I haven't offered sermon thoughts on this blog before, but do so here, given the varied response to the apology delivered by the Australian Parliament to the Stolen Generations - Indigenous families subject to forced removal and relocation as a result of government policy over a period of many decades. I seek to address the fear of change which often threatens all of us, and to challenge some of the romanticised notions of the ways in which transformation has often taken place.
This is not a verbatim or complete transcript, but supplemented notes from which I preach...
What a significant week it has been in the life of
Sometimes significant moments creep up on us unexpected. Others emerge after a long and intentional search. Still others in the agony of discovery. It might bring us some comfort that the decision to abolish slavery in the
As we reflect on the significance of this week, I would like to draw our focus back into two texts of scripture in order to highlight on of the great human realities: we all fear change.
There are times when our discoveries open up possibilities which frighten us. There are reports of scientists in Nazi Germany who made breakthrough discoveries but hid them for fear they would be used in ways which the scientists found abhorrent. There is the same concern in other areas of development today, where scientists seek knowledge, yet are concerned by the way in which the military and industrial might of politicians might see it put to other uses.
The story of Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain comes in the midst of a series of events in the life of Jesus which begin to turn the disciples' perceptions upside down. First the declaration of faith by Peter, then the revelation of Jesus' impending death, and now the revelation on the Mount of Transfiguration. Each of them met with some resistance.
When we come face-to-face with life-transforming information, we realise that it asks something of us. When I came face-to-face with Jesus Christ, I realised there was a call upon my life that I could not escape.
The disciples here face the same reality. And they hide in trivialities. Shall we build three booths?
We have similar mechanisms today. Let's put it to a committee. Let's pray about it. Let's... you know them as well as I do.
Human beings are very creative at resisting change. I know - I'm one of those. We ask questions. We ignore certain realities. We conceal our real agendas. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus, he comes as a man seeking to resist. How do we know? He comes at night... He asks vague questions... then responds to the answers with some skill to avoid the real issue. Nicodemus senses a new wind but wonders whether he can follow it.
Someone once said that if you weren't a communist in your 20s you didn't have a heart, and if you weren't a capitalist by the time you were in your 40s you had no brains. A young William Carey was put back in his place after sharing his dream of taking the gospel to the heathens by a leader's remarks "If God wants to convert the heathen, he'll do it without you or I."
Where do the dreams and yearnings of our youth go?
During the first year of our time at
Why do we resist change?
Overcome by Fear. What if we can't handle it? What if we don't have the skills? What if it doesn't deliver what we hope? Good questions to ask, but ones which point us back to the source of life and hope.
Fear of change. The seven last words of the church? We have always done it this way. There is comfort in familiarity. It helps us feel secure. Safe. But how much gospel is that?
We are often tempted to stay the same because we know it. It stands in stark contrast to Jesus' call to be born again. To live by the fluky winds of the Spirit. To leave behind families and mothers and brothers and sisters for the sake of the gospel.
Transformation is often harder. But which way leads to life?
A pastoral colleague reflected in the wake of the apology and in the light of John 3: "the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. And in that encounter, in which Jesus so profoundly speaks about 'new birth', I realized afresh what the core of the gospel is: that our past no longer needs condemn us to a particular future; that my tomorrows are not imprisoned by my yesterdays; that in Christ, there is a new and more hopeful reality that is brought into vision.
Today's apology was, for me at least, truly a Lenten miracle, and one that served to highlight powerfully the world-shaking wonder of the gospel of which John 3 speaks."
This past week has raised many other questions: compensation. Future Indigenous policy. Can we meet the expectations raised? The government was not limited by the problem of raised expectations because it heard the call of justice and compassion and truth.
The image of the Exodus is strong in our faith tradition: the call to leave the known and secure, if difficult, to strike out in search of the land of promise. The journey from Egypt to Promised Land was messy, fraught, filled with dissent, grumbling. You'd think there would have been better planning! When we become comfortable with the ways that we know we inevitably and inexorably abandon the call to the future which God has prepared for us.
Note Paul's response:
Philippians 3:10-14 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Posted by gary at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognised, but everybody has a script.
2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.
3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.
4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.
5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.
6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.
7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, too enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.
8. The task of descripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.
9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.
10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character - the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.
11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is elusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I'm embarrassed to say, in violence - [a] huge problem for us.
12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God's irascible self.
13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves - liberals and conservatives - in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so too debilitate the focus of the script.
14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, "do you renounce the dominant script?"
15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this elusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighbouring of all kinds.
16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.
17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.
18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is crucially present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of [the] old script and embrace of the new script.
19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one [see if that's an overstatement]; there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, my God, what would happen if you talk all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult.
The accompanying audio from which this was transcribed can be found here.
Posted by gary at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)
When a "virtual presence" replaces an incarnated presence, it may be that our virtue is virtual as well, says by Brian McLaren. I am particularly challenged b McLuhan's observation that "every technological innovation is an amputation" - we lose something even while we gain. The question to be pondered is whether the loss is greater than the gain. McLaren seems to suggest that we might be crossing the point of return in different ways:
I've had a couple of semi-sleepless nights lately because some members of my congregation got into trouble and needed my pastoral help. Their situation seems so messy, so ugly, so intractable, and I feel the weight of trying to help them get through it with their faith intact. I confess, though, that I've wished at times I could be one of those pastors who never actually has to deal with people, who simply "shows up" (interesting term) on screen, not in person.
I am certainly not against "video venues." Nor am I against Christian websites. Nor (obviously) am I against the use of books and journals (like the one that connects us here). I am for the thoughtful and careful use of technology in ministry, whether we're talking about the printing press, the telephone, radio, the internet, or satellites.
But we would be foolish to rush into new technologies unaware of their unintended consequences, the side effects that Marshall McLuhan began warning about back in the 1960s and 1970s (see Shane Hipps's The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church, Zondervan, 2006).
Every technological innovation, McLuhan would say, is an amputation. For example, with the invention of the wheel or lever or chain saw, we use our muscles less. With the invention of the calculator, our mental computational skills grow rusty. While microphones help us whisper to thousands, they also make it less necessary for us to learn enunciation and vocal projection. And spell-checkers … make it EZ for us never to lern the lie of the grammaratical land.
What of technologies that in a sense amputate presence? The television and the DVD, the videoconference and perhaps increasingly, the hologram, project our presence, but do they in some way amputate presence as well?
I recently heard someone say that preaching is going the way of the Eucharist: we're moving from "real presence" to "virtual presence." The preacher seen via projection or download is "with us," but only in an abstract sense.
Projection is a fascinating word, especially when contrasted with incarnation. I imagine the first chapter of the fourth gospel reading, "the Word was projected into our world to be observed among us," and I wonder what difference it would have made.
One difference: you can't crucify a digital image. And that, to me, is one of the great amputations that comes from "virtual presence" or "projected presence" replacing incarnational presence. Looking back on my years as a pastor, I have to say that preaching was relatively easy and fun. But being close to people, being present in a community, often was downright agonizing.
Many of us have thought to ourselves, Ministry would be great if it weren't for the people, and increasingly it has become possible to "have a ministry" without ever having to actually live, in your flesh, with people in their flesh. In fact, vicarious ministries (via books, radio, TV, or whatever) have a higher status in the minds of many than the work of actually being with people who argue, fail, disagree, react, sin, attack, have emotional breakdowns, get sick, call you at 2 a.m., betray you, try your patience, and eventually die and leave you in grief.
That loss of "real presence" is bad for the church, no doubt. But I can't help but think it's also bad for us as pastors and leaders too. Because if our ministry is only virtual, it may be that our virtue is virtual as well.
When we can't get hurt, when we can't sacrifice, when we can't share the pain of people in their actual presence and in "real time," something in us may be getting amputated. Paul spoke of "glorying" in his afflictions for the sake of those he served.
