Seeing the Forest… from the trees

Here are some great reflections on violence and Christianity by Miroslav Volf on CPX.

Check them out.

The Victorian government is reviewing the religious exceptions to the anti discrimination legislation and again questioning whether churches, school and welfare agencies have the right to discriminate on the basis of religion. Read about it here in The Age.

Where I think the issue is in this debate is the secularist assumption that religion is only a minor element of human activity. This quote shows a bit of what I mean:

‘The Law Institute of Victoria’s Dominique Saunders said: “Unless there is a direct link to the observance or teaching of religion, there should be no exception in the laws to discriminate, for example, against a gay maths teacher. I don’t think that is acceptable.”‘

This assumes that maths will be taught in the same way by a person regardless of their religion or sexual orientation. If you reflect on this it is not difficult to see that this is not true. Though the syllabus makes requirements of what must be taught different people will teach differently. The relationship of a student to a teacher includes a whole lot more than the mere communication of information and it is the relationship that religious institutions seek to impose some additional standards upon.

The assumption that religion is only restricted to a small set of tasks is one that fails to take into account the teachings of any of the major religions and to remove the anti discrimination exceptions here will undermine the individual’s right to freedom of association. It is our ability to choose who we associate with that allows us to express convictions that are beyond the concerns of the government. Also, it is who we employ within Christian (and other religion’s) organisations that is crucial to maintaining the ethos of the organisations themselves.

Here Mark Sayers has a great reflection on some ideas about masculinity that are out there. 

Unfortunately, no simple answers.

I can be cynical at the best of times, but you’ve gotta love a good pithy quote about why the world sucks…

Between two worlds reminded me of this one:

Malcom Muggeridge:

. . . [I]t has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created

his own boredom out of his own affluence,
his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
his own vulnerability out of his own strength;

himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.

Malcome Muggeride, from his essay “Jesus: The Man Who Lives,” in Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith, ed. Cecil Kuhne (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 16.

Wess Daniels has posted Four Models of the Emerging Church on his Blog. They are good to help understand some of the diversity of what is going on at the moment and are worth quoting:

Four Types of Emerging Churches and their Thinkers

1. Deconstructionist Model: Probably the most well known group of emerging churches these churches are truly postmodern in just about every sense of the word. These are Christians influenced mainly by deconstruction, a philosophical approach invented on the continent. In their holy readings of philosophical discourse Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault and Caputo would be there. Much of the focus is on adopting postmodernity, and contextualizing the Gospel accordingly. Peter Rollins’ Ikon in Ireland would be a good example of one such group. I think Tony Jones and Brian McLaren would also fall under this category. I would say they are accommodating to postmodern culture, against modernism, and often against the institutional church making them lean towards a sort of non-denominationalism.
2. Pre-modern/Augustinian Model: This model would be the second most influential within the EC, and can be in (friendly) opposition to the first group. Instead of understanding postmodernism in terms of Nietzschean philosophy as group one would do, this model leans more towards a Renaissance styled post-modernism (similar to what is represented in Toulmin’s Cosmopolis). Whether this group is truly early modern or whether it reaches back further to the pre-modern era I am not quite clear on, but St. Augustine and St. Thomas are key figures for this group. This is the where the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank, James K. Smith and others would fall. We see some catholics here, as well as other theologians that tend towards placing a higher emphasis on tradition within the overall framework of the Christian faith, rather than simply contextualization. This group would be see history as having shown us a better way, and if we reach back far enough we may be able to find wisdom that will help us in our quest of faith today. They would be more favorable towards institutional church, and have a pretty clear understanding of what kind of church we ought to become, but would also be seen as nostalgic and trying to uphold an institution that has often oppressed and violated those we are called to help.
3. Emerging Peace Church Model (Or Open Anabaptism): This model of the emerging church stresses the non-conformist tendencies of Jesus, and thus the church should follow in his footsteps through non-violence, love of enemy and caring for the poor. This one may be closest to a kind ofnew monasticism that has so often been written about in recent times. While there are people from the various peace churches involved in this type of church, there are also people from a variety of traditions who are seeking to contextualize the Gospel within our culture. This group does not accept any one style of culture as being good, thus their non-conformist attitude is directed at modernity and postmodernity alike. They see Jesus (and his incarnation) as their primary model for engaging culture. They are influenced by Wittgenstein, Barth, Bonhoeffer, John H. Yoder, McClendon and Nancey Murphy to name a few. In this group you will find people like Jarrod McKenna and the Peace Tree, Shane Claiborne, some Mennonites, Rob Bell’s Mars Hill, Submergent, Jesus Radical andconvergent Friends, to name a few. This group is counter any kind of Christendom styled church and thus would be sometimes for and sometimes against institutionalization, and would see contextualization as important only up to the point that it remains ultimately an extension of Jesus’ ministry and message.
4. Foundationalist Model: This model of the emerging church is more conservative in their reading of Scripture and modern approaches to ecclesiology (standard preacher-centered teaching, music for worship, etc) while seeking to be innovative in their approaches to evangelism. This may come in the form of people meeting in pubs, having tatoos, cussing from the pulpit, playing loud rock music for worship and adding a layer of “alternative-ness” to their overall church service. These churches can be found within larger church communities, or can be on their own, sometimes as a large (possibly mega) church. They follow standard Evangelicalism in that they aren’t attach to traditions, and come out politically and theologically conservative, while maintaining a more accomodational stance toward culture in the name of evangelism, they will ultimately look similar to older church communities theologically. This is where I think theologians like Millard J. Erickson or D.A. Carson have a lot of influence. And where practitioners such as Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus and many “emerging services” within mega-church congregations like Willow Creek might be found.

For the most Part I see myself fitting best into the last category, but don’t like the term Foundationalist as I think its a caricature of what I (and many others) really think. I have already posted some of my thoughts on Foundationalism here. Possibly the issue for me is that foundationalism is often used as a pejorative as a way of labelling people as arrogant (and implicitly also ignorant). If you can be foundationalist without absolute knowledge of the foundations then perhaps that works, but it does not sound like classic Foundationalism. I think the foundation (that is, the fundamental basis of reality)  is ultimately created by God and we should try and describe it but are never perfect in our description of it. Theology is the task of trying to think God’s thoughts after him and hence we are always open to the possibility of error.

This just makes the title Foundationalist a bit narrow for the last group. I am sure that there may be issues in the other ones but either way it provides a good way of dividing and reflecting on some of the things that are happening.

Here is a useful article in the New York times, helpfully pointed out be Justin Taylor.

At church we are going through a series on the big picture of the Bible. Thanks to David Ould who pointed out this one. This video does a good job of showing how the theme of God’s mercy comes out through the Bible. 

I preached on Gen 2 this morning and fittingly Mark Sayers noted this article from the courier mail, check it out:
Marry for a fixed-term contract