http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=189

In the news today:

Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word “evangelical” has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars.

The statement, called “An Evangelical Manifesto,” condemns Christians on the right and left for “using faith” to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

“That way faith loses its independence, Christians become `useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology,” according to the draft.

The declaration, scheduled to be released Wednesday in Washington, encourages Christians to be politically engaged and uphold teachings such as traditional marriage. But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed “truth without love,” helping create a backlash against religion during a “generation of culture warring.”

“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others,” they wrote, “while we have condoned our own sins.” They argue, “we must reform our own behavior.”

I certainly agree.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=190

I’ve fallen out of the blog habit. That’s not just about being distracted or not having something to say. It’s a change from once noticing something and wanting to note it to noticing something and keeping it to myself. Which is a curious thing because this has coincided with a recent growth in traffic around here. Just when folks show up I go quiet. Go figure.

Being that I am, at my core, self-analytical I step back and notice my recent quiet and wonder what is happening with me. I don’t know off hand, and maybe writing it out might be just the blog Drano (Bloggo? “Able to clear out even your most persistent mental blocks”) that’s needed.

I think I can notice some of the contributory issues. The first came when I was discussing my trip last month to Duke. I had intended to discuss the various sessions I attended and add some thoughts. Moltmann was the primary speaker at the conference but I don’t have too many thoughts about his presentation. My mind was fairly muddled in the crowded evening sessions and honestly, I admit humbly, I didn’t really pick up what was being said. I was more into the culture of the moment than the context and all the words on science/theology slipped right by for the most part. The other sessions were significantly more stimulating and thought provoking.

So much so that I never got around to writing on them. That’s an odd thing to say, I know. But here me out–after a brief, related, tangent.

A little while back my friend Sonja nominated me for a subversive blogger award.

“Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) - even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.”

See, I’m so subversive that I didn’t jump on the bandwagon right away but waited a while. I’ll be subversive on my own schedule, dagnabbit!

But I guess I am subversive. Powerless, so not nearly as potent in my subversion as real subversiveness should demand. But I’m not sure if the ability to actually subvert is necessary for the title of subversive. Authoritarian governments will act on even a hint or word of subversiveness in word, thought, or deed so I guess that’s the standard I’ll submit to in my subversivity.

I’m a little wary, however, about noting this fact–still in my tangent here, I’ll let you know when it’s over–because I’ve realized for a little while I’m the wrong kind of subversive. I’m the kind other subversives don’t like to have around because I find the biggest joy in being subversive of the subversives. I’m a traitor to the cause because I’m not attacking from the position of traditional stances. I’m no Reformed theologian seeking to dismiss challenges to my elegant mansion of cards. I’m the guy who doesn’t want reforming to stop once it gets moving and I tend to notice the distractions of those I think are on their way somewhere more than those who I think have already contributed what they have to contribute.

I get feisty when I see Quakers not being Quaker enough or emerging churches dancing around new terms while illustrating old patterns. Which makes me a little uncomfortable, with myself and with others around me. Because I’m liable to be critical just when everyone thinks they are safe from criticism, among their own kind.

You know how you can tell the real subversives? They all dress alike and like to gather in conferences, lit by the glow of their apple logoed laptops, to celebrate their shared subversivity, nominating leaders by popular acclaim to help them best understand where they might be most effective in subversion this coming year. They also don’t want to be nailed down on specific thoughts, lest those specific thoughts become unfashionable during the next subversion season. A real subversive reads the right books–now helpfully properly labeled as such by our subversive oriented mainstream publishers–and quotes the right thinkers and talks about old traditions and polyorthodoxy and neo-monasticism all while not having not really committed much at all to the actual writings of the past, thus doomed to repeat the establishment that cemented the subversion.

So, I’m wary about being labeled subversive because it takes a lot of money to be properly subversive in all the acceptable ways.

To be sure, it’s easy to be subversive now, what with the multi-million dollar subversive industry helping subversives and subversives-to-be ease into the role, mostly by teaching them how to be entirely traditional in use of power and influence and authority while using catchy lingo and scented candles and name tags slung around the neck.

What does subversive really mean?

According to wikipedia “Sub- is a prefix derived from Latin, meaning ‘under’, ‘below’, or ‘less than’.” So, ‘to subvert’ is to be less than versive or to be below versive. Clearly, we’re getting at something here (and yes, I’ve now made a tangent off the tangent).

Which leads us to think about what we’re below or less than. ‘Vert’, if by chance you have forgotten, is defined according to my Webster’s New World Dictionary as:

1 [Brit.] a) [Archaic] the green growth of a forest, as cover for deer b) [Historical] the right to cut green wood in a forest.

2 Heraldry the color green: indicated in engravings by diagonal lines downward from dexter to sinister

It derives from the Latin viridis which means ‘green’ and more specifically from the verb virere, ‘to be green’. So, literally, to be subversive means being “less than green” and so with that in mind I proudly accept the nomination of being a subversive blogger, because I probably am even more than I allow myself to be (just hinted back at the initial point of this post) and because, as the song says it’s not easy to be green, so I’m just as happy being somewhere below that.

