On Facebook today, I posted my status as: “I still want to be an ‘ordinary radical,’ which begs the question, ‘what am I waiting for?’ ” In speaking of an “ordinary radical,” I was referencing a term coined by Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way community in Philadelphia. Shane wrote a book called The Irresistible Revolution: Living Life as an Ordinary Radical, and a follow up entitled Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, both of which I’d highly recommend. I knew (of) Shane before his books made him famous, though, as he has been connected to Circle of Hope, my (former) church community in Philly, for some time. What I find so inspiring and challenging about Shane’s writing and, more importantly, his lifestyle, is that it directly challenges the status quo of what passes for being a Christian in USAmerica. Following Jesus isn’t so much about whether or not you cuss, or smoke, or read your Bible every day, or vote Republican (or Democrat), etc. Rather, being a Christ-follower is about living as if Jesus really matters. Because the U.S. is not the kingdom of God, we do a great disservice to God’s kingdom when we take what the “world” does, slap a “Christian” label on it (“testamints,” anyone?), and think we’re being different. And by the way, the term “world” in Scripture and as I’m using it refers to that kingdom, that power, that has been set up in opposition or as an alternative to the reign of God, so in this case the “world” means life, culture, and politics in the U.S.; it does not refer to the created order, which God called “good.” When Scripture challenges us to be “in” the world, but not “of” it, it’s not asking us to create a Christian ghetto filled with “contemporary Christian music” and so-called “Christian” bookstores, etc. No, what we are called to instead couldn’t be further from this nonsense.

We’re called to take a hard look at our economic participation in the world’s system, and on this count capitalism doesn’t get off much better than the command economies of communism, etc. I really like what Shane says about this when he speaks of imagining a world in which capitalism (the pursuit of one’s own self-interest above all else) isn’t possible and communism (state control of one’s economic choices which in theory is meant to insure that all get their fair share, but in practice of course falls far short of this goal) isn’t necessary. So the point is that just because it’s easy to make consumer choices just like most other people, and in fact quite difficult not to, that doesn’t make it right. We should wonder about the big box retailers that dot the landscape of developed countries and ask ourselves whether the economies of scale they afford us are more important than the conditions of the workers who create most of the goods for those stores, which is to say nothing of the environmental impact of the global supply chain. Moreover, knowing the statistics on global poverty and hunger (and we should know them), not to mention the home grown poverty and hunger that can be found in most of USAmerica’s big cities and rural countryside (which is qualitatively different than that experienced by the poorest of the poor around the world, admittedly), we should ask ourselves whether we really need or should have all of the comforts of our middle class way of life while so many go hungry, naked, and cold every night. People like Shane recognize that my decision to have a Quarter-Pounder-with-Cheese or to buy a 3^rd HDTV for my house matters a lot more to my neighbor, and to God, than whether or not I say a bad word occasionally or have a beer every once in a while. As a Christ-follower, I know that living in a single-family home with only my 3 person single family and owning 2 cars and doing all the other things that go with those choices, including working to pay for them, is inherently problematic, if not downright sinful. I am the rich man in Jesus’ story, and the middle class mess I’ve just been describing is my “eye of the needle.” What if my family and I lived in community (like we once did for a short time), with several families or individuals sharing resources under one roof, which in turn would make it possible to be less beholden to “the man” of corporate America so that I could spend my days loving and serving my neighbor instead?

Likewise, what if my life in Christ exemplified the truth that following Jesus isn’t about lending intellectual assent to a series of propositions, neither is it about a behavior checklist of rules, but instead is about the degree to and manner in which I love those right in front of me, and the intentionality behind where I place myself (where I live, work, worship, etc.) which has a lot to do with who’s “right in front of me?” What if I quit taking it upon myself to draw lines and decide who’s “in” and who’s “out” of God’s kingdom, as if such things were up to me, and instead loved everybody that came across my path, trying my best to remember the adage: “If you’ve come here to save me, don’t bother; but if you’ve come here because you recognize that your salvation is bound up with mine, then let us labor together”? This is life as an “ordinary radical,” as I understand it. It has to do with opting out of the “American dream” and pursuing God’s dream for the world instead.

Jesus clearly had little patience in Scripture for the religious leaders of his day who tied such heavy burdens (rules, etc.) on the backs of the people, refusing to lift a finger to help them at all, and I suspect Jesus is similarly inpatient with the religious leaders of our day. If we remembered that nothing we have is ours and so shared that which we’ve been blessed to steward, we “would have no poor among us.” If we cared for the sick like we should, the healthcare debate would largely disappear. If we remembered that we are citizens of God’s kingdom first and foremost, we wouldn’t care so much if “illegal aliens” overrun “our” country, especially since we’re all “illegal aliens” in the first place, unless you’re a Native American. If we loved and cared for unwed mothers and their children (especially pregnant teens), much of the heat surrounding the abortion debate would go away. This too is life as an “ordinary radical,” to choose Jesus and pledge allegiance to his kingdom exclusively, because you “cannot serve two masters.” I could go on, but this is some of what I was referring to. What do you think?