That's good for us to remember if we start envying the "virtual pastors."
source: Christianity Today
Posted by gary at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
A Dutch Bishop has stirred some interest with his call for people of all faiths to refer to God as Allah, as reported on the ABC website. Bishop Muskens suggests that God doesn't mind what name he is called, and during an eight year stint in Indonesia celebrated the Mass by referring to God as Allah. It's an interesting and fraught notion.
First, to suggest that it makes no difference to God what we call Him might be stretching matters a bit too far. It is one thing to find a culturally-relevant way to express faith, yet another to suggest that all such expressions are universally relevant and transferable. In some senses, to name God is to reduce Him, to give power over God by the one who names. The great Hebrew name for God can be loosely translated as to avoid that type of limitation: "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be". God defined by Godself.
The response of Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant church in the Netherlands, is enlightening and revealing in many ways, "Calling God 'Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."
...the fact that Allah doesn't do justice to Western identity is both a strength and a weakness: in one way countering the blind spots of our own understandings of God, and at the same time potentially denying aspects we would wish to affirm.
An underlying concern is the embracing of a view that we must all see God alike. I'm not sure that is true of any two people. Words have the power to create meanings as well as reflect them. If we are to affirm that the God we worship is greater than us all, we have to affirm the limitations of a particular and therefore culturally endowed understanding. But we must also, as Christians, affirm the notion of incarnation - that God is revealed in particular contexts. Determining the relationship of the universal to the particular and vice versa is an ongoing challenge for us all. But I do believe we are impoverished if we reduce God (or life for that matter) to a one-size-fits-all view.
A possibly complicating issue in this matter is that Islam as a faith does not generally accept the notion of cultural and contextual knowledge, at least in relation to revelation. It is founded on the belief of the timeless and eternal truth of the Koran and the prophet Mohammed. To adopt the term 'Allah' for God in the christian church may be seen either to embrace or to insult Islam, depending on whether we are seen to be seeking to turn the notion of Allah towards Western frameworks.
It was C S Lewis who once said that anything we say about God is a lie, inasmuch as it is not the full truth. A Western view of God, as much as an Islamic view, is both enlightening and limiting, opening up to new vistas, and closing of others. While the Bishop's suggestion is worthy of discussion, it is no panacea.
Posted by gary at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
The passage in Hebrews which speaks of Jesus "having been perfected by suffering" (Heb 2:10) has always been somewhat problematic... "Why is it that Jesus needed to be made perfect in the first place?" was one question it brought to mind. Yet I wonder whether that is the question the author seeks to address in this passage.
In popular thought suffering is rarely regarded as something worth embracing, or of intrinsic value. Popular Western thought regards suffering as something to be avoided at all costs, viewing it as of little innate value. We justify therapeutic cloning, stem cell research, and many other technological advances on the basis that they reduce suffering. What then of the One of whom it is said that the author of salvation as perfected through suffering?
Clearly suffering is not something which is alien to the character of God. Hebrews indicates that Jesus suffered as we do, yet was in no way diminished by that suffering. On the contrary, it indicates that his suffering was an essential aspect of his work of salvation. Through his suffering came salvation for us all. By his suffering we are redeemed, opened to the life of God through His Spirit. This is not to suggest that all suffering is redemptive, nor that all suffering should be embraced. Neither is it to indicate that we ignore the possibility of reducing suffering. Rather, here we are invited to embrace the possibility of redemptive suffering... the knowledge that some of life's hardest lessons - emerging from our deepest suffering - bring us something of great value.
I have read numerous autobiographies in which the writer has outlined a moment of deep grief in their life which has helped them to refocus and appreciate important aspects of life that were lost. Setting aside the penchant towards hagiography, there is truth in the fact that suffering sometimes brings us to face the deeper questions of life and discover something of the eternal once again.
Posted by gary at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)
Discovered a series of web sites designed to debunk the christian faith. The doorway I found was the video below entitled "God is imaginary".
The author follows a series of convoluted and contrived arguments to reach the conclusion "God is imaginary". Having followed his discussions (I say 'his' because it is a male voice in the video), I can only say that I agree. If we talk of a God whose only response to prayer is "Yes", "No" or "wait", we are not talking about the God of the Bible, who is far more than a repository for wishes and who exhibits a strong history of independence. Granted, the author is relying on quotes from Christianity.com, and a number of scientific studies about prayer to back up his arguments. Yet the author fails to address the greater complexities of God's action throughout scriptures: calling people from one place to another, giving guidance, direction, even commands which come completely 'out of the frame' of a simple Yes/No/Wait paradigm. A conception of God so limited is not the god of the bible, nor the God of the Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) faith, and I am happy to agree that such a god is imaginary. I am also happy to admit that there are christians who hold to such a notion of God... but since when has an idea been responsible for those who believe in it? In fact, I would be happy for the author to continue to debunk such absolute notions of God (which is not to say that there are no times when the simple answer to a prayer is either yes, no, or wait.)
Of course, the problem with scientific studies on prayer is that there is no way to guarantee that the control group is completely without prayer. And often assessments of the relative merit of outcomes implies that to be healthy is better than to be ill, to be perfect physically is to be better regarded than a person with some physical limitations (which of course diminishes some of the greats of history), and that suffering is always completely without merit or value.
And that's not to mention the response of a colleague who indicated that his wife could well respond yes/no/wait but cannot be equated with a jug of milk.
In the end, the pejorative claims "you are a smart person" allows me to see through the smokescreen which purports to be conclusive argument.
Posted by gary at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
In the movie Dead Poet's Society, Robin Williams' character is a teacher, John Keating, who inspires his students to reflect on the opportunity which stands before them. He takes his students down to the hallowed entrance halls of Welton Academy where pictures of past students adorn the walls. He asks them to look into the faces, look into the eyes, see their dreams, their hopes, and identify with their idealism. And know that they are all dead. He encourages them to "Seize the Day", knowing that opportunity slips by quickly.
This is but one of many movie scenes which captures my imagination. I am a lover of movies for two reasons: the images they present which implant enduring ideas in our minds, and because movies tell stories. One rabbi once said that God made people because he loves stories.
In an episode of the Simpsons entitled Colonel Homer, Bart takes Lisa into see a horror movie. As one particularly horrific scene is about to be played out, Lisa covers her eyes and tells Bart to let her know when it has passed. Bart tricks her into looking earlier, meeting loud complaints. Bart's response: "How are you going to be desensitised to this unless you watch it?"
Jerry Mander once argued, quite powerfully, I would suggest, that "we evolve into the images we carry in our minds. We become what we see." Mander was concerned about the impact of television, but he strikes upon a broader truth we do well to contemplate.
Stories are told of Vietnam Veterans who were surprised during their first real battle that those who were killed did not stand up and walk away, just as they did in every war movie they had seen.
Vincent Van Gogh saw the real world as an imitation of the paintings he saw in the museum.
we evolve into the images we carry in our minds. We become what we see.
When Paul encountered the Christians in Corinth, he drew three very different images of glory: "Jews ask for signs, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified." (1 Cor 1:22-23)
I love this story about a young boy's struggle with maths:
A ten year old boy was finding fifth grade maths to be the challenge of his life. Science? A piece of cake. Geography? No big deal. Spelling? Ha! Give me a break... but MATHS? It was devastating! To not only him, but his mom and dad, too! And not that they weren't doing everything and anything to help their son...Private tutors, peer assistance, CD-Roms, Textbooks, even HYPNOSIS! Nothing worked.
Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enrol their son in a private school. Not just ANY private school, but a Catholic school. Nuns. Weekly mass. The whole shootin' match.
Well, the first day of school finally arrived, and dressed in his salt-and-pepper cords and white wool dress shirt and blue cardigan sweater, the youngster ventured out into the great unknown. His mother and father were convinced they were doing the right thing.
They were both there waiting for their son when he returned home. And when he walked in with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face, they hoped they had made the right choice. He walked right past them and went straight to his room - and quietly closed the door.
For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room - with maths books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He only emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, he went straight back to his room, closed the door, and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime. This pattern continued ceaselessly until it was time for the first quarter report card.