And below that is where I’ve been for a little while, below most everything really, under the radar, temporarily distant from the blog conversation, not chopping at the wood of the forest, green or otherwise.

It’s because of my particular subversiveness I figure (and now I’m getting fully back to the main point I started way above there). I wrote a little on the Orthodox charismatic priest I heard speak at the conference, realizing one of my dear friends and regular readers is now a full member of the Orthodox Church, in love with its wisdom and feeling a spiritual depth that is so wonderful to hear about–she is also being immensely subversive in her context by doing this.

Why would I want to write about my various issues that have kept me off that trail? I wrote, but held back a bit, because I’m fine with being silent, when someone else is clearly finding God in a certain direction. I stopped, however, before I got to write on the session on pacifism, which included Stanley Hauerwas and Glen Stassen. Because I had it in my mind to write a terrible subversive post that brought out some of my particular thinking on the topic of pacifism that would have made not a single soul happy. It would have gone at some of the expressed thoughts of other dear friends, and the long held stance of my publisher. I sat on it for a while, never got around to writing it, restraining myself from subverting those who have been supportive. I subverted my own subversion in order to not offend the subversives who have been welcoming and inviting and friendly to me. I undermined my blogging to not undermine my belonging.

Which is at the root of it. I’m tired of isolating myself. I’m tired of being subversive even if I can’t help to be so in so many of my expressions. I don’t want to be subversive, you see. I want to be a good little Christian who is able to have a nice existential-angst-free job and a decent house on a bit of land, supportive of my hobbies and my burgeoning family. I’m tired of being provoked to theological education in order to find out the poverty-inducing answers myself for the questions that everyone else in my life dodged or didn’t know. I’m tired of making contacts and acquaintances only to be included just long enough for me to say what I really think and then being not included because I am, in essence, not conforming to acceptable subversivity. I don’t want to subvert. I want to belong.

I’m tired of subversiveness, but of course because it’s not my goal but my essence I’m not going to likely change. I can’t help it because it’s not something I’m trying to do, it’s my very self I’m trying to express. I learned at Wheaton that I see things differently than those around me, sometimes in helpful and sometimes in irritating ways. I’m not content with the establishment being established and I don’t feel any ability to let the subversives be free in their subversion. I poke and prod because that’s just how I think. It’s the one quality, I think, that has pushed me farther into theology. I’m not the brightest or the most diligent and certainly not the best at meeting all the right people. I see things in a different, creative, way and in my attempts to earnestly express my notions somehow find myself, again, being below the green and coming up with a unique connections that catch the ear of a a few established subversive theologians.

I very, very much want to belong. There’s rest and peace in that. But I guess I want more to be who I am. I’d rather subvert than conform, even if it means conforming to the subversivity. I’ll subvert the conformation, undermining in my wan way the great and mighty established subversives, in order to hold onto the perspective and pursuit of wholeness and stillness that seems to be the true Spirit sign of rightly located conforming. I will continue to subvert so that I might best conform, even as I temporarily stepped back from expressing my subversiveness because I’m weary of not conforming to the more immediate locations of established subversion.

I wish I could stay quiet more, but I want to speak and talk and interact. I want to conform but the subversion leaks out, just when I’m included I tend to be excluded. I don’t find rest in the establishment or the non-conformists, neither slave nor free, but somehow have this drive to keep saying what is deep within to say even as I often realize it’ll not be ingratiating. Sometimes I blame God for not letting me find peace and participation in any direction.

I resonate with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 20:7ff:

O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived ;

you overpowered me and prevailed.

I am ridiculed all day long;

everyone mocks me.

Whenever I speak, I cry out

proclaiming violence and destruction.

So the word of the LORD has brought me

insult and reproach all day long.

But if I say, “I will not mention him

or speak any more in his name,”

his word is in my heart like a fire,

a fire shut up in my bones.

I am weary of holding it in;

indeed, I cannot.

Indeed, I cannot hold it in. Though, on a blog I can sometimes try for a little while. And that’s what I’ve done. To rest, to distract myself with happy realities, and to maybe somehow maybe play at being a part even if playing that role successfully means no lines for me.

I’m not sure why this has meant no pictures of birds or scenery or other random thoughts. I’ve gotten out the habit of blogging so the random things don’t immediately drive me to note them. I’ve been stuck, I suppose, between the depths and the shallows, caught on a crag. hanging out with the green.

I’m not sure if this post means a change in that. It all comes down to whether or not I muster up the fortitude to be free in my subversity once more, come what may. I suspect pictures of the birds, for whatever reason, go along with that. I also suspect the ravens that are hanging out near me right now could answer that for sure if I just knew the right way to ask. Otherwise, they’ll just laugh at me because I can’t, quite truthfully, fly.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=191

Alan Hirsch has a very interesting interview in Christianity Today talking about small groups and touching a bit on his book The Forgotten Ways.

Very much worth reading. This part stood out to me this morning:

I’d like to look specifically at the disciple-making element for a moment. You mentioned in the book that disciple making is a crucial, pivotal element in the process. What makes it so important?