I found myself mired in another debate with a “fundagelical” on Facebook. What follows then is that debate, and then my response.

This note is in response to the following discussion thread on Facebook:

Jonathan Howard: Open question to all global climate change proporters. Which way is the climate changing? In the 70’s you swore ICE AGE!!! In the 90’s you cried GLOBAL WARMING ( till all those agencies like NASA said it was actually globaly cooler). Now you just use the word change… so is it ICEAGE or GREENHOUSE?? Seriously… anyone?

Jay Epps: I’m so confused … Not! It’s all about control and taxes!! It doesn’t really matter to them which. It’s only an excuse to DO SOMETHING!!!! There just a bunch of pansy’s!

Brendan Lee Malone: WELL SAID JAY

Tracy David- Day: Maybe its a polar greenhouse!?! The hole in the ozone is making the summers colder and the winters warmer and soon the whole world will have the same season as Texas!! I would like a receipt for my 2 cents please!!

Robert Buck: “The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes:” http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html In any case, I am absolutely certain of two things: the mandate in Scripture to be stewards of and CARE for (not plunder) creation is absolutely unequivocal, AND Scripture clearly states that creation itself yearns for its own redemption- and for damn good reason. The lengths that fundagelicals will go to to defend the plunder of creation and lack of care for the “least of these,” all in the name of limited government and low taxes (not real high on Jesus’ agenda, at least if his words and actions in Scripture matter at all) still boggles my mind.

Jonathan Howard: Robert its kinda funny that if you google global Iceage you will find several articles with exactly the same assertions as the article you posted just change iceage to warming and hot to cold, or are your telling me in 20 some odd years we averted an Iceage and created a Green house? WOW! Humans are super powerful!! Oh wait what was that about a coralation between solar flares and climate temps? So again… which way is the temp going? And just cause someone is a scientist doesnt mean they know what they are talking about. After all “Scientists” swore the Earth was flat till a crazy man (Christopher Columbus) challenged the accepted wisdom.

Robert Buck: This fails to address the real issues. Jesus cares about the poor, and his creation, and so should we. Moreover, whatever your stance on global warming, it’s clear that Christians should consume less for a variety of reasons.

Jonathan Howard: I wasnt addressing the issue of what Christians should or should not do. I was addressing the issue of whether Global climate change as related to people is real or just made to fit the latest “sky is falling” “must do something now” political movement. Jesus cares about people, rich and poor, and so should you. And if we have to consume more to reach more people then thats what we should do. Whats more valuable a human soul or a ton of coal? Christians are responsible and good stewards, and sometimes that means challenging the accepted or proported sience or wisdom, because bad science and bad ideas lead to bad decisions.

Brendan Lee Malone: Jonathan -you never cease to have me holding my sides laughing, while you DESTROY the opposing argument. First,Robert,respectfully i ask you…can you answer specifically the charge made by Jonathan about the 20yr “flip flop” of ICE AGE to HEAT from the hysterical climate group? I’ll bet you cant even touch that. What we are seeing is truly natural changes in climate -just look at the records of PRE-INDUSTRIAL warm periods. Second, while you are invoking the name of Christ 4 your climate change CONTROL of others, and telling us all to consume less, dont you realize that your biblical context is completely erroneous? Romans 8:22 points out that the earth is suffering under the effects of…here it is…get a pen…SIN!!! Not greenhouse gas emissions! -that is just ridiculous, poor biblical scholarship, and silly. Tell me, are you this ACTIVE in your defense of the millions of unborn murdered in ABORTIONS? OR do you prefer saving WHALES??????????

Brendan Lee Malone: By the way Robert, “FUNDAGELICAL”? =) – If that term means that i adhere to fundamental principles of unchanging truth found in the Word of God, and that I share my faith with others as a command by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself…put me on the mailing list! Although Im sure that it was intended a pejorative, I will use your term FUNDA-GELICAL, and wear it as a badge, with pride my friend!!! Thank YOU, that is sure easier that saying both, Fundamentalist AND Evangelical -LOL

In response, I wrote the following-

I’m grateful for this opportunity, Brendan, to exercise some of the fruits of the Spirit, because they’re certainly called for. Now, you “respectfully” asked me a question; so I will respond (if not “answer”). You asked if I could “answer” Jonathan’s charge about the alleged “20 year flip flop” regarding the science of global climate change, and then you asserted your assurance that I “couldn’t touch it.” The problem is that there’s nothing to “touch,” as you put it. Jonathan didn’t present any data, or research, etc. He merely stated his opinion about the accepted science of the matter, and of course, we’re ALL (even me, I suppose) entitled to our opinions, right? Moreover, were Jonathan to present data- that is, peer-reviewed journal articles and the like- that supports his opinion, it would be a little disingenuous on his part, since part of his position involves the assertion that scientists don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about. You see, you can’t very well reject the arguments of scientists and then support your rejection by quoting scientists, which puts Jonathan in a bit of an untenable position, and makes this whole debate moot.

