Freedom Log

Busy Little Beaver

2012-02-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

Yup, I know I'm sounding like a broken record here. I've been really, really busy. CTS paper submissions, CETA paper submissions (I'm on the exec for both so a whole lot of evaluating going on). Weekly papers to mark and a lecture to prep. New bi-weekly church group to prep. Our Sat night DM had scout camps so I prepped and ran some new material, plus have been running my own regular bi-weekly campaign. One daughter in theater school - she's going to be in Fiddler! Teaching data management at my other daughter's school and next week I'm there for a showing of the Journey of the Universe at her school. Wrote two references for students applying to grad school. Taught one seminar on tools for thesis research and writing. And the list goes on...

My free time, and it has been sparse, has been spent playing Pandemic with my kids. Most excellent game ever! And hanging out with my wife. Life is good.

OK, off to talk about the People's Temple with some keen students. I think I'll lay off the Kool-aid for the day.

Call for Papers - Canadian Theological Society

2012-01-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

Canadian Theological Society 2012 Annual Meeting
May 28-30, 2012
Waterloo, Ontario

The theme of this Congress—Crossroads: Scholarship for an Uncertain World— invites us to reflect on uncertain changes in the disciplines in humanities and social sciences, as well as the need to generate scholarship that addresses challenges facing our uncertain world. Theologians are often practiced in engaging the uncertainties that surround our religious communities, our vocation, as well as the chronic uncertainties that well up in human life. Therefore, the theme seems one to which our members may be responsive in diverse ways.

In order to offer a cohesive program, we invite proposals on the theme of Theological Responses to an Uncertain World. We will also consider proposals on any topic in theology.

We invite submissions in two formats:

1) 20/20 Presentations

We will again follow the 20/20 format that we used for the 2011 Congress, inviting presentations of 20 minutes with 20 minutes discussion to follow. Typically the presentation will be an account of a larger research project. Since members work in a variety of fields and specializations, attention should be given to presenting advanced work in an accessible way.

Submit a proposal that includes:

Presenter’s name, institution, and contact information
Title of presentation
Proposal of 250-300 words which includes an abstract, the problem your scholarship engages, and the contribution you plan to make.
Requests for audio-visual equipment (A/V equipment will be available only if it is requested in the proposal)

2) Panels

We invite panels on issues that are relevant to members, especially as related to the theme of the annual meeting. Panel proposals should be developed to foster dialogue among the panelists and with those attending in the audience. Thus, we discourage panels which consist of the reading of several papers.

Submit a proposal that includes:

Convener’s name, institution, and contact information. The convener will be the link between the panel and the CTS.
Names, institutions and contact information of all members of the panel
Either the name and contact information of the moderator, or a request that CTS provide a moderator
Title of panel
Length of panel (40 or 80 minutes)
Proposal of 300-400 words which includes an abstract, the problem your scholarship engages, the contribution you plan to make, and how you plan to foster dialogue among panelists and audience (e.g., use and allotment of time)
Requests for audio-visual equipment (A/V equipment will be available only if it is requested in the proposal)

All proposals should be submitted in a Word or .rtf file by email attachment by January 15, 2012 to: Jeremy Bergen, CTS Program Chair

We will confirm receipt of all proposals submitted by email.

Selection Criteria

In selecting proposals for 20/20 presentations or for panels, the committee will consider:

The clarity and significance of the proposal
The quality of the contribution to scholarship
The relationship of the presentation to the thematic focus of the annual meeting
The contribution of the presentation to a diversity of perspectives and approaches
The potential for inspiring discussion and engagement among the members

Our goal as a Society is to foster collegial discussion of members’ work and of the work of other Canadian theologians. All presenters and attendees are encouraged to participate in as much of the program as possible. We welcome all members, students, and other interested persons to join us this year at the annual meeting in Waterloo, Ontario.

Poverty? Greed?

2011-12-21T11:30:00.002-05:00

Plato once claimed that poverty is not a decrease in our possessions, but an increase in our greed. As a middle class (have) individual this has a strong ring of truth to it. It speaks to the endless fascination with material success that is so prevalent in Western society. Yet, this statement also alerts me to a need for distinction with the term poverty. While I agree that our greed impoverishes us - poverty has many roots and causes. And the kind of poverty that is caused by greed is, in my opinion, more of a spiritual poverty than a material poverty.

This spiritual poverty is not necessarily synonymous with the inability to provide sustenance for ones family. Nor is it always indicative of an inability to "catch a break" socially that will allow your most basic needs to be met. The difference between spiritual and material poverty seems to describe the gulf between the haves and have nots - where the have nots often face destructive material poverty their concerns are grounded in the reality of putting food on the table not on having too little equity to buy a second car for purely convenience sake. Perhaps this is why I so appreciate the epistemological privilege that Liberation Theology offers to the poor? Indeed the real remedy for spiritual impoverishment must lie in the path of solidarity with the truly poor - that is the materially poor. In fact, dare I say, one can only climb out of spiritual poverty with the help of the materially poor - because the greed that offers only spiritual poverty can never be sated, and can never offer us freedom.

Food for thought.

Theory of Religion

2011-12-11T11:34:00.001-05:00

In the Winter semester I will be exploring the world of religions with a new class. I have some students signing up from my previous classes which has to look good to the admin! It is going to be challenging both for me and the students. I've done this sort of work as an undergrad but my grad work has all been struggling with an inside conversation - specifically focused on the nitty gritty world of evangelicals. In this course we will be trying to develop an outside perspective on a plurality of religions - putting aside our own commitments.

Yet, at the same time I want to find the place for our own commitments to come into the conversation. So the first class will have to introduce the idea of navigating conversations about world religions from a perspective of humility, expectation, and desire to bring out the best in others (and even to have the best brought out of our own religious commitment!)

My director often says that the problem with a lot of contemporary theology is that it lacks a good theory of religion. Where I think she is right is that we often think that what we practice is not religion but is somehow above the religious conversation, it has a privileged place. What is disturbing is that we all do it - Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. We all talk about religion in essentially two modes: world religions as a phenomenon and our religion as the only reasonable and reliable faith. Where this gets tricky is that in one sense I believe this should be why we stick with our own religious commitment - why would you adhere to a religion that you don't completely buy into? If you do you will at best only follow the bits of it that are comfortable. Religion, at its best, cannot function this way.

But the other extreme - our way the only way - is what makes religions function at their worst.

This coming semester we will be seeking to find the balance. A good theory of religion. A humble approach to the other. And a desire to be the best of our religious heritage. Sound like a challenge? I think so.

Did you Miss Me?

2011-12-06T21:39:00.001-05:00

Ok. Semester is almost done. It is all over but the exam marking. Yikes. At least now I know what I am in for.

Needless to say I learned a lot this semester.

There are things I'm going to do differently if I run Intro to Theology again (which I hope I get that opportunity to do). For one thing I'd add a textbook. Yup, you heard right. I'd add a textbook that covered the historical stuff I want to cover. My brief romp through the history of Christian thought was all too quick and if I was supplementing a text reading then I could be more focused on a few key thinkers instead of a broad swathe.

What I wouldn't change much is my Christian Spirituality course. I really liked the way it came together and the way the students engaged with the lectures. Sure I'd tune it a bit here and there, but I think it is a good solid foundation to the study of spiritualities and Christian spiritualities in particular. Those students have a take home exam which comes in Friday after next. Hopefully I'll have all the Intro exams marked so I can focus on those at that time.

I've already started my course prep for next semester. I'm doing Religion, Culture and Diversity which is a second year course. This one is going to be challenging as it is not a course on a specific religion, in fact it is a religion studies course at heart. I will focus on North American religions and in particular those that are purposeful in spreading their ideas/beliefs beyond their cultural settings (Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism) but more because I need to set some limits on the material. The course will be broken into three parts:

1) Theory of Religion - this will have lots of case studies and class discussions.
2) Culture - this will be a brief section on cultural anthropology with a focus on the role of religious imagination in culture.
3) Diversity - this last section will focus on the diverse ways that religions speak into issues of contemporary importance, primarily ecological issues but I'm going to branch out from there. Again, lots of case studies and class discussions.

It should be a fun course.

OK, in the meanwhile I am around. But this time I won't promise to be back blogging. I'm behind still on lots of life stuff. But I'm confident that I'll find a rhythm soon.

Reading Week

2011-10-23T13:29:00.002-05:00

What a crazy run this has been. I'm more than halfway through my courses and still loving it. But it has kept me so busy that I have been struggling to have enough time with my family let alone blogging and all the other hobby activities I engage in. I really hope that I get to teach either of these courses again, a second run through will see me so much more prepared. But I'm not sure it would be that much less work.

Marking is not something I liked when I was teaching IT. It was definitely easier to mark something if it is definitely right or wrong - but essays don't work that way. Especially when you are dealing with some highly abstract concepts at times. Most of my students (that I have evaluated) are doing quite well with the tasks and responding very well to my feedback on completed assignments. That is most satisfying. I am still committed to the idea that a big role for me in the Intro to Theology class is to give students tools with which to approach their whole time at Saint Paul University. Strangely enough though, I actually like the process of marking. I have taken the wise advice of others and built a grid for each different assignment - and after reading the paper and making comments I simply walk through the grid and end up with a grade. This ensures that the results are fair and, hopefully, consistent. It also prevents me from taking off a tonne of marks for repeated mistakes.

I was hoping to have several lectures prepared in advance - not the reality. I do have them all roughly mapped out - but each week I am constructing two sets of power point slides as well as two sets of lecture notes. The strategy of using slides to guide the conversation is helpful - it also means that my slides do not need to convey real content. Sometimes an image will suffice for a 20 minute conversation. It is the notes that really needs a lot of work. I use word and drop in mini images of the slides that the lecture section references. I've found that 12-18 pages is enough in the Intro to Theology class where students interact less and 10-14 pages is usually more than enough in the Christian Spirituality where the conversations can really take off. Took me a few weeks to get that sense for how much material will fit into the lecture based on how much interaction I can expect from the class. Interaction is a big variable - I have tonnes of experience timing out talking head material. I should say that my notes are far from detailed - lots of points. Really they keep me from getting off track - sometimes I do that especially when students start asking great questions.

This week, being reading week, is a chance to catch up on all the little tasks I've forgotten as well as prepare my final lectures. I commented to a student that I don't know who is learning more - it is an incredibly enriching experience teaching. You have to be on your toes the whole time (mentally exhausting) and ready for anything. One student even commented, out of the blue, that he could not imagine me without my goatee. That really can throw you when you are expecting a serious question. I shaved it down to my soul patch chin hawk before the next class (mostly for my wife who prefers that look) and shocked him when he came in. Aside from being on your toes for mostly serious questions - I am learning the boundaries of my knowledge. Fortunately, I've long moved past the need to know everything and always have an answer. I'm good at thinking on my feet, but I also think I know when to defer things until I've had a chance to look into it further.

I hope to be blogging a bit more this week.

Tight Squeeze

2011-10-07T08:19:00.001-05:00

Last night Sharon commented that she thought my working would afford us more time together. In fact it feels like we are both still running on opposite schedules. She's getting home just as I need to leave, and vice versa. Last night I was feeling overwhelmed with the need to have today's lecture completed. I was home alone with the kids in the evening and only had notes for half of it (although I really knew what I wanted to cover, the thing is writing it out helps solidify and organize things for me, and it helps me know if my slides and board word work will do the trick). I started getting angry with the kids, much to my shame. After supper they seemed to settle into a tv show and I thought I could sneak down and crank out a few more pages. Not long into it though Chelsea came down to tell me she has homework and needs help. It was an overwhelming moment, I sort of panicked and wanted to write a nasty letter to her teacher (selfish I know). I called my loving wife and she started sharing her own frustrations about being so busy at work that she hadn't been able to eat her meal. That was like a punch in the gut actually. I knew I couldn't write a letter - that was just me taking out my frustration on my family. So I actually took a few minutes to calm down and went to find Chelsea (she went off to play frustrated that she was going to have to drag her math book (who still uses math books???) back tomorrow night to do her homework then). I apologized for my poor behaviour, explained the circumstance and helped her figure out how to do her homework. She was just a bit stuck, so I unstuck her and she was off to the races. I did get to work a bit on my notes while she did the questions she could - but after that I came up and helped her think through the last one. Then she decided to stay up and draw while I did my workout (another stress was that I hadn't gotten to that yet!) then I spent time putting her to bed. After that I realized that Elyssa needed me too - so we spent time with Buttercup Sprinkles (our new hamster) and she told me a long story about hamster facts she is reading. At this point I was no longer worried about my notes. But funny enough, after Elyssa was down I was able to finish most of my notes before Sharon got home. I did end up staying up late - but that is not such a bad price to pay for time with my kids.

Journey Conference is this Weekend!

2011-09-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

I knew taking on two courses would be a lot of work - but two courses and planning a conference - yikes! I am so excited (and glad) that our Journey of the Universe film premiere and conference is this weekend. Registration is really healthy and all of the last minute details are coming together. We have a great line-up of presenters on the Saturday, with the whole emphasis being on the implications of this film. Executive Producer Mary Evelyn Tucker is our keynote speaker and will be with us throughout the conference. I've seen the film already and it is very well done. I am actually really impressed that even though it is carefully not anchored in any religious or spiritual tradition - the film provides ample opportunity for people of faith to find themselves in this story. It is true to Thomas Berry's idea that religions can't offer us the solutions we need, but neither can a solution come that does not include religions. The task for those of us who are devout people of faith and take this cosmology seriously is to find the ways in which our stories are found in the great story of the Universe (or as I like to think of it, the really big picture of how truly amazing Creation is when we stop thinking Creation is just about our planet). In many ways this is the inevitable end of the Copernican revolution - we may assent to a non-geocentric cosmology, but we still often get caught up in our anthropocentrism.

Here is the line up:

Opening comments: Dr. Karlijn Demasure, Dean, Faculty of Human Sciences (Saint Paul University)
Keynote address: Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker

Two sets of two concurrent panels:

Panel A: One Earth: Many Religions

Heather Eaton (Ph.D.) Saint Paul University: Christianity
Iman Ibrahim (MA International Affairs): Islam
James Miller (Ph.D.) Queen’s University: Daoism
Noel Salmond (Ph.D.) Carleton University: Hinduism and Buddhism
Moderator: Frank Emanuel (yours truly)

Panel B: Natural Sciences

Simon Appolloni (Ph.D. cand.) University of Toronto
William David, Senior Policy Analyst, Assembly of First Nations
Aaron Gross (Ph.D.) University of San Diego, Religion and Animals
John Stone (Ph.D.) Carleton University, IPCC
Moderator: Jessica Hetherington (Ph.D. cand.)

Panel C: Spirituality

Cindy Gaudet (M.A.) Metis, Moon Lodge Canada
Miriam Martin (Ed.D.) Saint Paul University, Religious Education
Ian Prattis (Ph.D.) Carleton University emeritus, Zen
Anne Taylor (M.P.S.) Kairos Spirituality for Social Justice Centre
Moderator: Kathryn Guindon (M.Sc.)

Panel D: Social Sciences and Political Action

Tony Clarke, Director Polaris Institute
Joe Gunn, Director Citizens for Public Justice
Elizabeth May MP, Leader, Green Party of Canada
Vern Neufeld Redekop (Ph.D.) Saint Paul University, Conflict Studies
Moderator: Marlene Kelly (gsic), Team member of Kairos Spirituality for Social Justice Centre

Hope to see you there!

Mourning the Loss of our first Family Pet

2011-09-11T16:11:00.000-05:00

Gracie recently celebrated her first year with us. We even baked a hamster friendly cake - honey not sugar and full of the nuts she loved. We had been treating her for an eye infection and she had been quite lethargic as of late. We noticed because she was always so full of life. Even when we were giving her eye drops she never complained or nipped. And she seemed to be pulling through, but yesterday Sharon noticed that she seemed to be getting worse again. She passed away in her sleep, the girls found her in the morning. She looked so peaceful curled up. I found an appropriately sized box which the girls decorated. We all wrote messages for Gracie on the box and placed her in there with lots of shavings, just the way she liked to sleep. We also gave her her salt lick and a wooden heart she had for chewing. I dug a deep hole in the garden (about 2.5 feet) and we spent some time sharing the things we liked most about Gracie, good memories. I loved the way she would crawl all over my arms in the evenings. We capped the burial site with some stones the girls had painted at a vacation bible school they attended this summer. I think they were supposed to make images of Jesus or the cross - but my kids never do what you expect, they had both made pictures of Gracie. So these serve as a fitting reminder of the hamster we loved so much. It is a good opportunity to learn how to grieve together. Hard as that is I think it is an important part of life. Life is fragile. My youngest asked me if I thought Gracie would go to heaven. I asked her if she believed that God loved and cared for all God created. She said she did and I told her that was her answer. I am really aware that what we say about the dead is always for the living - her final words to Gracie were about being happy in heaven. Many, many tears were shed today, and I imagine more will come tonight. Rest in peace Gracie, you will be greatly missed.

Settling in at Saint Paul

2011-09-07T11:16:00.002-05:00

In exactly one hour I will be standing in front of a bit over 30 students talking about what we will do this semester in Introduction to Theology. I'm pretty excited. Just got situated with all my books and finally connected to the new wifi network at the school. Now to get my blackberry setup on the same WIFI so I can control my slides that way - Vectir rocks. If you are in my course, I'll be seeing you soon.

Week One - P90X

2011-08-29T11:12:00.004-05:00

OK I am officially one week into the P90X fitness programme. It is indeed intense. All the standard workouts are fine - I'm using bands to simulate pull ups. Even the squats and lunges, which I'm not so good at, are fine. I didn't do YogaX, simply because I needed a recovery day and wanted to do some restorative yoga that day - so I did an hour of yoga with lots of breathing. Plus it is hard for me to think of yoga as just a fitness practice - I like the spiritual aspect and it was often incorporated into my own personal devotions. I did like StretchX today - which is more like my own practice. Just missed the shavasana and praying at the end. I wasn't too fussy about Plyometrics - my heart rate spiked at 216 in that one, had to sit down! And it was the only one that got my heart rate to go too high. Even KenpoX only had me hovering around 145.

Speaking of KenpoX, that was my least favourite workout. I think I would be more comfortable doing that in a class where I can get some guidance on technique. Yoga was better after practicing in a studio for about a year. Those little adjustments start to build muscle memory so you can just feel when something is not quite right. All through KenpoX I was second guessing my moves, and not getting how they were combining all the movements through the body. I need the moves done in slow motion until I know what is going on - then put them into a practice. It isn't martial arts - I used to do Karate as a youth and loved learning kata. But this isn't kata, it is aerobics with intricate (and I bet helpful) moves.

I've lost 4 pounds this week - 4 good pounds because I'm 4 lower than the low end of my usual weight fluctuations. And the pain of the first couple sessions has subsided - I can really feel the work outs but they aren't killing me anymore. In fact my body is starting to feel good! I need to work on sleep and I also need to adjust diet this week. I was hoping to be further into this before school started back up, but better late than never.

Note: this is my before picture, I'll post another at the next fitness test.

I Must Be Insane

2011-08-23T20:14:00.001-05:00

I started the P90X programme today. Yeah, I still feel the shoulder work out. It actually feels good. I wanted to start this at the first of the month, but Sharon wasn't ready. Seems that after today she still isn't ready but I'm waiting no longer. Tomorrow I do plyometrics - apparently it is pure evil. I'll be doing it on my own too. I'll let you know how it goes, if I just get rid of my belly and am able to resume my regular yoga practice then I'll be happy.

Course Prep Continues

2011-08-10T10:30:00.003-05:00

I finally have ordered both courses and have begun putting the actual lectures together. I'm hoping to keep two lectures ahead of the class. I have an idea for the Intro to theology class that might be a bit tricky to pull off. I want them to read a short snippet from a theologian doing theology from the framework we will be discussing that day. But I do not want them to know who they are reading until we take the article up in class. I'm probably messing with copyright laws to do that - but we'll see what I can pull off. Perhaps I can find stuff that is useful and I can obtain permission to withhold the credit for a week.

I will want an article for each of the following: Historical (descriptive), Political, Liberationist, Feminist, Hermeneutics, Dogmatics, and Biblical. I've laid out the texts I'm drawing the lectures from, but I would think working with actual theological writing will be very helpful for students. I'm determined to make this course something that will serve these students for their whole academic careers - their first methodology course. Should be fun.

I'm getting excited about this coming semester.

Free Will and the Adjustment Bureau

2011-07-29T15:44:00.003-05:00

Not the best film in the world but I felt it was trying to answer a serious question - theodicy. It is trying to explain why so many bad things happen in this world that is supposed to be created by a benevolent and loving God. Or put another way, it is trying to determine the relationship between an interventionist God and human free will. That said it would have been great if they had a theologian help out (if there was one they did a bad job) with the story. What it ends up doing is something I hear a lot from folks when they face trouble or set-backs in life: shouldn't God fix this?

The short answer is always no, and the film does try to go there. But the harder answer is what kind of God are you appealing to? It is a serious and tough question because how you answer it has far reaching implications on our lives of faith. For instance, if you believe that God is never interventionist then what is the purpose of praying? But if you believe God is interventionist (meaning God steps in at will and alters reality) then why does it seem that God only intervenes for rich white Westerners and is oblivious to the poorest of the poor? Conundrums like this are why theologians spend their whole lives on just this problem.

Spoiler Alert: If you want to enjoy the movie you should watch it before reading further - you have been warned.

What kind of God does this movie portray?

This is a God that writes and re-writes "the plan" at will.
This is a God who has angels micro-manage the execution of "the plan".
This is a God who seems to want human free will, but, if Thompson is to be believed, cannot really trust humanity with free will. At least not yet.
This is a God who values reason above emotion.
This is a God who buys into the Enlightenment error that reason alone can give us a perfect society (world).
This is a God swayed by enacted emotion.
This is a God who blames all the evil in the world on free will and all the (so-called) good on God's direct intervention via "the plan".
This is a God who is absent.
This is a God who is male (male angels and God referred to as the Chairman).

I'm not trying to wade through what of this is conflicting, rather what is presented through the film. There may be more you could add, but this gives us a place to start.

Does this sound like the Judeo-Christian God? What is scary is that it sounds a lot like the God that many of my Christian friends understand God to be. They want a God they can blame when things go bad and ignore when things go right. Such a God is about as useless as the Chairman in this film - Matt Damon was right to not respect this God or "his" plan. But in the film the main character is aided and praised for going against God's plan? Worse, to go against this plan for emotional reasons!

So where is God when it hurts? Do we have to fall back on the polarity of interventionist/non-interventionist? supernatural/non-supernatural? I don't think so. But I must admit that sometimes the only answer we get is the one God gives Job - "do you think you could do better?" If the writers of Job were writing this movie they'd be convinced that God wants us to say yes and do it. But that isn't the answer a righteous Job gives. In fact it is not the answer to theodicy any more than to make God some sort of bi-polar cosmic monster.

Personally, I prefer the approach of theologians like Moltmann who find God entering into our pain with us. That approach doesn't mean altering God to fit our expectations - rather it means we meet God as who God is and find the God who not only names our pain but works with us to right the wrongs (Job's tragic tale ends with a righteous Job making right his view of humanity, especially of women.) But that is not the God of the Adjustment Bureau.

Odd Blog Traffic

2011-07-26T09:47:00.004-05:00

I just noticed that the top three referring sites this week have names that lead me to think they are pornographic (and spammy) in nature. I'll resist following up on these links, but for all of you who came here looking for penis extensions and naked people - I think you will be disappointed. On the up side you might find something to better occupy your time.

In the meanwhile I leave you with a comic my friend David aka the Naked Pastor did. Feel free to get up and do a little dance to the song in your head. Oh and David is metaphorically naked, in case you think I'm just trying to redirect you to what you came here looking for.

Thanks for dropping by.

Why I'm a Lucky Guy

2011-07-17T20:11:00.002-05:00

Blessed is probably a better word for it. However you put it, I have a lot to be thankful for. This shot is of my beautiful wife, taken at the cottage of some amazing friends on a vacation that was so good.

Ok enough boasting. I'm home from holidays now, time to buckle down and finish up some loose ends in terms of writing. Grabbed my missing Spirituality books from Matte in Montreal so I'm all set to tackle course prep. Sharon is taking our kids camping for a few days so I will have a few days to get my bearings.

What is Free about the Gospel?

2011-07-11T10:10:00.002-05:00

Driving around I saw a church sign that said: "The gospel is free, you just need to receive it." Clearly free is not a good descriptor here. If it was free then you end up with a universalism which I'm sure is not the intent of the little Baptist church with that sign. So what is free about the gospel?

I actually think the opposite - the gospel is costly.

Not only does it cost receiving it - hardly a passive action. It involves investing your whole life into. Perhaps what bugs me about the free statement is that it promises something it cannot really deliver. What does it mean to receive the gospel? Does it mean some intellectual nod of the head at what God did with little following implications? That hardly fits with any evangelical doctrines of salvation I know about. I'm not advocating a works here - but rather a responsibility. The gospel isn't free, it will demand our whole lives. It is costly.

There is a cost that is paid for - at least in terms of substitutionary atonement - but that is not the part of the gospel that I think we are trying to get at. We are not trying to compare God's cost against ours and say that in comparison what we have to do is pretty much free. I doubt that. In fact if anything the command to take up our own crosses implies that the gospel has the same potential (cost-wise) as it did for Jesus. It could very well demand out lives.

Why do we want it to be stripped of this cost? Do we think that a costly gospel is less appealing? Maybe we sugar coat the gospel and tell people lies like "God has a wonderful plan for your life" in order to con them into the Kingdom. It doesn't work. A costless gospel is not a gospel at all. It is a fatalism, an easy believism, that is not good news at all. What I mean by this is that it is not good news because it has no ability to do anything in the world except lull individuals into a false sense of security. If the gospel is really good news it has to be good news for the whole of creation, anything less undersells God and turns the gospel into a farce.

I think we should drop the lame slogans and return to a costly gospel. That pearl of great price that once you find you are willing to give up everything for. A free gospel is really only worth the price you paid for it - nothing. I have a hard time believing that Jesus would be willing to lay down his life for something so meaningless as a so-called free gospel.

I think the only sense in which we might be able to talk about a free gospel is in terms of money - but even there the gospel makes huge demands on us. Sure I can offer it to you without charging you money. But what I'm offering, when I present the gospel, really demands your everything. And you can bet that will impact your pocketbook at some point. The gospel is costly. I'm actually quite ok with that. Only a costly gospel is worthy of the God who is willing to risk everything for us.

Wedding Prep

2011-07-05T23:06:00.002-05:00

I'm not doing this one, but I am playing at it. My license does not extend beyond Ontario, but my half-aunt Sharon is a Lutheran minister down there. My niece Alex is getting married. I am going to be playing a couple songs in the service though. They wanted something to come down the aisle to and something to go back on. I chose two songs: I'm Yours (Jason Mraz) which is a great song with odd lyrics and Dancing through the Minefields (Andrew Peterson) which was suggested by my buddy Poulsen. I'm actually thinking of doing Dancing for them coming up - but I'll have to work out the timings for how long the walk is. I'm Yours is easy to vamp over so I'll just wing it as they leave. Probably do the two straighter verses and the chorus a few times (extended and simple). Should work fine.

When I started putting this together it made me realize how little I've been playing guitar. But the fingers are hardening up again.

Always busy. Kids are out of school now so it is catch as catch can to get my thesis work done. I need to start prepping classes too. I had loaned out a pile of spirituality books to my buddy Matte in Montreal, I'll have those back soon. Those are mostly the masters level books. I plan on doing quite a bit of reading over the next little while. I'll try to post as I go along though.

Course Prep

2011-06-16T09:09:00.003-05:00

Slow start today, but time for a quick post. I just submitted my required and recommended texts for both Fall courses.

For Introduction to Theology I chose:

Stone, Howard & Duke, James, How to Think Theologically (Fortress, 1996)
Ormerod, Neil, Introducing Contemporary Theologies (Orbis, 1997)
Recommended: Moltmann, Jürgen, Experiences in Theology (Fortress, 2000)

My focus in this course will be methodology. I'm also starting to line up speakers who will come in for up to 30 minutes and share how they do theology within their area of specialty.

For Christian Spirituality I chose:

David Perrin, Studying Christian Spirituality (Routledge, 2007)
Jean Vanier, Becoming Human (Anansi, 1998)
Recommended: Ramón Matínez de Pison, God: From Knowing to Experiencing (Novalis, 2009)

This course is really easy to put together. Perrin's book is a great guide for the first part of the course, but for the reconstructive bit I'm turning to Vanier.

I've gathered all the books I need to prep for these courses. August I'll put together the first 4-5 sessions as outlines with PowerPoint slide decks.

Introduction to Theology (THO 2189)

2011-06-07T20:16:00.002-05:00

This is a dream come true. I was just asked if I could teach this course in the Fall. Literally a dream because when I was in my second year I took this course from one of my favourite profs, and in a dream one night he gave me his course. Freaky eh. I hope I do justice to the excellent course this was when I took it.

Basically this is a course on how to think theologically. I'm looking into textbooks now, I'm thinking of Stone and Duke (How to Think Theologically) and maybe Soelle's Thinking about God. I have eliminated McGrath's text simply because I need something ecumenical.

This was the course where I discovered Moltmann. Trinity and the Kingdom of God was my first introduction and the start of a deep respect for German political theology that influences almost everything I do theologically. I hope I can use it to introduce others to the amazing theologians that will shape their future work. This is the course where it all begins.

Can you tell I'm stoked?

Congress - Where Were You?

2011-05-31T12:37:00.002-05:00

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of new evangelical scholarship at Congress. Congress is a wonderful environment for students and other scholars to share their projects with a wider academic community. It is a place where we can discover new resources, establish key connections and get valuable feedback on our projects. What concerns me is that it seems like such events are no longer a priority for students and professors.

On the student side, there is a need for doing our work amongst our peers. Young scholars can benefit not only from the pool of wisdom at Congress, but from the mere fact of presenting their work to academics outside of their own, sometimes isolated, school experience. In fact sometimes such presentations are the only way we can get the critical distance we need to do our work with academic integrity. Students need to be here.

On the professor side, there is an onus to encourage our students to do the things that will help them develop a career. Attending events like Congress is critically important for developing an academic career. In fact as professors we owe it to our students to suggest excellent papers be submitted to student essay contests. We owe it to them to connect them to research partners and acclimatise them to the academic culture in which they aspire to work. Graduate education is not just about thinking skills - it is about preparing the next generation to encourage the development of our disciplines.

How many of you students ever had a prof tell you how important academic societies are?. How many of you didn't even know Congress was on? How many professors encouraged a student to submit an essay to the contest?

Preparing for Congress

2011-05-26T07:40:00.003-05:00

I fly out Saturday for Fredericton. Congress 2011 is on and I'm attending meetings for the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association and the Canadian Theological Society (of which I'm no the exec). I'm not presenting this year so it will be a different experience, usually when I'm presenting I don't really get to enjoy anything until my moment in the sun is over. I hope to run into some old friends (Kenny you coming?) and make a lot of new ones as well. The highlight though will be hanging with fellow Saint Paul grad student Mike Tapper. Mike has arranged for us to stay with friends of his from when he pastored in that area. It will be a real good chance for me to get to know Mike and encourage him in his academic work. I love that Saint Paul is growing in diversity and having solid Methodist scholars like Mike in the mix is exciting.

If you are coming to Congress drop me a note and we can grab a coffee. I fly in Saturday and leave Thursday. That's me on the left - say hi if you see me.

An Open Letter to Family Radio Worldwide

2011-05-23T11:55:00.002-05:00

I felt I wanted to write and open letter to Family Radio Worldwide in light of this weekend's events. I was prompted by visiting their website and seeing the fruit of this fear campaign - the false declaration that the Bible somehow guarantees a May 21st rapture. You don't have to read far into my blog to know what I think of such proclamations, but it struck me that this just might be a redemptive moment for this ministry. Perhaps they will turn their faces to God and leave behind their fears and join with God's redemptive work in this world. I can hope can I not?

=====

Family Radio,

So sorry that you had to experience the pain of failed expectations this past weekend. I can’t imagine how disturbing that could be. Unfortunately the rest of us Christians have had to put up with your scare mongering for a while now, so in a sense there is a sigh of relief that this is finally over and maybe we can get on with what is really important about the life God has given us. Maybe this could be a moment when you not only re-think your website but your whole ministry. It will be a time when I will lend my prayers to seeing your ministry return to the heart of the gospel – which has nothing to do with escaping the world God so loved. Maybe with this behind you God will inspire you to put your hands to the plough and participate in God’s redemptive work amongst the nations – starting with your own communities. This could be just such a redemptive moment for family radio. I would encourage you to take your considerable passion and turn it to praying, reaching out, feeding the poor, loving your enemies, healing the sick and even binding up the broken hearted. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I find that focusing on those things means I don’t have time to get carried away by speculative scenarios and that I’m sure that whenever Jesus does return I will be found labouring in God’s Kingdom work. Isn’t that what you really wanted in the first place?

I would also encourage you to hire Biblical scholars who actually know how to work with the original languages and are not prone to Gnosticism. That might have saved you from this tragedy. It is obvious that your organization has the ear of a decent and readily motivated group of Christians. How about treating them like the worthy daughters and sons of the Kingdom they are and giving them the best you can? How about bringing in a balance of voices into the conversation as well? Let them challenge you from the Word of God so that you might put your hands to tasks that are worthy and not programmes of fear or hate.

I pray that God will surround you as you decide the next steps for your ministry. Much as I was disturbed by the events of this weekend, I wish no ill for any of you. I hope you will find the courage to use the discovery that you were wrong to craft a humble, God-focused new path for your ministry. I pray that God will be glorified as you embrace the plan of redemption that even rescues ministries from the mire and clay.

in Christ,
Frank Emanuel

American Lust for Certainty

2011-05-20T14:03:00.004-05:00

Apparently Harold Camping's doomsday cult has become convinced that tomorrow is the date of the supposed rapture. I've already declined the facebook invite to join them, so I guess I'll just remain grounded in reality. Aside from the real sadness that I feel over those foolish enough to believe such drivel - this is not entirely unexpected nor is it without precedent in American history. Camping is part of a long line proclaiming the end is near with specific dates. Always calculated by arcane methods that distort the Bible into something that supposedly can give them absolute unassailable certainty. But really this should only serve to highlight the horrible way many of us evangelicals treat scripture. Sure we might thumb our noses at the arrogance of date predictions, but is that really any different than any of the other ways we fashion Scripture into a weapon to beat back and down the very ones Jesus died for? I for one hate it when we do that.

I plan on being here tomorrow, and the next day, in fact as long as the Lord lets me. As long as the Lord gives me breath I plan on challenging the very idolatry of certainty that creates this madness. I hope that when the disappointed followers of Camping realize that he has once again led them astray with false promises - they might see wake up and decide to really serve God. What I mean is that they would give up serving their idol certainty and let God really be God - the only one who actually knows the day and hour.

Lord have mercy.

Value of Family

2011-05-19T08:08:00.003-05:00

Monday we were off to the Ontario Regional Vineyard Leader's Retreat. We do this every year and it is often a high point. This year was no exception. But something was quite different. In years past we've had Gary Best and/or another speaker come and share with us. But this year we shared stories from our communities and prayed intensely over each other. I think it was Ed Kolar who said it was like all the after meeting stuff (that is soooo good) done as the main thing. He was right. We loved on each other, encouraged each other, shared each other's pain and struggles, laughed and hugged, prophesied and prayed. It was so refreshing. Our Andrew's comment was that every conversation led to prayer. What an awesome way to spend three days.

To me this underscores the value of denominational families. When they work well, and to me the Vineyard works very well, they are such a great blessing. I always end up leaving denominational meetings feeling more connected to something much bigger and better than what we are doing on our own. And I've never felt anything but encouragement from this family - even when I've taken risks they would not have. I really love my Vineyard family.

We also really felt supported in the decisions we've made recently to put kinships on hold until September. For now I am going to focus on getting my thesis written. I am even hoping to go up to Brad and Mary Culver's homestead to use one of their retreat huts to be alone and write, write, write. Should be awesome to not have any distractions. Not sure how much time I'll be able to pull off, but it is the plan for this summer. Well, one of the plans.

I feel a lot of hope for the future of Freedom. I think that September will have a lot of new avenues open up for us. We needed a good dose of hope like that. Hope grounded in both a prophetic sense of where God is leading us and also in what God has built into us as a leadership team. It feels a lot like we've shaken off some dust and are able to see where we need to go next. (And finishing my thesis is actually a priority to God's plan as well as our church.) In a real sense I can't wait to see what God does in the fall.

Blogger Ate My Post???

2011-05-13T14:34:00.002-05:00

Hopefully Blogger will restore my post on Pentecostal myths sometime soon.

I am preparing for a retreat next week - Vineyard pastors from all over Ontario. We do this every year and I'm really happy to be going this year. I wasn't going to be able to with my teaching, but that is the one perk about my course being cancelled. Sharon had decided already she was going to go in my place - so this will be the first time in ages we've gone together. I am hoping that through the prayer we will get a renewed sense of adventure to bring with us into whatever the future has for us and our congregation. My youngest daughter is also coming with us - I think she'll have fun. Her older sister is staying with some amazing friends of ours who have a son in her class. We are also taking our leaders Andrew and Lori. I am hoping that God will re-energize them as well. I am also hoping that God will heal them up so that they can minister in the way they want to (both of them have considerable health challenges).

Pray for us. I'll post something when I get back.

Myths About Pentecostals

2011-05-12T13:08:00.000-05:00

Although my course was cancelled (not enough numbers) I thought I'd share a few fun things I learned while prepping it. I'll start with three fun misconceptions about Pentecostalism.

1) Pentecostals are Fundamentalists. I've probably made this generalization myself. But it is completely untrue. Not only did Fundamentalists have a hate on for Pentecostals, their operative eschatology is completely different. At least in terms of Classic Pentecostals, they did adopt a dispensationalist form of premillennialism. But the paradigm was one of restoration and it has a socially optimistic (read revivalistic) orientation. Fundamentalists gravitated to a more pessimistic, Darbyesque version. Fundamentalists were adamant cessationists simply because their view is always one of the world getting worse and worse and threatening the church more and more until the end. Pentecostals saw a church being restored to its place of power and evangelism. They anticipated that this would culminate in a massive revival that would likely be global in dimensions.

Pentecostals also would never take up literalism in the same way as Fundamentalists. Their driving hermeneutic is completely different and their expectation is that the church relies on both Scripture and the Spirit. Contrast this with the Fundamentalists who are holding very modernist claims and relying on the veracity of Scripture as their only proof. Fundamentalist certainty is based on how they construct their argument - evidences that they think demand a verdict. Pentecostals expect more than that - they convince with experience and radical acts of faith. It is wrong to assume Pentecostals are Fundamentalists.

2) Pentecostalism just appears out of nowhere with Azusa. This myth seems to live strongest amongst Pentecostals themselves. The reality is that Pentecostalism is really just the logical progression of the Methodist Holiness theologies that were so popular at that time. Pentecostals articulate their cluster of theologies a bit differently than these Methodist forerunners, for instance tongues was not an evidential aspect of Spirit Baptism for the Holiness groups - but it was a fairly common practice. Pentecostalism is really just a re-configuration of the Holiness movement - and one that has incredible appeal around the world.

3) Pentecostalism is all about ecstatic experiences. This is the thinking behind judgments that Pentecostals are 'holy rollers' or 'Noizerenes'. While ecstatics are definitely a strong part of Pentecostal culture and liturgy - Pentecostalism is actually a readily defined cluster of ideas. This is why, I believe, Pentecostalism has been so adaptive and persuasive. Tongues is not unique enough to define a movement - but theological positions are.

Glaringly Obvious - Once Pointed Out

2011-05-05T13:05:00.002-05:00

Just returned from a visit to my academic director. She has read my first chapter. Probably the least painful visit over a piece of my writing yet. That is encouraging. My issues are not with content or overall logic - but rather with the internal logic of paragraphs. Stuff that I was watching for, but as soon as she points out it is painfully obvious that I missed them. I've talked in the past about being an expansive thinker and the problems this has caused for my writing. Seems I have a real knack for introducing new concepts without explaining them - most of them really interesting concepts. The funny thing is that I am quite a bit more coherent in my lecturing style. But some what makes this difference is that I have learned how to bring a lecture back from a tangent (and recognize that I've departed on a tangent). I am not always the most linear of thinkers. Doctoral dissertations are painfully linear.

I am in good shape to fix up these problems next week, my course was cancelled due to low enrollment. That sucks in a way, but it allows me to accomplish more work on my thesis.

Election 2011

2011-05-03T10:57:00.006-05:00

What a crazy night. People seem to be glad that we will not have another election for four years, but I can't help thinking that Harper has four years to really screw Canada over. Can you tell I'm less than thrilled at a Conservative majority. I actually worked the election as a Deputy Returning Officer (the only other person than you who can touch your ballot) for Elections Canada, so I was busy counting votes and closing down my ballot when the results were coming in (so I did not hear anything). By the time I got to my car to scoot the counted ballots back to Elections Canada they were already announcing a Conservative majority on the radio. But there were clues this would be a dramatic election. We had a lot of folks come in to register at the poll to vote, in fact the poll I ran had over 75% voter participation (even apart from the new registrants). The other indication was that the majority of the voters were older (lots of senior citizens) and the next largest group was young voters, many of whom were voting for the very first time. The poll I was at is in a fairly stable part of the riding (not a lot of transient voters) so I was hoping this youth vote was indicative of the rest of our polls.

Running the poll was exhausting, but a lot of fun. They gave us bottles of this awesome hand sanitizer (I usually hate this stuff) that smelled like Beecham's Black Cough Drops (I used to eat these like candy as a kid, sooooo yummy. Am I the only one who remembers these?) Well the bottles became the subject of endless jokes between our poll and the one across from us. Great group of people to work with. But a lot of work (especially as the DRO).

The one bright spot was the election of Elizabeth May, the first elected Green Party member of parliament. Give em hell May! Not only do I think May will do an excellent job in parliament, this is a new day for my party. I can't help feeling a tremendous amount of optimism for Greens in the future - when our children are old enough to vote things will change dramatically. And I think Greens will be poised to bring about a lot of those changes.

OK, so now it is back to the grind. I'll try my best to live peacefully with the dark blue shadow that has overtaken our land - at least long enough to do my work and hopefully sow the seeds of a brighter tomorrow.

How not to Campaign

2011-04-25T09:50:00.003-05:00

This is the second time I've seen Baird's signs torn down. I was able to snap a picture. Much as I want to see Baird defeated in my riding (and ultimately Harper), I cannot approve of tearing down each others signs. It is almost as bad as the hateful attack ads that Harper's Conservatives have been using. Seriously, this is not the US people.

Now this is more like it - my buddy Richard made me a shirt with this logo on it. How long would I last at a Conservative rally with this bad boy on? Would I even get in? I am appreciating that this current election seems to have motivated folks to reflect and hopefully act! I am also encouraged that the Green party is doing well in several ridings - I really believe we need this important voice in the mix. Frankly I'd like to see even more options enter the fray. I'm hoping for another minority or even a coalition. I want to see politicians govern democratically, not dictatorially. That is what my country is made for (despite the lies Harper spins about our government structures).

Preparation Thursday

2011-04-21T10:10:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is a PD day - which means I will have to keep the kids from messing up all the cleaning I do today to prepare for our annual Good Friday Sensory Service (7PM @ 122 Pinetrail Cres, all are welcome). Click here for a sample of what we've done in the past. This is one of the high points in our communities liturgical year. I am hoping this will not be an exception.

We've had a bit of a turbulent year, both personally and as a community. Last year we celebrated quite a few highs which is always encouraging - but since Christmas there have been quite a few unexpected twists for us. Recently I announced that I would be stepping back from leading kinships (small groups) until at least September. In a sense I feel like this Good Friday we will reflect on the end of one season and prepare our hearts for what comes next. I feel like the contemplation in the garden will have a new significance for us, as well as the reflection on the tomb.

I am hoping to do six stations this year: The Stations of the Cross (hall), the tomb (laundry room), the cross (dining room), the passion (living room), the garden (kitchen), the Eucharist (dining room), and prayer (living room). The tomb is a new one that I'm hoping will work. I am going to blanket off part of our laundry room so that it makes a small closet. I found a website that plays white, pink, and brown noise - I'm hoping that this will allow me to create a sound barrier so that when you go inside this make-shift closet and close the door - you are in the dark of the tomb. I will put a chair in there for those with mobility issues and a small table with aromatic oil (probably oregano). I'm hoping to get the kids to make a huge picture of a stone to cover the outside of the door.

This year I'll be switching out the clay for a cross craft that Sarah put together. I'll leave the mirror intact. She has been good at making little take aways for these services, the belonging book marks from a few years ago were awesome.

If you are free Friday night and want to experience something a little different - please join us.

Getting my Head Around Complicated History

2011-04-20T20:38:00.002-05:00

I'm prepping a course for May on Pentecostal/Charismatic movements in the 20th century. The frustrating thing is that I'm not sure I'll get the numbers I need to run it. I need 10 students minimum and am pretty close. The thing is I've spent most of this week intensely preparing for the course and will probably use most of next week doing the same. It is fascinating and all - but if I end up not teaching the course then I basically wasted a lot of time prepping something that isn't going to run. And it is complicated - just getting my head around all the different holiness groups that predate classic Pentecostalism is a job and a half.

I did try to choose something strategic in proposing this course - but I might have had an easier time putting together something I've been researching recently. Over the years I've tried to keep up on Pentecostal scholarship - and there is some good scholarship to keep abreast of - and I do take a particular eschatological focus in my own theology that I owe in part to my own Pentecostal heritage. But it is one thing to read Dayton's Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (for instance, it's one of the many I've been re-reading) for interest and quite another thing to read it to flesh out lecture material.

Hopefully I'll find out soon if the course will go or not. What to take a history course May-June? It is going to be a lot of fun. If I don't then maybe I can pitch the course to another school. Hmmmmmm.

Voting - Green and Proud

2011-04-19T09:06:00.003-05:00

I'm thinking a lot about the election this year. It is another chance for us Greens to get some representation. I am convinced, especially talking with young people, that it will be a watershed moment. Even if we just get one in - it will give a sense of legitimacy to the party for those on the fence about voting Green. I keep hearing the tired old - you are going to waste your vote speech, and it is simply untrue. First off, much as I think Harper is a slimy PM - voting to get someone out is irresponsible. We should take democracy much more seriously. Weigh the issues and vote someone in who represents our views. If no one matches - do what I did and join the party you most align with and be party of their policy development. Second, our system might not be proportional representation but it does reward every vote with money to improve the parties chances on the next election. And finally it sends a message - the more votes that your party gains the more people will realize that any party can make it. Heck if the Alliance party can make it (devouring the Conservative party in the process) then why not Greens?

Much as I dislike the idea of Harper anywhere near the Hill - I'm voting Green because I still believe in democracy.

Whoever, you decide to vote for - I encourage you to vote.

Shifting Priorities

2011-04-15T16:55:00.002-05:00

It has been a year since I left seminar to write my doctoral thesis. I know that some people take many years to do it, but I need to get it done fast. But a year later and I had not even finished my first chapter. My director kicked my butt a bit and I made some hard decisions.

First I took a sabbatical from the church. I broke the news last night and it seemed to go ok. I know that once the kids get out of school then my time to work will become much more precious. Family has to be a priority - my goal is not just to get a PhD, but to do it and still have my family at the end. Both of those take time and with Sharon working it means that we'll have to keep to a schedule. I also think it will be a good experience for the church. I've been at this for ten years now, without a break. The church needs to see if they want to be church enough to do it without me. My intention is that in September I'll gather whoever wants to come over to my place and pray about what God might want to do next with us. It is also a good chance for those who are struggling with the Vineyard aspect of our church to pray about whether or not they belong in Freedom Vineyard. I am proud of my denomination and so whatever the community that forms around me looks like, it will be in relationship with the Vineyard.

The other thing I have done is cut my gaming in half. I was DMing every week and it was getting to be a bit much. It is fine when I have lots of material to use, but when they start getting through it I can lose up to a day getting the next bit prepared. Richard is going to take over DMing in one of my groups so I will get to play for a change. Best thing about that is I just have to show up with my character (and it will still be at my place).

On the more busy side though - I am prepping my first full course. What a lot of work! I have a literal pile of books to read and I've got slides ready for the first two lectures. Only nine more!

And the best news is that yesterday morning I mailed a complete draft of my first chapter to my director! It was a great feeling, I know now this is doable. I also was able to map out the work ahead of me - which is helpful. Chapter 3 is the only one right now that I have a lot of reading for. I'm going to read Tim Harvie's Ethics of Hope for that one - I'll definitely post a review.

Ubuntu FTW!

2011-04-05T20:47:00.002-05:00

What a frustrating day! We've been having a string of things breaking. Our car's tensioner rod broke (as if I know what that is, it has to do with the belt and costs way too much!) One of my kids broke the stair railing, I fixed that already. And I suspect it was also one of the kids that has broken the back of one of our dining room chairs??? This is all on top of Sharon's mom still not healing properly from her hip operation. I wee bit stressful here. Oh and my parents are coming tomorrow so we've been cleaning up a storm - you should see how tidy my office is!

With all of that I was not prepared for today. Actually it started last night. Sharon called me in because the computer would boot just so far into WinXP and then the whole machine would reboot. In safe mode it kept dying on the same .sys file - so I thought I'd just kill that file and see if that helped. Of course I can't find a way to get onto the computer because it will not boot. I found a bootable disk image with all kinds of rescue tools - $10US. An hour or so later I am ready to get the machine up. Only problem is that the files I want to save are all on an NTFS partition. OK so NTFS4DOS to the rescue and I manage to move them to the partition that I know is good. But I still cant get anything off the computer??? I think it was 1:30 when Sharon came down not able to sleep - I was a zombie so I shuffled off to bed.

Soon as I get the kids off I go to work. I have a few IDE drives around, but again NTFS and I realize the xcopy is not doing more than one file at a time - even with wildcards. Thus my backup? Who knows how effective it was. This is when my friend Becky tells me she has a SATA/IDE to USB device I can borrow. It is a pretty cool tool. Too bad neither WinXP nor Win 7 would mount the drives properly. So I need more options.

I was looking at Ubuntu the night before, but thought this could be a lot of time for nothing. I downloaded the .iso for a bootable CD and what do you know - I waste my only 700MB CD-R and about 8 DVD-Rs before giving up. I couldn't get the faulty machine to boot off a USB key, so I formatted an SD card. It was an option. But it wouldn't actually boot from it??? In fact after the first failure the machine refused to boot at all! So I brought the thumb drive into the office, loaded Ubuntu onto my netbook. Plugged in the hard drive with Becky's gadget and managed to copy the church financial records and music database. I even snag mine and Sharon's doc folders! But then the drives crashed and I couldn't remount them??? Oh well, at least I had the most important stuff.

Relieved to get that much I packed everything up and went to make supper. That was my whole day. So much for getting work done on my thesis.

After supper I tried the evil machine again and managed to get Ubuntu up and running. I even have full access to the hard drive! I am letting people check their mail.

Down to Business

2011-03-31T08:57:00.002-05:00

I know I've been very slow at posting here lately. In addition to trying to stay on task with my thesis I also have been experiencing a fair number of crises lately. The one most pressing on our family is with my mother-in-law who broke her hip almost a month ago. Three surgeries later and she is doing much better, but it has been a long hard run. Lots of thinking, tears and anxiety have been met with prayers, perseverance and the comforting wishes of friends. But I have accomplished a few things in the meanwhile.

I posted about my struggles with adult ADHD recently and have since managed to see a psychiatrist who seems well versed on the matter. I'm very hopeful that this will work. He also was clear that diet and exercise are critical to dealing with ADHD. Stuff I knew but didn't want to have to deal with. Sugar is your enemy. I decided to leverage Lent and give up candy - which is sort of my thesis writing comfort food. I'm also trying to limit other sources of sugar, but it is not always easy. He wanted me to give up alcohol too, but considering I have maybe a beer a week and the odd glass of wine with a meal I decided to not do that one. But I have managed to get back to the yoga mat more consistently. It is important to take care of yourself when you are doing hard mental work.

So if you don't see me posting all the time you will know why. I hope to return to posting soon, especially as I begin prepping my summer course on Pentecostal/Charismatic movements in the 20th Century.

Mourning the Loss of Another Friend

2011-03-24T19:15:00.003-05:00

I've been really swamped with stuff in our community and just plain living of life. This week brought some more sad news as an old friend passed away. Brian and I shared a house when I first moved back to Ottawa. He was house sitting and I got to stay when I left Mississauga. Mississauga was a hard time for me and having a safe haven in Ottawa let me get back on my feet again. I loved that we prayed and worshipped together in that house. I know I was a frustrating roommate, pretty naive about a lot of things. Brian letting me stay with him was a real provision from God.

I lost touch with Brian over the years. I would get updates from our mutual friend Joyce. Joyce even arranged the one dinner where Brian met my wife Sharon and I got to meet his wife Cindy. I always felt like I would reconnect with him at some point, but that will not happen now. Brian is leaving behind a wife and three children (the youngest is 7) and there is a funeral tomorrow. If you are the praying type comfort is my heart for his family.

THO 2176: Thinking in Tongues

2011-03-14T12:57:00.004-05:00

I now have copies of the Summer evening course schedule for Saint Paul. Despite having my last name misspelled, I am so excited. The course is primarily historical in content. It will begin with the classic Pentecostal movement, looking at its roots and manifestations. Then we will look at the Charismatic movements with a special focus on the Catholic Charismatic movement. Lastly we will look at the neo-pentecostal movements and what I would like to call Pentecostal futures. Pentecostalism is growing and pervasive, it really needs to be examined seriously. I'm excited to have an opportunity to do so with a class this summer. Students and auditors are welcome and you can beat the end of term rush by signing up now with the faculty of theology at Saint Paul University.

HT to James K. A. Smith for the course title - this is the title of his book which is part of the excellent Pentecostal Manifestos series put out by Eerdmans.

Still Foundational

2011-03-11T12:27:00.002-05:00

I was asked to speak at Dominion-Chalmers United Church yesterday. They are doing a Thursday noon devotional series for Lent. The question they asked me to speak on was what difference does the call to be a disciple of Jesus make to my ministry/vocation. What a great question. It is very similar to my buddy Mike's recent question about why I felt I needed to be a pastor. Mike is quick to call me on magic words like feeling called, those words really don't get at the heart of what is really being asked. And really, vocational callings, if they are really callings and not simply aspiration, can bear the scrutiny that is required to fulfill them wisely. So I've been thinking of this quite a bit recently. What difference does it make? Why is Jesus so important? And what does it mean to be a disciple? It didn't surprise me that exploring this took me right back to the story of how I ended up on this Christian journey - what evangelicals like to call their testimony.

I don't like telling my testimony. My issue is that I'm a fairly dramatic crisis oriented person (a la William James) so many evangelicals think I have a great testimony. But I get concerned that we evangelicals can fall in love with the dramatic stories and miss that God meets us all uniquely. The worst case is when evangelicals feel compelled to embellish their stories - that makes me sad. Our culture can be quite elitist and does not value the experience of the prodigal's older brother who loved God from early on. I know some of those people and that they are often made to feel quite inadequate in evangelical conversations. So I just stopped. So it was with a bit of fear and trepidation that I shared some of those stories with the DC crowd yesterday. And thankfully it seemed to really hit a good chord with the folks who shared with me after the talk.

The thing that connects for me is that in my story I see a repeated motif. The motif is that I find myself confronted with a choice between a life that is meaningless, merely going through the motions, and a life that makes a difference in the world beyond my self. In one my response has always been to seek escape, but in the other I feel compelled to put my hands to the work that is before me and not look back. And always in my life, at the center of these moments of decision, is the person of Jesus Christ.

Some of that centering on Jesus has to be attributed to growing up in the United Church in Truro, going to Sunday school and, as I discovered later on in life, having people praying over me and my family throughout my whole life. So it shouldn't be surprising, in my case, that Jesus would figure large in the critical decisions of my life. But for me it is not only a sense of Jesus asking me to choose to be a disciple, it also means that in my effort to walk that out I have found it most meaningful when I turn to Jesus as the author and perfecter of my faith.

When I try to center my life around Jesus I find that there are things I naturally want to do. Two in particular form the basis of my vocational choice: community and encouragement.

In terms of community, I don't think I'm particularly good at building community, but I love it. And I love that Jesus continually welcome people to the table. I see in Jesus a passion for community, hanging out with people, engaging in the messiness that is relationship. And even though I'm really an introvert - I crave this enough that I go about creating it wherever I can. So if you ever wondered why I love this so much - blame Jesus. But seriously, this part is the challenge for me. And I still have tonnes to learn about community, but as a vocation it is something I'm ready to devote my life to.

The second is why I have spent so much time, energy and even money, becoming a theologian. I love to see people come alive in their lives. I love to see them connect how their lives can make a difference in this world. I love to encourage people. Now, I'm not a big yes man. I'm particularly hard on spiritualities that are so inward focuses they are merely masking an effort to escape meaninglessness. And part of encouragement is pushing people to be better. I take that seriously. If I were to say what I am called to it would be to help people engage in their spirituality better. And the reason for that is rooted in a lot of things - but probably most significantly in the fact that this is what people who loved me did for me.

When I put Jesus at the center of the second vocational choice I am constantly reminded of how uniquely he treated every situation/person that came across his path. Jesus had an amazing ability to draw people to think about things better. People made radical decisions when Jesus was around. They stepped out and did things that really bugged those who loved the status quo. I aspire to that. It gives me hope that this choice is a good way to imitate Jesus, after all at the core of being a disciple is being more like Jesus.

I'm glad the talk went well. Even traveling in there I thought it could go either way. I took a risk, and am glad it struck a chord. I hope that chord keeps resonating throughout this Lenten season.

Book of the People and People of the Book

2011-03-03T12:08:00.003-05:00

As promised I wanted to blog a bit about the sessions I did for Knox Presbyterian here in Ottawa. First off I really enjoyed the engaged conversation we had the last night, what a great group of people. I hope that I was able to stir up a dynamic conversation around our relationship to and with the Bible. I think this is one of the more important areas for contemporary Christians to wrestle with.

My strategy was to spend the first night deconstructing how we understand our relationship with the Bible and then the second night reconstructing it, hopefully with a better understanding of what we desire Scripture to do in our faith and communities and with a better understanding of how we might have placed restraints on the text. Both are needed to make this work, so I was quite happy with the number of folk who took in both sessions.

In terms of deconstruction I went about turning the assumptions we often make about the Bible into the questions we should be asking. So when we assert that the Bible is authoritative we need to ask in what way is the Bible authoritative? These are not natural questions to ask of our primary, as Protestant Christians, symbol. In fact when we look at our feelings we can often find ourselves wanting to defend our claims rather than examine them. This actually shows us how foundational the Bible is to our spirituality and even identity. The fear is that if we begin to dig deeply into those foundations our whole sense of self might come tumbling down. I think in some ways that fear is true. But there is a risk in not doing it - the risk is that we will discover eventually that we might be building on those foundations in ways that actually are not faithful to our claims about the Bible being foundational to our lives and communities. It is not pretty when folks make this realization on their own.

At the end of the first night we left presented two questions to mull over until the second session. First, how does the Bible shape us? Which is the safe question in some ways - but I think it can help reveal the ways in which we resist having our lives shaped by the Bible. And second, how do we shape the Bible? I love the anecdote from Free for All (Conder and Rhodes) about the biblical scholar who is asked to tell a congregation what the Bible says about homosexuality. He sits the Bible on the pulpit and waits. When nothing happens he declares that the Bible doesn't say anything about homosexuality on its own - it needs to be read and reading is an act of interpretation. This is the piece the seems to bug us most - when we challenge the myth that the Bible somehow mediates itself. Which, if this were actually a quality of Scripture, would not result in the vast array of interpretations that Christians hold onto. The hard part about this is to know what we are bringing to the text when we read it. Sometimes we don't even know. Both of these questions are ones we can return to over and over again. But where deconstruction is helpful to reveal the true character of our existing relationship with/to the Bible - the reality is that a spirituality without the Bible really has a tenuous claim to being Christian.

When we are rebuilding our relationship - we need to pay attention to what we expect and desire from a relationship with Scripture. For many of us that encounter with Scripture was the place of encountering the Word behind the word. In fact the way it is described is transformative, and I think that aspect of the relationship is always worth preserving. The genius of the devotional reading of Scripture captures this aspect nicely. While it is not the same thing as Biblical Criticism (or even Bible study for that matter) it serves a valuable function because it insists that the text remain dangerous. By dangerous I am referring to capacity of this encounter with the content of the text as challenging to our own ideas and views. It is exactly the opposite of what is practiced so much in preaching - where the text is used to support our ideas. The devotional reading is meant to confront us, challenge us, and spur us on towards love an good works.

The other problem with devotional readings though is that it is an intuitive process. We often do not reflect on how much we bring to the spiritual practice of devotional reading, so like Augustine, we can find ourselves doing what we think is the right thing but in actuality is not right at all. Think about slavery for instance - both sides of the slavery debate rested on the foundation of the Bible. Today, I'm certain, most of us would hold slavery to be unconscionable. But this is a relatively new development. And what shaped the position for the stakeholders was their presuppositions about the humanity of the people who were being trafficked as slaves. While we cannot know what we don't know - in terms of all our assumptions - we can find help in a second way of relating to the Bible - Biblical study.

Bible study should not be conflated with devotional reading. If we can make this distinction then I think we can ease a lot of the fears about Biblical criticism. We can also insist that more critical Biblical study needs to be in conversation with the devotional reading that animates the community. In our example of slavery it wasn't Biblical study that changed hearts and minds - it was a shift in the assumptions that were being brought to Scripture. But Biblical study can then take up its task in light of both the contemporary situation and the historical witness of text and tradition. Often a process that strengthens our capacity to relate to the Bible in a healthy way.

In our talks we took this conversation one other place. The remaining problem is where this conversation is worked out. I proposed a reflection on the community as the place of interpretation. Certainly we are not all accomplished Biblical Scholars, but some in our communities do possess such skills. What we can do is wrestle together. We can draw on whatever depths there are in our communities - but also with the understandings of those who are interacting with the needs of the community and society. We can foster conversations that challenge us as the people of the Book to live out what we discover in the Book of the people.

Game Summit 2011 - So Good!

2011-02-27T11:42:00.004-05:00

I wanted to post this right after the Summit but life took a strange turn. I think it is important that I share a bit about the conference and how it worked so well for our family this year. As I mentioned before Sharon took the kids over on the Friday night while I DMed my regular D&D game. What I didn't expect was that Sharon would be stoked to go back the next morning. She had a great time. Saturday we all went over and played Kinder Bunnies, gave up on a pirate game and played a doodle game with Ken and Aeron. So much fun. Sharon and Chelsea left around 2PM so Elyssa and I ate hot dogs for lunch while playing giant chess! She found her groove painting minis - she is really good - and I played Alien Frontiers with some of my friends. Not a bad game, but a bit on the geeky side. They dug into a version of Powergrid after that but I wanted to do some shopping - both box sets of Killer Bunnies Ultimate Odyssey for $40 (that is six decks and goodies). Sharon came and picked us up a bit after 5PM so she could go snowboarding with our friend Cindy. BTW KB Ultimate Odyssey is not bad.

The next morning Sharon wanted to come again! But she had to work and it was better for her to rest up after a string of very busy days. I took off with the kids for a final day of gaming (and yes I did make my speaking engagement at Knox that night, I'll blog about that soon). The kids started out painting, Chelsea got cut off early as she is fast and not near as meticulous as Elyssa. I jumped into a demo of Small World - such an awesome game. At first the mechanics seem a bit Risk-like (I'm not a big fan of Risk) but way better. And the game is also somewhat friendlier - a person is going to get a new race anyway so it is not as bad when you go after their territories. I thought Elyssa might like this game and with Chelsea playing Carcassonne, Jenga and Guess Who? with a new friend, we had enough time to start a second game. The picture above is from that game. Sunday is also the garage sale, I bought Pipework which is a cute little card game - we have a tonne of these card games and they get a fair bit of play in our house - and Khronos which was $20. Haven't tried it yet, it is too geeky for Sharon.

Now I can't wait until next year. The only complaint I heard was the registration system on-site did not seem secure (credit cards). We had pre-paid so it didn't effect us but one of my tech savvy friends was a bit shocked. I would definitely encourage you to go next year - pre-register so you can pay in cash at the door (or better yer purchase you passes online before the event! Game Summit is definitely worth it. I can definitely see it outgrowing the Nepean Sportsplex.

Saddened by the Loss of a Friend

2011-02-23T08:47:00.003-05:00

I still am having trouble believing the news, Rob Hall was killed in a tragic accident Monday. I got to know Rob through the regional Vineyard leadership gatherings. He was a leader that many of us highly respected and valued. I was really excited when Rob announced their plans to travel the world with kids in tow. Sounded so amazing, no one expected it would be so costly. Rob leaves behind his wife Kate and three young children. I can't imagine how they are dealing with the situation. They are still in Africa where the accident happened, and Rob died serving people. My prayers will be with Kate and the kids and my heart feels broken for the loss of a friend.

Game Summit this Weekend!

2011-02-17T21:34:00.005-05:00

I'm pretty stoked for Game Summit this weekend. I was hoping to actually put something together, maybe run a game or help my daughter run one, but not this time. However, it seems that we might all go over as a family for some of it and try out some new games together. One of the things I love to do with my family is play games - the kids are finally old enough to play fairly complex games, for instance my 8 year old loves Killer Bunnies!

Tomorrow is a PD day, so the kids are off. Game Summit starts in the evening, but I have my regular D&D (Rathbone) game. Sharon might take the girls over though which will be very cool. We are hoping to find something to do Monday too (Family Day), last year we went ice fishing but I don't think that will work this year - too warm.

Sunday night I'm delivering part two of my series on our relationship with Scripture called the Book of the People. The group at Knox Presbyterian were really engaged with the topic two weeks ago, I think we will have a great conversation this Sunday night too. Speaking of Presbyterians, my buddy Wayne is presenting his thesis proposal tomorrow morning. Another one from my seminar is about to launch out into the deep waters of writing a thesis.

A Perspective Worth Thinking About

2011-02-16T18:55:00.002-05:00

I understand this brave woman was asked to remove this video to retain her good standing with her church (LDS) that makes me sad. I am often frustrated by the ridiculous argument that same-sex marriage will somehow undermine the legitimacy of heterosexual marriage.

Cyborgs are Coming

2011-02-13T10:36:00.003-05:00

It has been very eventful these last few weeks. The first talk at Knox went quite well and I'm still putting together the second one. Unfortunately though, my mother-in-law took a tumble and is now a cyborg. Having a close family member in the hospital means a lot more organizing. I think every one of us is tired out. In the midst of this there is so much to be grateful for. Sharon's mom actually managed to crawl to a phone with a broken hip! (Yeah I had been after her to wear an alert device already) I gave up on the ADHD treatment about a month ago, the cost wasn't worth the benefits, but am working through some cognitive stuff with a counselor. And despite a few days of unwriting (trimming the extraneous bits from my thesis) I'm making good progress on it - my goal is chapter one by the end of the month! Also our friends' two year old is making a miraculous recovery from a horrible car accident - he's got a long road ahead of him but it has been amazing to hear the reports. And Egypt, holy mackerel. We are going to celebrate with some Egyptian friends this afternoon. Lots to be thankful for.

Upcoming Talks @ Knox Presbyterian

2011-01-27T14:04:00.003-05:00

In February I've been asked to come and speak to the congregation of Knox Presbyterian in Ottawa. I will be sharing for two nights, Feb. 6th and 20th, on the relationship we have with scripture. The official title is The Book of the People, which is a shortened from what I was originally thinking: The Book of the People; the People of the Book. The phrase People of the Book comes from my Muslim friends, it is a way I've heard them describe Christians and Jews. But what strikes me about it is that I am convinced that Christians are becoming less and less the People of the Book - meaning that the importance of scripture is waning. It isn't that there are less appeals to scripture, it has to do with the role of scripture in our midst. Scripture is not seen as the authority, but is used to validate authority. What I mean by that is that scripture is used to bolster our pet ideas and make our ideological stances with little regard for the text itself. It is used as a tool. I think this is backwards. Scripture isn't a tool. Scripture is much more dangerous than that. It's authority should come not from our ability to bolster our pet ideas with proof texts (often torn out of context) it should come from scriptures ability to transform our thoughts and actions. Book of the People should not mean that Scripture is at our mercy, but that we should be the people who are shaped by the book. But we do this by relating to the Book - so ironically it never stops being the book of the people (which it always has been - even when it was written it was written as the book of the people) provided that we always remain the people of the book (the people who's identity and orientation are shaped by the Bible).

Join us, I'll spend the first night talking about what has happened that has shaped our relationship to scripture as it is today. The second night I want to look at at least two strategies that folks are using to challenge the form our relationship with text has taken. Those two are a return to text as story and a return to the notion of communities of interpretation. These are not the only strategies, but they open up hope for new shapes of our relationship with scripture.

Game Summit!

2011-01-23T11:44:00.002-05:00

Last year I took my daughter and her friend for a whole day of gaming. So much fun. My daughter even won a copy of Monopoly City. This is a very friendly atmosphere, which is different for a gaming conference. Consider hanging out with us this Family Day Weekend!

HP Lovecraft

2011-01-20T09:15:00.003-05:00

I recently gave a very brief review of my pick for book of the year. Of course I had to pick an unusual suspect cause this year I've been jazzing on Cthulu Mythos by the creator himself - Howard Phillips Lovecraft. HP died 30 years before I made my entrance onto the stage called life, but his work really resonates with me. First of all he writes horror when horror wasn't about slashers and gore and gross out factor. Rather, HP writes in layers, layers of "I don't dare continue the story ... but I must!" It is, as I said at Julies blog, delicious. I think the reason it resonates so strongly with me is that as a theologian I have the inquisitive nature of the academics in Lovecraft's novels and I traffic in the world of mystery, depth and even the unthinkable things that keep me up at night. I know the drive of not being able to let go of an idea even if it challenged the very foundations of the beliefs I hold so dear.

Longing for Middle Ground

2011-01-17T10:44:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is to polarize issues. A recent blog post over at the Ontario ThoughtWorks blog has sparked a conversation regarding the content of one of our courses. I had to admit that the course was not one I'd investigated much - I know the couple that developed it and appreciate them greatly. For me the thing that comes out strongly is that I really believe there can be a middle ground - a place where a variety of approaches and views and actually sharpen each other and bring out the best in each other. So I'm reticent to speak ill of any contribution that seems to be bearing good fruit - and even to struggle to find the fruit that its participants claim to see.

My buddy Mike came over and we were talking along similar lines. To paraphrase one of his observations, it is easy to employ cynicism to tear apart views we dislike, but harder to find out what it is in those views that is compelling. For me the compelling aspect is much more interesting than whether a view is right or wrong - and I am less and less convinced that right and wrong exist outside of contextual realities. Sorta like when Scot McKnight says that God's wisdom led God to inspire misogynistic scriptural texts - it is equally plausible that this is mere cultural capitulation and not a product of God's inspiration at all. (See Blue Parakeet, p.157.) But then we get into the whole debate about different views of inspiration and fall into that same trap of needing the one right thing instead of living in the tension of a reality that is much more messy than black and white will ever convey. What is compelling to me is why McKnight wants to frame it the way he does - and I think that has something to do with the way he understands tradition.

The reality is that sometimes the fruit isn't worth the cost. At some point that needs to be faced - but I think it can only humbly be reached when both sides are fairly heard. And I think that good methods and views can be horribly used - so having the high ground in a debate does not imply responsible application. Life gets pretty messy - which I why I long for the middle ground, the radical middle as some have called it. I know it is not always a realistic position - but it is where I feel the conversation needs to rest at least long enough for the polarized positions to be shaped by the other views.

Call for Papers - CETA

2011-01-13T09:17:00.001-05:00

Call for Papers:

Canadian Evangelical Theological Association
Annual Meeting

University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University, Fredericton
May 29, 2011

The Executive of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (CETA) welcomes proposals for papers to be presented at the May 29, 2011 Annual Meeting to be held in conjunction with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University in Fredericton.

CETA encourages submission of high quality papers on any topic of theological relevance to Canadian Evangelicalism. The theme for this year’s Congress is Coast and Continents: Exploring People and Places (www.congress2011.ca). Papers which address this theme in relation to Canadian Evangelicalism are encouraged.

Papers should be scholarly but not highly specialized presentations aimed at an audience of scholars from across the spectrum of theological disciplines, including biblical studies and historical, systematic, moral and pastoral theology. Proposals from graduate students are welcome.

Proposals should be approximately 250 words in length and should be accompanied by a short CV. To facilitate anonymous review of proposals, please include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information on a separate page from your paper proposal. All proposals should be submitted electronically to the address below in either Word or PDF format by January 31, 2011. Please entitle your email "CETA 2011 Paper Proposal." Papers chosen for participation will be notified by March 1, 2011.

Email all conference paper proposals to: Dr. Jeffrey McPherson
President, Canadian Evangelical Theological Association

Evangelical Honesty?

2011-01-12T10:39:00.002-05:00

Why is it that when evangelicals find a kindred spirit in another evangelical they say that person (or ministry) is thoroughly biblical (or biblical with some other choice adjective). Wouldn't it be more honest to say that you agree with their interpretation of Scripture rather than making the quite arrogant claim that the person (or ministry) in question is the one true (infallible) interpreter of scripture. Isn't it really the fact that you agree with them that you are trying to communicate? The frustrating thing is that if even 1% of those who claim to be biblical are right then we really have no clue what is the correct interpretation. And actually that is the point. The appeal to being biblical shouldn't be applied to theology, ministries and definitely not people. Sure a person can be a passionate reader and interpreter of the Bible - but then say that. I really respect folks who are passionate about the Bible. But until we get over this inflated notion of our own infallibility we will continue to unjustly use our interpretations to belittle and exclude others - and by others I mean those whose views are actually closest to our own.

OK rant mode off. I'll go back to reading a book about a person who the preface author happens to agree with and is probably just as thoroughly biblical as anyone else making that claim.

Course this Summer - THO 2176

2011-01-04T13:59:00.002-05:00

I am offering a course at Saint Paul University this Summer called Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. It falls under the course code THO 2176 - Selected Topics in Christian Thought I. I was hoping they would choose this course (I had proposed three courses). Summer courses need to have a bit of zing to them, it is hard to compete with the Sun! When I have my syllabus put together I'll let folks know. If you ever wanted to take or audit a class at Saint Paul - this could be just the one for you. Saint Paul is a really great learning environment.

Unity and Diversity of Evangelical Biblical Hermeneutics

2011-01-03T13:16:00.002-05:00

I really enjoy the little book edited by Robert Johnston The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options. Here is a bit of a teaser from his introduction.

Although understandable, "the longing for a tradition that will make sense out of our evangelical tower of Babel, the recoil from self-serving exegesis, and the dissatisfaction with the miserable and stultifying parochialism of much evangelicalism" should not cause us to opt for an authoritative creed (and an authoritative church resting behind the creed). For which creed is to chosen, and why? Or which Church Fathers are to be thought correct? Peter Abelard once illustrated the diversity of viewpoints among the early Fathers by citing one hundred and fifty examples in which they widely disagreed. Among the myriad of creeds and confessions that have been written, there simply is no univocal testimony.

R. Johnston, The Use of the Bible in Theology, 9.

I will be spending a lot more time with this book in the future. It is brilliant that it captures a sense of the range of methodologies and struggles within evangelical theologies - as each attempts to contribute a faithful biblical theology that is honest about its preconceptions.

Eco-friendly? Well I definitely try.

2011-01-02T10:33:00.004-05:00

I saw this pic at failblog and found it profound actually. In some ways all our attempts to be eco-friendly will fail, and as someone who tries really hard it is so depressing when you find out something you thought was a good response still has troublesome implications. The problem, as I see it, is that we keep looking at solutions at a micro or individualistic (atomistic) level - but the problems are really all at a macro level. So the only really adequate solution is a macro solution - that is to change the way we think and behave on a grand scale. While transforming individuals' patterns of behaving is helpful - it will not stem the time of the ecological destruction that marks our era. The ironic thing is that without the individual change - macro change won't happen. So we are left with the honest frustration of this table.

My friend Kadry sent me his new years wishes for an "environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress year". I think he nails something really important that gets at the notion of macro. The response is not a simple one. It can't just be summed up in "do this" or "don't do that". It has to be a radical change in how we think, and it is more complex than any of us want to hear. But it will never happen as long as we treat that complexity with a stress response. And that is what I tend to do. I tend to let it overwhelm me. I know for some it leads to apathy, but not me - it is worse, it leads to a sort of anxiety that cripples my response. Simply because I do care and have become convinced that God cares too (and that God cares if we care, which is part of what I think needs desperately to happen in many of our hearts). So how do we craft a good news in the face of our day?

This is where I think the force of hope has to come into play. Without hope we cannot respond. I know I don't have the energy in me. I find it hard to face the fact that I might be complicit in yet another evil even when I am doing what I think is the good. Like I said, I don't have the energy in me. But I am convinced that God does. Here is where hope, for me, has to be coupled to something bigger than ourselves. Hope has to be rooted in One that is at work throughout the world working redemptively and gracefully towards the future that only God can imagine. And hope says that we get to participate in that. Hope says that all our mistakes will be subsumed into an overwhelming trajectory towards the God who not only holds together all things, but longs for the best in all things - and for those of us who place the cross at the center of this - is willing to pay whatever cost is necessary to see that joy unfold one day. Hope isn't about waiting, but it is about participating in a meaningful way. Hope is never fatalistic, it is always enthusiastic - filled with God.

So my wish for us all, this new year, is the same as my friend Kadry's. May we all have an "environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress year", that is a year in which hope overcomes all the stresses we experience when we work for the good in a world that is so in need of good news.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T00:10:00.001-05:00

Just tucked in the last of my girls. My wife went to bed earlier, tired from a busy couple of days, so I played Killer Bunnies with the girls until 3 minutes to midnight. We did the countdown with the TV and I tucked them in. All is well. We got out for an early fireworks show too, so it was a pretty good night for us.

Hope this new year brings you all joy and peace.

Game Blog

2010-12-31T12:19:00.001-05:00

I run a kids D&D game which I wanted to set up an information site online for. So I've started a blog for all things Rathbone. I will focus on the quirks of my fantasy world, with a focus on the material for the kids game.

Chirstmas Aftermath

2010-12-29T10:44:00.002-05:00

I'm trying my best to veg over Christmas, but it is a balancing act. My special gift for my youngest (7) was a starter stamp album (very basic one made by Harris) and we've been working at filling in the holes. I had some common Canadian stamps that belonged to her grandfather - he gave it to me to go through before he went into the hospital and there isn't really anything of value in there but I wanted to look for varieties - so it was nice to go through that with her and talk about her grandfather as a collector. Hopefully she'll see that page and maybe think of him. Over the course of the week I've been working on some South American material - Brazil actually - sorting out stamps by watermarks and perforations. I find it relaxing. She would come down and sit with me, she even spotted a few that she needs to fill in pictures in her album.

The other thing we've done together is play Killer Bunnies. The end determination of who wins is a bit strange (it is a lot of work for a random finish) but the game play is fun. Even my youngest gets the game and has won at least two of our games.

With my older daughter we got her a pile of hamster tubes for Gracey. Right now we have an awesome configuration which enters the cage three different ways. Gracey seems to think she can find the weak spot and escape! She might just do it too, she is pretty smart.

I've even had a bit of time to work. Sharon took the girls snowboarding and plans on going again tomorrow. We have friends coming over all day tomorrow to play games and hang out. It has been a nice break overall. However, I've also felt fairly down emotionally, which is not uncommon for this time of the year. Part of it is the realization of how much work I have ahead of me, but it is also being frustrated with not keeping the balance well. For all this hanging out with my family I do find myself craving solitude - especially towards the end of the day.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T23:23:00.001-05:00

Hope you have time to reflect on the Incarnation this Christmas time.

Blessings!

Evangelicals

2010-12-23T15:21:00.002-05:00

Just finished James Hunter's American Evangelicalism. A bit dated but an excellent reflection on the sociology of evangelicalism. He follows a common delineation for evangelicals: Reformed-Calvinist, Anabaptist (I often call these Communitarians), Pentecostal-Holiness (which includes Methodism), an Baptists. I wonder how such a typology holds in the post-modern blurring that seems to be occurring within evangelicalism today? I wanted to read this one before I dug into his To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

Frustration and ADHD

2010-12-19T15:11:00.004-05:00

One of the realities I've been trying to work through concerns my working memory and inability to sustain concentration for long periods of time. Although it seems late, after about 10 years of higher education (BATh, MATh, and finally finishing my residency for a PhD in Theology), I am trying to figure out if treatment that might help me. Two things sent me in this direction, a documentary on adults with ADHD by Patrick McKenna and working with ADHD experts for my oldest daughter. I am on my third medication, and this one is not going as well as I would like. However, it is hard to look at it objectively, so I rely on the observations of others as well, especially my wife. She's definitely seen an improvement.

I've noticed a few good things during this experiment. First off I am finding that when the meds function well I am not feeling so driven and I am able to enjoy my family in a way that I did not expect. I always wondered why that was such as struggle, but when you spend so much time frustrated at yourself it is hard to enjoy the people around you as much as you should. I am also finding that my productivity is better during the afternoons, which is when I was having the most trouble. For those who don't know, working memory is what we use to organize immediate tasks - kinda like a scratch pad for the mind. Afternoons I would most often find myself heading to start a task and getting sidetracked, often repeatedly. It can be very frustrating and it was helpful to learn that this is one of the things that finding the right meds can help with. If you see me writing out a list to know what to do - that is because I have to.

Unfortunately the drugs also do some bad things. When the dosage is too high then, for me at least, waves of irrational depression overtake me. Also my productivity grinds to a halt. It is simply not pleasant. The other thing that is troubling is that when I change the dosage (I decided to take a break this weekend and it is not going so well) I get moody, clumsy and easily frustrated. I don't feel myself at all. But on the weekends I'm hesitant to take anything if I sleep in - the other bad effect is that the meds I'm on make it hard to settle at night. So I've been getting to sleep around 1AM (earlier if I use melatonin but that seems to have another unpleasant effect - exhausting dreams).

The goal with meds is not to stay on them forever, but to get some of the symptoms under control long enough to work out some new strategies with a cognitive therapist. Having lived this long with ADHD I do have some strategies in place - but not all of them good. I am quite capable as a student - I think I had one B+ (lowest course mark) throughout my undergrad and masters degrees. But I did most of my work only after the deadlines were pressing so hard on me that I needed to stay up into the wee hours to get anything done. That was hard on everything in life and that strategy will not work to complete a PhD thesis.

I'll likely switch to a different med, probably something short acting. I've seen glimpses of what good can come of this. I think it will be great for my work and marriage. But it sure is a pain getting it worked out. Anyone else here gone through this? I'm hoping to work this out as quickly as possible - so it will not impede my work progress.

Taking Ourselves Seriously

2010-12-14T08:35:00.002-05:00

I love to joke about my job, in some ways it is how I keep my sanity in a culture where there are serious questions about the legitimacy of professional clergy let alone professional theology. But all joking aside I think that both of those jobs are very important. Over on the Regional ThoughtWorks Blog I pointed out an article by Vineyard USA director Bert Waggoner on the importance of theology. He begins that article begins with something I've been saying over and over - we are all theologians but the choice is whether we will be good or bad theologians. For me the choice to do academic theology has a very pastoral concern at heart: I think we can do theology, and by logical extension church and the Christian life, much better than we are. I say this as a committed evangelical in a neo-pentecostal movement who sees similar issues throughout the whole of the Church. I do it because I care and hope.

My pastoral work at Freedom Vineyard comes from a similar core value. I love the people God has privileged me to walk with. And I count myself right in there with them as a person who can always do better. But rather than getting hung up on what any of us is not doing as well as we would like - I try to find ways to engage with a life of faith and faithfulness that is both a model and an encouragement for those in my care. And for those in my care, or even just those I care about cause I am not the most formal guy, I try to make this central to our relationship. In a real sense it is how I am wired. Even in the IT workplace, I would look for opportunities to live out this part of my being.

So you might hear me joking around, poking fun even at my own chosen professions. But one thing I take very serious is that these are real vocations and I am honoured to feel chosen by God to take them on.

Most Embarrassing Book on my Shelf Meme

2010-12-13T13:03:00.004-05:00

Been following the links on this meme. Delightful stuff really. So a quick look to my right and there is a section I call General Spiritual, lots of choice books in there to be embarrassed about (I like that word, it evokes the image that your ass is hanging out!). Two jump out, books with stories.

First up is this little, uh "gem" by Canada's own embarrassment to Christians everywhere - Todd Bentley. I've suffered bits of this steaming piece of... uh literature. But let me assure you I never purchased this book. How it came to be in my possession, and remains, is a matter of another con artist (not Bentley) that I met. This con artist contacted our church for help. I detailed the ordeal here, complete with a picture! When we took him in he tried to establish his credibility by dropping this book and a Spiritual Warfare Reference Library CD as a gift. I'm not sure who he stole them from, but if you want them back I'd be happy to oblige. At the time I didn't have the heart to tell him what I thought of this material - and have kept them as a sort of reminder of the whole event. But seriously, if you want this stuff back just let me know.

The second was not a purchase either. Honest. They came from the Living Waters Canada (Caustic Evangelism organization that is) rep as I told everyone here. He sent me about three books. One I reviewed and got rid of, one I just got rid of and the last one I kept just in case, I don't know, I wanted to feel what it is like to be kicked in the nuts intellectually. The ironically named Ray Comfort represents much of what I think is wrong with fundamentalism. I just flipped it open and there is a chapter entitled Ten Steps to Conviction - seriously what the hell is wrong with him? Oh yeah, he thinks the Law is your bestest friend ever and would like to firmly embed that Law up your backside too. Ok, before I start popping blood vessels I'm going to put these two... uh 'books' back on my shelf.

I think step one to conviction was to admit I had them at all. Excuse me while I try my hardest to forget them again.

Scheduling Content for the Thoughtworks Blog

2010-12-12T11:04:00.003-05:00

I mentioned the new blog I started as part of my work for the Ontario Vineyards. I wanted to make sure it as up and off to a great start before I spent a bit more time here continuing my swim through political theologies and all things interesting to me. I am one post shy of having something ready to come one every Monday morning (8AM EST). I have a few requests for content outstanding (specific people I've tagged) and am hoping that by then I will get a suggestions for content. Add in announcements for things like the Vineyard Webinars and it looks like a good rate of 1-2 posts/week. Already it is getting daily hits, although it is nothing like I see here at Freedom Log despite my slow post rate here.

The kids are off on their Christmas break week after next. So this week is the last reading push I have. Monday is a write off already too. That is a bit frustrating as I've been trying out some medication as a way of improving my working memory and concentration - but the process of finding the right meds is making me wonder if this was such a good idea. I've lost more than a few days to the ill effects of incorrect dosage - and I now have a new appreciation of my friends who deal with depression (one of the indications that the dosage is too high for you to tolerate).

Once the kids are off there are a few things I'd like to post about here. I want to reflect a bit on the course I taught recently on Adult Spirituality. What a great group of students (teachers actually) I had the honour of working with. Also I have made quite a bit of progress shaping my thesis in terms of what needs to be there and what I'm going to drop. As I start honing in on the last of the broad readings and begin writing chapter one in earnest I will probably be quiet here. And finally I want to tell you about a game module I put together for one of my D&D campaigns, and how it ran.

I also have a few other projects in the pipes. I am possibly speaking at a local Presbyterian church that brings in a theologian each year to spend some time exploring a topic in depth. I proposed to do some sessions on the relationship we have with Scripture. Looking at how this has changed since the 19th century and some of what I find helpful today: namely narrative readings and the notion of an interpretive community. I think it will be two Sundays, back to back, in the new year. We'll see if they like my proposal (I was invited to offer a proposed topic) and bring me in. When it is confirmed I'll post some details. The other project is I have a formal book review to write - so I won't be posting the book review here but I will give you more details on how to find it.

Teaser Trailer for Freedom Vineyard

2010-12-07T08:45:00.003-05:00

This past year has been really busy with folks at Freedom Vineyard. One of the really cool things about pastoring a small church is that you really get in each others' lives. But when folks are busy, like from the two weddings we did last year, a lot of stuff you want to do get put on hold. Last night I was talking with Christine, she helps me coordinate the theology pubs at Freedom, and looks like we have a few topics for the new year! Book club has been going well, but a lot more sporadic than in the past. I think we are going to be doing Naturally Supernatural next. I can't wait. I think this is an excellent book, but also an essential one for getting a sense of what really is at the heart of the Vineyard - fully embracing the tension of the now-not yet Kingdom that is a reality which breaks into our lives. We are still working through Scot McKnight's Blue Parakeet, which is getting a mixed reaction in the group. What I love about our book club is that they really love to go deep and explore not just what a book says, but what the author is trying to do and how that challenges us. I couldn't ask for a better group to do this project with. The other perk is that both Blue Parakeet and Naturally Supernatural are part of the ThoughtWorks programme - so many of our folks will be doing the assignments that the ThoughtWorks team has put together. This is a great way to implement ThoughtWorks in a local congregation.

We are still struggling with the shape of church, right now we have kinship in two homes (switching each week), and have a third backup home available. I'd like to see the groups growing a bit more numerically, but our strength has always been to build into what God brings and not worry about trying to make Freedom into something other than that. In fact whenever we've tried to push it it seems to not go very well. But as we have tried to be faithful with what we have, God seems to be doing amazing things in peoples lives. And the best part is that I've gotten to be part of that for about ten years now!

If any of this sounds like stuff that you would like to connect with then let me know. We often have people crash what we are doing. Our passion is to build up anyone God sends our way - with no expectations. A big part of this comes from the Vineyard that welcomed me when I couldn't be part of their main congregation (I was on staff at another church) but was hurting from my experience in my home church. They loved me, prayed for me, equipped me (I was a worship leader in the church I was on staff with and the Vineyard folk continually modeled generosity with all that God had blessed them with!), and when it was time for me to move back to Ottawa they blessed my going as if I were completely their own. I think that is why I love the Vineyard so much. But it also is why we really believe in the philosophy of building up the whole body, wherever and however we can, and leave the rest to God.

I'm excited about the new year. Hope that me and my Freedom Vineyard family can be a blessing to you in it.

Worldviews

2010-12-06T10:08:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit of a Dilbert fan, so click on the picture to get to the comic I wanted to use with this post (I didn't want to pay the licensing fees). What I thought was interesting about this comic is that it shows how worldviews clash in most of our minds. Worldviews are comprehensive systems of understanding about the world, ourselves and our role(s) in the world. They are very much the metanarratives by which we navigate our world. They are also fairly fluid constructs unique to the individual (for example, there is no such thing as a Christian worldview, but there are Christian worldviews). But they are often unexamined. Here Dogbert challenges the basis for Dilbert's claim, because that claim is integral to Dilbert's own worldview, the claim functions as a belief rather than a hypothesis, and our first response when a belief is challenged is to defend it. What is hilarious, to me, is that when Dilbert goes to defend his belief he appeals to a pre-modern epistemology! The modern turn was a shift away from understanding conveyed through authority - people realized that they didn't need to let the institutions think for them but could use the might power of human reason to emancipate themselves from authority. This only proves that his claim comes from an unexamined worldview that is striving for internal coherence. Of course I'm not commenting on the content of his worldview - I actually think he has the claim formulated a bit wrong. He should say that evolution is the best explanation for he data we have at hand, which is how a theory rightly functions within the scientific method.

Party

2010-12-05T12:35:00.003-05:00

My wife has added another decade to her years revolving around the sun. She makes any age look great! So we needed to mark the occasion. She had asked for a mystery menu party (search for mystery food dinner on the web and ignore the ones about dinner theatre). Our friends Mari and John introduced us to the format - the diners are given a menu of 20+ cryptic items (usually based on a theme) from which they pick 3. Once all the orders are in the menus disappear and they are served. They then get to try two more times - usually when they figure out which is the wine/beer that gets ordered again. It is a real hoot - but it takes a lot of prep. And my sweetie is gluten free so that makes it a bit more work.

I set up the Pinetrail Apothecary and Fine Dinery. Three intimate tables (4 people at a table) with the birthday girl in the middle. The hardest part was deciding on which friends to invite - I so wish we could have had a few more folks. I blocked off the kitchen with sheets and spent two days preparing all the food! Yeah, it was that much work. I had my oldest daughter and my nephew to help serve - but I ended up plating most of the dishes. It was easier that way but it took a long time. One of our requirements was that people had to show up on time and had to let us know early enough if they were to back out - the party doesn't work as well unless you fill all the seats. Actually we had someone back out and so we got to invite another long time friend of Sharon's - which was great.

I set up our dining-living room with candles. Me and the helpers wore borrowed pharmacist lab coats. I started with a bit of an intro, telling people the format and saying that the pharmacy theme is because Sharon has been everything I want in a drugstore for many years now (we just had our 15th anniversary!). It was so much fun.

Here is the list of items - want to take a crack at what each one turned out to be? One hint, in this format you need to order your cutlery, otherwise you have to get creative with how you eat.

1 Cold Medicine - Yes we have the cure for the common cold.

2 Chemical Solvent - Useful for making problems go away.

3 Laudanum - Are you sure it is just a headache? Try this it ought to help.

4 Mild Amphetamine - A house specialty.

5 Antidepressant - Turn that frown, upside down.

6 General Prescription - Beat your doctor to the punch. Our head pharmacist prescribed this one.

7 Little Blue Pill - We make a killing selling these things.

8 Multivitamin - Our own special blend. You will not be disappointed.

9 Herbal Mixture - Made fresh daily.

10 Melatonin - When you need a little help getting to sleep.

11 Ocular Medicine - A real sight for sore eyes.

12 Pens -This is the write choice for you.

13 Mild Laxative - We don’t really want to see you go. But if we can help, you know we will. Try this.

14 Antioxidant Preparation - Only the best ingredients are part of the healthiest meals.

15 Protein Preparation - It has been ready for you, are you ready for it?

16 Spatulas - We know that you were counting on this item. Can we count on you to order it?

17 Bowl and Pestle - Imagine the possibilities. This is the perfect companion for any pharmacist.

18 Mexican Drug Lord - For a limited time only, shhhhhhh.

19 Fibre and Ointment - This is a regular item on our menu.

20 ADHD Medicine - When you need a little help to stay in your seat, try an order of this.

21 Suspension - One of these days we will take this off the menu. When? Well, we will just have to keep you in suspense.

I'm thinking this would make a great format for a bunch of guys to shower their affection on their wives at Valentines. Any takers? It has been quite a few years since I've done the crazy Valentines meal for my love with a bunch of friend.

D&D 4E Skill System

2010-12-03T17:36:00.002-05:00

It took a long time for D&D to make skills actually an integral part of the game. I remember back in AD&D days how there was really a strange disconnect between skills and game play - but then again we were more about the combat back then. I'm actually really impressed with a number of things about the way skills work in 4E.

1) The set number of skills means no skill creep. Skill creep is when you have an ever expanding list of skills to choose from. Basically they have distilled them into a set that you can peg just about anything into. Some of the connections seem a bit forced, like stonework under dungeoneering, but all in all it is nice to have a small set list to work with. This actually encourages me to use skills more in designing adventures.

2) Skill challenges are also a great addition to the game mechanics. What skill challenges do is give a progression in which skills are applied to a task to complete it. You need x successes before x failures. You can do other things like tie pieces of information to certain numbers and kinds of successes. Also you can set a maximum number of times any one skill can be applied to the challenge - this is really good for getting players to think creatively about what they are doing. I make them justify their skill picks and assist skill picks (and award role playing XP for such things).

3) Passive insight and passive perception are great as well. They represent how intuitive and attentive the character is. It is neat for them to automatically detect that someone is trying to scam them in some way. Just make sure that if you want to make secret doors a challenge, make them higher than the highest passive perception.

4) The last thing I like is that it actually forces the party to balance out their ability scores. By balancing out ability scores and skills they cover over a larger range of possibilities - it means they play more creative characters and make sure that we do not have an all striker party.

The new skill system is a big hit in my book.

Review: God and Sex

2010-11-29T09:07:00.003-05:00

When a book is titled, or as in this case subtitled, what the bible really says that usually does not bode well. I say usually because Michael Coogan's book is a delightful exception to that rule. First off, he has chosen a fascinating topic. Second, Coogan is an excellent First Testament scholar. And thirdly, this is the perfect book to tie into my ongoing series on the theology of marriage.

Not only is sex a hot topic, it is the source of many a heated debate. Coogan does not skirt around any of this. His focus is clearly on what is in the text and he carefully steers us away from the culture wars so that we can give the texts a chance to speak. That is a good thing. But it is also a hard thing as the texts do not consistently present the values we cherish in our society. Over and over again Coogan points to the horrendous treatment of women in Scripture. This highlights his critique of the use of Scripture in the contemporary culture wars - that we all pick and choose what to highlight and what to ignore. If you are looking for a how to guide for Biblical sex, then you are probably not the kind of person who would be reading this book. But if you are looking for a careful study of what is actually in the texts themselves regarding human (and divine) sexuality, this is a great resource.

It is clear that Coogan's strengths are in First, sometimes called Old, Testament scholarship. (Funny note, at a few points I was reminded of the work of popular historian Thomas Cahill only to find Cahill mentioned in the Acknowledgments. It was a feeling I had based on Coogan's style. I found Coogan as easy to read as Cahill who is a very engaging writer.) He draws the reader into the scope of the text like an archeologist carefully unearths a site of antiquity. His forays into the New Testament are good, but somehow not nearly as engaging. Most of the chapters did leave me wanting more though, simply because everything is so interesting.

It is curious though that despite focusing heavily on the treatment of women, Coogan does not mention an important First Testament cultural challenge at the end of Job. In fact it is one of the few things that marks Job as being changed by his experience - the way he treats his new daughters. Here is where Coogan's insistance that we need to let the text speak as a whole becomes so important. But perhaps I find this important because it is foundational to my own strategy of working with Scriptural text. Coogan's proposed strategy is that the texts should be in dialogue with the people of faith and not simply taken as normative - otherwise we should treat women horribly and reinstate slavery. At least we should if we want to be faithful to all of Scripture.

In terms of my series Towards a Theology of Marriage. Coogan provides an excellent overview of Biblical views on marriage. And it is a mess. The following, according to the Bible, should be acceptable: women are merely property and are distributed in power broker type arrangements, a woman who is raped is not important it is an offense against her owner, married men as not prohibited from seeing prostitutes even though they may not let their daughters be prostitutes, polygamy is really the norm and if there were more women in the garden than Eve you can bet Adam would be depicted as procreating with them as well because as soon as this was an option (according to pre-historical texts) it was the norm. Of course none of this will support a high view of covenant such as I am proposing. But the good news is that we do not read Scripture this way. Even the hyper-literalists navigate their way through scripture using their preconceptions about what it 'should' say. This is why Coogan's proposal for Scripture in faith communities is so important.

If you are looking for an engaging read on a fascinating subject then look no further. If you want to read something that supports your already established notions of what the Bible says about sex - you might want to avoid this one. It will only make you mad. But for those of us who care about the text, this book is a great read.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

New Thoughtworks Blog

2010-11-27T19:49:00.003-05:00

Some of you know that I am the regional Thoughtworks coordinator for the Vineyard. Thoughtworks is the national theological development group. We do a number of things for the Vineyard in Canada, including vetting and preparing training material for our denomination's churches, organizing and delivering workshops and seminars on a variety of theological and practical topics, and providing theological consultation to our churches and the national team. But more than just providing more services - we want to highlight what is already happening within our movement. To facilitate this a bit more I set up a blog for the Ontario region, a place where we can look at what happening, exploring what we can make happen and get first hand reports on what folks have done in terms of theological and leadership training within the Ontario Vineyard Churches. Right now the blog is a sort of experiment - I'll be pitching it hard as a resource and in the early new year I will start soliciting posts from folks in the region. I am hoping to have something up at least once a week, not too often but not too quiet that it gets forgotten.

Love to have your feedback and participation. BTW the image and look is an attempt to mirror the Regional site.

Academic Work and the Web

2010-11-26T13:02:00.002-05:00

I'm sure that more and more academics are struggling with the role of the web in academic research. And I'm also sure that many are like me, that is, having a director who wants to steer clear of the web. And the reasons for steering clear are good. First of all the web is largely an ungoverned wiki - absolutely anyone can post anything and really who are they to answer too? I find it very frustrating when Christians (because of my areas of study it is Christian sites I'm frequently directed to) try to remedy this by not allowing interaction on their blogs - seems like you have cut off the one check and bound available to you. However, comments on blogs are also highly suspect forms of intellectual engagement. The web has problems.

But the web also has huge potential. It is a huge site of debate and wrestling, especially amongst practitioners of religion. That work doesn't make it into the texts. It is there that I think the 'ivory tower' complex of academics can be addressed and hopefully dismantled. But, if you are like me, then you have probably been burned more than a few times interacting with people on the web. Regardless, it is important work and it is an important site of data for academic work.

I was delighted to see Scott Bailey's recent post on his SBL experience. He gives links to papers delivered by Bibliobloggers wrestling with this new reality. I've skimmed a few and they are worth me going back for a careful read. I think it is important that we develop resources for this new frontier in academic study. Like it or not the web is not going away. And like it or not there is real world reflection going on via the web. If academics are going to remain a relevant feature of society then we need to be there too.

Come on in, the water is - muddy.

Why You Should Present at Conferences like Congress

2010-11-22T14:47:00.002-05:00

I made a promise to my director not to present this year. Have to get my thesis done! But I've presented four times during my residency, and I think it is an excellent thing to do. Here is why:

1) It will give you more incentive to get to the conference where you can meet other scholars in your field. Networking is a critical part of academic work (I am not the best at it, but I try). And being in touch with what is new and breaking in your field is important - waiting for the articles to get published is a lot slower. The other side of this is that academics is lonely work - we need all the community we can get! Plus, if you go to the right conferences you get to hang out with me!
2) If you are working at a post-graduate level then you are hopefully making a contribution to your field. If you want to get your ideas out there fast then conferences are the way to go. It is not as hard as one might think getting accepted - I've written four proposals and presented four times. It also gets the word out as to what you are doing so that other scholars can connect their students to you to keep the conversation growing.
3) Presenting to your peers is the best way to get your research into the place where it can be challenged, encouraged and shaped. This year the CTS has reshaped their formats to improve the interaction between presenter and academics. This could be one of the best chances you have to find out how to shape your work so that it will not only be a unique contribution, but one that will benefit theology as a whole.
4) How can you ever get enough speaking practice? Especially in an environment where you aren't explaining basic concepts, but working on the area of your greatest passion.
5) If you present you get first dibs on financial assistance. Many societies have these perks. When you are a student, every little bit helps.
6) I'm sure there are more, but I'll finish with the all important resume. Yup, if you want to make that resume impressive then you better show that you are interested in contributing to the academic culture.

See my last post for details on proposing a presentation for the CTS. Hope to see you there in May.

Call for Papers - CTS

2010-11-21T23:38:00.002-05:00

Call for Papers: CTS 2011 Annual Meeting
Canadian Theological Society / Société théologique canadienne

May 30-June 1, 2011

Fredericton, NB

“Coasts and Continents: Exploring Peoples and Places”

The theme, ‘Coasts and Continents: Exploring peoples and places’ takes advantage of St. Thomas University and University of New Brunswick’s maritime and coastal position in Atlantic Canada and stresses the geographical, historical, literary, artistic, socio-economic and political links across the globe. Place is important as it directly and indirectly shapes an individual’s and a people’s experience. Located strategically within a global context, Congress 2011 provides a bridge to, and a link between, places and peoples.

At the same time ‘Coasts and Continents’ challenges us to reach out to take advantage of our location to embrace the Atlantic world and beyond. This theme opens up further possibilities of interchange — not only between places and peoples but also of ideas. In addition, ‘Coasts and Continents’ suggests the far-reaching potential of the humanities and social sciences for understanding the complexities of our expanding world and for challenging arbitrary borders and boundaries through interdisciplinarity.

The Congress theme of ‘Coasts and Continents: Exploring Peoples and Places’ resonates with many recent emphases in theology, such as:

* ‘globalization’, shifting cultural and religious frontiers and borderlands, new opportunities for dialogue across historic gaps and barriers;
* the emergence of post-Eurocentric Christianity age as the demographic centre of gravity shifts from North to South;
* shifting scholarly landscapes as historically marginalized voices and traditions join global dialogues;
* challenges to familiar readings of the bible, church traditions, and authority;
* fears about ‘syncretism;’ but also creative processes of religious / cultural ‘deconstruction’ and ‘reconstruction, new experiences of ‘inculturation,’ ‘hybridity,’ mestizaje;
* and recognition of theological diversity in an emerging theological pluriverse, so powerfully echoing the ancient symbol of Pentecost for a new world.

We invite papers on these and related themes, or on any topic of theology.

The specific reason for gathering as a Society is to promote discussion, debate, exchange, and collaboration among members. To this end, the CTS/STC Executive has reconfigured the format of the “Regular Paper.” The CTS/STC Executive also encourages all presenters to participate in as much of the program as possible. Please remember that the CTS/STC has an inclusive language policy.

We invite proposals in one of the following three types:

Regular Paper: Presentation of 20 minutes, plus 20 minutes for discussion. Typically the presentation will be an account of a larger research project. This format offers an opportunity to make a presentation—sketching an area of scholarly debate, key issue(s), and contribution(s) to advancing discussions—and to engage in extended dialogue with participants. Since CTS members work in a variety of fields and specializations, attention should be given to presenting advanced work in an accessible way.

Special Paper: a formal presentation of 40 minutes, plus a 15 minute prepared response and 30 minutes for discussion. The proposal must include the name and affiliation of the respondent.

Workshops, Panels, and Seminars: formal presentations and responses and general discussion, lasting 1½ hours. The person organizing such a session is responsible for setting the topic and enlisting participants (including moderator).

Please insure that the abstract does not include identifying information. Proposals will be reviewed anonymously, though exceptions may be made for some panels.

Proposals must have the following:

* presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact information;
* title;
* type of session (regular paper, special paper, workshop, panel, or seminar);
* abstract of 200-250 words, including reference to theological dimensions and/or implications of the project;
* request for audio-visual equipment.

For all types of presentations, please submit proposal (in a Word or .rtf file by email attachment) by Friday, January 14, 2011 to:

Jeremy Bergen, CTS Program Chair
Conrad Grebel University College

e-mail: jbergen@uwaterloo.ca

My Amazing Daughter

2010-11-20T23:47:00.002-05:00

A little while ago I had posted about starting a role playing adventure with my daughter and some friends. It is a kid focused game set in a fantasy world with an emphasis on being the champions chosen by the faeries to protect the land. The kids are really looking forward to the sessions, I hear the reports from their parents. And I really enjoy the sessions too. I've tried to make sure each time they have one short combat and one interaction to role play. Last time they went into a spider cave, fought some spiders and then rescued some hobbits.

What really blew me away though is that my daughter went online and found a free cooperative diceless role playing came. Printed up everything she needed and took it to school. I only found out about it because I was checking her school agenda and found it. At her school on Friday's they have game time at one of the recesses - mostly board games and she told me they have twister too. So she asked her teach if it would be ok to play and ran a game with two boys (her friends). Pretty darn cool eh? She was telling me about it and it sounds like she did an amazing thing. After I found it I gave her a few GMing pointers - basically not to worry if the players choose to do something you didn't think of, just make it up and take lots of notes so you can remember it later.

It shouldn't surprise me though, when I first heard about D&D as a kid, before I had any books I made a little RPG type game and tried to convince my friends to play it. I still remember the Christmas I got the Basic set, it was the set with the dice and crayon to fill in the numbers. It's longs since disappeared, but not my love of tabletop RPGing. And I'm so glad that my daughter and I can share this hobby. I can't wait until I get to adventure in one of the worlds of her imagination.

Fowler's Reflection Quesitons

2010-11-20T10:11:00.001-05:00

This is for my class on Adult Christian Spirituality.

1. What are you spending and being spent for? What commands and receives your best time, your best energy?
2. What causes, dreams, goals or institutions are you pouring out your life for?
3. As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
4. To what or whom are you committed in life? In death?
5. With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
6. What are the most sacred hopes, those most compelling goals and purposes in your life? (Fowler, Stages of Faith, 3)

Enjoy!

Review: Understanding Spiritual Gifts

2010-11-13T13:44:00.003-05:00

I need to start by saying that I am not a big fan of this kind of "Bible study". It is not that I haven't used them in my years pastoring, but I find that they tend to be quite directive in their approach and assume that scripture readings will present self-evident and uniform truths. Despite my misgivings about the format, I thought it would be interesting to look at popular Evangelical Kay Arthur's offering on spiritual gifts called Understanding Spiritual Gifts.

This book is intended for a small group with a facilitator (she calls this a leader). I'm not sure why she makes the assumption that there needs to be a single facilitator, but I'm not that familiar with the structural paradigm in which Arthur ministers. The lessons are pithy and focus heavily on working through various texts that Arthur feels will illuminate her topic. To her credit Arthur recognizes that spiritual gifts are not a major theme in scripture so she does not have a huge range of text to draw from. (p.37) And she does ask good contextual framing questions about the passages she highlights - following the five Ws sometimes called the journalism method. (p.4) Also her subject matter is one that I, as a neo-pentecostal minister and theologian, can appreciate: the role of spiritual gifts in the life of the believer.

The book falls into several traps that are common with this format. It shows a poor understanding of Scripture and Scripture studies. It fights against foes, such as cessationism, which it does not directly name. It has shallow theology, especially in this case her pneumatology. Let us look at each of these.

The history of Christianity, even just of modern Evangelicalism, shows that Scripture is always read contextually. Any adequate method of Biblical study must bring our attention to the biases that shape our readings and expectations on the text. What really is being done here is a devotional reading, not a Bible study, and as such it can be a valid tool for developing faith shaping insights. But such readings need to always be done with a critical eye - lest our particular personal insights are elevated to being the direct communication of God. On page 3 Arthur makes the claim that by reading Scripture, following her methodology, we are letting God "explain the gifts." This is highly uncritical and such methodology has been used to support horrendous heretical claims. A better approach is to hold these things lightly, allowing God to continue to lead us into truth but recognizing that our grasp on truth is always provisional because it is mediated through our expectations and desires. The idea of "straight-forward truths of the Bible" is a myth that Biblical study must always be wary of. (p.3)

Part of the context in which we read scripture are those assumptions to which we want to counter. Arthur begins the study with an odd attack on "seeker-friendly" churches. (p.1) She at least names this foe, but quickly shifts into her topic leaving the reader to wonder what the point of her jab was? Does she see these churches as abandoning spiritual gifts? I'm not sure such a generalization will hold up and it is really quite puzzling how her study seeks to address this initial attack? A foe more directly related to her task is cessationism, or the belief that the spiritual gifts are no longer functioning in the church or that if they do function it is not a normative feature of the modern church. She would be right to tackle this theology as it opposes her thesis. But, while she does address the fundamental complaint of cessationism, she does not really address it, instead she relies on the supposed straight-forward interpretation of the text to show the validity of spiritual gifts for the church today. (p.12) She might have been well served to at least point the readers to resources that do diligent and critical work on dismantling the arguments of cessationists. She also would have been better off leaving out the initial jab against the seeker-sensitive movement and started instead on a positive note and affirmation of the validity of spiritual gifts for the church today.

Theologically Arthur presents only one view of the passages on her subject. Her view is quite mechanistic and depicts a God who deposits specific gift mixings (she will further dichotamize these into serving and speaking packages) into individuals and that our role is to figure out what package we have and walk that out. The problem I have with this is that it conflates the gifts with the giver. Another view of the same readings she proposes is that the gift is the Spirit and that we should not expect that the Spirit will act uniformly through each of us, but, rather we would, by partnering with the Spirit, do amazing things to the glory of God. I am sure there are other readings as well, but why does Arthur favour her simple compartmentalized view? and what kind of Spirit is at work in her view of spiritual gifts? These are important questions. Arthur seems to have an operative structural expectation on the text even though the very passages she has chosen show that Paul saw different structural realities for different ministry contexts. There is no uniform view presented, they cannot be harmonized without doing violence to the texts. Arthur would have done well to recognize that 1 Cor 12:1 does not use the word Charisma but a word that might be better translated as matters of the Spirit. It is not the gifts we need to focus on - but the character and working of God, by God's Spirit, with and through the church.

I have other concerns with the content and structure of this book, but this analysis is enough for my evaluation. While I do think that such books can be useful for small groups, they must not be equated with Biblical study. Rather, they can provide a springboard into wonderful discussions about our interpretations of Scripture. They can let us question that perhaps the apostles in Acts 6:2 were simply abusing their authority and creating the same problematic dichotomy of serving vs. speaking that Arthur seems to promote. (p.7) After all Stephen did turn out to be quite a gifted orator. If a group is willing to do the work, this kind of study can be beneficial. But not in the form we are given here. I'm not sure what Kay Arthur's credentials are, but it is evident she is doing a simplistic reading of scripture to advance her particular read of that same Scripture. I believe her topic is worth pursuing, but I do not buy her way of framing her findings. But, as I stated in the beginning, I am not a fan of this type of "Bible study" and this study did little to change my attitude.

Theological Space and Grace

2010-11-06T12:25:00.003-05:00

I have been thinking a lot recently about notions of grace. I had browsed through a book on John Wesley's theology and the author, Collins, used the term cooperative grace. I'm going to have to spend some time and see if there are correlations for me and my thinking on grace. Grace, in my understanding, is about an invitation. It is God's invitation to participate in the redemptive activity of God throughout the world. But two things have malformed this aspect of grace in many evangelical theologies. First the Reformed penchant for defending the sovereignty of God. (I think this is at the heart of the critique of open theism, I'm not completely sold on open theism but I do think it is worth reflecting on.) I find this all the time in Reformed thought, it is often characterized by a very deterministic worldview. The epitome of such a notion would be predestination, but even where predestination (and its bastard child double predestination) is challenged there still remains this concern over presenting a supposedly diminished view of God as sovereign. For me this kind of thinking flies in the face of God's kenotic self-revelation - God does not seem so worried about God's reputation or sovereignty. In fact that isn't where the risk is; I believe kenosis is by necessity a risk. The risk is not that God would (as if this were possible) somehow cease to be God. The risk is that we might choose to not accept the invitation God presents. For me the kind of God who is willing to risk it all on love is so worthy of worshipping with my whole life, the God who needs our defense is not. Such a God is simply insecure, and ceases to be God.

The second aspect that deforms this is the way we Westerner evangelicals have personalized sin. We have focused on spirituality as the private domain of the individual. This privatization gives theology no room to meet the needs of a world being destroyed by sin. Further, this way of viewing spirituality shows that not only is God insecure (as if that were possible) but that we are insecure in God's love. Grace should overcome all these insecurities (perfect love should cast out fear if we are to believe the scriptures). Grace is a self-revelation of God that evokes faith. Grace doesn't lose its sovereign dimension - because it is God's gift demonstrated by God's self-emptying, self-sacrificing holy gamble on humanity - as only a sovereign and completely secure God could ever make such a demonstration of grace. A God this gracious could not but be faithful to accomplish all that has been promised, therefore, our security is sure. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that grace opens up the possibility for so much more that merely our confidence in salvation. This kind of grace, that I'm describing, says that God continues to want to take a risk on us. Risking that we would keep saying yes to participating in God's redemptive work throughout creation. That we would participate in all that God continues to do in our world to defeat the power of sin and undo its terrible effects. This kind of invitation goes well beyond any personalized notions of me and my best friend Jesus hanging out for some supposed escape from this world. Rather, it is God saying, "This is the extent to which I'm willing to go with my love - so too are you called to participate with Me as we take My love to the whole world." I can get on board with that kind of grace, I can give my life for that kind of God.

What kind of God do we want to worship? What kind of God would it take for us to take up our crosses and follow?

Waiting at the Bus Stop

2010-11-03T08:45:00.002-05:00

I was waiting for my youngest to come home on the bus and opening my mail. Yet another book had arrived. As I tore into the wrapping, the young gal sitting a neighbour's kid asked me what book it was. She seemed all excited, guess she doesn't order as many books as I do. I got into it enough to tell her the title and said I need to figure out what the book was - I had ordered a lot of used books recently. Then I placed it, it was a book by Ralph Reed called Active Faith. I told her it was part of my research into how evangelical Christians understand their connection between faith and politics. She said she hoped it would be good. I told her that I was pretty sure it would not be very good - and that I'm quite certain I will have a very different view from Reed. This got a puzzled look and the conversation turned to the validity of Shakespeare for contemporary high school students??? But it struck me that part of being an academic is reading the books you don't necessarily want to read - but know you need to read if you are to understand the contours of your topic. I'm probably going to find something in there worthwhile - I noticed he does a critique of liberal theologies which might prove interesting. My interest is in how he structures his arguments - what does he draw on and how, who is he speaking to, and more specifically can I find his eschatological views anywhere in the text? Happy reading.

Mean People Suck

2010-10-30T14:12:00.003-05:00

And Fred Phelps surely ranks among the meanest. I am once again reminded of the depravity of his sect as they took to protesting the Comic-Con in San Diego last Thursday. What is frustrating is that this kind of ass-ianity is actually not too far from the attitudes of many actual Christians who somehow haven't had their inhibitions lobotomized out of them like Phelps and his family (literally). While it is often covered up with a rhetoric of "love", far too many who claim the name of Christian act far too unChrist-like in this world. Persecuting, bullying and vilifying anyone who dares to be different than their expected norms is common place. To do it in the name of God is blasphemous.

Who would Jesus have at his table? Seriously. Do Christians even read their Bibles anymore? As our lectional reading for Thursday stated - Jesus even included those who would betray him amongst his apostles??? So how do we get from that kind of Jesus to one that would endorse a message of hate - implicit or explicit? It is too big a leap. Watch the video on the link - I love the guy dressed as Jesus' explanation. "Fred has issues." Unfortunately so do many of us. And the only way forward is to start saying no to hate. Why? Cause mean people suck.

Spirituality

2010-10-29T09:04:00.003-05:00

I'm in the midst of preparing a short course on Christian spirituality for the university. I loaned out the primary go to texts for such a course - which turns out to be a great thing as I've pulled a few unusual suspects from my shelves to read. One that I've had for a while is Michael Downey's Understanding Christian Spirituality. What a great little book! Downey is clear and the text moves along nicely. The guidelines for developing the course were to stay within the parameters of David Perrin's Studying Christian Spirituality, which is also a great undergrad level book on the subject. I just finished reading that one. But I've also pulled down books on spirituality from evangelical, feminist, liturgical, liberationist, and historical perspectives. A lot of this I've read before - but it has been great to refresh my relationship with each of these books. I've been thinking a lot about the problem of defining spirituality. Downey does a great job of showing how we get to our very broad and often religion-phobic definitions of spirituality. But I seem to think that we are looking for new referents to spirituality. One of the exercises I plan on doing with my students is to have them write out how they would define spirituality at the beginning of the course - and then to revisit this at the end and see what, if anything, has shifted. I'd love to hear how you define spirituality too. I wonder what things you want to make spirituality refer to in your definition? Is it your religious tradition or your experiences? Is it historical forms or perhaps a perceived horizon of meaning that you value? If nothing else - it is worth reflecting on.

Sad News at my University

2010-10-28T08:37:00.004-05:00

This week I attended the funeral for one of my professors, John Kevin Coyle. We knew him as Kevin, he taught Church history and the PhD seminar in my first year (among other courses in the Theology department). He used to always call me Francis, and coming from him it felt like a term of endearment so I never complained. He always seemed happy and content (never anxious or impatient), even the Friday before his passing we chatted in the hall and he seemed like he'd had a long week and was looking forward to the weekend. I do not think anyone knew it would be his last.

Two things will always stick with me about Kevin, both come from my first experience with him in the undergrad programme taking his Early Church History course. Prof. Coyle had given us free range to find topic for our research papers. As a neo-Pentecostal and a bit of a trouble maker I thought I'd look at the role of the prophet in the early church. When I presented the topic he got me to follow him into his office and there dug out a single article on the decline of the ecstatic prophet in the early church. He told me that I needed to interact with this article - and he was right. I was struck by how he knew exactly where to point me so that I could actually move beyond my preconceptions about the early church. It was a brilliant move on his part - I'm not sure if he realized how that would foster a hunger in me to dig as far beyond my preconceptions as possible. It also taught me the joy of research - and this has served me well throughout my academic work.

The second thing I will always remember is seeing Kevin in the library with a stack of student essays - diligently bringing books out of the stacks to check the work. This was a common sight for me in my ten years at Saint Paul, Prof. Coyle in the library with a stack of research papers. This was a man who cared about academic excellence. To be honest it also scared the crap out of me, I knew that any mark I got from him would be what I deserved. Kevin set a high standard for me to follow - I hope I do his memory proud.

I am going to miss our chats in the halls. Prof. Coyle was a fixture at Saint Paul, always around in the "rarified air" (as he would call it) of the third floor. It is not going to be the same without him.

[In the picture Kevin is the second person from the left, wearing his trademark jeans no doubt.]

What's It All About?

2010-10-14T08:41:00.003-05:00

“The Christian faith isn’t about getting to heaven. It isn’t all about the church. It isn’t all about the individual spiritual life or “personal relationship with God.” It is about all of these things, but they aren’t the whole point, or even the main point. The main point is God’s saving love for creation, God’s faithfulness to all of creation, God’s ongoing mission of healing a world torn by human injustice so that it can fulfill God’s original dream. It is about God’s kingdom coming to earth, it is about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Brian McLaren from the Introduction to The Justice Project(2009).

Rathbone... for kids!

2010-10-08T20:58:00.003-05:00

Rathbone is the name of a land I created for a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. It has been around for quite a while, we started in 2E, moved to 3.5E, and am currently running an adult game in 4E, but on the other side of the globe. I've been trying to couple my love of gaming with the interest my very creative daughter has shown in playing the game. In fact she's sat in on some adult games with us to try it out. But I wanted something for her. So tonight we started a new campaign in the land of Rathbone called the Faerie Champions.

We are using the 4E rules (with a few house rules) cause it is simple enough for kids. In fact, it was the one adult (I'll explain the makeup of the group in a sec) who took the most time performing actions. The kids need a bit of help, but once they get started they do come up with creative solutions. And I'm trying to make at least equal time for role playing in this one.

I had a few dads in mind, my idea was father-child pairs. And I wanted to keep the numbers down (sorry Richard). Both of the other kids are around Elyssa's age, one girl and one boy. Both of their dads play in one of my adult games, so one of them is actually familiar with the land of Rathbone. So we have a party of five characters, an ideal number, and I had the adults play characters that will compliment the party, keeping the kids free to play whatever they wanted.

We ended up with two strikers (ranger and sorcerer) and one of each controller (wizard), leader (cleric), and defender(fighter). I made cards for my daughter and the other girl - I highly recommend using power cards. And we spent a lot of time making my daughter's character just the way she wanted - including an orange dragonling familiar (I painted a pseudodragon orange and her mini has one on its shoulder already). I was pretty excited when she solved the problem of where they were by having the dragonling fly above the tree tops to help direct them.

Because I am encouraging role playing, I decided to keep track of role playing experience. I was going to give according to each person's contribution, but thought better of it and gave them all whatever the best result was. I will explain this to them, so that they will be encouraged to do as much acting and problem solving as fighting.

The faerie champions theme gives them each a free minor power - gossamer wings that can't lift much more than their body weight, pixie dust that can be used to gain a turn of veritable invisibility, or the ability to become a small woodland creature (my daughter's half-elf sorcerer can become a chipmunk!). The only other house rule is to only allow the original magic missile.

I had the party come together in a faerie grove, fight a few spiders and talk with some sprites. It was lots of fun. We allotted only an hour and a half for the game - which I think was enough - as the kids tend to lose focus after about an hour. The two girls were off to see the rats we are sitting during the last half hour, we kept having to call them back when it was their turns.

All in all it should be fun, and a great way to spend some time with my girl.

Church People and Kingdom People

2010-10-06T11:55:00.001-05:00

“Church people think about how to get people into the church; kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; kingdom people work to see the church change the world.”

Howard Snyder, Liberating the Church.

Question....Can evangelism include...

2010-10-05T13:16:00.002-05:00

I want to push the last post a bit. I wonder what folks who read this blog consider to be the contours of evangelism.

So, for instance, I would include calling people to live faithful to their religious convictions part of the project of evangelism. I know that is controversial because Christianity has been seen so often as a dominating religion. While I definitely would, and do, engage in apologetic discussions about the specifics of various religions (I think it is healthy for us to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of all our religions), I have come to abhor evangelism that begins with the arrogant assumption that "I am right and you are wrong and I have nothing to learn from you." Evangelism that is just a battle about who's ideology is best has little to do with the gospel, in my opinion. But I am also committed to the notion that we are all growing towards better understandings of God's heart for us.

So how about you? What would you include in your understanding of evangelism?

Individual or Society - Having Cake That You Eat

2010-10-05T11:15:00.003-05:00

I am trying to work through the notion of tension, that is holding two seemingly opposed ideas/views as mutually true, as a help for the problem of individual and social sin. Typically evangelicals have a high value on the belief that individuals need redemption from their sins. That they are in need of salvation that at the very least removes the guilt over personal sinfulness and in the very best cases calls the individual to move towards a more just (that is less sinful) way of living. What this focus has led to is the belief that societal problems are ultimately addressed by individual conversions to Christianity. While there is something profoundly true about conversion opening up the possibility of a more morally beautiful way of living - it is not evidently true that every Christian convert chooses to move away from sin and sinful patterns.

On the other side there are schools of thought that want to locate sin entirely in social contexts. That is sinfulness is injustice that affects us all. While this also is true, movements towards a more just society - especially those without explicit Christian roots - are often viewed with suspicion by evangelicals who feel such an emphasis undermines the goal of individual religious conversion. The evangelical vision of a more just world then is a world with more Christians. This seems inescapable for an evangelical theology, but is it?

Certainly it is true that individuals need to change for society to become less sin-filled. And it is equally true that individuals often participate in patterns of sinfulness that exceed their own culpability - what is often called structural sin. Therefore, can it not also be true that society needs to change for society to become less sin-filled? I am convinced that it is so. And this is the classic problem for evangelical theologies of social engagement - how and when do we participate in social movements?

I think tension, holding both individual and social sin as in need of attention, is a helpful way forward. It keeps us from the fundamentalist trap of exclusively focusing on the individual, as if the individual is all that God is concerned for. And it also keeps us from the classically liberal trap of minimizing the need for individual salvation. Tension is also an apt term in that tension seldom leaves us settled, and I think that to default on either side leaves us settled in ways that hinder the move towards justice and righteousness.

If we reconcile the tension in the need for individual conversion as the primary and only means of social transformation then we can easily care little about other measures of this project. This is a classic evangelical problem. When evangelism becomes our ultimate concern we can even develop responses to injustice that amount to little more than hypocrisy, such as engaging in eco-justice as a means of having a better witness amongst the growing public awareness of our current ecological disaster. (I think we need to shift our view from converting individuals to Christianity, to converting them to a particular view of the Kingdom. But that is beyond the scope of this post.)

If we reconcile the other way, that social movements are the primary and only means of social transformation then we can easily miss the individual's role in all of this. Evangelicals, like Carl Henry, bemoaned the insufficiency of the social gospel to promote individual conversion. Indeed the social gospel, as a good example of a social reconciliation of this tension, sets out to build the Kingdom through social projects. While these are definitely necessary - it cannot be ignored that social structures are ultimately populated by people. So we risk the Augustinian crisis of doing the good we think we know, yet making matters worse in our doing. What is needed is a conversion at the individual level - towards justice and righteousness - that awakens us to the need for conversion at a societal level towards the same goals.

Toward a Theology of Marriage - Interlude

2010-09-26T13:10:00.003-05:00

I began this series a while ago and realized that I bit off more than I could chew (given the time constraints of my life!) So, while I do want to look at biblical models of marriage, I am going to jump ahead a bit. I've been thinking lots about marriage lately. I am more and more convinced that the problem is one of language. The problem I see is that words like vow, covenant, and even to some extent the word promise, are not functional in modern vocabulary. Partly because they aren't part of our language of commerce - you don't vow to do anything with retailers, and while you might promise that promise is based on a contract which is specifically designed to deal with the failure of meeting those promises. So in our culture marriage is envisioned in more contractual terms than covenantial terms. The promises have a different character in covenant.

I am thinking about how God treats covenant. It seems to me that our theology of Israel has a lot to do with the shift in thinking about covenant. If we feel that God simply gave up on the covenant with Israel then it is really just a contract that failed. But the first testament seems to show God patiently renewing covenant, over and over again. So if we instead interpret Jesus' as both heightening and widening the covenant to include all those who would place their trust in God, then we have a God who takes covenant a lot more seriously than a contract.

Certainly, there are benefits to the covenant being intact, just as there are problems when that covenant is ignored or taken for granted. Just take your spouse for granted a bit and see if this isn't true! But that doesn't necessarily break the covenant. One party needs to necessarily opt out of the covenant for that to happen - and if the prodigal son story tells us anything it seems that even this does not deny that covenant becomes the most desired state of relationship between God and humanity - so why not also with those who are married?

I am musing here. Rambling theologically. But it gives you a sense of what my mind has been wrestling with. At some point I will take up this series again and dig into the textual examples. Not in a Grudemesque manner, lining them up to try and figure out what God definitively says about marriage, but in a search for wisdom. How have the people of God wrestled with the formation of families.

Yesterday I had the awesome privilege of marrying a couple from our church. It was an amazing service. Many asked me where we got the service from. Really I work with the couple and put together something that will call them to a covenant relationship, declare God's blessing and allow all who have come to stand with the couple with the common desire that they can and will make it in a world where marriage has taken on an air of convenience. One lady told me the service brought her to tears. When I heard the vows that the couple had prepared I almost ended up in tears! It was that good. I'm including a picture for your enjoyment.

Review: Kindle 3

2010-09-24T08:21:00.002-05:00

I've been interested in the Kindle since I first heard about them. But up until the latest model it has been missing some key features that would allow me to justify the price tag. Improved pdf handling is what really sold me on this product. I read a lot of dissertations and articles, which has meant a tonne of printing. The Kindle solves this problem and it has a lot more to offer as well.

My new toy/tool arrived Monday to a very excited customer. I immediately charged it up and put to use my obsessive information gathering about how to be a Kindle power user. Some of the things didn't work the same as the Kindle 2, so information on changing the screen saver images was not helpful. But in no time I had a pile of pdfs on there and started harvesting classics from the various sites (manybooks, project gutenberg, etc.) that cater to eReaders. Happily I even found Harnack's History of Dogma and a pile of H. P. Lovecraft to enjoy. I wanted to give the device a good workout before typing up a review.

First the good bits.

The screen is amazing! When I pulled it out of the box there was plastic on the front and back, I thought surely the plastic had an image on it. No, the screen looks like it is the display sticker they put on things to make it look better than it actually does. And the screen looks even better in full sunlight! Now they say it is 50% better than the Kindle 2's screen, but my neighbour has a Kindle 2 and her screen is pretty sweet too. Regardless of how much better the screen is, what is important is that I can read this thing all day long and no headaches or fatigue (other than what is normal when you get to the boring bits in books - someday they will invent a reader that has a needle to inject you with adrenaline to get through such parts!). In fact I did one full day. I read a full novel, a few chapters from a book on ADHD, and various pdf articles. I stopped because Sharon turned out the light. I would love to hear if such sustained reading is possible on the iPad? (The iPad had the features I wanted but price, too much functionality, and back-lit screen kept me away).

The big reason I wanted the Kindle over other electronic readers is the ability to annotate texts. I write in my books. I know that shocks people, but it is how I process them. I read a lot of books too. So annotation was a pre-requisite for me. The full keyboard (QWERTY) is excellent. It is not too big to get in the way, but not too small that it is impossible to type on. I thought I would fat finger a lot more too, I think I've fat fingered twice since I bought it so the spacing is great for my big hands even. What was a delight is that that I can even annotate text based pdfs. I am highlighting and annotating a dissertation on Progressive Evangelicals and it works fine. There are some problems with pdfs, but so far the functionality I need is all there.

For a reader I want to keep it simple, I am easily distracted. So I had considered just getting the wifi version. But the 3G comes in quite handy. I love to tweet great passages, so Kindle makes that easy. I can even select the text and tweet from right in the document! That produces a link, but I can just as easily pop open the web browser and put it in that way too. It is also easy to look up stuff without the urge to check email. This is a problem for me, so limited web access is a boon. There are work around to get more functionality in to the device - but why? If I wanted more distraction I would have bought an iPad or a mini-laptop. BTW I am not going to connect my facebook to the device, it does allow for that though.

Finally, it is super easy to transfer documents to my Kindle. They provide a translation service, look for the free one, so you can just mail a variety of formats to yourself and they are converted to something the Kindle can read (mobi). For pdfs you have to specify if you want them to convert the file or just send it as is. I have some of both, but I can't remember always which is which. The biggest problem for me is that some of my documents are larger (even compressed) than my service provider will let mail out. :-( So for those I need to USB into my laptop and send them over.

Now the bad.

As an academic I need to cite documents. The native book format for the Kindle actually strips out page numbers and replaces it with locations. That is a huge problem. There are work arounds, like searching for a unique phrase on Google books, but that is a hassle. Bookmonk also has some web accessible help for this problem. But this is a serious problem that Amazon should fix. In addition to making citing books harder, it also make navigation of a document that much harder.

Another problem is that the book selection is still growing. I read very specific books, some of which I can find, but the majority are not in Kindle format yet. This doesn't bug me too much though because the last problem makes me hesitant at buying a lot of books for my research work. I think if the solved that problem I'd get the Pokemon syndrome and need to fill the device with tonnes of my favourite theology and philosophy texts. For what it is worth, I did buy Moltmann's Theology of Hope as I know that text very well and was amazed that they even got the font right! That might seem odd, but it helps navigate the text.

Scanned pdfs require a bit of fiddling to make readable. I get a lot of scanned articles (images) from ATLA. You can zoom, but that sometimes makes the document unreadable because you need to scroll constantly. The zoom ratios are pre-set, unfortunately. But often with rotating and playing you can find a readable mode for each document - it is a good thing I have great eyes though. And pdfs maintain page numbering which is super awesome!

A related problem is that pdfs are large. Four gigs is not enough, I'm just getting started and I have filled over half of that already. What would be excellent would be a SD slot (even microSD) so I can have cards full of pdfs arranged by topics. Speaking of arranging books, the Collections feature is really great, I can't imagine what it was like in previous versions.

The last thing, and it is just something that makes me nervous, is the Kindle Big Brother control of your device. It is wonderful that they offer to back up my annotations. But I'm not sure I want those out there. And the stories of Amazon neutering your device are not fun to hear. I'm not sure what provocation is needed, but I also hope I never find out.

Final thoughts.

All in all, I am loving the new Kindle. It does all that I need it to do and more. It is really easy on the eyes. And a lot better on my shoulders than carrying around tonnes of printouts! Now I just hope Moleskine makes a case for the Kindle 3!

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

2010-09-17T10:20:00.002-05:00

Wednesday was the celebration of the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows which comes right on the heels of the Exaltation of the Cross. It is an interesting moment in the liturgical year as it is a moment of Marian devotion that seems to betray an exalted view of Mary. In other words, I think I got something from the texts that seems to make it not about Mary at all, but that Mary simply becomes a player in something about Jesus we are supposed to take note of. But perhaps this is hinted at when the readings turn early to Hebrews where a Jesus prays to the God who can deliver him from death only to realize suffering and death on the cross.

The gospel reading is from John's gospel, the crucifixion narrative. John 19:25-27:

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
Then he said to the disciple,
"Behold, your mother."
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

And often our first inkling is that this is super nice of Jesus. Maybe Jesus is trying to alleviate the sword that is piercing his mother's heart? Of course this is not necessary for a couple of reasons: 1) Jesus is not an only child, so she has other options for the extended family (where is Joseph these days?) Even if you don't buy that one 2) it wasn't like Jesus had a home to bring her into in the first place. So perhaps there is an element of providing for his mother's needs - but what of the odd, but not uncommon, phrase he uses - "woman"?

John's gospel though is deliberately constructed. There is something profoundly theological about what John chooses to include and where. So when we back up a bit and look at the concept, I think a different story emerges here. One where Mary is not so much the favoured recipient of Jesus' attention, but she represents a moment in the kenosis, of self-emptying, of our Lord. Let's back up the the episode with Pilate.

Jesus' interaction with Pilate has some fascinating moments. The one John draws out attention to is where Jesus informs Pilate who really is in control. Jesus' silence is met in verse 10 with ""Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"" To which Jesus replies, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." (v.11a) John makes it clear that Jesus is in control here. He is submitting his will to the Father, modelling obedience. And so it is not long after this that we find Jesus lifted up onto the cross (to borrow the language of the Exaltation of the Cross).

On the cross Jesus is first stripped of the last of his material goods. His garments are gambled over by the soldiers. If Jesus is freely going to the cross, then he is effectively allowing the soldiers to take all of his possessions.

Immediately after, in John's careful narrative, we have the passage that is our concern. Already having given up all material possessions, Jesus now lays down his relationships. He gives up being a son of Mary. So great is his obedience to the Father, he is not willing to let love of mother, father, sister or even brother prevent him from obeying God's will.

This continues, because the next thing Jesus lays down is his self-control. He cries out his thirst and is given vinegar. Here is the one who freely offer himself, completely submitting his life, relationships and self-will to the Father. It is after these three things are released that Jesus says those ominous words: "It is finished." He bows his head and gives up his spirit.

I was reflecting on this and it hit me afresh just how costly the cross is. It is easy to gloss over this and rush right to the resurrection - but the cross is definitely worth pondering. What are we willing to lay down in our pursuit of the will of the Father? The more I reflect on the cross, the more I realize that Jesus' challenge for us to take up our crosses is not about being willing to be made fun of because we read our bibles in public or actually want to sing love songs to our Savior. No the gospel is costly. It is not what others will take from you - in terms of social standing or respect - but in terms of what you will give your life for.

The interesting conclusion of the reading from Hebrews (The reading was Hebrews 5:7-9) is that Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. I'll leave you to work out the implications of that, but I wonder if we often take that all too lightly. I hope you will join me in meditating on the costly cross and that we will take it up to follow Christ into this world to do the will of the Father.

Thoughts on Unity

2010-09-09T13:17:00.003-05:00

My neighbour asked me to share my thoughts on unity with her. She is preparing a worship service for her church and had recently discovered that I am a theologian. So far our efforts to connect to have the actual conversation hasn't panned out but I've been thinking and thought I'd share some of my thoughts here. I also think that it fits into the theme of the day.

The first thing I think about for unity is that it is not uniformity. This is foundational. Uniformity is, in my thinking, the opposite of unity. It is the inability to recognize others as others but to insist on conformity. In a real sense this represents the devaluing of the human spirit/potential, the inability to allow each of us to explore our unique journeys, or at least to not explore them in the company of those who insist on uniformity. Unity can only occur when there is real difference and a choice to live with the tensions that such differences might produce.

I will take a step further and say that unity, ideally speaking, celebrates difference. Unity is the overcoming of the tensions difference create not by subsuming all differences into some indefinite slurry, but rather by recognizing that we are not all identical and that our dissimilarities are often the sources of our strengths. These strengths are the contribution that makes unity desirable. When we bring our unique selves to the community we enrich the whole. (The opposite is when we force conformity then we rob the community of its ability to act/create.) So, religiously speaking, when I come to community I bring my whole identity with me.

In a very real sense there is a notion of tolerance implicit in unity. Not the kind of tolerance that forces differences to be understated, but the sort that is willing to explore the differences in others to understand why those differences matter to the other. Tolerance means we accept the other as the other truly is, even if we disagree with the position of the other. As a second step we try to understand the other on their own terms. Paying attention to how their difference(s) contribute to a stronger community.

It might be easy to see how this unity, that I describe, can take us beyond even our own religious identities. This is what makes hatred so offensive to me. It is a violence against difference, an intolerance of difference and an enemy of unity.

A Great Alternative

2010-09-09T10:54:00.003-05:00

Thank you James McGrath! Over at his blog, the good doctor has suggested a great protest to the Burn a Koran day - Read a Qu'ran day! I'm in. Of course my Arabic is a bit non-existent so I'll be reading a translation. I urge you to join in as well. The reality is that many North American evangelicals have been brought up in a culture of fear. We are taught, sometimes explicitly, to fear the Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Mormons, Asians, Pentecostals, gays, academics, and the list could go on and on. So in some ways fear comes natural to us. There is a solution though. Perfect love, the Bible claims, casts out all fear. So why do we love fear so much? Fear is control. In fact fear is quite a powerful political tool, having a common enemy allows a government to focus the attention of the masses onto the object of fear instead of their poor performance at home. Pastors use it to keep people in pews. But, let me be bold here, fear is quite anti-Christian. Fear is the product of regulated ignorance. Fear is the tool of manipulation, the classic definition of witchcraft. So let's look fear right in the face and choose instead to read for understanding and love. On 9/11 read the Qu'ran.

Being and Asshole is Not a Prerequisite to Christianity

2010-09-09T09:43:00.002-05:00

Terry Jones is an asshole. There is no way to sugarcoat it. I vacillate between sad and mad over the plans to burn Qu'rans on the anniversary of 9/11. I realize that Dove World Outreach Center represents a small ignorant minority, but what bothers me is that it does so in the name of Christianity. What also bothers me is that the problem many people seem to have with this is that it will incite violence against Americans? That is a huge disconnect. We should be bothered first of all because this "church" is going to commit a hate crime. In fact it already has, repeatedly. I'm not unsympathetic towards the ways this might incite more violence - violence always begets violence. What of those Muslims who no longer feel safe in America? When will someone say enough is enough and refuse to continue the cycle of violence? When will someone have the courage to say no to religious intolerance and hate crimes?

Here is a video that tries to cast it in a more humorous light, but it really only just makes me madder.

In my humble opinion, if Jones actually goes through with this evil plan then he not only commits a crime against humanity, he desecrates the memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11. If Dove World Outreach Center sins in this way then they are giving the victory to the terrorists. Let me go on record as being opposed to anyone inciting hatred, and as vehemently opposed to the evil plans of this "church".

Review: Chronological Study Bible (NKJV)

2010-09-08T10:49:00.002-05:00

I was sent this bible for the purpose of reviewing it on my blog. The agreement was that I would read the whole thing. Well, this book is a monster. The NKJV text is not a problem, I spent a few years carrying around a NKJV (pocket size) as my general reading bible. So I'm already ahead of the game that way. It is the notes, tonnes of notes, that I am supposed to have read all of. I've probably not read them all, but I've tried a few tactics with this bible.

First I tried to read them from first to last. The notes are good but it is like trying to read an encyclopedia straight through - after a while you are overloaded with often interesting bits of data. Then I tried just working through sections of text, augmenting it with the notes. A bit better but eventually I realized that if this bible is going to have any value to me it will be as a reference book and not as a devotional bible.

The reason for this is that there is something Canonical about the order of text that is lost when you try to put it in some sort of chronological order. Mashing the gospels together, for instance, is not a new idea. I have and regularly use a Synoptic Parallels, it is a great tool for Bible study. But when you start mashing you take text out of the gospeler's intended context. And based on what? At least the harmonized gospels is based on pericopes. Mashing John in there is interesting, but at what cost? The re-ordering of the text is the part that makes me most nervous of this bible. So now it is a reference only text.

As a reference it is ok. But I'm left with the conundrum of when I would actually use it. Sure I might want to see where they placed certain events in a historical timeline. But I'm always a bit skeptical of the picking and choosing that this implies. And I think that the notes are helpful in terms of situating the text a bit. But, and here is the big reason I don't pull it down very often, it is really hard to find texts in this version. (I think in about a years worth of sermon prep I've pulled it out only once to see what it did with the text! The rest of the time I kept it where it would get thumbed through.)

With a traditional bible you gain a familiarity with where things are. At least I have. It is entirely reasonable to navigate it by feel. And the concordance that has become almost standard to contemporary bibles is useful for remembering where those great passages are. But with the Chronological Study Bible you have to add a step - after you locate the verse you then have to look in the index to figure out where they have hidden that particular section of scripture. If you are doing a word study, this is almost impossible. So even if the notes are good, it takes so long to get there that the value of the notes is diminished.

Where I can see this being useful is if you were doing a bible study where you wanted to look at a particular moment in time and read the texts that possibly surround/describe that moment. But in quite a few years of pastoral work, I've not had that sort of study come up.

So my verdict is that the Chronological Study Bible is a neat idea, but in the end it is not very practical.

Getting Ready for School

2010-09-06T21:37:00.003-05:00

OK this was a much better day. Productive too. We put my daughter's room back together and I set up a laptop for her to use - it doesn't do much more than word process so it should be fine, at least until they try and hook it up to the network! Yikes.

I have been thinking more about what I can do job-wise, while still maintaining a good pace on my PhD and at the same time not imploding my family. For sure I won't be adding anything new to my schedule, which saddens me because for a while there I was thinking it could be time to launch out on a new service with Freedom. I'm hoping we can keep the main group, book club and monthly theology pub all in place. With a couple of weddings coming up there won't be a theology pub until at least October. So that makes life a bit easier. Right now the big stress is finances so barring a benevolent contribution I need to find some way of bringing in some money.

Tomorrow will also be the first day with kids in school, so I need to make good use of the time reading. During the day I need to be very disciplined and either stick to my work or go job hunting.

I also ordered a Kindle 3 (3G) for reading. I know there is a problem with page numbers. What I want it for is pdfs actually. I have to read a tonne of theses and articles which I can get via ATLA and other sources, but it is really expensive to have them printed and bound (which is what I was doing). I'm hoping that the kindle format will be workable so I can annotate right in the file, but either way it will be nice to have them all on a reader. I can't stare at my screen that long to read straight text. I was thinking of the iPad (not that I could afford one) but what I want is a reader and the iPad is yet another computer screen. I'll post my review after I've used it for a while. It wasn't cheap, but I think it might pay for itself and prevent me from breaking my back lugging around piles of spiral bound books!

The Day Begins With Blah...

2010-09-05T11:04:00.002-05:00

Not sure why but I'm in a funk today. Could be that my kids are fighting since they got up! So glad school is about to start again - they are done. Could be that I stayed up way too late last two nights - and still got up at normal times. Grrrr. It could be that it is sinking in that I am trying to find work to supplement our income while not losing sight of a doctoral thesis. That last one scares me the most. I have skills which I could use, I had a career in IT and it was a good one. I just got to the point where I didn't believe in what I was doing. The idea of going back to that terrifies me. But the reality is that it is too much strain on the family to not have a break from almost 7 years on one income. My wife is amazing, but even she has her limits - and I've been pushing them since before the Masters.

On the plus side, last night was highly productive. I managed to put together a couple of wedding services and read a huge chunk of Bernard Ramm's Barthian project for evangelical theology. He is one of the best writers I've read in a while, but I still find Barth too Calvinistic for my liking.

OK, off to buy school supplies for the little one.

Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... and Other Lies You've Been Told

2010-08-31T19:35:00.002-05:00

This is a very helpful book. Prof. Wright has presented something that I strongly believe we need to sit down and think about. As an academic who studies evangelicals I am constantly weighing through alarmist self-condemnation and finally someone has had the guts to say that it simply isn't true. Whatever else I say about this book, I think it needs to be read and taken very seriously. Wright calls us to love the truth and be suspicious of statistics, especially when someone is trying to sell you something.

Wright wades through a variety of claims made about Christians, with careful attention to Evangelical Christians. He shows how these claims are often based on erroneous, suspicious or poorly interpreted statistics. He draws on large sample statistics to try and get at what the real situation might be. To his credit this could be very tedious writing, but Wright moves us along at a pace that avoids bogging us down in the details but gives us enough information to see whether or not there is any substance to the claims. I find he is fair. He doesn't paint an overly rosy picture, but he also doesn't paint the doom and gloom we often hear from pulpits.

Wright could have spent a bit more time on the disconnection between his statistically measurable aspects of Christian action and morality. The reality is that the agendas for negative publicity are often filled with strong assumptions about the nature of Christian action and morality. This isn't as much a critique of Wright's choices here as it is of the ideologies behind the internal negative reports on Christian morality. He does get at this with his lovely term "cranky nostalgia", I would simply call it ideologically driven romanticism.

For me the litmus test in terms of bias came when Wright addressed the powder-keg issue of homosexuality. I felt he was very focused, not presenting his own bias but sticking to his task of evaluating Christian attitudes, as measured by the statistics, towards gay individuals. I wonder if he could have been as unbiased towards Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as well - he seems to lump them in with other religions despite the fact that they are Christian sects which emerged around the same time as many other "evangelical" sects. Historically it is more helpful to lump them in with the groups they are most related to, regardless of their adherence to classical categories of orthodoxy. The only reason I point this out is that it is a place where Wright's bias does show through.

All in all this is an excellent book. Wright punctuates it with humour (albeit fairly geeky humour) and keeps his analysis succinct and relevant. I highly recommend this book.

Dishonesty is Not a Virtue

2010-08-30T09:14:00.002-05:00

I'm reading a fascinating book (review to follow) that maps out the abuses of statistics Christians use to engender fears that sell products. Seriously. It is a bit depressing in terms of the moral integrity of evangelicals, but optimistic about the future of religion in society. A strange mixture. Josh McDowell comes off as one of the offenders here, that shouldn't surprise me as that guy is also dishonest about history (Evidence that Demands a Verdict provides some horribly skewed views of history and scripture). I'm not sure he does this intentionally, but is probably caught up in the apologetic culture that uses alarmism as a tool. More evidence, to me, that we evangelicals who purport to be lovers of the truth are actually not that honest to begin with. God help us.

Artist Draws Cross-eyed Jesus!

2010-08-28T15:29:00.003-05:00

My friend David, aka NakedPastor, often posts his art. Recently he posted a picture of Jesus as a youth (with a very modern haircut - must be prophetic!) I couldn't help thinking of the pun, cross-eyed Jesus, when I saw it. But there is something about making the cross central to our theology that is very Jesus-like. Just saying. BTW David's blogs is one of the ones I frequent the most, very thought provoking conversations. Give it a look, I'm sure you will agree.

Piles and Piles of Reading

2010-08-26T09:59:00.002-05:00

I'll probably be sporadic for a while yet. I am working my way through a pile of material for chapter one of my thesis. So far I've completed a pile of books and articles that deal with boundaries around the term evangelical. I think it was McGrath who said that those who give you tight definitions of evangelicalism usually have an ax to grind. But there are certain contours of evangelicalism that are helpful to recognize, especially for me when I am trying to say that the theology I'm developing is in some way an evangelical theology. Something important for me to be able to say about my work.

The nice find in this was George Rawlyk's (editor) collection of essays by many big hitters called Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience. Not only does it help set out the differences (as well as similarities) between the American and Canadian evangelical experience, it helped me understand some of my own orientations being a Canadian.

To finish up that section I have found a copy (used) of Harvey Cox's Fire from Heaven. I should really just tear through it but it is delicious to read. I also have Stackhouse's Evangelical Futures on the way - this is my third try at procuring a copy of that book! For the record Stackhouse's article "Who Whom?" in Aspects was really good.

The last two nights I transferred my copious notes (from the margins of these books - I write in the books I own, I know horror of horrors!) to Nota Bene. I have a bunch of longer notes in my journal to transfer yet, but the process of revisiting the material is helpful for my brain.

The next pile of books has to do with evangelicals engaged in projects of social transformation, critiquing evangelical social engagement or discussing the relationships between evangelicals and culture. Everything from Gushee to McLaren! This is the section with some of the least academic books in it - but those will probably not take long to read. I weeded it out quite a bit before starting as I tend to read a lot of these 'practical' type books anyway. I hope I can find a few gems amidst the rubble.

Ground Zero Mosque

2010-08-16T23:22:00.002-05:00

US politics is often just at the periphery of what I pay attention to. But this one sorta bugs me. From a Christian ethic it seems pretty clear that supporting the building of a mosque and Islamic information center would be the right thing to do. It would be a turning of the other cheek, that is a strong message that the views of a few religious extremists will not win the day but where hatred has been sown we will extend grace. Not that everyone responding is a Christian. But supporting the mosque strikes me as the opposite response to that of Bush - which was blow the "enemy" up. Violence never solves problems - just look at the mess we are in overseas to see what the fruit of violence really is. Someone must stand up and say no more.

I get that people lost loved ones. I had a friend working not far from ground zero myself and felt the angst of not knowing, though that is but a taste of what I'm sure folks went through on the day. Even if you lost loved ones is an eye for an eye really a good response? Should we hate non-Europeans because of the actions of a few? And where is the repentance from the US on the part they played in building the culture of fear that was such fertile ground for the terrorists? And how about the loss of the parents and friends of those terrorists? Or worse, the subsequent innocents killed by Bushes retaliation? Violence begets violence. None of us are innocent. None of us deserves to be the object of terrorism. And, most importantly, none of us deserves to be the object of hatred and marginalization. So why is this issue not clearer? Why can't we see a glowing example of the principles of tolerance and good will that countries like the US say they have enshrined?

What is the difference between opposing this mosque and Jihad?

Thinking it Through

2010-08-05T13:45:00.002-05:00

If you are like me then sometimes you don't think things through fully before you launch into them. I'm getting better as I age, but can I tell you stories. For me this is one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about precision and clarity in evangelical terminology. Not only is it so that we can have better interface with those beyond our religious community, thinking it through allows us to better understand the implications of our own doctrinal assertions. I feel like too many evangelicals (and other religious folk) think that doctrines, theologies, understandings just drop out of heaven fully formed and completely obvious to everyone else. This is probably one of the best lies the 20th century evangelical church has swallowed (as if lies could be good). We might chuckle at the above post. But how often does our misunderstanding of the gospel lead to bait and switch (ie. dishonest) practices? Just saying.