It seems to me that if we fail to make disciples—that is, people who can become like Jesus Christ, which is a very simple definition of discipleship—if we can’t get that right, then in doesn’t matter what else we do because there will be a fundamental weakness in our ministry. The lack of disciples will always undermine any effort beyond that. But if we succeed in developing and creating an environment where people really can become more Christlike, it seems to me that the movement is on, and everything else will have a substantial basis along with it.

The problem is that we are being discipled every day by our culture, and it’s done very profoundly and very well—and I say this with a background in marketing and advertising. There are billions of dollars going into advertising, which is not just selling us products. There’s much more of a religious dynamic going on. So if we as a church or a small group don’t disciple in the way of Jesus, then the culture gets to have the primary say. And I have to say that, despite our best efforts, the culture is winning at this stage.

If I can be a little subversive here one major, absolute barrier for real discipleship making has been, in my estimation, the significantly higher emphasis the church has places on leadership development. Finding and developing leaders has become the primary task of training and pastors in todays church world, whether in established or in avante-garde settings. There is a key distinction in this that has been overwhelmingly ignored. Leadership is about organization. It is about communicating, deploying, managing, inspiring, and otherwise getting people to where you think they need to be in order to do what you think they need to do.

However, leadership does not in any way mean discernment. Meaning that the greatest leaders can lead a whole mass of people into a morass. Discipleship, however, means becoming close to God, restoring the likeness of God in our lives so that we increasingly pursue the Holy Spirit in instinct. When we pursue leadership and leaders, however, we are looking at organization as the world understands it. That’s a big reason the culture is winning. Our best efforts have gone into playing its music and dancing its steps rather than letting go our demand for control and really learning how to trust the Spirit in our lives.

Leadership emphasis has undermined discipleship, even as leadership emphasis seems to be so, so potent in creating enthusiastic participants with passionate ideas.

Jesus, however, didn’t talk about organizational principles. He discussed the kingdom. He didn’t pick those with the most leadership potential. He chose those who were willing to be disciples.

The Spirit came upon them and led counterintuitive people to do all kinds of counterintuitive things.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=192

A couple weeks ago I had the chance to preach on the topics in my book It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t recorded, as far as I know. However, this morning I sat outside and got it on video. It’s about 27 minutes long.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=193

From the “Daily Deep thought by Jack Handey”:

Whenever I need to “get away,” I just get away in my mind. I go to my imaginary spot, where the beach is perfect and the water is perfect and the weather is perfect. The only bad thing there are the flies. They’re terrible!

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=194

The Evangelical Manifesto that I mentioned before has been posted and I thought I might have a look at it. There’s the 20 page full version and the 5 page abridged version.

It is a big statement, though I don’t think it will make a big splash right away. Basically, as I see it, it’s more of a defining stand than a dramatic proclamation. Those who signed it represent some of the foundations of Evangelicals. However, there are many who didn’t sign it who have represented the public voice of Evangelicalism. These latter voices, and their followers, have long defined Evangelicalism in the public square. And so they likely will still try to do so. Instead of being given free reign, other Evangelicals are here now standing up and taking advantage of a shifting climate in the ranks. This isn’t going to change too much in the present, but it will set the tone for coming generations.

I’ve only looked at this briefly, but I’m going to be having a go at the longer version and maybe post some of my thoughts.

For now, here’s the shorter version if you want to have a read:

Keenly aware of this hour of history, we as a representative group of Evangelicals in America address our fellow-believers and our fellow-citizens.ii We have two purposes: to clarify the confusions that surround the term Evangelical in the United States, and explain where we stand on issues that cause consternation over Evangelicals in public life.

The global era challenges us to learn how to live with our deepest differences—especially religious differences that are ultimate and irreducible. These are not just differences between personal worldviews but between entire ways of life co-existing in the same society.

1. Our Identity

First, we reaffirm our identity. Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (The Greek word for good news was euangelion, which translated into English as evangel.) This Evangelical principle is the heart of who we are as followers of Jesus. It is not unique to us. We assert it not to attack or to exclude, but to remind and to reaffirm, and so to rally and to reform.

Evangelicals are one of the great traditions in the Christian Church. We stand alongside Christians of other traditions in both the creedal core of faith and over many issues of public concern. Yet we also hold to Evangelical beliefs that are distinct—distinctions we affirm as matters of biblical truth, recovered by the Protestant Reformation and vital for a sure knowledge of God. We Evangelicals are defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.

As followers of Jesus Christ, Evangelicals stress a particular set of beliefs that we believe are true to the life and teachings of Jesus himself. Taken together, they make us who we are. We place our emphasis on …

1. Jesus, fully divine and fully human, as the only full and complete revelation of God and therefore the only Savior.

2. The death of Jesus on the cross, in which he took the penalty for our sins and reconciled us to God.

3. Salvation as God’s gift grasped through faith. We contribute nothing to our salvation.

4. New life in the Holy Spirit, who brings us spiritual rebirth and power to live as Jesus did, reaching out to the poor, sick, and oppressed.

5. The Bible as God’s Word written, fully trustworthy as our final guide to faith and practice.

6. The future personal return of Jesus to establish the reign of God.

7. The importance of sharing these beliefs so that others may experience God’s salvation and may walk in Jesus’ way.

Sadly, we repeatedly fail to live up to our high calling, and all too often illustrate our own doctrine of sin. The full list of our failures is no secret to God or to many who watch us. If we would share the good news of Jesus with others, we must first be shaped by that good news ourselves.iii



2. Our Place in Public Life

Second, we wish to reposition ourselves in public life. To be Evangelical is

to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace, and well-being that are at the heart of the good news of Jesus. Fundamentalism was world-denying and politically disengaged at its outset, but Evangelicals have made a distinguished contribution to politics—attested by causes such the abolition of slavery and woman’s suffrage, and by names such as John Jay, John Witherspoon, Frances Willard, and Sojourner Truth in America and William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury in England.

Today, however, enormous confusion surrounds Evangelicals in public life and we wish to clarify our stand through the following assertions:

First, we repudiate two equal and opposite errors into which many Christians have fallen. One error is to privatize faith, applying it to the personal and spiritual realm only. Such dualism falsely divorces the spiritual from the secular and causes faith to lose its integrity.

The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, Christians become the “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology. Christian beliefs become the weapons of political factions.

Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, economic system, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, or nationality. The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness.

Second, we repudiate the two extremes that define the present culture wars in the United States. On one side, we repudiate the partisans of a sacred public square, those who would continue to give one religion a preferred place in public life.

In a diverse society, it will always be unjust and unworkable to privilege one religion. We are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths. We are firmly opposed to theocracy. And we have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose beliefs and behavior on anyone. We believe in persuasion.

On the other side, we repudiate the partisans of a naked public square, those who would make all religious expression inviolably private and keep the public square inviolably secular. This position is even less just and workable because it excludes the overwhelming majority of citizens, who are still profoundly religious. Nothing is more illiberal than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are.

We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well. Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others.

Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign.

We call on all citizens of goodwill and believers of all faiths and none to join us in working for a civil public square and the restoration of a tough-minded civility that is in the interests of all.

Fourth, we are concerned that globalization and the emerging global public square have no matching vision of how to live with our deepest differences on the global stage. In the Internet era, everyone can listen to what we say even when we are not speaking to everyone. Global communication magnifies the challenges of living with our deepest differences.

As the global public square emerges, we warn of two equal and opposite errors: coercive secularism and religious extremism.

We also repudiate the two other positions.

First, those who believe their way is the only way and the way for everyone, and are therefore prepared to coerce them. This position leads inevitably to conflict.

Second, those who believe that different values are relative to different cultures, and who therefore refuse to allow anyone to judge anyone else or any other culture. This position sounds tolerant at first, but it leads directly to the ills of complacency. In a world of such evils as genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn, there are rights that must be defended, evils that must be resisted, and interventions into the affairs of others that are morally justified.

Fifth, we warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square. This is a model of public life which reserves the top tier for cosmopolitan secular liberals, and the lower tier for local religious believers. Such an arrangement would be patronizing as well as severely restricting religious liberty and justice.

We promote a civil public square, and we respect for the rights of all, even those with whom we disagree. Contrary to those who believe that “error has no rights,” we respect the right to be wrong. But we also insist that “the right to believe anything” does not mean that “anything anyone believes is right.” Rather, respect for conscientious differences also requires respectful debate.

We do not speak for all Evangelicals. We speak only for ourselves, yet not to ourselves. We invite all our fellow-Christians, our fellow-citizens, and people of different faiths to take note of these declarations and to respond where appropriate.

We pledge that in a world of lies, hype, and spin, we publish this declaration in words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the Good News, we desire not just to speak the Good News but to embody and be good news to our world and to our generation.

THE END

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=196

Well, maybe that is.

Here’s the deal. I’m writing a book on the Exodus narrative and how it illustrates God’s work in Christian maturity.

I’m using the same cast and basic setting as in It’s a Dance. More so, really, as I’m expanding the conversation to a lot of different people, making it more than just a conversation between a few people.

I’m at the point where I’ve added a lot of new voices and feel a desire to bring it back to some kind of whole. What does a good ol’ emerging/Baptist/Pentecostal do in a situation like that? Have church of course!

I figure I’m about halfway through, maybe a little more, in the book and I started a new chapter with a group of people gathered in the back room of the pub/restaurant. I’ve gotten the conversation started and then it hit me.

One of the things I really loved about those kind of open conversations is how different people bring different perspectives on a passage, perspectives that sometimes I’ve seen, but often are new to me. That’s the fun of not preaching in a church, by the way. Open up the floor and people add so much more than a single preacher can.

I’ve been doing a lot of conversations in this book, conversations involving different characters, different pasts, different genders, but all coming from a single perspective. My own. I can argue with myself, I can teach myself, I can question myself, I can push myself deeper in a conversation. But I can’t say what I don’t see. And that’s limiting in a broad conversation.