After school, the boy walked into the home with his report card, unopened, in his hand. Without a word, he dropped the envelope on the family dinner table and went straight to his room. His parents were petrified. What lay inside the envelope? Success? Failure? DOOM?!?
Patiently, cautiously the mother opened the letter, and to her amazement, she saw a bright red "A" under the subject, MATHS. Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at the remarkable progress of their young son!
"Was it the nuns that did it?", the father asked. The boy only shook his head and said, "No."
"Was it the one-on-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?", asked the mother.
Again, the boy shrugged, "No."
"The textbooks? The teacher? The curriculum?" asked the father.
"Nope," said the son. "It was all very clear to me from the very first day of Catholic school."
"How so?" asked his mom.
"When I walked into the lobby, and I saw that guy they'd nailed to the plus sign, I knew they meant business!"
Sometimes we have questioned our Catholic brothers and sisters who cherish crucifixes, largely because we want to remind everyone that Christ is risen. But this did not seem to be a problem to Paul: "we want to preach Christ crucified," he said. There was something about this image which Paul wanted to be implanted firmly upon the brains of the Corinthians. It would be a recurring theme throughout the epistle. It's not that Paul didn't believe in the resurrection - there is a powerful argument for it in chapter 15. It is just that Paul wanted to counter a misconception in the Corinthian church about what it meant to follow Jesus. And the powerful corrective was the crucified Jesus. The enduring image for the Christian was Christ crucified. We evolve into the images we carry in our minds. We become what we see.
We might ask ourselves where in history is the most powerful moment of the revelation of God? Perhaps the Exodus? The Ten Commandments? Elijah on Mount Carmel? David and Goliath? Paul would answer unequivocally: the cross of Jesus Christ: the place where the centurion declared, "Truly this man was the Son of God"; the time when the temple curtain was torn in two. It was for this reason that Paul wants the cross of Christ to be an enduring image in our minds. It reveals something central to the character of God, and to our own formation.
The cross of Jesus stands in the way of triumphalism - which was certainly a problem in the Corinthian church, where it was the powerful and influential who were most admired, and for this reason Paul, with his infirmities struggled to gain acceptance as an apostle. It stands behind arguments about who was baptised by whom (which appear earlier in the chapter).
Paul did not regard the cross as an aberration on the way to the resurrection, nor that the resurrection denied the validity of the cross - the place where the cry of abandonment ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?") becomes the most poignant moment of revelation in human history. The resurrection of Jesus is an affirmation of the cross: the heavenly hand affirming that Jesus by his death was revealing something about God.
This is an important image to hold on to. If the death of Christ becomes a focus of God's revelation, what does it say about our own struggles and suffering? We discover God not by denying these realities, but by facing them. God's power is at work in the cross of Christ, and is equally at work in the frustrations and deaths of our own circumstances. We do not need to look out of these to find God, but to look into them, and walk through them. So that even when we encounter the risen Jesus, he bears the marks of crucifixion. He is the crucified one who has been raised. In resurrection he remains who he always was.
Rabbi Zusya tells a story to his followers as the one which has most moved him to tears. He pictures himself in a dream coming to the gates of heaven, and finds that God does not ask him, "Why have you not been more like Abraham?" or "Why have you not been more like Moses?" Instead God asks him, "Why weren't you Zusya?"
Paul asks us to carry at the forefront of our minds an image of Jesus crucified: a reminder that the Lord of the church is true to his character as the one who walked the streets of Galilee and became the crucified one. Foolishness, yes, but an image which reminds us that - as ones who follow in the footsteps of Jesus - our call is to be ourselves, walking in the purposes of God. Walking in all our brokenness, in the depths of our questions and struggles, in moments of abandonment as well as triumph.
We evolve into the images we carry in our minds. We become what we see.
What is the image of yourself you see most? What is the image of Jesus?
Posted by gary at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
I was privileged to hear Father John Dear speak at a Whitley College seminar yesterday. John is a peace activist in the non-violent tradition of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, whose message is grounded in the gospel narrative, and flows from and into the life that he leads. He has given me much food for thought, but one stands out above all others at this time. I have been reading a series of reflections on the last words of Jesus from the cross by Stanley Hauerwas, fitting as we move through Lent. John Dear made an observation which gave me pause for thought... what were the last words of Jesus to the gathered church of the time? They were spoken in the Garden of Gethsemane... "put down your swords".
From this time forward, the disciples dispersed; the last words from the cross heard by only a few.
What is the import of these words?
It struck me as John spoke that we regularly disconnect the individual events of Holy Week in particular and the life of Jesus in general from the overall picture. We cannot separate Jesus' injunction to put down the sword from his crucifixion, or response under pressure at trial - Jesus eschewed violence as a response. Neither can we ignore Jesus' overturning of the tables in the temple, or the prayer for his disciples, "Love one another as I have loved you".
The Christian faith has been tacked onto, and at times given fuel to trains heading for war. How are we to embrace this last command of Jesus in the garden?
The way of nonviolence has demonstrated powerful and transformative effects, far greater than military might (consider Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, The Falklands, the list could go on...), yet we have barely learnt the ways.
It is something which will remain at the forefront of my journey through Lent.
Posted by gary at 11:28 AM | Comments (1)
Since reading Fernando's reflection on the concept of Mis en Place, itself inspired by The Happiness Project, I have been contemplating its implications. For the uninitiated, mis en place is a cooking concept which refers to the process of careful preparation which allows a chef to give full attention to the process of mixing ingredients and cooking. Every ingredient, every tool and bowl, every machine is prepared before starting… in this way the task can move smoothly to its completion (which explains why those cooking shows make everything look so easy - the work of preparation is completed in advance). As Fernando indicates, professional chefs are pedantic about this, providing as it does a way through the anarchic chaos which professional kitchens often appear.
By taking this concept and reflecting on it in relation to our own creativity and spirituality, Fernando triggered some deep thoughts within, particularly as I have often pondered the place of discipline in a vital Christian spirituality. People of my generation tend to regard discipline with suspicion, regarding it as a recipe for stifling individuality and limiting both creativity and realisation of potential. Yet as I have considered the sporting field, the lie of these assumptions is exposed. Most of us are in thrall at the creative capabilities of elite sports personnel. They can push boundaries, create opportunities and respond with flair only because they have applied the concept of mis en place to their lives: they have put all the work to ensure that the skills, capabilities and fitness is there to draw on at the critical moment. Discipline releases creativity. It enables endurance. It reassures one that, in the critical moments, there are resources to draw upon, well-rehearsed skills and patterns, and a repertoire of options available.
In the spiritual journey the items of mis en place may well be prayer, study, reflection, journaling, meditation, fasting, stillness, service... among the many classic spiritual disciplines available to us from history. Such time of preparation is not wasted, even when the ingredients are not employed in the immediate situation. Such practices serve to deepen our humanity and expand our being, sending deep roots which can nurture and nourish us at the most surprising times.
Posted by gary at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
I have been fond of saying that the three measures by which we traditionally determine success in ministry is based around "the three Bs: Bums (on seats), Budgets, and Buildings". If any of these is on the increase, we assume that the ministry is a good (successful) one. But I wonder whether that is true.
Ryan Bolger takes another look at numbers:
We needed to take another look. Are numbers always evil?
Posted by gary at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)
Our community reflections this year have focussed on the Sermon on the Mount. We began by reflecting on the speeches and/or sermons which have made an indelible print upon us. Of more recent times, there is one which stood out above all, and for the vast majority of our community: Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. If you have never heard the speech, or seen footage, let me urge you... it is worth the few minutes of your time.
MLK's dream still stands largely unfulfilled some 44 years later, but it has not lost its power or its pertinence. Significant gains have been made in some quarters, smaller ones elsewhere, and a large reservoir remains unmoved. His passion is grounded in reality, grounded in scripture, and grounded in hope. Though society has changed significantly, it resonates at many levels.
