…on scripture and agriculture

Just finished Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture by Ellen F. Davis.  If you like biblical studies and you’re somewhat of a treehugger like myself, you’ll probably really like this book.  Really got me motivated about eating local or organic produce and meats when possible.  The book really demonstrates that a very large percentage of the content of the Old Testament was a prophetic or legalistic

 reckoning against empirical (industrial) agriculture that stripped land and produce from the local farmer and turned him into a peasant or slave.  It highlights the covenantal nature between God, land, and God’s people… that land and soil and its fruit are not merely commodities.  Davis really captures Genesis, Leviticus, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Song of Songs and shows how deeply agrarian the concerns of these books were, and how today, we continue to ignore their prophetic call.   Conversely, it also offers a prophetic expose of current, ungodly practices of corporate agriculture that are destroying the soil and its corresponding ecosystems for future generations, while stripping local farmers and farm communities of their vocation, money, and dignity.  Corporations are attempting to monopolize control of global crops by means of patenting “improved,” genetically modified organisms, while only looking for short-term profit and ignoring future ecological problems of their vast empires.

Check out Scripture, Culture and Agriculture!

 

…on the death of Occupy Wall Street and the Church

Recently I responded to a cnn article by Tony Perkins, who suggested Jesus was a free market capitalist and would have been against the Occupy Wall Street movement.  His assumption, I think, was that OWS is a movement full of lazy hipsters who want to tear down our capitalist economy to replace it with a socialist government and thus empower their laziness.  As fundamentally wrong as Perkins was on a biblical and gospel level, he was right about one thing… there literally is a lot of OWS folks who are lazy hipsters who want a socialist government so they can have more of the perks with less of the work and risk.

But then again, Perkins isn’t right.  A lot of the OWS currently have jobs and protest during what little free time they have.  Many of them have college degrees.  Many of them make decent money.  Some are challenging the Wall Street crew that is responsible for our economic collapse, or they are protesting a capitalist system that oppresses and destroys communities abroad for the sake of $20 jeans at Old Navy, or they are protesting the wealth and power a few hundred individuals yield in our nation who own way too much wealth for the health of a democratic nation.

Occupy Wall Street really has no central demand.  Its kind of just a bunch of pissed off people.  Everyone seems to want something different.  Everyone has differing levels of education, commitment and goals.  For this reason alone, I personally wouldn’t stand with a poster board amongst them.  I think ultimately they really won’t accomplish much.  Its not that I necessarily disagree with their message—I just don’t feel like I have a message to agree with.  It’s a movement that I don’t perceive moving anywhere.

But here’s the question… is the Church detrimentally becoming like Occupy Wall Street?

As the modern church, with its creeds, empty liturgies and episcopal governments, gives way to post-modernity church autonomy, non-denominationalism, orthopraxy over against orthodoxy yet impotence in moral edification for fear of ‘legalism’; is it dissipating into a muddled horde of people who have no distinct message, no distinct life, no distinct community to offer to the world?  When people think “church” or “Christianity”, what will come to mind?  I am currently serving at a church plant that I absolutely love.  One thing I love about it is that we have no statement of faith or creed and we have no community covenant of behavior.  I don’t want to get kicked out if I question a particular theological doctrine such as, say, the eternal security of a believer or the inerrancy of scripture etc.  And I don’t want to kick people out if they if they have sex before marriage or say a cuss word when they smash their thumb.

But can a church like this stand vitally for 100 years?  200 years?

Recently in my Church History class, we learned how the order of the Catholic Church’s government early on in history probably saved Christianity from extinction. There were other, bigger religious movements at the time that faded out because they didn’t have sufficient governmental or belief structure to ultimately last over time and across space.  We now live in a time where the church and its dominant privilege are fading into a position of minority once again, like its beginning.

We truly live in a postmodern age… where a group of protestors cannot tell you what they are protesting and a church cannot tell you what it believes or how its congregants act.  Will the chaos of our time destroy the church?  How are we to retain relevance while remaining counter-cultural and true to our identity?

After all, what is the point of going to church if the church is whatever each individual wants it to be?  What can it distinctly and exclusively offer?

Will the Church die like Occupy Wall Street in this 21^st century?

…on mutating Jesus into a capitalist

I just read an opinion article on cnn.com that frankly, made me a bit angry.  In summary, some gentleman decided that “Jesus was a free market capitalist who would vehemently oppose the antisocial Occupy Wall Street lazy people who don’t want to work for a living.”  Aside from his detrimental judgmentalism and ignorance of OWS, as well as his poor theology that opposes Christians fighting for the in-breaking of God’s kingdom on Earth, I was particularly interested in his anachronistic and biased use of his biblical text.  He uses Luke 19, the very parable of Jesus I posted an exegetical paper on my blog.  In my paper, I warned of people making that very error… of using Jesus’ final parable to theologically promote capitalism, which if anything, the text argues against.

