Category: Culture

Slow Food and the Kingdom

Posted on

The Kingdom of God is like a well-cooked Italian meal.  Now it might seem a bit strange to start off a reflection comparing the Kingdom of God to Italian food, but I recently stumbled upon an encounter with the Kingdom of God in a book about food.  This wasn’t even some esoteric aesthetic encounter with the beauty of the earth or even a divinely inspired recipe for the perfect chocolate cake, but an exploration of food that is ethical and good.  In the foreword to Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation I read Alice Waters’ summary of the themes of the book and the Slow Food movement-

“[Carlo] argues that, at every level, our food supply must meet the three criteria of quality, purity, and justice.  Our food must be buono, pulito, e giusto – words that resonate with more solemnity in Italian than do their literal English counterparts.  Our food should be good, and tasty to eat; it should be clean, produced in ways that are humane and environmentally sound; and the system by which our food is provided must be economically and socially fair to all who labor in it.  Carlo’s great insight is that when we seek out food that meets these criteria, we are no longer mere consumers but co-producers, who are bearing our fair share of the costs of producing good food and creating responsible communities.”

As I read those words, the concept of people being co-producers in creating an alternative and ethical world intrigued me.  Christ proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is among us and gave his followers the task of being the witnesses (or heralds) to the advent of the Kingdom.  Although the Kingdom was already a reality, it took the work of these witnesses to make it concrete to those who had not yet heard.  In a sense they were the co-producers of the Kingdom – proclaiming its existence, spreading it values, and training others in the way of Christ.  Active ongoing work was required to insure the Kingdom visibly reflected the pictures Jesus had so vividly portrayed it as in his parables.

In reading the goals of the Slow Food movement of being co-producers in ensuring that our food is good, clean, and fair I saw a parallel to the Kingdom of God.  This movement stands in opposition to the dominant systems of the world and insists on a better way of producing and eating food.  Bypassing the destructive industries of agriculture and the siren’s lure of fast food represent struggles undertaken only by those with a commitment to this better way and a compassion for others.  The goal is to care for people, to care for the earth, and to care for ourselves.  I think in many ways the Slow Food ideals have captured the ethos of those who serve and witness to the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God exists as a radical alternative to the systems of the world, challenging the status quos of oppression and injustice.  It includes the calls to love and to serve and to seek a better way of living that cares for those around us.  The outworkings of these endeavors often echo the goals of the Slow Food movement in our commitment to care for God’s creation, our celebration of the good, our passion to treat people fairly and with dignity and respect, and our desire to bond together in responsible communities that seek to live on earth as it is in heaven.    It is a call to a life that isn’t merely “convenient” or rubber-stamped by the dominant paradigms of the world, but one that takes deliberate effort and committed passion to maintain.  Being witnesses (or co-producers) of the Kingdom requires lifestyle choices that are often seen as odd as the Slow Food desire to cook a sustainable, fair, healthy, authentic and natural (not to mention yummy) Italian meal.  But oddity and difficulty don’t impede the committed.  In seeking God’s Kingdom we are never mere consumers of the way things are, but witnesses proclaiming the good news of a different way.

And so the Kingdom of God is like an Italian meal, but with far greater rewards.

Read more

What to do with the Early Church

Posted on

I’ve recently seen a lot of buzz around blogs regarding Barna and Viola’s new book Pagan Christianity. I haven’t read the book yet, but I am intrigued by the topics it seems to address. With quotes such as, “We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to exist,” the book raises some serious questions about the purpose and nature of church as well as about Biblical interpretation.

At the heart of the controversy surrounding this book is the question of if we should read the Bible prescriptively, descriptively, or some combination of the two. We actually addressed this issue at church this past week as we started our study of the book of Acts. It seemed prudent to discuss our assumptions about how we read and apply scripture before we examine the stories of the early church. In essence we asked if what we read in Acts is prescriptive (giving us the guidelines for how we should do church forever and ever amen) or descriptive (just an historical picture of how things were done in one particular culture in one particular era). We of course came down on the both/and middle ground. Yes, there are aspects of scripture that are instructive for us today that we should follow; but, there are also cultural elements portrayed that reflect Biblical culture, but don’t translate well today.

Barna and Viola seem to be taking the approach that claims culture doesn’t matter. A perfect system was created once upon a time and must not be deviated from. We must just repeat exactly those things which were done 2000 years ago and discard any practices that have been introduced since then (you know evil things, like pastors). I personally find this view as disturbing as the opposite extreme that sees the early church as just a cute historical vignette – meaningless for our lives today. Not only do such dichotomous views put God in a box, they have the potential to lead to serious misunderstanding and abuses.