So, in the interest of developing something more authentic (though I can fake it) I’d love to have help.

I’m discussing Exodus 4:18-6:12.

The general topic is how God works in spiritual maturity, but that’s not the only thing I would want to hear. In a group setting there’s always a nice mix of exactly on topic and curiously not, though often the latter greatly adds to the former.

So, if you would help me I’d love to hear what sticks out in that passage to you. Something of particular note or some insight, thought, allusion, etc. you get while reading it. I’m not going to be focusing on the curiosity that is the emergency flint scene, but anything else in that passage is entirely open to contribution.

I’ll be taking the responses and letting various characters add them, so I guess by contributing you’re giving me permission to do that. If I end up getting a good response and go this route with the chapter I’ll be sure to include a note about it in the foreword.

In fact, if you’re willing I’d love to have this request passed along so as to have a wide amount of voices.

I’ve not included 4:1-18 in this request because I just finished a chapter on that. However, please feel free to bounce off that section if it helps the rest of the passage.

We’ll see how this works.

To sum up my rambling:

I’d love to hear your thoughts, random or academic or whatever, on Exodus 4:18-6:12.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=197

Ann Althouse, a law professor at UW Madison, is beginning a very interesting project. Interesting, at least to this one time history major.

She’s started a blog called the Time that Blog Forgot. Each day she is going to go through the New York Times archives on a random year, going back 100 years, and blog about the news of that day.

This is especially fun to me because it is such a more thorough version of what I attempted back in 1994 or so (pre-blogging!). For a history methodology class I went through the microfiche of old New York Times and sought to get a contemporary view of the Civil War.

Here’s that paper.

You’ll need a bit more New York Times online access to read the full articles she is posting, but even the little bits in her post make for a very fascinating journey through history.

Very fun!

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=198

It’s tough to run a college these days. It’s tougher still when you set high standards. And it’s toughest of all when those standards reflect an Ozzie and Harriet morality in a Sarah Jessica Parker world.

Just ask the folks at Wheaton College.

My alma mater, Wheaton College, in the news about its community covenant. Or as we called it, ‘the Pledge’.

When I was there, and probably still, the hip, attempting to be chic students (probably now users of Macs–which were pieces of junk then) reveled in breaking the pledge. Go out dancing, drinking, whatever. Go to the most conservative place you can, and break the rules. That’s rebellion!

I never really got that attitude. Freely choosing Wheaton meant freely choosing to live according to certain guidelines. No, they didn’t all match what I saw in Scripture. But they were there, and I signed that I would live by them. It was a matter of my own honor and commitment. A covenant indeed.

I’ve never been a rebellious sort, though I’m certainly not one to walk as everyone else does just because those are the rules. At Wheaton though it did create a certain atmosphere, and one that resulted in profound intellectual and spiritual growth for me.

I didn’t have the typical college experience, but then again, I didn’t have the typical college experience. Meaning I don’t remember all the social adventures or the craziness, but I did get this utterly classic liberal arts education which opened my eyes to the whole world, in depth and breadth. I learned how to think historically and think globally and go beyond the provincial thinking that I saw so limited a good many people I knew… and know. I think big, because of Wheaton, because of the modeling that came from professors who not only knew their subjects but truly and deeply loved God and conveyed that in a powerful way.

Yes, there will be those incidents that seem gray and grate against what seems otherwise entirely fair. But that’s a minor sacrifice in helping to maintain the kind of place where iron is really sharpening iron.

And those who broke the pledge, and celebrate(d) it? They talked a lot about hypocrisy and God’s freedom and such things. Still do. But the fact is that to a person they pushed people away from God and wallowed in their own frenzies. They undercut what could have been not only a profound intellectual experience but also a profound expression of amazing Biblical community.

The Spirit is, after all, the Holy Spirit and leads us towards holiness.

That’s why I really do support, in every way, the kinds of policies that help Wheaton continue to nurture a specific environment. As Bill McGurn says, “Today Wheaton is the counterculture. And the men and women who teach and study there know it.”

For Christ and his Kingdom.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=199

On a Christian forum recently I asked, “What is your proof of God?” I while back, sitting in a friend’s living room before a party, I was asked a similar question. “What is the best proof for God?” I’ve never really been all that into apologetics so I’m not entirely solid on all the popular historic proofs. But, I think a reason for that is they are not personally all that convincing or helpful, to me or to others. The proof of God that matters is the proof that God gives us. And that’s what I answered in that living room before the party. The best proof is God’s Spirit in our lives. It’s the Spirit who proves God to us. Everything else is just commentary.

But the Spirit works in different ways in each of our lives. Not always in ways that would be proof to other people, but are certainly at the root of our own faith and commitment. Having this proof, this personal proof, is I think important. Because when the fire comes, all the rest is often burned away.

Here’s my answer to “What is your proof of God?” It’s my personal answer. Very personal.

I grew up in a Christian home. I remember Easter 1979 (or ‘78) as the day I sat on the lawn of my Wesleyan church and repeated the words of the minister asking Jesus into my heart. I was about 4.

I don’t remember being particularly religious but I was a pretty good church kid.

We moved away from that town and to another one far away when I was in 4th grade. I spent a lot of time alone and that seemed to have awakened something deeper. I remember being about 11 or so and saying to my mom I felt called to be a pastor. I remember speaking in tongues at my pentecostal church and otherwise feeling this deep, deep move of God in my life.

So, I suppose God was always poking at me.

But it’s in college that I found what I consider my personal ‘proof’. And it came in two directions, in two forms, at opposite experiences of life.

The first was my sophomore year. A variety of ups and downs had pushed me into a constant state of prayer and seeking God. This began to open up new experiences. I remember October of 1994 during a 4 day holiday where the campus was almost entirely empty. I read Paradise Lost while sitting int the cool fall weather out on the big lawn of the campus. Something about that awakened me. God visited me, sat with me, enlightened me. I would finish reading and get up to go to lunch or finish for the day and I would be awakened to reality. It was a weekend of epiphanies, in which I felt heaven, felt so much peace and hope and love. I think its why I’ve never been attracted to drugs or drunkenness. Those pale in comparison to the fullness of life I felt during that time with God. I felt him, and all his work, in this amazingly profound way. Again and again through my sophomore year I had these kinds of experiences. God showed me himself and gave me a view into his view. I can’t prove it to someone else, but neither can I deny it to myself. It was profound. And even still, when I don’t have that kind of epiphanies, those moments speak to my heart and say that God is more real than what we think is real. Deeper and farther and more whole and more still and so much everything.

My junior year I returned to the school. But the season had changed. Rather than feeling this immense awareness of God’s presence I experienced the opposite. A debilitating dark night of the soul where God went utterly silent, where no matter what I did I couldn’t feel his presence. My heart and soul emptied. Every spiritual feeling was gone. I was utterly alone–which happened to coincide with a breakdown of my friendships at the time.

The feeling, the awareness, all the mystical or spiritual stuff was gone. I felt totally lost and abandoned. My prayers went to nothingness and returned empty. My soul became emaciated, just when I was pressing way forward in spiritual disciplines. My efforts to reach God returned blank.

I was stuck. How do I have faith when there is nothing there? The emotions and spirituality was utterly empty. I faced a dilemma. God was nowhere.

How do I live?

My whole faith was dismantled. I feel like my sophomore year was the pinnacle of my first faith. I advanced through emotion and spirituality and came into the presence of God. Then he retreated. I was left isolated. Piece by piece everything my religious life depended on was taken apart. The fire came and burned it all away.

I was left with nothing. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t hope. I couldn’t stand.

So burned away that it exposed the foundation. And, in fact there was a foundation.

That’s my second proof. I realized I absolutely, utterly believed that Jesus walked out of that tomb on Easter morning.

This wasn’t just a faith answer. I had no faith, see. I had studied the Bible and history. I was absolutely convinced that Jesus walked out of that tomb because of how history resonated with that action. I studied the New Testament and studied early church history and saw how much these men and woman lived in a way that reflected a true historic event. There’s not enough room to give the details of why I think this, but there are a lot of details there.

On that foundation, me answering the most basic of Christian questions, I began to rebuild. Because if Jesus walked out of that tomb, then what was taught, what he taught and Scripture taught was real too. That resurrection was the evidence of a greater reality. So instead of rejecting the rest, that I no longer felt, I began to walk a long road back to understanding how to find the answers for my persistent questions. Answers that I knew were there, because Jesus loved me, this I know.

And that ‘proof’ has taken me on a long and winding path, that has changed an immense amount of what I ‘knew’ during my first faith during my first 20 years. But this ’second’ faith, this rebuilt spirituality, is so much more at peace and has so much more real hope and real confidence and real joy, even if I really do miss those epiphanies of my sophomore year. I suspect that there will be a season again of that as I go onward in this rebuilt faith.

Higher up and farther in.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=200

For most of my life, as long as I can remember at least, I’ve enjoyed people watching. Airports are great. So are train stations. Sitting on a public bench or at a table looking out at the sidewalk of a busy city also make great spots. What is the fascination? I’m not sure. I think it’s because all these people represent such different stories.

I watch and I ponder and I absorb the different faces and different styles and different postures. Different places offer different casts of characters. Different classes or races or likely histories.

All That Road Going is a book for those of us who people watch, because it’s this treat we are never given in real life. It’s a look into the thoughts and stories of various characters all on their way. That the setting is a Greyhound bus means we are looking at the particular people who would ride a Greyhound bus, not exactly the symbol of roaring success.

The style is literary fiction. Mojtabai is a gifted writer, with a sharp eye for detail and insight about humanity. Her prose is well-crafted, offering both readability and vibrant descriptions of her often bland, maybe even forgettable settings. This is a book about people we might not notice, in places we would likely ignore or dismiss. But instead of dismissing them, Mojtabai dwells, sits with them and encourages us to see real people.