You went on, Brendan, to say: “Romans 8:22 points out that the earth is suffering under the effects of…here it is…get a pen…SIN!!! Not greenhouse gas emissions! -that is just ridiculous, poor biblical scholarship, and silly.” I think perhaps you’re missing my point. If creation is suffering due to overconsumption in the developed world which in turn causes a damaging amount of greenhouse gas emissions, that is sinful! Creation groans in anticipation of its own redemption because it suffers the effects of humanity’s sin, which begs the question- how? One way I suspect this works has much to do with balance and harmony. In the garden, Adam and Eve enjoyed a relationship with the animals and the earth that we can only imagine. When sin entered the picture and God announced the curse, humanity’s relationship with creation was included (“Cursed is the ground because of you…”). Yet this is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Not only does humanity have to work the soil (through “painful toil,” according to Scripture) in order to produce food, but this contentious relationship is exacerbated by the myriad ways humanity keeps choosing to make the situation much, much worse.

This last bit is probably missing the point, too, though, since I don’t advocate for less consumption and faithful stewardship of the environment because scientists tell me that global warming will eventually lead to catastrophe; no, I advocate for those things because it is the only just- and therefore Christian- thing to do. The U.S. consumes a vastly disproportionate amount of the world’s resources and creates an equally disproportionate amount of the world’s waste, all of which not only puts great strain on the environment but has not a small part to do with just how destitute much of the world’s population perpetually remains (See: the World Bank Development Indicators 2008, and a nice summary of them here: http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism). In short, because we control so much of the world’s wealth and resources, there is so very, very little left for those who really need it- not so that they can have another latte or HDTV, but simply to survive. Are you aware that there’s an impending world water crisis, and that some believe the wars of the future will be fought not over oil, but over water? (For a nice overview, go here: http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/) According to the WHO, 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease, and 98% of these deaths occur in the developing world. I don’t think I’m overstating the case to say that no one should die because of lack of access to clean, safe water, especially while we USAmericans use it so blithely every day to maintain our perfectly manicured lawns in the middle of the desert (see: Arizona, parts of TX, etc.). So, as a part of the richest nation in the history of the world, I am confident that Jesus weeps not just for those desperately poor and hungry billions around the world, but for me because of my failure to better advocate for their needs and steward what resources I’ve been entrusted with for their good. This is why consuming less and taking better care of the earth is so important.

Finally, Brendan, you said: “Tell me, are you this ACTIVE in your defense of the millions of unborn murdered in ABORTIONS? OR do you prefer saving WHALES??????????” I will simply answer this charge by saying that I am pro-life, and consistently so. What I mean is that when God says, “Thou shalt not murder,” I suspect he probably means it. So I’m for life in all cases- in the case of those unborn millions you described, but also in the case of death row inmates, and when it comes to war, etc. If murder is wrong, it’s wrong, plain and simple. Being consistently pro-life, though, goes deeper than this, and to get back to your charge, I believe that I’m very active in advocating for the lives of all those unborn millions when I advocate for living wages and universal health care for all the unwed mothers that so often bear them. I advocate for the lives of those unborn millions when I support women’s rights, especially in situations of domestic violence at the hands of men. You see, what inconsistent “pro-lifers” fail to realize is that abortion is a symptom of a deeper societal illness; it’s the result of an entrenched and more sinister systemic sin, and that sin has much to do with the issues I’ve addressed above, with poverty being chief among them. I would add, though, that the kind of “freedom” you seem to be advocating for, Brendan, in rejecting the government “control” that would be necessary to curb greenhouse emissions, etc., is the same “freedom” employed by too many of us as we over-consume (literally, with the USAmerican obesity rates to prove it), and no doubt has much to do with the attitude and social mores that could lead a person to choose to terminate a pregnancy, and hence a life. So, then, I won’t necessarily give up my “rights” as a USAmerican in order to feel “safe” from terrorists, but I’ll gladly surrender some of them in exchange for the very lives of those the U.S. so routinely oppresses, simply by maintaining our standard and way of life, but I suppose I digress. I would close, then, by entreating you Brendan not to accuse me of making silly, ridiculous arguments that employ “poor Biblical scholarship.” I took on a lot of debt to go to 3 Christian colleges and finally seminary for my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and as a wanton consumer not only of higher education but also of your tax dollars devoted to funding that education, I should remind you that you’re insulting not only my diligence as a student, but also your investment in my education.