Check out the article!  Check out my paper!  (hyperlinks)

Now, don’t get me wrong, politically, I am a “capitalist”.  And I don’t necessarily stand behind everything with the OWS.  But I do, in a sense, stand with some of their ideals, like challenging those who are most responsible for the economic collapse.  And I did find Tony Perkins’ remarks absolutely ridiculous, and I presume most people who read the article did as well.

Jesus came to embody the Kingdom of God, not vouch for a particular

economic/ political system… much less vouch for one that wouldn’t come into existence for well over a thousand years after his death.  Jesus’ life certainly had vast political ramifications.  But I’m pretty sure that didn’t mean telling poor people to acquiesce to the rich or “endorse the principles of business and the free market.”

If Jesus were here today, would He stand in solidarity with the poor and challenge an oppressive and oligarchical economic system, or spray them with mace to chase them off public property?  Read the four gospels,  and consider it.

…on discovering a broader ending in the beginning

I just finished a paper on universalism in the early church.  Basically, some of the most important theologians of the first 400 years of Christianity were more or less “universalists”, but universalism was not considered heresy until some time in the sixth century.  Check out the link to find out more all ye seekers.

Discovering a Broader Ending in the Beginning

…on praying for boys with guns

Obama’s going after Kony!

Click here to check out the news real quick…

Ok, looked at the article?

I’m generally opposed to military action, but I have no misgivings about this one.  Obama is sending 100 US soldiers to hunt down one of the most evil guys on the planet who has committed many of the most atrocious crimes since Hitler.

I hate the heinous things that the LRA has committed: the murder of men, the rape of women and girls, and most deplorable, the kidnapping and demonic brainwashing of innocent boys into violent, scared, killers…. by the thousands and thousands.

Lets pray for the African and the American soldiers in their hunt.  Lets pray that they can successfully bring down (with minimal violence) the LRA and bring peace and security to God’s children in Africa.

100 troops isn’t much… perhaps negligible.  But no matter what, take a moment to pray for the work of Invisible Children, pray for the tortured souls in the LRA, pray for the safety and success of our soldiers, and pray for all the victims of Joseph Kony’s Hellbent accomplishments.

May God bring peace to the families and children of central Africa!

…on community

“Authentic community is the “medicine” our society needs.  We and other mental health professionals know that loneliness, isolation, emptiness, and a sense of meaninglessness are the frequent complaints of those coming for help.  Often, these complaints are accompanied by symptoms of psychological disorder that can be treated by medication.  However, even when the symptoms are relieved by medication, often the spiritual malaise is still there.  Medication alone cannot quiet this pain, which comes from the depths of the spirit.  This is the pain of souls who have been traumatized through internal fragmentation and ruptured relationships.  We know that people can find healing in community because we have witnessed such healing.”

This quote is from the book Cultivating Wholeness  by a Christian counselor as well as pastor.  I wanted to share this because I really believe it is true, and I hope to discover that in Church–in fact I think that communities of faith where people are safe to doubt, disagree, and even (gasp) make mistakes, is what this world really needs even more than good presidents, popes or prozac.  Why?  Because to me, that is what the Body of Christ looks like, and Christ really and truly is the Way we are searching for in the midst of all this world’s malaise and madness.

I pray we can all discover such communities of faith wherever we happen to be in our journeys.

eph 2.14-18

 

…on creativity and freedom

I’m preaching a sermon on predestination vs freewill in a few weeks, and I have a theological question I need some help with…

-what is the relationship between freedom or freewill and creativity?

My angle is that in Genesis 1, God’s initial design for plants, animals and most importantly humans, is to bear fruit—to create.  When one creates, one is an agent in shaping the future… the future is not predestined by the Creator alone because these free agents—these co-creators—are creating and shaping that future along with God.

Do I make sense?  Can anyone elaborate or articulate all this better and help make this idea palpable for a congregation?  Anything else you might add to this conversation?

Don’t leave me hangin… give me some feedback yo!

…on monasteries

This week Ronella and I had the opportunity to spend a few days at Camp Living Water, a Christian camp for Romanian orphans.  For one week, they escape the sludge and the pressures of the city Bucharest and all the inherent pressures and noises of the orphanage, and they are free to be kids out in God’s beautiful creation.  The camp is absolutely (and almost unbelievably) gorgeous and it was an incredible time to see God undoing the terrors of this world to slowly redeem these children—out there in the middle of nowhere.  All week we had an absolute blast hanging out.  I was so thankful for each day and I have plenty of stories, but I think one story in particular pretty much sums it all up.