I prefer instead the approach often mentioned by N.T. Wright – that of seeing ourselves existing in God’s unfolding story. If the story of the church is the story of God working in the world, then the early church represents say chapter 9 of that tale. Much has come before and those stories play a pivotal role in the unfolding tale. We then find ourselves living today in Chapter 20, not the final chapter, but still significant to what God is doing. As this chapter gets written it would be silly and really poor writing to merely copy exactly what was written in chapter 9 over again. To do so would ignore all intervening chapters and would imply that God is not big enough to work in the world today. But on the other hand it would be equally silly to make chapter 20 utterly unrelated to all the preceding chapters or to ignore the character development that was established in chapter 9. Chapter 20 must be informed by (and in ways constrained by Chapter 9), but it must also allow the story to be told.

So when I read some of the extreme statements from Barna and Viola, I cringe at the disregard for God’s unfolding story. Having just read excerpts I can’t comment on the whole of their argument. But I can’t help but find the “let’s just get back to the early church” stance a bit simplistic and naive. We are not the early church and no matter how hard we try we Westerners are not pre-industrial people living in an occupied territory. It may be easy to blame all the problems in the church on systems and traditions that were not present in the early church and I fully agree that many of those systems need to be re-evaluated, but the issues are more complex than that. And I for one am not willing (or think it is truly possible) to recapture the ethos and social mores that defined the early church. I am not interested in repeating that chapter in history, but I am interested in learning from and being inspired by it.

Read more

Talents and Stewardship

Posted on

The tension between using one’s God given talent and being a good steward of God given resources is an issue I keep returning to. I do believe that God gives people gifts that should be used – He sent the Spirit to the craftsmen of the Tabernacle as they used their skills. I also believe that the resources we have are blessings from God (not in the health and wealth sort of way), and we should use them wisely and unselfishly. But sometimes those two ideas collide.

If one is to sell all one has and give it to the poor, or even just live a modest lifestyle, it become fairly difficult to develop and use certain talents, even for the greater good. If one has the gift of music like David, the acquisition and upkeep of musical equipment costs a lot of money. Much time must be spent on practice which much be subsidized in some way. The same is true of any of the performing arts or sports – dance, skating, drama, skiing, cycling… A great deal of money is required to develop one’s talent in any of those areas. Generally only those who have money already and spend that money on themselves can develop that talent. Is that good stewardship?

It could be easy to just deny that certain things even qualify as “God-given talents.” The guitar player that leads our church band with his $1000 guitar can have talent from God, but the privileged white figure skater doesn’t count. Michaelangelo’s in, but the ballerina is out. And then what about the talents that are often scoffed at by Christians – especially emerging missional Christians? What about the fashion designer or the interior designer? Are their talent’s a gift if they feed lifestyles of greed and consumption? What about the person who is really really good at preaching? Are such skills meaningless? Or are they gifts from God?

The tension bothers me. There is the part of me that wants to affirm who people are and say that God gave them the skills to do certain things. And many of those skills can and have been used to serve God. But it is hard to reconcile how privileged one has to be in order to develop those talents. Even if one gives glory to God and blesses others with their talent are the vast amount of resources spent justified?

I have no answers, but this question returns to me every so often. I personally have spent lots of money developing who God made me to be (college comes to mind). I want to affirm developing talent, but I just can’t always justify it as good stewardship. Any thoughts?

Read more

Patience and Food

Posted on

I have issues with being patient. For certain aspects of my life I really can’t stand waiting. But then for other things it’s no big deal.

For example, I like waiting for Christmas. I like the anticipation, I like celebrating on Christmas. I was never one of those kids who tried to find/open my presents early (I guess the modern equivalent would be seeing what’s been bought off my Amazon Wish List…). To me waiting until Christmas Day to open presents was part of what made the day special. So waiting for the right time to enjoy or celebrate is no problem.

But for other things in life I have significantly less patience. I hate being told by a doctor “we will call you in 3-5 days with your test results” when I KNOW that said results could be obtain in less than an hour. Or waiting around for someone who is late because they couldn’t stop reading a book, or watching TV, or playing a computer game. It bugs me. My patience runs thin.