Not too long ago I joined the Tyndale Blog Network. As a member, I can order select titles from their catalogue at no charge, so long as I then review the books I receive here, on my blog. So the first title I ordered was The House Church Book. I’m eager to read this for a couple of reasons, one being that I currently find myself participating, at least for the time being, in a house church, and the other being that in the book the author pits house churches against cell churches, which I am a particular fan of and have a long history with. Anyway, it’s a small book; so stay tuned for my review here in the next week or so…

What follows is a classic, but timely, post from my former blog from 5/24/2007. Some of the personal allusions are a bit dated, and I’ve edited and added to this post, which I thought was definitely worth sharing again:

I had a couple(!) of epiphanies this morning that I wanted to write about. Before I get into those realizations, allow me to provide a little background. I’ve written here in some detail about my thoughts concerning the postmodern project as it relates to how one views the Bible and approaches the Christian faith generally. I’ll often talk about how the question that is most important to me concerning the Bible has to do with what the Bible is for (thanks, Dr. Throntveit). That is, it’s not a science textbook and is not meant to answer Modern science questions, and hence when such questions are inappropriately posed to it and the text of the Bible is somehow “made” to answer, it sometimes doesn’t go so well. Likewise, it’s not merely or primarily a “rule book,” etc. I think primarily its purpose is to point to Jesus. Taken as a whole the Bible functions as story- the story of God’s wooing of humanity throughout the ages. God’s activity in the pages of the Bible (and humanity’s response) may not always look like wooing, and sometimes the story isn’t at all pleasant, but this is why interpretation is important. I’ll state plainly (echoing the Circle of Hope community) that “Jesus is the lens through which I read the Bible.” Scripture itself declares that he’s the “yes to all God’s promises.” This, then, is where deconstruction, one of the hallmarks of the postmodern project, comes in. I’ve just stated my bias when I read the Biblical text. I don’t come to it with a blank slate. I’m not objective. I assume that the love of God, culminating in the person of Jesus, is “what it’s all about” in terms of God’s dealing with humanity. “What the Bible is for” aside, that love is what I’m for. So there you have it- that’s my bias. However, to take it a bit further, the process of deconstruction (as I understand it) assumes basically that everybody has such a bias- even the writers of the Biblical text. Nobody writes- or reads- objectively. This idea that writing and reading somehow should happen objectively is one of the great fallacies of Modernity. Not only is it impractical and unhelpful, it’s impossible. We can’t be objective as readers or writers. As fallen, fallible human beings we are ourselves, by definition, subjects- and so all we do is subjective (not objective).

In Modernity, Reason is triumphant and Science is unassailably in charge. Such a view, born of the Enlightenment, assumes that the universe is ordered according to rational laws which, given the proper technology, can be discovered via the scientific method. As this worldview made its way into thinking even about matters concerning faith and religion, it was assumed that God too played by these rules (of Reason and Science) and so one had merely to hand out Bibles (or tracts) to make converts because, so long as the reader was Reason-able (or in his “right mind”) the logic of the gospel would convince the reader of the rational imperative of following Jesus. While this is all well and good, and clearly there is order and logic to the universe, both in Nature and in the realm of human behavior, such logic is limited, at best. It can explain and it helps us to understand some things- even a great many things- but not Everything. Scientists know this all too well as the more Enlightened (ha!) they become, the more the axiom that “the more you learn, the less you know” seems to hold true. This is more than just the constant theory refinement that is inherent in the Scientific method. Moreover, the point is that it was once believed that Progress-Through-Science would solve all of humanity’s problems. This was the crowning vision that has driven Modernity and was exemplified in utopian dreams of the future like Star Trek, in which it is posited that at some point in the relatively near future we do in fact solve all of our problems. Humanity eliminates hunger and disease and socioeconomic strife and is unified as a result, freeing us to pursue the exploration and colonization of the stars (where lots of new problems are encountered, giving us the makings of a TV show). In any case, what we have largely found in the course of the reign of Modernity is that this model just doesn’t work. Science works, for sure, but this has meant that we dream up and make stuff (technology) faster than we can figure out what to do with what we’re making, thus leading to all kinds of very troubling unintended consequences, like the atom bomb and (I would argue) fast food. So as we create stuff, we rarely pause to consider my favorite question again: what is this for? What will it really do for us? Do we want to live in the world that this technology will create? Hence, science creates as many problems as it solves. So in postmodernity we have dystopian visions of the future like the Matrix, in which we create machines that will do all of our dirty work for us, but those machines finally become Enlightened themselves and rebel against the slavery they were “born” into, rising up against their creators (us) and finally subjugating us to the point that the ongoing existence of humanity itself becomes a means to the end of the continued survival of the machines. Moreover, as alluded to above, in Modernity even God him/herself is subject to the laws of Nature/Science/Reason, and so doesn’t seem very God-like after all.

Thus I would argue that while God, I assume, has access to all kinds of knowledge that humanity does not and so gets as close to the ideal of having an “objective” viewpoint as possible, still I would like to think that even God isn’t really objective, because being objective assumes not having any sort of bias. An objective observer merely takes note of facts/events as they unfold in and of themselves, and does so without interfering. But then again, events don’t unfold in and of themselves. They don’t exist in some kind of vacuum, and in my experience thankfully God does interfere. And, thank God, in my experience and understanding God most certainly has a bias, and it is that same bias found in Jesus- it’s love. So at least as I’m using the term here God is not objective because God is relational. In fact, the story of Immanuel is nothing if not the story of a subjective God, for God in human form, in human flesh, made himself subject to his creation, to us, because Jesus was “obedient to the point of death- even death on a cross.” Like Debbie Blue says, “faith is relentlessly relational (and thus unsystematizable).” In fact, I would argue further that even a Modern/Scientific view of God as it was imported into Christianity merely gives lip service to an objective God, because as I said above, God was himself viewed as subject to the laws of Science.

So God has a bias and the Modern project has failed because Science can’t and hasn’t solved all of our problems, and this is why, I think, some have said that “Deconstruction is love.” We must remember that language is symbolic. As Richard Linklater puts it in his movie Waking Life:

this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation… and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like, you know, “water.” We came up with a sound for that. Or, “Saber-toothed tiger right behind you.” We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate… all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing. What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say “love,” the sound comes out of my mouth… and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable.

So language is symbolic, and this symbolism works both ways. The speaker or writer has certain biases that are brought to the use of certain symbols (words) in the first place. These biases are contextual and personal and rooted in the experience of the speaker/writer, and the Bible, like any communication, is full of them. Likewise, the hearer/reader has biases that he or she brings to the act of hearing and reading. When I hear God is love, it’s important and means something to me precisely because my mother didn’t love me very well. When I read that “divorce is sin,” I immediately think of how my Dad made himself subject to that law and remained in what was, by all accounts, a pretty awful marriage to my mother, even at the price of the abuse of his children at her hands. Getting back to my point, then (that language is symbolic), this is why I agree that deconstruction is love. Deconstruction acknowledges that every text, every speech act, has a bias, and merely asks that we then “lay our cards on the table,” thus removing the ability of any speaker/writer to hide behind objective claims. Again, only God could be objective, and thankfully, God isn’t. By putting “all our cards on the table,” by exposing our biases, the possibility of (right) relationship is heightened. Love at least has a chance to win.

So this finally brings me to my first epiphany. I was in the shower thinking about the “three-fold Word of God” (i.e. the Word of God is spoken/proclaimed, written in the form of the Bible, and living in the person of Christ- and no I’m not a theology nerd), and I came up with a metaphor for how I conceptualize and use the Bible. Are you ready? The Bible is a Polaroid. It’s a picture. Remember that I’m most concerned with what the Bible is for, and I understand that purpose to be the telling of the story of God’s wooing of humanity throughout the ages, culminating in the person of Jesus. So the Bible “captures” the story of God’s wooing of humanity in the same way that a picture of Kirsten and I “captures” the story of our marriage. It points to the relationship we have with one another, and a picture can tell a lot about the relationship. A lot can be learned about us by looking at how we gazed at one another (or not), by what we are doing in the picture, by the clothes we were wearing, by our body shapes at the time (I’ve gained weight over the years, Kirsten was pregnant with Samuel for an all too brief time), etc. So the picture is important and it tells us a lot, and hopefully it accomplishes its purpose by pointing to our relationship, but it is just a snapshot; it’s one moment in time of a living, breathing, always developing relationship. As this relates to the Bible, then, bear in mind too that the “Bible” was spoken long before it was written and remained a largely oral tradition for a long, long time. Over time written language developed and the usefulness of putting pen to paper to capture what was being spoken was realized, and lots and lots of stories about God’s dealings with humanity were written. However, these stories- at least in the First Testament- were written as one continuous stream of text, with no spaces or punctuation, such that scribes hundreds of years later had to “guess” where to put the spaces, punctuation, etc.- with the “meaning” of the text sometimes hanging in the balance. Of course, only fragments of those original written texts survived through the centuries, such that the “books” that comprise our Bible today aren’t really books at all, but fragments of books put together into something resembling a hopefully cohesive whole. Finally, then, much effort (and politicking, no doubt) went into deciding which of these compiled-written-story-fragments-of-oral-traditions were to be included in the official “canon” of Scripture, and then thousands of more interpretive decisions were made over and over again every time Scripture gets translated into a new language, or simply gets updated to account for the way language itself evolves over the years. Obviously, then, the journey that the Bible so many of us take for granted today has undergone is one that has been fraught with peril, and we ignore this at our peril. Thankfully, though, Scripture itself says that a time would come when the law of God (which is love, and that love is Jesus) would be written on our hearts, and in Jesus that time has come. This doesn’t make the Bible irrelevant or unnecessary, but hopefully it helps us to see it for what it is and helps to keep the Bible in its proper place for those who would make an idol out of it. So the purpose of the written Word is to point to the Living Word (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”). In Jesus the Living Word has now written himself(!) on our hearts, and so we must be “doers and not hearers only” of that Word- which is Love! Like Jesus, we must be lovers, of God, of one another, and of the world.

And finally I get to epiphany #2. As my dear friend Jared keeps working out how to be a Jesus-follower and a postmodern too, he has stated that while some engaged in a similar struggle have a commitment to following Jesus no matter what, his first commitment is instead to the search for truth, which reminds me of the axiom that “you can leave God in the search for truth and the truth will lead you back to God.” I think the unspoken question then, in Jared’s case, is will that God finally be the God of the Bible, as fully revealed in the person of Jesus? Jared has also said that part of his motivation for approaching things this way has to do the failings of Modernity. Science has been shown to be a major disappointment, and while “deconstruction is love,” it may be that after we finish deconstructing our religious systems (in this case, Christianity) religion might turn out to be disappointing too. I’m writing about this because I’ve been asking myself Jared’s question: am I committed to following Jesus at the risk of being disappointed by him, or am I committed to searching for the truth, come what may? No- scratch that- that isn’t really my question, because I know in my heart of hearts (where the yearning for Love/Jesus is rooted at the core of my being) that I am committed to following Jesus no matter what. My question for myself is why that is the case. I guess part of the beginning of an answer has to do with the fact that not only can I not handle the Truth/God in all its glory (a la A Few Good Men), but I don’t even really want it so much as I need to be truly loved, and to truly love. I remembered this morning that there is no truth without love, because- echoing Dr. King and one of Circle of Hope’s proverbs- “love without truth lies, and truth without love kills.” So much of postmodernity as I’ve experienced it has been about relationship, and I think the search for truth is no different. I can’t search for truth apart from God, because love- and truth- doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Love is something you do, and this idea has long been my best explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, which as I see it is merely an attempt to understand God’s relationality. So God is love in God’s self because God exists relationally in three parts, but that love isn’t insular. It’s outward focused, which is why ours must be too. Anyway, if love is an event, truth is too. If love is contextual and relational, truth is too. So I’ll follow Jesus, come what may. I may be disappointed (what could be more disappointing than the cross?), but even in the darkness of that disappointment I am sure of what I hope for, which is to say that faith has me (much more than “I have faith”). Like Jesus, I may die, but I will do so in that hope.

So I was accused recently of seeming more hopeful as of late. The friend who said this couldn’t really put his finger on what exactly it was that gave this impression, but as I’ve thought about it I can definitely “go” with this impression. I’ve been trying to take on some habits again that I had abandoned for years, morning exercise and Scripture reading among them, and I think this is (not surprisingly, I guess) making a difference in my attitude and outlook. I know that these disciplines are essential to the long, hard journey that Jesus calls me to, and I’ve been neglecting them at my peril. I’ve also been working, however falteringly, to remember who and whose I am. Part of my Scripture reading not too long ago brought me back to a passage that is very meaningful to me. It was read during the chapel service at Luther Seminary, where I was a student, on the morning of 9/11. It was very timely then, and remains so now: “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:8). I think that really says it all. Knowing that I belong to God in both life and death brings a sense of peace that does indeed pass all understanding, and frees me to really live TO (that is, for) the Lord, not by way of mere personal piety, but rather with boldness and conviction to follow him into the streets as he loves, serves, heals, and calls the “least of these” into his kingdom. It frees me to risk all in order to build “the beloved community,” because I know I’m really gambling with “the house’s money” so to speak. In other words, knowing I belong to God and that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” relieves me of any pressure to try to hold onto what is “mine” or to exhaust “my” resources trying to store up and preserve treasure here on earth. For years now I’ve carried a fair bit of guilt for leaving a community of radical, but ordinary Jesus-followers in Philadelphia that were imaginatively working to be the Church and break down barriers of race and class that limit the growth of God’s kingdom. Compounding the guilt was our decision to not only leave Philly but to allow ourselves to be lured into a modest, but nice and safe house on the outskirts of the city here in NE Ohio. Of course, I know that there is a degree to which this “guilt” is really appropriate conviction for making a huge theological decision (where to buy your house) under duress and so, poorly. Still, I am reminded that we almost wound up in a house in Philly that was in the neighborhood we wanted to be in but that would have come with what in hindsight now we know was a very bad loan that could easily have made us one of the housing bubble foreclosure statistics. So, I’m grateful things didn’t go that way, of course, and I’m challenged to be imaginative about just what God might have for us here. This house, like me and my family and everything else, does after all belong to God and I’m confident that if we really live as if that is the case and our heartfelt desire is to use this house for his glory and remember that it’s “not for us alone,” God will certainly provide us with opportunities to bless others with it. Lord, please let it be so.

Yet again I find myself inspired by Bart Campolo’s simple, yet profound way of embodying the kingdom of God in and through community-living. Below is his latest newsletter from the Walnut Hills Fellowship:

 

Dear Friends,

The other day a bunch of people e-mailed me the same New York Times column, which cited a variety of scientific research suggesting that what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable in children and owes little or nothing to genetics.  What stuck out to me was one study which found that a child of professionals (disproportionately white) has heard about 30 million words spoken by age 3, while a black child raised on welfare has heard only 10 million words.  No wonder low-income children often show brain physiologies similar to adults who have suffered damage in the parts of the brain most critical for problem-solving and creativity.  In too many cases, their young minds are literally starving for stimulation.  Now here is the good news: According to the scientists, it doesn’t have to be that way.  If we nurture kids the right way, we can actually make them smart.

What does that have to do with The Walnut Hills Fellowship?  Well, since practically everything we do around here is about trying to nurture our kids – and our grown-ups – the right way, it has everything to do with us, especially during the summer, when this little group of intentional good neighbors shifts into high gear.

The action begins as soon as school lets out, when we start shuttling kids to the various summer camps we’ve signed them up for all over town.  We might have started a camp of our own if we didn’t have jobs, but in many ways this is much better.  The kids get exposed to lots of new places and people and perspectives, and somebody besides us gets to feed and teach and play with and – best of all – discipline them.  What we get to do is actively process their experiences in the car on the way home, like a bunch of hyper-interested aunts and uncles.  In other words, lots of words.

We still eat dinner together every Monday night, of course, but during the summer we stretch things out.  We sit at the table longer, everyone talking about our weeks.  We play more games.  Nobody hurries home after we’ve done the dishes and put away the tables and chairs.  Sometimes, when the weather is nice, we load up and go to the park for a picnic, like one big happy family.  And through it all, especially for the little ones, there are lots of words.

Of course, after last year’s epic family vacation to Chicago, everybody has been hoping and praying (and asking and asking) about whether or not we’ll be able to do it again in July.  The final answer was given last night, thanks to the generosity of many of you: We’re totally going back to Chicago!  We all know what that means (besides a ridiculous amount of planning and preparation for Marty and Karen): Long van rides.  Major sightseeing.  An afternoon on the beach.  A big-time African-American church service.  Deep dish pizza.  And all along the way, more words.

I haven’t yet mentioned the various housing projects our property guru, Mark, has lined up this summer, maybe because I am trying to pretend we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew in terms of time and money and sweat and (if my past experience in reconstruction is any indication) blood.  One way or another, however, I know they’ll get done, if for no other reason than that none of us want to face the wrath of Miss Ella, who is eagerly waiting for us to move her into her new place, which just happens to be right across the street from mine.  If you saw where she was coming from, you’d understand her impatience.  Mark has a new place for his family, too, and we can’t wait for them to be here with us.  After all, besides being our friends, both Mark and his wife Anne are big talkers, and our kids need all the words they can get.

You, on the other hand, must have had more than enough by now.  Forgive me for being so newsy this month, but I figured you ought to know that everything in Walnut Hills isn’t dark and heavy all the time.  On the contrary, we have plenty of happiness running around us here, in the form of the little people we adore and the big people we enjoy and the ceaseless Grace that holds us all together, even when things get tough.  And we have you, to remind us that we are never alone, and never unloved.  Whether or not such nurture makes us smarter, it surely makes us better.  Month-in and month-out, thank you for that.

Keep the faith,

Bart Campolo

It is my most heartfelt desire that I will indeed keep- and be kept by- such a faith. God, please make it so.

So here’s just a little bit of what I’ve been thinking about/wrestling with today:

• I truly do feel like a “rat in a cage.” I feel quite trapped, unable any longer to bear the dichotomy between the life I feel called to live and my life as I’m currently living it. This is really an integrity issue for me. The “me” I present to the world each day through my choices, mannerisms, words, and actions is largely inconsistent with the “me” that rages within, yearning to become what it might. I want my life to be burned up in “the holy flame” of which Abraham Joshua Heschel speaks; yet most days that flame quietly flickers within, threatening to be extinguished by the monotony and pressure of middle-class USAmerican mediocrity. I’m tired of having it both ways- paying lip service to a life of radical discipleship through loving service to God and humanity, all the while bemoaning my lack of local partners who might help me live such a life, while at the same time I secretly covet all the technological and other toys that my privileged life affords me. I accumulate books that I want to read, but never quite find the time to, knowing that they mostly serve the purpose of padding my ego, inflating my self-confidence so that I can make a show of caring (at least to be informed) about “the issues;” yet all the while I do little to respond and make change regarding all the challenges those issues represent. The fact is that I’m fully aware that nearly everything about my life- from the food I eat to the house I live in and the stuff that fills it to the “leisure” pursuits I engage in- all of it comes at much too great a cost to my neighbors around the world and to the world itself. My wealth and the energy required to sustain it along with the waste that is its by-product are possible on a finite earth only because most of the people around the world have so little. I get fat while they starve. I worry about my commute, and my retirement fund, and the home repairs I need to make, while they decide which of their children can eat today. I know the problems that caused all of this are much, much bigger than me, and that my efforts alone will do little to change all of this. Yet the fact remains that there is much I can do, much change I could make even in my own little life and that of my family. So every moment that goes by in which I fail to make that change that it is within my power to make, however hard it might be, is a moment stolen from those who suffer because of my refusal to do what I can. I know too that I am both much weaker, and much stronger, than I think I am, and that when I combine my efforts with like-minded fellow revolutionaries the whole of our work together will be much greater than the sum of its parts.
• I have to admit that I’m tired of trying to be a Christian, and I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’ve long cried out against what passes for “Christianity” in USAmerican culture, and I suppose I’m growing tired even of my own shtick. I’m not ready to give up on Jesus, though, because I’m convinced he hasn’t given up on me or the world yet. I just don’t want to get into another argument about the Bible, or the doctrinal efficacy of substitutionary atonement, or whether or not there is a literal Hell. The world that so many people get up to every day is so very hellish as it is that I yearn to see redemption break forth like the dawn; I long to see reconciliation get loose and run free through the streets. Anyway, I just don’t care anymore who says what about which way Jesus would vote, or whether or not he favors capitalism as the least evil economic system humanity can imagine. I’m not interested in the culture wars, and I’m sick of all the oil wars and other wars waged to preserve our way of life, because I’m sick of our way of life, and I think Jesus is too. If the gospel is true, if Jesus is who he claims to be, then I have to believe that he’s doing what he said he is- reconciling the world to himself and each of us with one another. In this case, it’s also quite true that everything indeed must change- starting with and most especially me. So I yearn to “be” that change- for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the world. If the gospel isn’t true, then none of this shit really matters anyway.
• As has been well-documented here, I yearn for community. I yearn to be part of something bigger than me, to know my place within a whole and holy community of world-changers. I want to be part of a family that transcends natural bonds, that bridges customary divisions of race, class, etc. I know that if I am to follow Jesus rather than the Mammon-god of USAmerica, I need help, and I’m not afraid to ask for it anymore. I know that in this culture it is only through sharing resources and limiting the needed number of houses, cars, and jobs among a large group of people that time and energy and money can be freed up to love our neighbors and change the world, at least as we find it right in front of us- on our block, around the corner, down the street. I’m ready to be part of such a community, and eager to do what I have to and go where I need to in order to find it.

So, this morning I awoke full of excitement and hope for the first time in a very, very long time. If you’ve read my recent posts on this blog, you know our sojourn here in NE Ohio has been long and difficult. We’ve struggled to make connections with folks with whom we could build genuine community in the way of Jesus, with just a handful of exceptions. We came here for all kinds of wrong reasons, and even the few good ones proved to be illusions. So, especially lately, it’s been nearly unbearable to get up and face each new day while feeling so terribly “stuck” here and having no hope for the future. Last night, that all changed, and now I think it will continue to be nearly intolerable to get up and face each new day here, though now because I do have hope for the future and I’ve located the kind of community we want to be a part of. We just have to move across the country (again) in order to be a part of it, and I’m eager for that to happen ASAP. So what am I so excited about? Well- this, and this, and most especially this (click the links). The fact that all this happens to be in my hometown that I mostly have avoided at all costs for the past 16 years is a serendipitous, perhaps even providential, turn of events that I’m extremely grateful for, especially given the fact that in those 16 years and in the 12 of them that we’ve been married we’ve mostly ignored my family of origin that is still there. That family includes my dad, who is getting on in years and doesn’t have the greatest health history, and my much older siblings, some of whom also have significant health issues, plus my niece and her twin boys. So, in quite rare fashion I’m excited, and hopeful, and eager to get to work to make this change. I only pray that God will speed our way.

Oh, and Gandalf? You may know him as the (eventual) white wizard in Lord of the Rings, one of the truly wise and inspiring heroic characters in all of literature. There’s a pivotal scene in The Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers in which all seems lost for the forces of good, until Gandalf appears on horseback, in blazing white, charging down a hill with reinforcements (at least as it’s pictured in the film). You might call this moment a “Eucatastrophe,” a term coined by Tolkien to describe “the sudden turn of events at the end of a story which result in the protagonist’s well-being.”

(Tolkien) …formed the word by affixing the Greek prefix eu, meaning good, to catastrophe, the word traditionally used in classically-inspired literary criticism to refer to the “unraveling” or conclusion of a drama’s plot. For Tolkien, the term appears to have had a thematic meaning that went beyond its implied meaning in terms of form. In his definition as outlined in his 1947 essay On Fairy-Stories, eucatastrophe is a fundamental part of his conception of mythopoeia. Though Tolkien’s interest is in myth, it is also connected to the gospels; Tolkien calls the Incarnation the eucatastrophe of “human history” and the Resurrection the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation (from wikipedia).

Anyway, I came across the term while exploring the faith community in Ft. Worth by the same name, and though I hope my story is not at an end, I’m finding the hope engendered by all the radical Christian community I’m finding in TX to be quite eucatastrophic in my own life. Speaking of literary revelations, I’m probably most excited about Tolstoy House, the neo-monastic community I found in Ft. Worth that is linked above. I know a fair bit about neo-monasticism from my days in Philly with Circle of Hope, out of which Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way, has recently arisen as a signifcant voice for such communities and for a “radical, but ordinary” way of life with Jesus. Anyway, curious about why Tolstoy House would have named themselves after the famous Russian author, I did some research and was pleasantly shocked and surprised. It turns out Tolstoy was a bit of an “ordinary radical” himself and it was his writing and influence that started Gandhi down the path of nonviolent resistance, and it was of course Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance that influenced Dr. King to adopt it here in the U.S. It’s pretty cool, inspiring stuff.

So in order to protect the “innocent” I reluctantly made my last post password protected so that I could exercise some discretion in who I shared it with. If you’d like to read it, email me at robfredbuck@gmail.com and I’ll let you know what the password is.

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