MLK's speech is an interesting frame through which to view the Sermon on the Mount. It is tempting to view the SM through a rigid theological frame, as a simple critique of society, or as a (quasi-academic) treatise rather than hear its passion, be moved by its vision, and embraced in hope. Yet rather seeing the SM as offering an unrealistic burden, we need to encounter it as a paeon of hope, a harbinger of a new way of being, a manifesto of radical living. Its groundedness is evident, its challenges very pointed. As one observer noted: the SM has more often than not left untried because it is too hard. Such sentiments did not deter MLK, Gandhi, Wilberforce, and a litany of others who have been driven by a higher ideal.
Take careful note of the movement in MLK's speech as you watch: when he moves from the text to the heart (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Know that the dream is not pie in the sky. Then when it is finished, turn to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It will take you less time to read than to listen to MLK. Be inspired and challenged. Dare to live the dream!
Posted by gary at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)
Maggie Dawn has made some insightful comments about the status of the emerging church movement, questioning whether it is even important that it is new, and at the same time drawing on the biblical notion that "there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl 1:9 - my words, not hers).
Perhaps one of the real tragedies of considering the emerging church as something of a novelty (in the deepest sense of the word) is that it isolates the deep questions which undergird the movement from churches who do not consider themselves in any sense emergent. Yet for the most part the questions which drive the varied manifestations of the emerging church are fundamental to the future of the church as a whole, even if they exist in the context of broader questions. But the 'isolation' of the emerging church from the mainstream conversation has created a sense for many that it is an irrelevant phenomenon, and that the questions it is asking (and forming responses to) are uniquely theirs.
But these questions (should) trouble us all. Some which are presently being grappled with in the context of the emerging church include:
How much is the gospel become captive to the modern world-view?
How can we form community in ways which reflect present concerns and dynamics?
What is the ultimate purpose of the church, and how does it sustain its life and witness where the structure of everyday life has been radically changed?
What is truth? Can we ever know "pure" truth, or is our view always coloured by where we sit?
In what sense do we serve the structures of the church, and is this necessary for the mission of the church?
What does it mean to be authentically christian in this global village with all of its attendant challenges?
Is society something more than an economy?
I would suggest that, while these (and other) questions are at the forefront of thinking in much of the emerging church, they are important for all christians to grapple with, no matter their church estting. In this sense, the emerging/traditional church dichotomy breaks down.
Posted by gary at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)
It was assumed for many years that christians were somehow removed from culture, and that the message of the gospel was a-cultural - timeless, if you will, without influence in the places where it was anchored. In more recent years we have come to recognise, and own, the impact of culture on the way in which we have proclaimed the gospel, often in ways which did significant damage to indigenous peoples. At the same time, we learned to critique our own cultural contexts in order to more effectively minister. Some have done this exceptionally well, at least as far as measurement based on numbers of people in churches is concerned. In many ways we have waded unwittingly into the territory of merely imitating culture, and rendered ourselves compromised, if not powerless, when it comes to the task of transforming it.
What is the way forward?
We can satisfy ourselves that we are merely being faithful by not engaging with the surrounding culture - the way of the Amish (at one extreme) whereby we are regarded as a curio... exhibting some merit, but not necessarily offering a replicable pattern for the broader community.
Culture is almost always global AND local. We find ourselves intimidated when faced with the global media-inspired and -driven culture which has broad impact. We could set ourselves up as a christian media conglomerate and manufacture our own TV programs and movies, and even produce some interesting product lines to get out the message. We could... but we don't necessarily have the resources to do so. And even if we did, are we transforming it by merely reproducing it?
Better start local.
Having spent our married life in Melbourne, my wife and I have made our way anti-clockwise around the suburbs. While this is unusual (there is an "eastern drift" evident among the Melbourne population over that time - most people move further out along the axes from the city in which they grew up), it has exposed the variety of local cultures which are evident in Melbourne. The south-east is very different from the east (bible belt), which is again different from the northern suburbs. When our church rebuilt its manse, we found temporary accommodation across the Yarra, not 10 kilometres from where the manse was located, yet we found ourselves in a significantly different cultural, as well as socio-economic set. The inner city has also revealed these very strong local tendencies - West and North Melbourne a different culture from Footscray, not 5 kilometres west of here, and different again from Docklands, and the city.
Which offers some insight into the challenges of culture facing the church. There is significant scope to impact one's local culture. Building strong links with one's neighbourhood, and seeking to strengthen community spirit, and create new community links can have a significant local impact.
I know that there are some who might suggest that it is not much of an impact - but if we do not impact where we live, what hope do we have in transforming a community where we do not live?
Through street parties, local functions, seasonal celebrations, community festivals, and community-based fund-raising efforts, it is possible to impact the way local communities respond to one another, and meet challenges which each inevitably faces.
Through building of relationships, the possibility of dialoguing with and about global culture and its impact is enhanced, offering opportunity not only for critique, but for creating new ways of being. Oddly enough, you will more often than not find similar concerns about the impact of broader culture held by many who have never stepped near a church.
We can, however, retreat behind oaken doors and live restricted lives in which we are cut off from wider cultural pressures. It might help us, but isn't that a bit like hiding a light under a bucket? Ought we not welcome the opportunity to engage with others who recognise this same pressure, and yearn for new ways of being? You'll be surprised how receptive and creative people can be - if we don't simply offer pat answers without opportunity for joint struggle.
Posted by gary at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)
I remember being impressed by "The Cotton Patch Parables of Liberation" many years ago - it brought the gospels to life in a new and fresh way. I had no idea that its author, Clarence Jordan, had translated much more of the New Testament, or its context, until alerted by Geoff Leslie, who has just completed an essay for a post-graduate course. Geoff and his wife Debbie have lead a significant ministry in a rural setting for many years, and writes a regular column for the local paper. By permission, I include it here.
I have a new hero. I just wrote an essay about a man who lived in Georgia USA, who died in 1969 named Clarence Jordan. He had many enemies and very little recognition in his time, but many today recognise he was a wonderful example for life and should get more recognition.
His essential focus was that he didn't see any difference between Negroes (as he called them - 'African Americans' is more PC today) and the whites (er, 'Anglo Americans') and he started a communal farm where black and white families worked together. That generated visits from the Klu Klux Klan and incredible hostility. But let me outline the story from the beginning.
Jordan always felt that he wanted to do something like the communal farm idea but knew that he needed some training, so he studied agriculture and got a degree in that. Then he anticipated there might be some arguments with church folks so he thought he would study theology as well. He found a natural ability in New Testament Greek and ended up getting a doctorate - a PhD in Greek.
Then, in 1942, he and his wife Florence walked across a thousand-acre farm that was for sale. It was red soil degraded by too much cotton-growing, and to Clarence it cried out, 'Heal me! Heal me!'.
With another couple, they bought it and began to implement good agricultural method while inviting other families, black and white to join them on Koinonia Farm – 'koinonia' being Greek for fellowship or togetherness.
One day he took a dark-skinned friend to his local church. They got thrown out and the church banned anyone from Koinonia farm from ever being a member there. Soon there was an economic boycott - all local merchants were warned not to trade with 'those nigger-lovers'. The persecution grew through all the 1950's and 1960's; it was pretty rough.
Clarence was bewildered by the churches and Christians who lived with such hate and prejudice. Didn't they read the same Bible and follow the same Jesus as he did? He decided the problem was that the Bible was not translated properly. It hid its message behind old fashioned words and its radical message was having no impact.
So he began to tell the story of Jesus as if it were happening in Georgia. 'Jesus was born in Gainesville, Georgia when Herod was governor in Atlanta...' He put the story into the contemporary landscape and it became much easier to see how radical Jesus was and why he was killed. Eventually he produced most of the New Testament in this translation and he called it the Cotton Patch Version. It's most radical feature was that instead of the ancient terms 'Jew' and 'Gentile', he used 'white' and 'Negro', so that, for instance, when Paul's letter to the Ephesians talks about Christ coming to reconcile Jews and Gentiles, the Cotton Patch Version reads:
"So then, always remember that previously you Negroes, who sometimes are even called "niggers" by thoughtless white church members, were at one time outside the Christian fellowship, denied your rights as fellow believers, and treated as though the gospel didn't apply to you, hopeless and God-forsaken in the eyes of the world. Now, however, because of Christ's supreme sacrifice, you who once were so segregated are warmly welcomed into the Christian fellowship."
