we’re not health, holistic (or maybe even Spirit-embedded) if we aren’t in relationship with one another.  That’s the Triad part – We are in a divine dance with God, one another, and even ourselves.  Much like the Perichoretic nature of the Trinity itself, we hold life in a common connection with God’s self and the other.

So, instead of mediating our lives in isolated cubicles massaging our eyelids with “screens of distraction” (to use Wendell Berry’s phrase), we are meant to live in dynamic and creative tension with our sisters and brothers and God.  We are meant to be Spirit-embodied Communal creatures – Pneumasomatic Triads – instead of Technomadic Monads.

So here’s the thing.  I know there are faithful campus ministers on each of those campuses.  I’d take time to list them, but it would be a long list (if you need a connection to one on a particular campus, let me know and I’ll hook you up).  Most of those campus have multiple leaders, ministers, and missionaries serving on them.

We in the church spend, it seems, a lot of time wringing our hands and worrying about where all the young people went.  We fret, “Why aren’t they in church on Sunday morning?”  Justifiably older members tend toward fears of whether their beloved local church (or denomination) will even exist in the next 20-30 years.  They reason, understandably, that if the next generation aren’t in the pews there won’t be people to carry on once they’re gone.

My friends, them there colleges and universities are filled with young people!  In fact, taken together just the campuses I selected (ones where I know one or more campus ministers/ministries) would total a population of more than most cities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky or the Greater Cincinnati metro area!  Only Lexington, Louisville have more than 134,532 in Kentucky and, in Ohio, Cincinnati.

If we gave up on our campus ministries at these institutions of higher education (AKA “mission fields”) it would be akin to abandoning a major metropolitan area.  (Not that I’m expecting that to happen…. I’m just saying)  I know we must continue to re-envision what it means to be effective and successful in our ministry endeavors – much less faithful – but we mustn’t stop trying.  Whether or not our job is to get those young people into the pews on a Sunday morning (and I’m pretty sure that’s not our main job) or however we define success.  We must keep being creative, innovative, and experimental in our mission to be a sign, instrument, and foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

Finally, I think there’s work to be done on how we understand our role on each of these campuses.  I’ve written before about conceiving of success ecologically in a ministry/mission environment and I think there’s more to delve into there.  Likewise, if we consider network theory (social networks both digitally and geographically contrived) we might begin to see our role as a campus minister as more of instigator and seed distributor than as only a chaplain or shepherd.  This is where 5-fold ministry, the empowerment of the laity, and flexible structures of mission come into play in a big way…. but that’s for another post.