So I was intrigued by some comments about patience and self-restraint I read recently in Barbara Kingsolver’s popular new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This is a fantastic book that chronicles a family’s year of trying to eat locally, seasonally, and sustainably. I can’t quote the exact passage since I immediately lent my copy to a friend, but she addresses the issue of patience in regards to our food choices. She writes (as a mother of two) about how parents often encourage their children to restrain from having sex until the timing is right (marriage…). But she asks how our children can respect our insistence on self-restraint if we can’t even manage to restrain ourselves to buying food in season. Instead of waiting for the right time to harvest and eat a tomato, we demand on satisfying our hunger whenever the urge strikes. Our promiscuous ways lead us to the grocery story where pale refrigerated shadows of tomato are available stripped of antioxidants and nutrients all year round thanks to the gallons of oil that were consumed to ship it hundreds (or thousands) of miles in refrigerated crates. We don’t think twice about the instant gratification of our appetites generally, so who are we to insist that our children buy into a value we have discarded?

So a tomato may be an easy example for me. I hated the things until I tasted the heirloom varieties delivered in my CSA box one year. I can wait for the real deal to appear in late summer and am not tempted by the reddish tinged impostor in the supermarket, but her point is well taken. Sure I froze and dried some veggies from my garden this past harvest, but not near enough to get us through the winter. I just assume that I can get whatever I want to eat whenever I want it at the store. Like all other consumers I am willing to give up taste, and nutritional value for easy access. I rarely stop to think that anything I am buying in the Winter months (and most everything during the rest of the year) was grown someplace far far away and shipped long distances to get to me (at taxpayers expense btw). Waiting, patience, and self-restraint are ignored as my need for convenient instant gratification gives sustainability the finger.

Honestly, sitting here in snow-blanketed Illinois in the middle of December there isn’t much I can do. I can buy organic and at least reduce the negative impact my food choices have. And I can plan ahead for the future. I’m not going to move to a farm in Appalachia and raise my own turkeys, but there are ways I can sidestep our broken food system and live more responsibly. But it is something that will take time and effort. And a lot of patience.

Read more

What’s In A Name?

Posted on

I like reading socio-cultural histories and following the patterns of cultural trends. I am in no way fashionable or trendy myself. I couldn’t tell you what sort of music is popular these days or what sort of clothing is in (I wear blue jeans, t-shirts, and birks). But I love reading about how the evolution of fashion affected, say, the women’s right’s movement. Or even about how the transformation of the “book” from scroll to codex to electronic medium influences how we psychologically interact with the text. So books like A History of Reading and Freakonomics fascinated me.

Since reading Freakonomics a couple of years ago, I’ve been intrigued by the history of names. The rise and fall of naming trends, the sounds that enchant a generation, the cultural events that send a name soaring or plummeting in the charts. I look forward to the Social Security Administration’s yearly Mother’s Day gift of the 1000 most popular names from the previous year. I am addicted to sites like the Baby Name Wizard that tracks current trends and reports of historical patterns. Yes, it is nerdy, but I like these attempts to understand the cultural zeitgeist.

So I’ve been lurking at the edges of recent conversation at Andrew Jones’ blog about the names emerging and emergent. The question posed was if those terms are a help or a hindrance to those of us within this conversation. Or as some interpreted it – is the shelf life of those terms rapidly coming to an end. Are emerging and emergent the ministry equivalents of Jennifer and Jason, or to be contemporary, Madison and Jacob – useful popular names for a season but which have become so overused and trendy that those who think about such things don’t want to use them anymore?

I found the comments in the discussion interesting. Sure there were those who freaked out about using any labels at all. Others threw up their hands in despair at the idea that some people have given emerging/emergent a bad name and so therefore we must promptly abandon them. Some were more ambivalent saying that a name doesn’t define who they are as Christians, and a small few actually said they liked the names.

What I found most intriguing was how this name discussion parallelled the biggest trends in baby naming – essentially that the trend these days is to be unique (not trendy). Of course the irony is that everyone is just giving into the trend of not being trendy. But our culture places so much value on individuality and not being one of the crowd that of course anti-trendiness and uniqueness have become virtues.

But have we ever stopped to think that in the mad dash to avoid cultural trends what we are really doing is refusing to be part of a community. By snubbing our nose at a label we are rejecting those who own that label. We say “we are different and better than you so therefore we don’t want to be associated with you.” Sure in the history of naming there perhaps are appropriate occasions to do such things (did all the Adolph’s start going by their middle name after WW2?). But to eschew a name/label because it isn’t unique enough or just isn’t “me” represents the height of individuality. And I thought that one of the things that pesky emerging/emergent label conveyed was a shift away from individuality towards community. But maybe that’s not what people really want.

Read more

What’s So Bad About Christmas?

Posted on

This month’s Synchroblog is of course apropos for the season and is themed “Redeeming the Season.” While this leaves the topics wide open to addressing everything from Christmas consumerism to debating how to appropriately remember the Solstice, it prompted me to ask “honestly, what’s so bad about Christmas?” (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever).

Sure I can (and have here) listed my complaints against Christmas, but what I’m referring to today is why people are so adamant on only acknowledging the holiday they happen to celebrate to the exclusion of all others. I’m talking about those who freak out of people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Or the people who bring lawsuits against schools or workplaces for putting up “Christmas” lights. The message they send is – “I don’t care that we live in a pluralistic world, I insist that the universe revolves around me and my preferences, I don’t even want to be reminded that people different than me even exist.”

Examples. When I was in high school my December final exam one year for my dance class was to choreograph a dance to music of my choosing. I choose a purely instrumental piece that had the term “Messiah” in it. A Jewish friend saw my tape with that title and complained to the teacher that her religion was violated if she had to listen to “Christian” music during my performance. Or a few years ago when I was a substitute teacher I was in charge of a 3rd grade class on the last day before Winter break. Of course the kids did nothing constructive all day, just games and craft projects. At one point I passed out pictures of a wintery scene with a horse drawn sleigh on them for the kids to color. A Muslim girl in the class refused to participate and complained that I was forcing her to celebrate Christmas by coloring that picture. This was after I had sat with her through lunch and recess while the other kids ate and played and talked with her about Ramadan (which she was observing).

This is a season of holidays. And if we truly want to redeem it so to speak, it seems like we need to get over ourselves. Our particular pet holiday, although deeply meaningful to us personally, is just one among many. To insist that others acknowledge our holiday or to barricade ourselves from exposure to other holidays is just plain selfish. Instead of trying to fight expression of any and all holidays because ours can’t be primary, lets work to allow equal promotion for all. I always liked Austin’s Trail of Lights each December in Zilker Park. It was a holiday celebration that allowed displays from whatever group wanted to set up a display. So there were of course Christmas displays (both secular and sacred), Hanukkah displays, Solstice displays, and even one set up to acknowledge the Greek Pantheon. It was fun and festive, and worked off of mutual respect instead of faked collective ignorance as to the existence of the entire season.

So let’s redeem the season by letting it be what it is – a season of holidays. Let’s acknowledge that other people deserve respect and don’t have to be exactly like us. And maybe we could all end up having a bit more fun with more reasons to celebrate and less excuses to fight. Maybe.

For other contributions to this Synchroblog check out –
Recapturing the Spirit of Christmas at Adam Gonnerman’s Igneous Quill
Swords into Plowshares at Sonja Andrew’s Calacirian
Fanning the Flickering Flame of Advent at Paul Walker’s Out of the Cocoon
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Brian Riley at at Charis Shalom
Secularizing Christmas at JohnSmulo.com
There’s Something About Mary at Hello Said Jenelle
Geocentric Versus Anthropocentric Holydays at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Celebrating Christmas in a Pluralistic Society at Erin Word’s Decompressing Faith
Redeeming the season — season of redemption by Steve Hayes
Remembering the Incarnation at Alan Knox’ The Assembling of the Church
The Obligation of Christmas at JonathanBrink.com
A Biblical Response to a Secular Christmas by Glenn Ansley’s Bad Theology
Happy Life Day at The Agent B Files

Read more

Resounding Gongs and Clanging Cymbals

Posted on

So when I first read the news report about American Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s unfortunate remarks about AIDS, I was annoyed. Saying in 1992 (and standing by those words in 2007) that AIDS patients should be isolated/quarantined because we don’t know how AIDS spreads is a bit out there. Perhaps if it had been 1982, it would have been vaguely understandable. But 1992, that’s just sad.

I don’t mean to pick on Huckabee. He isn’t my top choice among the candidates, but he isn’t my absolute last choice either. His statement was stupid and unbelievable, but it was just a mere blip on the sensational news radar. What I think made it continue to bug me is the underlying attitude of rejection of the Other that it conveys.
The messages of the culture I inhabit and the belief I follow teach me to be inclusive of the Other. Values of tolerance and respect are assumed in the postmodern climate of this globalized world. My faith encourages me to love my neighbor and my enemy, treating them as I myself would desire to be treated. I read stories of Jesus hanging out with the lepers and of him promoting the actions of a good Samaritan who helped out a bleeding and dying man. In essence loving people no matter what was wrong with them. Embracing the Other out of the command to love them instead of rejecting them out of fear because they are different.

So to hear politicians and those who claim to be Christian saying that people who are different or ill need to be isolated away from normal people (and for false reasons at that) doesn’t make much sense to me. Sure I understand safety and medical issues, but I don’t understand the mindset of rejection. Huckabee’s words were foolish and misguided, but they also departed from the type of lifestyle of love Christ calls us to live. And that is what makes those words most dangerous.