As you can imagine, in the racially segregated South, this was inflammatory material. The whole translation is now on the Internet at http://rockhay.tripod.com/cottonpatch/index.htm
The Cotton Patch version however remains a wonderful piece of work. Someone even made a musical about it called "Cotton Patch Gospel" with music by Harry Chapin. This musical is being screened free at the Baptist Church this Sunday night, at 6pm - but I digress.
I wish readers could encounter the vitality and power of Clarence’s own words. Here's how he explains why he doesn’t use the word 'cross' or 'crucifixion' – preferring to speak of Jesus being 'lynched'.
"There just isn't any word in our vocabulary which adequately translates the Greek word for "crucifixion." Our crosses are so shined, so polished, so respectable that to be impaled on one of them would seem to be a blessed experience. We have thus emptied the term "crucifixion" of its original content of terrific emotion, of violence, of indignity and stigma, of defeat. I have translated it as "lynching," well aware that this is not technically correct. Jesus was officially tried and legally condemned, elements generally lacking in a lynching. But having observed the operation of Southern "justice," and at times having been its victim, I can testify that more people have been lynched "by judicial action" than by unofficial ropes. Pilate at least had the courage and the honesty to publicly wash his hands and disavow all legal responsibility. "See to it yourselves," he told the mob. And they did. They crucified him in Judea and they strung him up in Georgia, with a noose tied to a pine tree."
Clarence Jordan died at the age of 58 in his study. The coroner wouldn't come to that hated farm to check him out. A co-worker drove his body propped up in a car through the town to the coroner's office. Next day, after an autopsy (it was a heart attack), they sent his body back nude in the back of a station wagon with his clothes in a bag. He was buried in a cardboard box on a hillside on the farm surrounded by the poor folks he spent his life amongst. The farm lives on and so does a wonderful international humanitarian organisation called Habitat for Humanity that he helped start. But in life and death, he was an unrecognised hero. We need more of them.
Although this article is yet to be archived on his web site, more articles by Geoff Leslie can be found on his web site.
Posted by gary at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
The following article, written by Rick Dugan offers an interesting perspective on the present challenges facing the church. Rick has been leading an international church in the Middle East for many years...
The Secular Church
We are a part of the Church at a pivotal time in history. For the last 1600 years western nations could proudly claim to be the home of `Christendom' – lands and cultures where Christian values reigned and where the church wielded significant influence. But no longer. Christendom is dying. Rather than occupying a central place in society as it has since the fourth century, the Christian church is now finding itself on the margins – a situation similar to what the early church faced.
Many attribute this loss of influence to the rapid secularization of western culture. Yet statistics indicate that contemporary America is not less but more spiritual than it was in previous decades. The secular society has failed to satisfy spiritual thirst, solve the world's problems, or provide meaningful answers to life. Now many are willing to acknowledge a divine dimension to reality. Though more open to the influence of the supernatural in their lives, Americans are increasingly less likely to look to the institutional church for spiritual guidance. The success of books and films such as The Da Vinci Code reveal how deep is the distrust of institutional religion while highlighting people's desire for a spiritual connection through non-traditional means.
Why has this happened? Let me suggest that one cause may be the secularization of the church rather than the secularization of society. At first the idea of a secular church may appear to be a contradiction in terms. After all, the Church is a religious institution, and "secular" refers to something that is not influenced by religion. A secular worldview assumes that faith is a personal rather than public matter and that the problems of life can be addressed by science and reason. In subtle ways this worldview has permeated the church of North America.
During the era of the megachurches a strong emphasis was placed on personal application and meeting felt needs. The autonomous individualism that characterizes a secular society was encouraged as churches turned the gospel into a means of personal fulfillment. A subtle shift occurred in the interest of "relevancy" as the outward proclamation of the story of Jesus and its claims upon us was replaced with the inward application of principles to enhance our lives.
A second way that the secular worldview has influenced the body of Christ is in our approach to church growth. Many churches engaged in marketing rather than mission to help their congregations grow. As George Barna writes, "For several decades, the Church has relied upon greater sums of money, better techniques, bigger numbers and facilities, and more impressive credentials as the means to influence society at large. These elements have failed us; in our efforts to serve God, we have crowded out God Himself."
Where do we go from here? We could spend our time mourning the death of Christendom and fighting to regain our position of power, but is that what the Church is called to do? We must resist looking to our culture to provide us with the tools to minister. Instead, we need to look to Jesus. It is the incarnation that provides our model for ministry rather than Wall Street or Hollywood. In John 20:21 he said, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you." The leaders who guide the church into the future will not be CEOs. They will be prophets and poets who look to God and point their congregations to Him.
In Mark 2:15 we see Jesus exemplifying mission and leadership in a world similar to our own. It says, `Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.' For Jesus, mission often took place in the context of a community. Rather than a multiple staff, He had friends. Rather than marketing, we see hospitality. Rather than a program, He shared a meal. He brought the kingdom of God into the homes and workplaces where life happened.
Second, Jesus demonstrated that leaders themselves must be involved in mission. As a leader, He entered the home of someone that the religious professionals would have avoided. But not only did he visit tax collectors and sinners, he led his disciples there as well. No doubt the disciples felt uncomfortable as they sat with people that the religious establishment rejected, but they trusted the leadership of their rabbi. They were willing to follow him into dangerous territory. Today we need leaders who think like missionaries and lead their congregations in mission.
Third, Jesus invested His time in people who were followers and not just customers. His concern was never to draw a crowd, but to make disciples. We need churches willing to abandon the world's standards for success – standards of size and budgets – by becoming intentional about ministering to those on the margins and helping them become followers of Jesus.
More important than engaging our culture, we must reengage with the mission of God. Darrel Guder rightly says, "The answer to the crisis of the North American church will not be found at the level of method and problem solving. The real issues in the current crisis of the Christian church are spiritual and theological." To overcome the effects of secularization and to minister once again from the margins of society, we must become worshiping communities participating in God's mission.
The world doesn't need – or want – a secular church. As secular rock group Green Day sing, "The Jesus of suburbia is a lie." They speak for a world in crisis – a world that no longer believes that science, politics, or organized religion can provide a life of hope and meaning. In this context, Christians live as an alternative community defined by our trust in Christ and participation in His work.
Overcoming our compromise with secular culture begins with repentance. We must confess we have relied on man's wisdom to fulfill God's purposes rather than looking to the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Once again we must listen to the voice of the Spirit and follow the example of Jesus to become the people of God. As we live out the message of reconciliation and invite others to trust in God, our churches become the arena where He lives and where others can witness what life is like under His rule. This is our greatest witness.
Posted by gary at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
At the risk of gutting the full intent of Frank's thoughtful post on rational faith, this particular comment jumped out at me:
The willingness to think is one of the most scarce capacities in our current situation. There is a great scarcity of critical thinking. We value the kind of thinking that 'produces results'—that is, which helps us to know how to do things, and to do them better. We value the kind of thinking that will give us more things, more money, more 'outcomes'. But we find it uncomfortable, or downright annoying, when someone asks questions about the values in these activities. We need the rational inquiry which involves self-criticism and moral challenge. In other posts I have written about the quest for truth. Most important for me is the quest for truthfulness.
It appears that one of the significant cultural shifts post-September 11 has been the reluctance to allow open publicly debate about the bigger questions of value and culture. Those who do so usually find themselves stereotyped - images such as "unAustralian" or "unpatriotic" are freely used - and suspicions about motives are raised. In times of crisis, this level of debate becomes more important, rather than less. In an era of redefinition, it remains equally so.