Pretty much all the other folks working this camp were either missionaries or MK’s in Romania and had worked with these kids for years, but some of them hadn’t seen them in a long time.  So on the first day as we waited for the kids to arrive, the anticipation of seeing one another was pretty high on both ends.

So, about two o’clock, all of us “Americans” stand outside to greet the incoming kids… all 12 of them pull up in two separate cars and before they can even come to a full, complete, and safe stop, car doors are flung open, and the monkeys come barreling out, shrieking the names of their long missed and beloved friends.  They crash into them, their rail thin arms wrapping tightly around their waists as they laugh and squeal with ecstasy.  They open their clenched eyes and see another of their beloved role models and shriek out another name and barrel into the next welcoming body.  Kids are running around, squeezing the junk out of everyone.  You can see every tooth in every single mouth present… not a soul could possibly do anything but laugh or smile.  It’s a loud time and these kids ages 10-14, bare no shame.  In stark contrast to the more common blasé attitudes of America’s middle-schoolers, there is only room for vulnerable, unrestrained love and joy in this place.  Ronella and I are watching all this, laughing and smiling and fighting quite hard to hold back tears at the beauty of the moment.  This is true love.  This is God’s love in real life and there is a pervasive sense of Divinity present.

When theologians attempt to capitulate the “Three-in-One-ness” of the Holy Trinity, they often describe the person of the Father and the person of the Son, and the love between those two persons emanating that Third Person—the Holy Spirit.  These Three Persons are in an endless dance of perfect love and relationship.  In other words, the manifold Essence of God is begotten strictly as a manifestation of divine love, of divine relationship.  God’s presence is made manifest only in the context of Divine Love.

Seeing young adult Americans and teeny bopper Romanian orphans drop all form of pride and defense and cool to come crashing into one another’s arms; to scream with joy cheek to cheek; forgetting the rest of the world in this loud embrace… the presence of God was made manifest.  The moment was holy in the holiest sense of the word.  Not because hugging is a holy thing to do, but because a Holy God was manifested amongst us in that moment—begotten from God’s love carried within each persons heart for the Other.  God was there with us.  I would humbly confess that I felt His presence.  Perhaps it was for this reason the Johannine community wrote, “we have known and believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (1 jon 4.16)

And all this gets me to thinking, because literally the only thing past Camp Living Water on that dirt road is a Romanian-Orthodox monastery.  This is a place where men pray and study all day everyday, away from the wiles of the world.  They have a singular mission—to get closer to God.  But it is incredible moments like these that God shouts with a loud and trumpeting voice, that you cannot ever draw closer to God than you can in the arms of an orphan, the bedside of the forgotten, the living room of the estranged, or the dinner table of the poor.  For God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

May we all find our monasteries where we find our God—maybe not in stone towers but in the arms of the world’s orphans.

…on “Tattoos on the Heart”

While on a recent very long bus ride, I had the opportunity to read “Tattoos on the Heart”, by Father Gregory Boyle. Along with Brother Andrew, Brennan Manning, Elizabeth Johnson and the whole host of liberation theologians, I have yet another favorite vagabond Catholic writer to deeply appreciate.

This guy has ministered in one of the worst neighborhoods in LA for decades where he eventually started Homeboy Ministries, his focus primarily being on the tens of thousands of gang members prevalent there. In this book, he shares story after story of such adventures that often make you wanna cry and often make you laugh. But more than anything, I had to set this book down after each story with its poignant reflections because I was so inspired by the beauty of the Gospel, the magnificence of my God, and the wonderful and challenging thoughts of how I might live this one, short life to do something amazing for the Gospel and the world.

I honestly feel my relationship with God deepened over the course of this book, and that the fire in my heart for bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth was fanned into an ever larger flame. Thanks, Father Boyle, for your fidelity to the Gospel that reconciles the worst of enemies and never ceases to love those society hates most. It is my prayer that one day I too will have a volume of “tattoos on my heart” to share with the world.