Read more

More Harry Potter

Posted on

I just stumbled across this article/interview with J.K. Rowling in which she discusses the religious imagery in Harry Potter 7. In it she confirms that the tombstone quotes epitomize the entire series (confirming my theories) and that Harry was a Christ figure overcoming death (sorry Dr. Jacobs).

I thought it was an interesting read and I liked her concluding quote – “I go to church myself,” she declared. “I don’t take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.”

Read more

He with the Loudest Voice Wins

Posted on

Forget “come let us reason together.” Forget “love wins.” These days it feels like whoever has the loudest voice wins. I know that sounds really cynical but I’m getting tired of being drowned out by those voice. Let me explain.

We do church differently at our church – call it emerging or postmodern if you like. We don’t (generally) preach at people, but instead attempt to engage people in discussion and reflection. This works really well for people who are used to us or who have an bit of an intellectual bent. But occasionally we get people who show up who after listening to part of the conversation say something like “But Joel Osteen says _____”. That’s the end of the discussion for them. Joel Osteen has a TV show so therefore his voice being the loudest and most prominent is correct. So if we are talking about self-sacrificially serving others based on texts from Luke, but Joel Osteen said that we can have it all if we just have faith, Joel Osteen must be right. There is no interacting with the issue, no trying to determine which message holds the truth, just allegiance with the guy with the loud voice.

Then there are the issues with the radio preachers (as the Out of Ur blog recently discussed). These guys can say whatever they want and because it is Christian radio people believe them as Gospel truth. It doesn’t matter if your church preaches one thing on Sunday, if the people in your church listen to Christian radio they will believe the radio guys’ over you. If they are on the radio they have the loud voice and therefore must be right. So if you are say in the emerging church, but the radio preachers tell their listeners that the emerging church is a cult where they sacrifice children and have sex with Satan (or something similar) they will believe the radio guys and condemn you to hell. No honest intelligent dialogue. No pursuit of truth. Just automatic default to whatever the guys with the loudest voice are saying.

I’ve personally experienced this phenomenon in a women’s Bible study I was in a few years ago (which yes was just as painful as it sounds). Not much deep engagement went on at this thing. Our discussions involved reading whatever answer we filled in the Beth Moore blank with or occasionally reading the study notes from the NIV. Any attempts to push the conversation further were met with confused looks of “that wasn’t in the book.” One week our topic was on Rahab, and I was determined to bring up the alternative view that perhaps she wasn’t a prostitute. Before I could one of the other ladies chose to read from Liz Curtis Higgs’ Bad Girls of the Bible on Rahab. Essentially the passage claimed that Rahab has to be a prostitute because she represents our potential to be saved from the baseness of our sexual nature as women and if you question her role as a prostitute you are unbiblical and challenging the saving work of Christ. Which of course I disagreed with even more. At the risk of being labelled unbiblical (which I eventually was at that church) I tried to speak up and was immediately shut down. Who was I to question Liz Curtis Higgs the others asked? She’s the expert on bad girls of the bible, you can’t question the expert. So faithful exploration and biblical study don’t matter in the face of a loud voice.

The “loud” voices, the ones with clout, are considered more believable because they are prominent and reach a wider audience. As we in the emerging church attempt to rethink patterns of theology we run up against these loud voices. They don’t engage us in dialogue or a willingness to learn. Instead they ridicule, spread rumors and lies, and inoculate themselves against feedback by screening their calls and emails and deleting negative (or just basically insightful) comments on their blogs (if they allowed them in the first place). I guess it’s hard to remain a loud voice if you don’t just shut out all other voices.

So what do we do with this? People are allowed their own opinions, and I can ignore individuals who make fun of what I am a part of, but what about my family and friends who believe lies about me because of a few loud voices? Or who at least write me off for things I truly believe because they have been exposed to a bad representation of those things? Or what about those of us who have lost jobs because of the loud voice of others? How can we encourage church members and friends to actually think for themselves instead of swallowing whatever the loud voices tell them to believe? How can we do this without getting too cynical?

Read more

In this Week’s News

Posted on

News stories I had to click on –

J.K. Rowling outs Dumbledore as Gay
Interesting. No big surprise. I found this paragraph sad – “But [Rowling] added that not everyone likes her work. Christian groups have alleged the books promote witchcraft. The author said her revelation about Dumbledore would give them one more reason.” Once again Christians make the news for our hatred record instead of for our love.

and

Monkeys Kill Delhi Deputy Mayor
“The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi died on Sunday after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.” WTF? Wild Monkeys? Apparently these terrorizing monkeys are seen as a representation of a god and so cannot be harmed.

Read more