Archives for May, 2006
The Challenge of Building Community
Dave Pollard, one of my favorite bloggers (whom I don’t always agree with), has an excellent post on the challenges of building community.
Technorati Tags : community
Resonate Photo Pool
Contextless Links
- Joe Theismann called Ricky Williams a disgrace to the game :: It’s apparently okay in the NFL (and NBA) world to beat your wife than it is to smoke dope. I am not in favor of smoking pot but a little perspective here would be helpful. Pro atheletes get away with a lot but suddenly pot smoking is the line that can’t be crossed?
- Fire Flip? It’s started already
- Bill Walton flies coach and prefers to have an aisle seat via
- I had planned to blog about the end of season 2 of Battlestar Galactica but I knew that James Bow would do a better job than I would have. I was right.
- Where have all of the naval battle sims gone?
- The tragedy of Kevin Garnett :: Why do I have a feeling that Toronto fans fear the same thing is going to happen to Chris Bosh via
- Moleskine City Notebook (an example) via
Dion seeks to change his image
Mr. Dion, a former environment minister, has outlined a campaign to create “three pillars” of Liberal policy, adding environmental sustainability to the chief goals of economic performance and social justice that he said marked the Liberals in the 20th century.
He said his platform will include calls for tax reforms, investment in research and development, policies for energy efficiency and renewable energy, and revamping the immigration system to attract immigrants to bring skills to Canada.
Maybe Ken Dryden wants my support…
Technorati Tags : Stephane+Dion, Ken+Dryden
Incredible
This is so cool.
Contextless Links
- At least 1000 British soldiers AWOL in Iraq
- How London has changed in 100 years and how it hasn’t
- The “de-churched” and the future of missional organizations
- More than a fad, understanding the Emerging Church
- Wendy has an axe to grind with Microsoft
Resonate Greenhouses :: Church Planting Edition
Tony Jones tackles some recent statements by Chuck Colson
What Colson’s writing has in fact betrayed over the last couple of years is that he knows very little about the emerging church. In this month’s column (”Emerging Confusion: Jesus is the Truth Whether We Experience Him or Not”), he recounts a recent conversation with a “young theologian” named “Jim” (whose name has been changed to protect the innocent). “Jim” asked Chuck to take it easy on the emergents; they’re just trying to translate the gospel for postmodern folks, “Jim” pleaded. That’s a noble motive, Chuck replied, but if they undermine truth, then all is lost.
In his penultimate paragraph, Colson refers to D.A. Carson, fellow critic of Emergent, who argues that objective truth precedes relational truth. Colson then weighs in with this philosophical doozy: “Truth is truth.” (Why don’t you read that again.)
You see, by saying that “truth is truth,” Colson is essentially saying…well, nothing. That’s called a “self-referential argument,” or a “circular reference” and it’s non-sensical; it doesn’t say anything, and it doesn’t mean anything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been speaking and heard similar statements. I’ll spend a couple hours doing my best to lay out a rather intricate understanding of truth and interpretation, only to be told by an audience member that some things are “really, really true,” “true with a capital ‘T’” or my personal favorite, “true truth.”
But if I can try to surmise Colson’s meaning from the subtitle of the essay, he means to indicate that we in the emerging church have placed too much weight on “relational” or “experiential” theories of truth. The gospel is true, Colson seems to be saying, regardless of your human experience of that truth.
But philosophically, the obvious follow-up question is, Why? What makes the gospel true, especially if those of us in the world have no experience of its truthfulness? Is it true because Chuck Colson says so? Because Augustine said so? Because Paul said so? Is it true because, as Karl Barth might say, God’s revelatory action that breaks into our space-time continuum? But isn’t even that subject to our interpretation of the event?
In the essay, Colson also warns us in the emerging church about being in league with Stanley Fish, postmodernist extraordinaire and, to Colson’s thinking, the epitome of yucky liberalism. Colson quotes Fish as saying that there are no “independent standards of objectivity.” Truth cannot be proven to another human being, and thus, Colson concludes, Fish is arguing that truth cannot be known.
But, in fact, Fish says nothing of the kind. What Fish says is that objectivity is unattainable. In his excellent book, Is There a Text in this Class?, Fish argues that truth comes to be known in and among and on the basis of “the authority of interpretive communities.” We are subjective human beings, trapped in our own skins and inevitably influenced by the communities in which we find ourselves. And isn’t this what the church is, or at least should be: an authoritative community of interpretation? Indeed, isn’t this just what Colson did when he converted to Christianity in prison many years ago: placed himself under the authority of the church of Jesus Christ?
What I was trying to get at in my blog post earlier this week is that Emergent Village endeavors to be a catalyst of conversation, community, and, ultimately, interpretation. We want the church to reclaim its place as the authoritative community of interpretation of scripture, culture, and human existence. We want Christians to be engaged politically and culturally, and we want to provoke robust and respectful dialogue around issues that matter. Many of us think that the polemical nature of the church today precludes just this kind of necessary conversation. So, we’re going ahead and doing it, with or without the imprimatur of evangelical elites like Colson and Carson.
If that’s a compelling vision for you, then jump on board, we’re glad to have you. If, however, you’d like to first see our doctrinal statement on penal substitution or read a position paper on homosexuality, then Emergent Village isn’t for you.
Is Emergent the new Christian Left?
In December, Brian McLaren was arrested along with 115 other activists while peacefully protesting the federal budget that he believes unfairly treats the poor. As one of the most visible participants in Emergent Village, McLaren’s increasingly outspoken political views has some wondering—is Emergent a new camp for Christian liberalism?
Tony Jones responds
Honestly, I care little about these critiques. They come from those who either have no idea what Emergent is all about and/or could not possibly be persuaded from their position anyway.On the other hand, I’m currently hearing and reading that Emergent is part of the “New Christian Left.” Mark Driscoll, for instance, has recently drawn a line in the sand between “emerging evangelicals” and “emergent liberals.” He places himself in the former camp, and I assume he’d assign me to the latter. Others, like Ed Stetzer, have similarly attempted to divvy up the emerging church. Stetzer gives three labels: relevants, reconstructionists, and revisionists. Again, I can assume that I’m among the lattermost, whose “prescriptions fail to take into account the full teaching of the Word of God,” according to Stetzer. Yet another Christian leader has recently accused us of becoming one with Jim Wallis, Sojourners, and the Christian Left.
The problem with all of these critiques is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Emergent Village. We are a group of friends—about 20 in 1997, and now in the thousands—who are committed to doing God’s Kingdom work together, regardless of our theological, ideological, and political differences. Are we friends with Jim Wallis? Yes! And are there Bush-loving neocons among us? Yes! Emergent is a loose collection of folks who feel that true, robust conversation about issues that matter has been chilled out of modern Christian institutions (seminaries, mega-churches, denominations, and para-church groups, to name a few). We’re trying to make a place to bring conversation back.
Thus, we have friends among us who think that small government, free market economies are the solution to poverty, and others who favor federal programs and higher taxes—honestly, this is an ongoing conversation within the Emergent friendship. But we all agree that something must be done about extreme poverty, especially in Africa.
Within Emergent are Texas Baptists who don’t allow women to preach and New England lesbian Episcopal priests. We have Southern California YWAMers and Midwest Lutherans. We have those who hold to biblical inerrancy, and others trying to demythologize the scripture. We have environmental, peacenik lefties, “crunchy cons,” and right wing hawks.
I suppose it’s easy for those who stand outside of Emergent Village looking in to credit the politics or theology of a few to the whole group, but that’s inaccurate. And I can understand the frustration of those who want to criticize us and box us in when we say that we don’t play by the old rules, that we can’t be categorized as “left” or “right,” “evangelical” or “mainline.”
But, I think those same critics will only be more frustrated as the tide of those rebelling against a commodified and domesticated Jesus gain momentum. If the mainstream media is a harbinger, then I’d say that recent columns by Gary Wills and Andrew Sullivan show that a tipping point is just around the corner. Jesus really wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican, and he won’t be domesticated by political agendas. I do, however, believe that he will inhabit the robust and respectful dialogue about ideas that matter.
Rediscovering SimCity 2000
I don’t play a lot of computer games but I found my SimCity 2000 disk the other day and installed it on my notebook computer with has the pointing stick instead of a trackpad or a mouse. Today I realized that I have a callous on my finger from playing it too much on my days off. It may be my first computer related injury. The good news is that if I ever had to flee Saskatchewan because of persecution, I could hide as a poor farmer and pull it off because of my index finger callous.
It’s Census time
It’s Census time in Canada and since we never received one in the mail, I never paid that much attention. Last night Wendy was telling me that she called in and got the internet access code and filled it out. Apparently regardless of whether or not you get one in the mail, you have to fill one out. I don’t know who dropped the ball, StatsCanada or Canada Post but I am glad someone around the house was there to pick it up
Wendy’s depression
Wendy posted today on her ongoing depression.
Depression runs in my family so this isn’t totally unexpected. The alternative is to not deal with it and make everyone else deal with it which doesn’t seem to be a great path to take. I have seen that from the everyone else viewpoint and it didn’t do a lot for me.
Technorati Tags : Wendy+Cooper
Web 2.ummm
Do Mets fans cheer for the Yankees?
Contextless Links
- Have we learned anything from Enron?
- The Freeway’s weblog gets a facelift. I like it.
- Why won’t Tony Blair pick up his Congressional Medal of Honor?
- Can the “new” Al Gore become President?
- Matt Haughey parodies the Star Wars kid with a MacBook. Here is the backstory on the video.
- What is on Senator Clinton’s iPod?
- Malcolm Gladwell on the Dog Whisperer
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
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