The book itself feels like Mojtabai was interested in doing character sketches, and then found a convenient way to tie these various sketches together. Not only is there no real plot, there isn’t a consistent narrator. Each chapter, for the most part, gives us the perspective from a different seat. The bus driver makes the most appearances as we learn his values and perspectives. Mojtabai crafts her writing to fit each narrator as we go, making the prose itself become insight into the characters, and done so with expertise.

All That Road Going is a very good book. Well written and quite interesting, if you like character studies. Low ratings that I’ve seen seem to be not a reflection about this book as much as they are about the fact some people just don’t like this type of book.

If you are wanting an action packed plot or flowing story this likely isn’t the best book. If you people watch and would love to have just a taste of what it would be like to hear the stories of the people walking by or sitting near then this is a wonderful treat.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=202

I am going to speak, as you would have the right to expect me to speak, of what affects us at the present moment here in this State—of one of those problems with which we, who are for the time being your servants and representatives in public life, are trying to deal.

Now, take the very question that you have seen advocated and which you will see advocated some more during the next fen days—the question of the taxation of franchises. On the one hand we have the perfectly simple savage who believes that you should tax franchises to the extent of confiscating them, and that it is the duty of all rail¬road corporations to carry everybody free and give him a chromo. On the other, we have the scarcely less primitive mortal who believes that there is something sacred in a franchise, and that there is no reason why it should pay its share of the burdens at all.

Wow, gentlemen, remember that the man who occupies the last position inevitably tends to produce the man who occupies the first position, and that the worst enemy of property is the man who, whether from unscrupulousness or from mere heedlessness and thoughtlessness, takes the ground that there shall be something sacred about all property—-that the owners of it are to occupy a different position in the community from all others, and are to have their burdens not increased, but diminished, because of their wealth.

~Teddy Roosevelt, 1899.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=203

For your instruction and edification:

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=204

I’ve not done too much politics of late, mostly because it’s not entirely a fruitful discussion. But sometimes I think it’s worthwhile to jump back in and have a little say. Or at least point to someone else’s say.

This June 3rd we in California have a couple of ballot initiatives, both of which are addressing the idea of imminent domain, the issue raised most recently by the utterly execrable Kelo decision.

Both seemed a little suspicious to me, and with these kinds of initiatives deception should be looked for, and the backers analyzed as well as the text of the law.

Ilya Somin has a new op-ed in the Times that clarifies what is happening, and why we should probably vote Yes on 98 and No on 99. ]

Though, honestly, they both have problems and I wish there could be an initiative that is straightforward on this topic. It wouldn’t be that difficult. Though, I suppose it doesn’t really matter how we vote. California voting is more like an opinion poll that gives us something to do while the courts tell us how it’s going to be.

I do suggest voting still, though. Because one never knows what will stay on the books, and if because of this people end up not losing their homes it’s a victory.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=205

CHICAGO, May 15.—The Rev. W.W. Reynolds, pastor of the Brightwood Methodist Church of Indianapolis, recently wrote to Capt. Luke Colleran, Chief of the Chicago Detective Department, inquiring if the use of the bicycle among women had affected their morality in any perceptible manner. Although not offering statistics, Capt. Colleran’s reply deals with the subject in a positive manner.

He writes:

“I am not an advocate of the use of the bicycle among women, when viewing it from a morality phase. Women of refinement and exquisite moral training addicted to the use of the bicycle are not infrequently thrown among the uncultivated and de¬generate element of both sexes, whose coarse, boisterous, and immoral gestures are heard and seen while speeding along our streets and boulevards. Many doubtless es¬cape the contamination, although the contagion be ever present.

“A large number of our female bicyclists wear shorter dresses than the laws of morality and decency permit, thereby inviting the improper conversations and remarks of the depraved and immoral. I most certainly consider the adoption of the bicycle by women as detrimental to the advancement of morality—nay, even its stability. I have always entertained deep sympathy for the hosts of noble and honorable ladies, who while riding their wheels are frequently associated with women whose morality will not stand investigation and whose conversation is invariably coarse and undignified.”

On being asked for an expression of opinion, Mrs. Charles Henrotin said:

“This Indianapolis minister must be very hard up for subjects. Perhaps he considers that he has conquered the devil in his own dominions and must go forth to conquer him in new fields. Why should cycling be restricted to men. I don’t see that they have any superior rights in the matter. It is an exercise conducive to good health and good spirits, and certainly there is nothing-improper in it.”

Morality these days? Where’s it going to go next?

Of course, this article was in the New York Times on May 15, 1899. Turn of the century concern.

I make note of it because it so illustrates something that has been on my mind of late and I might want to explore here more, now that I’m back to posting a little.

What matters?

Not only what matters but what should particularly matter to us. The Rev. W.W. Reynolds thought that women riding bikes mattered. It was a gateway hobby, you know. First they get on the bike, then the skirts slip up a little, and then one time upstanding, moral, young women will start associating with all kinds of ne’er-do-wells. Who wouldn’t oppose that?

Well, now that seems a little silly. We have perspective and all that. It’s a great hobby and bike riding is the least of our moral concerns.

I live in California. I know about the pressing moral concerns of our era.