… on Greece

21st

Hop on board a PERLA bus, which we quickly discover has a broken AC unit—not so welcome news in the hot summer weather, surrounded by chainsmokers on a 15 hour bus ride for Greece.  (We had to take a bus because Greece’s international trains were protesting… no one should ever intentionally ride one of these PERLA buses…)

22nd

After a crazy long night on a cramped, smelly bus, we arrive at Larissa and take an hour train ride to Volos.  There we wait a few hours for a boat ride to Skiathos.  Arriving at Skiathos I was amazed at how incredibly beautiful the island, its town, and its water was.  We found a good deal at “Maria’s Rooms”.  We stayed more in the town on a random back street but it gave us a clean bed.   We soon took a bus across the island to Koukonares Beach and stayed there a few hours and soaked up the sand and sun.  The water was great but the beach wasn’t amazing.  I’ve seen much better beaches (and water) at the Dominican Republic.

23rd

The next morning we did some shopping (bleh) and Ronella and I hit another beach for about an hour before showering up and getting back on the ferry for the mainland.

24th

Ronella eating breakfast on our private deck in Kalambaka

Back in Volos that night, we rented a car and took off on our first driving experience in Europe.  They didn’t drive quite as crazy as we expected.  We arrived at Kalambaka that night and got a room at “Elena’s Guest House”.  A great hotel but we worked her down since it was so late and got a good deal.  We had an awesome view and it was clean.

25th

Kalambaka is the village outside Meteora.  Meteora is a place of sheer cliffs with a total of 7 huge, ancient, Greek Orthodox monasteries sitting on top of the cliffs.  The sights were absolutely stunning and unbelievable.  We drove around and we toured two of the monasteries.  We really were blown away over and over again all day by the sheer beauty and wow-ness of people building such things on top of cliffs 500 years ago.  The interiors were equally impressive with museums and fully painted vaulted ceilings etc.

After we had had enough, we hit the road again and drove a few hours.  Joey and Ramona dropped us off in Litochoro where we stayed at “Xenonas Papanikolaou”.  This was another cool hotel right in town with a killer view from the rooftop and extremely nice management running the place.  They were full that weekend on account of the “Running with the Gods” race… a 44 kilometer dash up Mt. Olympus and back down.

26th

Ronella and I walked out of the village into Mt. Olympus National Park, and we hiked through a gorgeous canyon up onto Mt. Olympus.

All in all we ascended almost 800 meters (about 2,600 feet),  and hiked over 24 kilometers for over 9 hours making it one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done.  On the other hand, I’ve hiked all over Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado and Utah and I gotta say, this was one of the prettiest ones I’ve ever been on.  Fortunately, there was a restaurant at the top for us to get refueled before heading back down.

On top of all the massive mountains, cliffs and insanely beautiful creeks we saw, we also saw another ancient monastery, built by St. Dionysius himself in the 16^th century. The Nazis we’re kind enough to blow it up, but they are still in the slow process of rebuilding. When we finally walked back into Litochoro at 8pm that night, we were complete zombies.  

27th

The next morning Joey and Ramona picked us up at 8:45 (instead of 8 ) and we started back to Volos to return our car and catch a train for Athens.  Well, we returned our car but we definitely missed our train and had to catch the next one a few hours later.  But that train only took us an hour towards Athens, and at that point, all the trains going to Athens were full.  So we were forced to get in another bus.  Unlike our hellish trip from Bucharest to Greece, this bus was actually really nice with nice folks to ride with.

The Acropolis lit up at night

It was about 7 pm when we finally arrived in Athens and got to our hostel, “Athens Easy Access Hostel”.  Our hostel was located in one scary part of town with prostitutes and folks strung out on drugs all over the place.  But our hostel was really nice and clean for the price.  A ten minute walk took us to a view of the beautiful, lit up Acropolis and the best meal of our entire trip right in view of Hadrian’s Library.

28th

This day was a little frustrating for me because although I woke up early, I ended up having to wait for a few hours for the crew to get ready.  Anyway, Ronella and I walked to go see the historic Baby Grand Hotel and National Gardens (not impressive).  Then we all ate and walked up to the ancient Agora and then the Acropolis.  This was an absolutely incredibly experience.  After that we saw the ancient theatre and the Aeropagus.  If you’ve ever read Acts 17, it mentions the Apostle Paul interacting in the Agora and preaching on the Aeropagus—right where we stood!  I read Acts 17 to my peeps.  It was pretty neato to read it and stand exactly where that took place.

Standing on Aeropagus, the rock where the Apostle Paul once proclaimed the Gospel, in full view of Athen's myriad of looming pagan temples

After that we did some shopping, ate dinner, and then commenced on the most miserable journey in my entire life… the bus ride from Athens to Bucharest.  Just imagine riding for almost 24 hours with dozens of other chainsmoking, loud, gypsies, watching loud, cheap, cheesy, gypsy music videos for 19 hours straight, breaking down, and getting stuck in Bulgarian customs.

Back in Bucharest and happy to be “home”.  One of the best vacations possible!