Posted by gary at 12:37 PM | Comments (1)
Very helpful thoughts on the desert here.
Posted by gary at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
I have greatly appreciated the musings of Frank Rees on the spirituality of place, with his reflections on the beach and on contrasts. His reflections set me thinking, as I journeyed to some places in the past week which have been significant in my own journey, which I have reflected upon here.
Posted by gary at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)
Imagine the headline “God wants to destroy the church!” Most of us would be up in arms. If I preached that in some churches, I would doubt whether they would let me finish. Yet this is the message which Jeremiah is asked to preach. He stands before the people of Israel and tells them that if they want to be a part of God’s future, if they want to be in the place of God’s blessing, they have to leave the Promised Land behind (Jer 24). In other words, to know the blessing of God, they would have to let go of a blessing they had already been given. They would have to leave behind the Promised Land, leave behind the temple, leave behind the palace where memories of David and Solomon crossed their minds every time they saw the palace. They would not only leave behind the place where the stories of the heroes of faith were lived, they would need to embrace something which would generally be regarded as the antithesis of everything that they stood for as the people of God - submission to the rulers of Babylon, where they would be taken in exile. Jeremiah was not a popular man for preaching this message. They wanted to kill him. But… Jeremiah was convinced that the people had held so tightly to the blessing which God had given them in the past, they had crushed its meaning. It was like the manna served in the desert – if it was held on to for too long, it would turn rancid. The only way to experience the fresh manna was to let go of the one already held.
Posted by gary at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
Here's a new term doing the rounds. Don't know if it will catch on, but it's one worth thinking about...
Because being evangelical is usually synonymous with being Republican in the popular mind, and calling ourselves “progressive” might be taken as a value judgment by those who do share our views, we decided not to call ourselves “progressive evangelicals.” We came up with a new name: Red-Letter Christians.
Who first suggested the label? A secular Jewish Country-and-Western disc jockey in Nashville, Tennessee. During a radio interview he was conducting with Jim Wallis, he happened to say, “So, you’re one of those Red-Letter Christians - you know - who’s really into those verses in the New Testament that are in red letters!”
Jim answered, “That’s right!” And with that answer, he spoke for all of us. By calling ourselves Red-Letter Christians, we are alluding to the fact that in several versions of the New Testament, the words of Jesus are printed in red. In adopting this name, we are saying that we are committed to living out the things that He said. Of course, the message in those red-lettered verses is radical, to say the least. If you don’t believe me, read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).
In those red letters, He calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary American consciousness. He calls us to be merciful, which has strong implications for how we think about capital punishment. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he probably means we shouldn’t kill them. Most important, if we take Jesus seriously, we will realize that meeting the needs of the poor is a primary responsibility for His followers.
Figuring out just how to relate those radical red letters in the Bible to the complex issues in the modern world will be difficult, but that’s what we’ll try to do.
Gandhi once said that everybody in the world knows what Jesus was teaching in those verses - except Christians! We will try to prove him wrong.
Read the full story here.
Posted by gary at 04:12 PM | Comments (6)
Our Sacred Space on Sunday night focussed its reflection on the issue of wine and wineskins. It was difficult to articulate the nature of wine when it came to our faith journey. Is it because its nature is something so profound as to be difficult to frame into words? Or because we have become so focussed on the wineskins (frameworks) of our faith that have forgotten that which we long to drink? It was much easier to speak of the metaphor in historical terms, much more difficult to reinterpret for our day.
Posted by gary at 06:43 AM | Comments (0)
A Favourite Tony Campolo Story...
When Bill Clinton met Nelson Mandela for the first time, there was an incredible conversation. Bill Clinton asked Nelson Mandela, "When they released you from prison, I got Chelsea up at three in the morning because I wanted have her see this. I knew it was a historic moment and I got her out of bed to see you released from prison.
"As you walked across the courtyard, from the cellblock to the gate of the prison, the television cameras focused in on your face. I have never seen such anger, such animosity, and such hatred. I mean, you usually can't see that so clearly revealed. It was all over you. It was intense hatred, intense resentment. President Mandela, that is not the Nelson Mandela that I know today. Could you explain what was going on?"
Nelson Mandela says, "You're the first one that brought that to my attention. I didn't know that anybody noticed that. But as they released me from the prison block and as I walked across the courtyard to the gate, I thought to myself, 'They've taken everything away from me, my family is destroyed, my cause has been crushed, my friends are dead, anything, anybody, that meant anything to me, they've destroyed it all,' and I hated them with a fiery hatred. And then God spoke to me, and said, 'Nelson, for 27 years, you were their prisoner, but you were always a free man. Don't let them make you into a free man, only to turn you into their prisoner.'"
We have to be careful when we fight the dragon, lest we become the dragon.
Posted by gary at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
Conversations at the current World Council of Churches gatherings seems to be hitting some important marks, although I'm not sure that today's report will make fans of mega church all that happy.
WCC general secretary Samuel Kobia has been reported to have expressed concern that the spread of megachurches around the world "could lead to a Christianity that is two miles long and one inch deep". He is reported to have said that "It has no depth, in most cases, theologically speaking, and has no appeal for any commitment.
"It's a church being organised on corporate logic. That can be quite dangerous if we are not very careful, because this may become a Christianity which I describe as two miles long and one inch deep."
Apparently the number of megachurches has doubled since 2000, with the following characteristics: based in the suburbs, mostly run on a business model, low on call to commitment, and - the major concern it seems - disconnected from the historical christian message, but more turned towards populism.
Arguably the danger is not so much that such churches exist, but that they are self-sufficient, breaking their nexus with the global church. One strength (which it seems is cited by the WCC as a weakness) is that it breaks through denominational barriers.
My own reflections on megachurch leave me with the impression that they are the pinnacle of modernity, but also at the hub of a transition which we are numbly sensing in the winds of change: which God's Spirit is stirring. It might be easier to point out the weaknesses in "megachurch" and miss the ones in the settings from which we view. A third way????
Posted by gary at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)
Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams addressed the World Council of Churches on February 17, choosing as his topic the notion of Christian identity... it is worthy of a complete read, but here are some thoughts that jumped out at me:
The claim of Christian belief is not first and foremost that it offers the only accurate system of thought, as against all other competitors; it is that, by standing in the place of Christ, it is possible to live in such intimacy with God that no fear or failure can ever break God’s commitment to us, and to live in such a degree of mutual gift and understanding that no human conflict or division need bring us to uncontrollable violence and mutual damage. From here, you can see what you need to see to be at peace with God and with God’s creation; and also what you need to be at peace with yourself, acknowledging your need of mercy and re-creation.
...To be a Christian is not to lay claim to absolute knowledge, but to lay claim to the perspective that will transform our most deeply rooted hurts and fears and so change the world at the most important level. It is a perspective that depends on being where Jesus is, under his authority, sharing the ‘breath’ of his life, seeing what he sees – God as Abba, Father, a God completely committed to the people in whose life he seeks to reproduce his own life.
...And when we face radically different notions, strange and complex accounts of a perspective not our own, our questions must be not ‘How do we convict them of error? How do we win the competition of ideas?’ but, ‘What do they actually see? and can what they see be a part of the world that I see?’ These are questions that can be answered only by faithfulness – that is, by staying with the other. Our calling to faithfulness, remember, is an aspect of our own identity and integrity. To work patiently alongside people of other faiths is not an option invented by modern liberals who seek to relativise the radical singleness of Jesus Christ and what was made possible through him. It is a necessary part of being where he is; it is a dimension of ‘liturgy’, staying before the presence of God and the presence of God’s creation (human and non-human) in prayer and love. If we are truly learning how to be in that relation with God and the world in which Jesus of Nazareth stood, we shall not turn away from those who see from another place. And any claim or belief that we see more or more deeply is always rightly going to be tested in those encounters where we find ourselves working for a vision of human flourishing and justice in the company of those who do not start where we have started.
...The question of Christian identity in a world of plural perspectives and convictions cannot be answered in clichés about the tolerant co-existence of different opinions. It is rather that the nature of our conviction as Christians puts us irrevocably in a certain place, which is both promising and deeply risky, the place where we are called to show utter commitment to the God who is revealed in Jesus and to all those to whom his invitation is addressed...
Thoughts?
The full text of the speech is available here.
Posted by gary at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
I return to this little thought from time to time. Kirrily prompted it with her recent comment.
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answer to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.
(author unknown)
Posted by gary at 10:34 PM | Comments (1)
Interesting piece of lgic. Reminds me a lot of C.S. Lewis's threefold critique of Jesus (Liar, Lunatic, or Lord) from Mere Christianity and... interestingly, appearing in the Narnia Book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when the two older children initially engage the old professor about Lucy's first story about visiting Narnia. Anyhow, this is taken from a book called 'A Ready Defense' by Josh McDowell, and he's quoting Charles Wesley (thanks to dboy for this)
The Bible must be either the invention of good men or angels, bad men or demons, or of God. Therefore:
1. It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither could nor would make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, "Thus saith the Lord" when it was their own invention.
2. It could not be an invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book that commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to hell to all eternity.
3. Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration.
Thoughts?
Posted by gary at 10:24 AM | Comments (2)
Brian McLaren has touched on perhaps the hottest topic in church life in the West in a recent leadership blog... I reporoduce it here - well worth reading. It has created quite a strong response on both sides. Marc Driscoll of Mars Hill makes a strong argument in the opposite direction, and another from Blog and Mablog.
I wonder whether there are two conversations crossing each other here: a pastoral and a theological one... It's a conversation that won't go away.
The couple approached me immediately after the service. This was their first time visiting, and they really enjoyed the service, they said, but they had one question. You can guess what the question was about: not transubstantiation, not speaking in tongues, not inerrancy or eschatology, but where our church stood on homosexuality.
That "still, small voice" told me not to answer. Instead I asked, "Can you tell me why that question is important to you?" "It's a long story," he said with a laugh.
Usually when I'm asked about this subject, it's by conservative Christians wanting to be sure that we conform to what I call "radio-orthodoxy," i.e. the religio-political priorities mandated by many big-name religious broadcasters. Sometimes it's asked by ex-gays who want to be sure they'll be supported in their ongoing re-orientation process, or parents whose children have recently "come out."
But the young woman explained, "This is the first time my fiancée and I have ever actually attended a Christian service, since we were both raised agnostic." So I supposed they were like most unchurched young adults I meet, who wouldn't want to be part of an anti-homosexual organization any more than they'd want to be part of a racist or terrorist organization.
I hesitate in answering "the homosexual question" not because I'm a cowardly flip-flopper who wants to tickle ears, but because I am a pastor, and pastors have learned from Jesus that there is more to answering a question than being right or even honest: we must also be . . . pastoral. That means understanding the question beneath the question, the need or fear or hope or assumption that motivates the question.
We pastors want to frame our answer around that need; we want to fit in with the Holy Spirit's work in that person's life at that particular moment. To put it biblically, we want to be sure our answers are "seasoned with salt" and appropriate to "the need of the moment" (Col. 4; Eph. 4).
Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony over this question. We fear that the whole issue has been manipulated far more than we realize by political parties seeking to shave percentage points off their opponent's constituency. We see whatever we say get sucked into a vortex of politicized culture-wars rhetoric--and we're pastors, evangelists, church-planters, and disciple-makers, not political culture warriors. Those who bring us honest questions are people we are trying to care for in Christ's name, not cultural enemies we're trying to vanquish.
Frankly, many of us don't know what we should think about homosexuality. We've heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say "it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us." That alienates us from both the liberals and conservatives who seem to know exactly what we should think. Even if we are convinced that all homosexual behavior is always sinful, we still want to treat gay and lesbian people with more dignity, gentleness, and respect than our colleagues do. If we think that there may actually be a legitimate context for some homosexual relationships, we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex. We aren't sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn.
Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements. In the meantime, we'll practice prayerful Christian dialogue, listening respectfully, disagreeing agreeably. When decisions need to be made, they'll be admittedly provisional. We'll keep our ears attuned to scholars in biblical studies, theology, ethics, psychology, genetics, sociology, and related fields. Then in five years, if we have clarity, we'll speak; if not, we'll set another five years for ongoing reflection. After all, many important issues in church history took centuries to figure out. Maybe this moratorium would help us resist the "winds of doctrine" blowing furiously from the left and right, so we can patiently wait for the wind of the Spirit to set our course.
Later that week I got together with the new couple to hear their story. "It's kind of weird how we met," they explained. "You see, we met last year through our fathers who became . . . partners. When we get married, we want to be sure they will be welcome at our wedding. That's why we asked you that question on Sunday."
Welcome to our world. Being "right" isn't enough. We also need to be wise. And loving. And patient. Perhaps nothing short of that should "seem good to the Holy Spirit and us."
Posted by gary at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
This is Henri Nouwen’s phrase: “waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go.” How does the idea of a journey into the desert appeal to you? If I were to suggest that there is a spiritual desert ahead of you, what would be your response? Deserts aren’t places that people think of productively. There may be the Aussie desire for the outback, but that too is within reason. We aren’t welcoming of the desert.
AND YET… the desert is a pivotal place in the work of God through history.
Mark’s gospel begins Jesus’ ministry with his baptism. Immediately following baptism, Jesus journeyed into the desert. It’s not the first time. The Christmas story ends with Jesus being taken into the desert – following the arrival of the Magi, the story has Jesus heading into exile into Egypt. It is interesting that the story which follows Christmas is that of Jesus entering the wilderness. It is similar to this part his adult life, when immediately following baptism he went into the desert for 40 days.
It is a journey in spirituality which is lost today.
There is a wonderful Christian tradition in the fourth century of the desert fathers, some of whom might be regarded with some suspicion today… these people chose the desert as a place for reflection – not on mere theology, but as a way of understanding life against the trend of society. They were looking for personal transformation, not mere information. And they realised that they were being transformed in society.
(We might also remember that the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years before entering the Promised Land. Some preachers have suggested that it took months to get the Israelites out of Egypt, and much longer to get Egypt out of the Israelites.)
That Jesus finds his way into the desert is no accident, and its reporting to us no mere matter of fact. The gospel writers are seeking to point something out to us which is essential for all those who would follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
I’d like to offer three simple thoughts, illustrated with insights from the desert fathers.
1. The desert is a place of new beginnings – Jesus started here. We are invited to start over again.
"Abba Poeman said regarding Abba Prin that every day he made a new beginning." "My God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good before Thee, but grant me, in Thy compassion, the power to make a start" (Arsenios, 5th century).
In the desert, God shaped his people in new ways: Moses was called in the desert. God encountered Elijah in the “still small voice” in the desert. The prophet Hosea’s life becomes a living message of God’s grace, and in chapter 2 there is that wonderful passage where God declares of Israel, “therefore I will allure her… I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her… I will make the valley of Achor (struggle) a doorway of hope.
In the desert, God brings new things to be.
2. The desert is a place where all decisions must be carefully taken. Everything must be done with intention. With temperatures pushing well into the 40s on a number of occasions this summer, we have been reminded of the cost of working in the – if you were going to do something, you made sure it was essential.
In the desert we must wrestle with our desires – which often do not give much consideration to the resources available. Impulses in the desert can be lethal – where mirage can feign reality with much power.
“Think nothing and do nothing without a purpose directed to God. For to journey without direction is wasted effort" (St. Mark the Ascetic, 5th century). Let us not live aimlessly, but with intention.
3. The desert was a place of prayer, particularly for Jesus in his time of temptation. There were few distractions, few things to devote energy towards. Moses encountered God in the desert. So did Elijah… So let us make the year one grounded in prayer… "Often when I have prayed I have asked for what I thought was good, and persisted in my petition, stupidly importuning the will of God, and not leaving it to Him to arrange things as He knows is best for me. But when I have obtained what I asked for, I have been very sorry that I did not ask for the will of God to be done; because the thing turned out not to be as I had thought" (Evagrios the Solitary, 4th century). Abba Macarius said, "It is enough to say, 'Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.' And if the conflict grows fiercer, say: 'Lord, help!'"
Mark’s gospel is succinct in expressing what happened in this desert time for Jesus. But he was waited upon by angels.
The desert places can be important for us in our spiritual journey. Dare we pray that God might lead us into the desert?
Posted by gary at 09:55 PM | Comments (1)
Watching movies with subtitles has become much more common with the advent of DVD. In bygone eras, movies were either dubbed, or one had to know the original language. Then with the appearance of SBS, we were given access to foreign movies with subtitles so that one could still enjoy the story, or practice the language.
My earliest memory of foreign movies was the television show “Samurai” in the 1960s. It was a source of some mirth when the mouth of the actor would move for some time for only a few English words to appear or, more often the case, a few words from the actor and something approaching a political speech in English coming through the speakers. It was not until I studied another language at some depth that I began to understand and appreciate what was happening.
Some words and phrases in foreign language convey some detail with succinctness. To translate with a few words is not possible because of the richness of the language. So a much longer translation and interpretation is used. We know this sometimes through the use of idiom. “Das is für de katz” in German literally means ‘that is for the cats’ but figuratively means ‘that is all for nothing.’ Anyone who has read assembly instructions which have been directly translated from one language into another has encountered this absurdity.
When we encounter some of the great words of faith, we realise that the single word is not capable of easy translation. The word “love” has four different Greek words. And who can adequately explain ‘agape’ love without something more lengthy than a word? We might add the words ‘faith’ and ‘grace’ to this complexity. Simple words with quite meaty definitions and complex meaning.
The challenge facing the creator of subtitles is that facing the preacher, and also the person of faith each day: to make comprehensible the meaning of a life of faith.
Posted by gary at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
I don't know the origins of this little piece...
Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them around him, he taught them saying,
Posted by gary at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
Conversations in which the topic of mega church is raised usually polarise discussion. Whenever the impact of organisations such as Hillsong, Willow Creek and Saddleback is considered they are either regarded as a real blessing to the church or as distorting the gospel. It would be fair to say that there are few places which are not aware of the contribution and ministry of the above three, perhaps better known in the terms 'seeker-sensitive' and 'purpose-driven'. But are the only options available to leave them beyond criticism because of the nature of their success, or discard them as a distortion?
Essential to any ecclesiology is the notion of diversity. When Paul reflects on the nature of the church as the body of Christ, he articulates the varied aspects of its giftedness, its leadership, and/or its challenges. The New Testament as a whole reflects a diverse range of faith communities, each with its own challenges. If there is one church which is held out as the ideal its characteristics would be described for us in Acts 2, but that still leaves plenty of scope for the way in which a faith community unfolds its worship and ministry. Which leaves us to ponder the nature of diversity in the church today: is it mere diversity within the church community, or as communities of communities, or something more?
At the very least we need to recognise that there will always be different expressions of church that reflect the different theologies expressed within the New Testament, as well as reflecting the different environments in which they emerge. We could no more expect that a church in a remote community would be an exact replica of one in a suburban area than we would expect a school or sporting club to be. They would exhibit similarities, but exact replication? Even based on the same presuppositions and principles of operation?
But that is not to say that one is right and the other wrong. Each aims to meet its community in a particular way, and unfold a certain practice. There is potential to learn from one another, but not all that is done is readily transferable.
When it comes to church, the same is true. There are many diverse and creative expressions of God's people at work. Not all receive or seek the same publicity, but that is not to deny the authenticity of their witness and ministry. It is not the strength of their publicity machine which measures their worth in God's kingdom (either way!)
In this age of communication we have ready access and opportunity to witness the work of many churches. And all of them bear the grace of God in their context. And all of them face challenges in regard to the extent to which we are all being moulded in the shape of Jesus and his mission.
We need to be careful of maligning churches of any size: mega, mini or anywhere in between: we may find ourselves opposing the work of God. BUT at the same time we need to be careful of promoting any one as THE way... lest we forget to listen to what God might be saying to us in our own locality. But that is not to say that we ought not critique what we see of the ministry of others - not in a public "we're better" forum, but in an effort to get inside the thinking and attitudes which generate and energise communities so that we might all be enriched - for me this is a key aspect of learning.
There are "easy targets" in the church today as far as public discussion often goes. However, the proper evaluation of ministry is never a popularity question... there weren't too many votes in favour of Jesus at the end, or of the prophets...
We ought to be thankful for the full expression of God's church, regardless of size and shape of mission. It reminds us that God is beyond our plans and paradigms, and that God will do all that is necessary to woo people into His kingdom. It is this diversity that we need to cherish.
Posted by gary at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
Martin Luther King's address in receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on 11 December 1964 has an enduring quality about it. His insights into the future, some 40+ years ago are prescient. I reproduce the whole speech here. You can also listen to a 2-minute audio clip... (requires Real Player). For a primer, read the third paragraph below.
The Quest for Peace and Justice
It is impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep appreciation to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for bestowing upon me and the civil rights movement in the United States such a great honor. Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored. But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau1: "Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.
This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.
The first problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The struggle to eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people of the United States grows out of a deep and passionate determination to make freedom and equality a reality "here" and "now". In one sense the civil rights movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening in the United States today is a relatively small part of a world development.
We live in a day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead2,"when civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed." What we are seeing now is a freedom explosion, the realization of "an idea whose time has come", to use Victor Hugo's phrase3. The deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses, rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom, in one majestic chorus the rising masses singing, in the words of our freedom song, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."4 All over the world, like a fever, the freedom movement is spreading in the widest liberation in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the exploitation of their races and land. They are awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among the students, in the churches, and at political meetings. Historic movement was for several centuries that of the nations and societies of Western Europe out into the rest of the world in "conquest" of various sorts. That period, the era of colonialism, is at an end. East is meeting West. The earth is being redistributed. Yes, we are "shifting our basic outlooks".
These developments should not surprise any student of history. Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story. Something within has reminded the Negro of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers in Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.
Fortunately, some significant strides have been made in the struggle to end the long night of racial injustice. We have seen the magnificent drama of independence unfold in Asia and Africa. Just thirty years ago there were only three independent nations in the whole of Africa. But today thirty-five African nations have risen from colonial bondage. In the United States we have witnessed the gradual demise of the system of racial segregation. The Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools gave a legal and constitutional deathblow to the whole doctrine of separate but equal6. The Court decreed that separate facilities are inherently unequal and that to segregate a child on the basis of race is to deny that child equal protection of the law. This decision came as a beacon light of hope to millions of disinherited people. Then came that glowing day a few months ago when a strong Civil Rights Bill became the law of our land7. This bill, which was first recommended and promoted by President Kennedy, was passed because of the overwhelming support and perseverance of millions of Americans, Negro and white. It came as a bright interlude in the long and sometimes turbulent struggle for civil rights: the beginning of a second emancipation proclamation providing a comprehensive legal basis for equality of opportunity. Since the passage of this bill we have seen some encouraging and surprising signs of compliance. I am happy to report that, by and large, communities all over the southern part of the United States are obeying the Civil Rights Law and showing remarkable good sense in the process.
Another indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression8. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right9. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.
Let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States. To put it figuratively in biblical language, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance. But with patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.
What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.
The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at all.
Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed. But in some substantial degree it has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we are a part. The movement does not seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of whites. It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.
The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.
This approach to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without successful precedent. It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage10.
In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements11.
I am only too well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which exist, the doubts about the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open advocacy of violence by some. But I am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.
A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon. President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12, emphasized this contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest standard of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by "dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of plenty".
So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.
There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the resourcefulness of man.
Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book entitled Enough and to Spare14. He set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task.
The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.
In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony