Monday Merton 4.15.2013

Well it’s Tuesday but it’s still my Monday Merton for the week since I like alliteration. I’m continuing to step through No Man Is An Island. Today’s set of quotes has to do with selfless love.

Breathing kingdom on airplanes and elsewhere

In the wake of the amazing Missio Alliance conference, I wanted to continue to wrestle with the question of how we talk to strangers about Jesus on airplanes and other places. This reflection was started by Rachel Held Evans’ post on the topic a few days ago to which I responded with a comparison of Rachel’s reflections with street evangelist guru Ray Comfort of Way of the Master. A reader cried foul because it seemed like I was making a mischievous, unstated argument that was “set up,” which was a fair critique since I didn’t share my own commentary. This morning during church, I asked God how should we talk to strangers about Jesus. And the answer that came into my brain was this: assume that they’re angels and breathe the kingdom with them.

Interruption, Ideology, and Truth

Amos Yong at the Missio Alliance talked today about “the phenemonology of interruption” in Pentecost. Interruption is how God expresses His sovereignty. Humanity muddles along in our reality that we can’t imagine being any other way, and events happen that do not fit “the way things are.” Our paradigms are shattered, and we are forced to grapple with the terror that Somebody greater than the projected Geist of our civilization has tinkered with us. Pentecost is the eternal event of the Spirit’s interruption. The opposite of Pentecost is ideology, the stasis of homogenized idolatrous “truth” that tries to substitute itself for God, what Slavoj Zizek calls “the big Other” and what Christians with a perspicuous (idolatrous) account of Biblical truth would call the “owner’s manual.”

The Anthropocentrism of the Personal Afterlife Insurance Gospel

I’m at the Missio Alliance conference. Just heard Scot McKnight talk about the distinction between iconic (God-revealing) and idolatrous (us-reflecting) ways of talking about the gospel. He finds a really rich summary in Revelation 1:5 which I may cover later. But I wanted to dash out a quick post on an insight he gave me about what he calls the “soterian gospel,” or salvation as personal afterlife insurance.

Monday Merton 4.8.2013

I’m going to start spending Mondays on my blog with Thomas Merton since I’ve been deeply influenced by several of his books. Merton was a Trappist monk who spent most of each day in prayer; his words are rich and beautiful and liberating. Because he is from a different generation and lived only with men, he doesn’t use gender-inclusive language, so I apologize for that distraction. Because he was evangelizing a secular intellectual audience, he doesn’t always fortify his paragraphs with scriptural proof-texts. This will make it difficult to accomplish my purpose, which is to evangelize evangelicals out of some of the more poisonous aspects of our theology. Those of you who fall in that category will hear things you don’t like that will be easy for you to dismiss as “un-Biblical,” but I urge you to be open to what God might be saying to you through the words of someone who pursued God relentlessly.

Blog Resurrected: Help Me Make Some Choices!

It was really good to take a break for Lent. I did a lot of reading, and I even read some fiction (!) by Reynolds Price and Joyce Carroll Oates. I wanted to share some ideas I have for series that I might run on the blog in the next few months and get your feedback on what you want me to write about. I’d like to be a little bit less haphazard with my topics. I’m also going to try to keep my posts shorter (ideally <1000 words) for the sake of my sanity. So please help me decide which of the following series to pursue.

Jesus inside the beltway: Glocalization and relationship-rooted causes

On the last day of our GBCS young clergy leadership forum, we learned the term “glocalization.” It’s actually not an affirmation of the activist world cliche that we should “think globally and act locally.” The problem is precisely that we too often think about activism in global terms instead of local ones. Activism that is understood in kingdom terms should always seek as localized a form as possible even if it occurs over a distance that is global. Let me explain.

Jesus inside the beltway: love creates the space for truth

Yesterday, the young clergy leadership forum heard from Bill Mefford, the GBCS point person for immigration reform and other controversial causes. Bill shared with us that he actually spent most of his career as a local pastor to people in the rural midwest and Texas who would disagree with most of the things he’s advocating now. He said the most solid foundation for being able to speak prophetic Biblical truths in your congregation is for people to know that you love them. They can’t get that from the generic benevolence of a handshake and a warm smile. They need to be pursued and valued.

Jesus inside the beltway: Two no-brainer gun policies

Continuing to blog through what I’m learning at the General Board of Church and Society Young Clergy Leadership Forum. We’re listening to a presentation about gun violence from a group called Heeding God’s Call that is blowing my mind. A common argument in debates over guns is that gun crimes are committed with guns that are purchased illegally. Two kids in my former youth group are in jail now because of crimes involving black market guns. So how do black market guns get out on the street? I never asked that question before. Well, I just found out one major way: it’s called straw purchasing and it’s perfectly legal.

Jesus inside the beltway: “Why are you here?”

I am attending the young clergy leadership forum (#yclf on twitter) with the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) in Washington, DC. This is the agency that lobbies the federal government on behalf of the United Methodist Church according to the agenda set forth every four years by our General Conference. I decided I would blog about my experience in a series called “Jesus inside the beltway.” The first question it seems important to ask is why they exist.