But that’s what gets me to think about what really matters and why it matters. Because this article above is so much a reason why we are in the moral confusion we’re in these days. Christianity became about culture, and morals, and respectable living. It wasn’t as much about Jesus, and serving others, and letting go our demands, and living with love. Morality replaced spirituality.

There’s no real power in morality, however. There’s only power in the Spirit who leads us to morality.

So what should we focus on?

What does Paul emphasize? What did Jesus emphasize?

I think there’s something in that worth considering more.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=207

I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that what traditionally marks religion isn’t devotion to God, but rather a strong belief that God doesn’t really know what he is doing.

First a little theology and background:

In antiquity religion denoted the cultic veneration of God. Cicero defined it as the cultus deorum. Religio could sometimes be used of the relation to other people to the degree that a comparable veneration was owed or paid to them. Cicero distinguished religio as moral duty from the taboo-fear of superstitio. This distinction differentiated the Latin term from the Greek threskeia, which embraces all forms of cultic veneration, even those that are excessive or erroneous, and which occurs also in the NT in this sense. Closer to Cicero’s religio is theosebei, which is not closely tied to the cultus. In Cicero pietas is an attitude of soul which in relation to the gods finds expression in cultic acts. Yet Cicero does not equate piety and religion. He relates the latter term much more to rites and their observance. Nor does he call the knowledge of God religio. In his work on laws he describes this knowledge as the mar of differentiation between human beings and animals, but he does not call it religion. Nevertheless, he regards a knowledge of the matter of the gods as necessary to bridle the expression of cultic veneration.

Unlike Cicero, August in his De vera religione (c. 390) stresses that the knowledge of God and the worship of God are inseparable in religion. For him, then, there is a close relation between religion and philosophy. Doctrine and worship belong together. In this regard he appeals to Plato, but he finds the supreme example of the connection of doctrine and cultus in the church. The true religion is to be found where the soul does not worship creaturely things but the one eternal and unchangeable God. IN his own time this perfect religion was identical with the Christian religion whose teachings Almighty God himself had set forth. These consist of the prophetic intimation and historical recording of the saving provisions of divine providence for the renewal of the human race.

By tying together worship of God and knowledge of God Augustine sought to do something very honorable which was to essential combine thought and practice. However, the problem comes in the perversion of this that happens because we really, at our cores, don’t think God knows what he is doing. We invert this order, making our worship of God become a source of knowledge about God, thus making how we want to serve God become the criteria for what we think God wants.

In other words, we tell God what we will give him and then expect him to applaud our service.

Or we think that God has really left a lot out, forgetting maybe what he wants, and that we need to fill in the blanks, and make others follow our lead in doing that.

This is true from the earliest days and is at the heart of alienating religion. That’s why I think Cicero was right to separate the two. If we truly know God we will likely respond to him as we should. But, far too often we want to serve him without really knowing or trusting him. We create forms of worship he never mandated, and then make this worship the criteria of inclusion among his proclaimed people.

Sometimes God does tell us how he wants to be worshipped. He told Moses the clear guidelines. And he laid out who was to be included, how they were to be included, what they were supposed to do and not do on what days. God can be quite specific when he wants to be.

When he’s not specific we can’t be specific for him. Because it’s showing that we don’t know, like, or trust what God has done when he has freed us from those specific forms and giving the Holy Spirit to be the true marker of who is and who is not part of the people of God.

Worship becomes then not only separated from the knowledge of God, it becomes a barrier to the knowledge of God, creating a false knowledge, and false attributes, always enforcing the forms of worship rather than the fruit of the Spirit and the reflection of Christ.

It’s easy to not trust the Holy Spirit’s work in people. Peter could have rejected Cornelius because Cornelius did not match the liturgical patterns of Jewish Christianity (the true Apostolic form). In fact there was a movement in the early church to do just that, something that was addressed in Acts 15. However, Peter would not have been part of the church any longer himself had he done so. The Spirit forms the church, and Peter followed.

So too today. Which is why I have such trouble with so many forms of leadership which mistake form for knowledge and enforce non-Scriptural patterns as being somehow authoritative for God’s demands. That’s why I have trouble with contemporary emphasis on leadership development that emphasizes roles and organizational structure far beyond what Scripture indicates. It creates a cult of personality and emphasize non-Spirit charisma over and above spiritual gifting and Spirit leading.

Religion that doesn’t trust God is found in both the newest and the oldest forms of the Christian faith, and we see this even in the New Testament letters. Paul is writing to churches who don’t trust God and so created their own misshaped patterns that had to be rebuked or adjusted.

God tells us what we need to know and sent the Spirit to teach us all things. That’s not always answering the questions we might have, however, even as we are taught what is necessary. We can in response either trust God and be free in the freedom he has brought, free in diversity and free in expression, worshiping in manifold ways out of the particular knowledge and gifts the Spirit has bestowed. Or we can betray God, enforcing rules not his own that we attribute to him, thinking that our contrived worship is in fact knowledge rather than whim and habit.

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=208

Had a little day out this past Saturday. Here are some pics: