The Complex Christ

Greenbelt | Dirty Theology | Judas v Jesus: Two Tricksters

Just back from Greenbelt, which, like Ben and Jonny, I think was one of the best ever. Personal highlights were the series of talks by Christopher Booker on the spiritual / psychological background to stories [available here and here], and Michael Franti's gig closing the festival - not to mention hanging out with Greg and Jon from Ventura, as well as Gareth, Si and Shane who were at Soliton too.

I spoke on 'Dirty Theology', and you can get the MP3 for download here.

It was basically a trip through some of the dirt thoughts in the book, but I've been thinking recently about Judas and Jesus as two Tricksters. If we look at the classic trickster pattern, we can see Judas attempting to engage in a trickster act... So why did it fail? And what made Jesus' trickster act so different? I think the key lies in some of the ideas Booker presented to do with the tension between the ego and the 'other' within us. Judas' trickster act was perhaps centred on the ego, while Jesus' on the other.

I also reflect on what importance this distinction might have for the artist as trickster, and how we might live the 'trickster life' in the light of this need to serve 'the other'.

Technorati Tags: Greenbelt, Ego, The Other

Off to Greenbelt | Heretic's Guide to Eternity

I'm off towards Greenbelt tomorrow, via a stop with some friends in Devon, so probably won't be blogging. Before I go, I promised to post a review of Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor's book 'A Heretic's Guide to Eternity'.

First, an apparent paradox in the book, which I think helps unlock its position quite well. Spencer begins with a well written polemic about the state of religion: immovable, unchanging, unresponsive. Religion no longer works for him, but he remains hopeful that "faith can be practiced without the baggage of religion." Yet a chapter or two later, Spencer writes that "in religion, nothing ever stays the same. Our religions are practiced within our cultural horizons, not outside of them."

So which is right? Is religion over, or is it still evolving? Is Spencer leaving religion behind, or practicing it in a new way? The book appears to affirm that it's both/and. And this is the unique place of the heretic: one who stands both within and without, who "pushes past and beyond the conventional wisdom of the dominant group and pulls us across sacred fences that hold us back... Heretics either burn in flames, or light the way for a new generation."

In other words, this is heretic as Trickster. And for that alone, the book deserves to be read. It will challenge and frustrate and stir up and question. And we absolutely need that to happen. In a great section on the prodigal son, Spencer asks us to reflect on ourselves not as the tragic/heroic younger son who gets so marvelously saved, but on the hard, cold, elder son who equally needs saving. Perhaps the younger son's heresy will save them both, for what the story tells us is that grace is something they both needed.

So what's the central heresy here? For Spencer, this grace is an 'opt out' issue, not an 'opt in' one, and this sails him mighty close to Universalism. In fact, he calls it 'Universalism with hell attached' - hell being the place where people who consciously opt out go. Personally, I think there needs to be a lot more careful thinking here. In fact, my reading of the prodigal son story is precisely that grace is an opt-in issue: the elder son hadn't 'opted out' - he'd hung around and done his duty - but neither had he yet opted in, which the younger son did do.

Either way, one of the other key undertones of the book is the centrality of gift - and it is this line of thought about the nature of the 'transaction' of grace that I would have liked to see pursued more rigorously to push beyond the simplicity of opting in or out. But in a sense, that's the beauty of the work: like a good heretic or trickster should, it demands a response from the reader. What is important now is for those theologians who vigorously deny their ivory tower status to come and get their hands dirty with some of this stuff.

Spencer explores a variety of meanings of the word religion, but doesn't mention the latin verb 'religare' - 'to bind'. He is fighting those bindings, and wrestling to be free of them. But we never will be. We are bound and obligated to live inside some plausibility structure: atheistic, Islamic, hedonistic, universalist, Christian. And bound by culture and place within them. The answer is not that these double binds don't exist, but how we negotiate these boundaries and learn from each other about 'the other'. What is perhaps unique about Christ is this: here was a God prepared to be bound, become human and nailed down. And, accepting these limits, forged a freedom for us.

Technorati Tags: Grace, Spencer Burke, Religion, Salvation, TheOoze

Two Links

Gareth Higgins has started blogging. Working at the front line of Northern Irish peace with Zero28, film critic, author, PhD and lecturer... This is going to be someone worth book-marking.

CoComment is a great site I've started using, having seen Andrew Jones doing so. It allows you to track blog comments / conversations really easily - something that is going to be very useful.

Soliton II | The Other

Si has posted some reflections on Soliton, and makes some excellent points about the terrible way in which The Bridge community have been treated by the local city council. A pregnant mother. Homeless. On Christmas Eve. Would your church have turfed her out? They didn't, and they've been turfed too.

But their mission of hospitality goes on, and permeated everything to do with Soliton. Which has left me reflecting: what else is the gospel, other than a gospel of welcome? Jesus summarised the law as 'love God, love each other', and I've written here before that I'm increasingly drawn to simplify this to 'love the other'. God the 'Other', asylum seekers as the 'other', our secret, hidden selves as the 'other'.

So how do we go about this? Some thoughts that came up in conversation in the sessions:

• Be generous. Gift exchange, as we explored in Peter's journey into seeing the Gentile believers as not-other, is an important way of breaking down barriers. It may be the very thing that separates us from the apes (as I explored here) and inextricably linked to the indwelling of the Spirit.
• Visit your dirt pile. Meditate on that which you consider dirt, and thus explore the boundary systems you are using to define inclusion/exclusion. Christ's radical attitude to dirt made him a major threat to the social control the religious of the day enjoyed. Have we too created a church 'purified to the point of sterility', as Jung put it?
• Hospitality begins at home. Generosity to your self does not mean going out and treating yourself to a new plasma screen. It does mean accepting yourself. As Tillich put it bluntly: 'Simply accept the fact that you are accepted'. The model that Christ showed may be helpful: in his baptism he experienced God's acceptance. In the desert that followed he battled to accept who he was. And this led to his ministry, in radical acceptance and love for the other, wherever he found them.

What was so refreshing about the whole Soliton experience was that all of these traits were not just talked about, but lived out. It was a generous, dirty, accepting, hospitable place. Too often we find ourselves in places that appear to love either God or the other. But here was a place where the other was God. One that recognised that our mission to love the other is simply a journey to the place where God already is: the place of radical acceptance.

Technorati Tags: Emerging Church, Love, The Other, Soliton

Soliton | The Gospel of Welcome

Just at LAX now on my way back from Solition. What with the security alerts in the UK, my flights home have been changed, cancelled and delayed... and changed again to suit me much better than the original plan. At one time I thought I'd have no hand baggage allowed, but they've relaxed that just today. Thank goodness. Seems flying will soon be exactly as Stelios wants it: naked cattle with passports tatooed to our necks. So much easier to transport...

Soliton itself has just been absolutely amazing. The theme was 'the gospel of welcome', and the hospitality has been just incredible. This is no convention centre meeting: it's meeting in homes, in parks, in bars. Conversing, not preaching. Flexible programming and a great relaxed attitude with some brilliant and inspiring people.

The picture is of me and Si Johnston with the little car we were given to get us from the place we were staying one day. It's bigger than my house. And if the flying hadn't already done so, entirely ruined any environmental credentials I may have had. It was a lot of fun though ;-) 3.5 litres of it.

It's going to be a pleasure to have Shane over at Greenbelt. It was really great to meet him. He had to drive an M3 BMW while he was there too, so we all got a little compromised. Greg Russinger - who puts Soliton together - is going to be over too. Just an amazing guy. Do your best to hook up with him while you're there. You don't need a picture. He IS Jack Nicholson in the days of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Here's to getting back home to London. Can't wait.

Technorati Tags: Los Angeles, Greenbelt, Terrorism

Democracy

From Malanda, via Barry Taylor

Pray this resolution is passed soon. And is respected more than some of the others passed in the region over the past few years.

Technorati Tags: Democracy, Israel, Justice, Lebanon, United Nations

Off to Soliton | Nomadic Faith | Spiritual Cartography | Vx 'Suicide'

Off tomorrow to Ventura, CA, for the Solition Sessions. Big thanks to the generous guys there for offering to fly me over. What with being off there and other recent trips, it's felt like a bit of a busy, travelling summer. But it was great to catch up properly with Nic the other night.

One of the things we got talking about was Ben Edson's post about rites of passage and the 'Vaux Suicide'. He had rightly picked up on research linking high levels of adolescent male suicide with the lack of rites of passage. Denied any well-trodden paths into adulthood, they struggled to find their own way. Ben had then suggested that this might have some bearing on the lack of longevity in alt.worship groups, and that the Vaux suicide was a good case in point.

It's a great thought, and may well hold some truth, but Nic and I both agreed that a better understanding would actually be to see our ending of Vaux as precisely such a rite of passage: to hold on to that manifestation would be to remain adolescent. This reminded me of the video I'd created for the very end of the last service before our ending meal - a piece that I suppose stands as a suicide note. Part of the text:

Technorati Tags: Art, Bede, Cartography, Merton, Mofokeng, Race, Soliton, suicide

Should Mission be about Funding? | Small is Beautiful

Over at TallSkinnyKiwi Andrew has posted some thoughts on How To Ask Foundations For Money.

This isn't the first time Andrew's posts have made me feel a little uncomfortable. And it won't be the last. And I'm glad about that. He's a guy who keeps me itching. But, I have to say, the post did flag some questions for me about some of the foundations of the emerging movement.

Andrew notes:

This kind of thing really wears me out but its a necessary part of mission work and getting the job done. My previous mode of working was to ignore the Foundations and do everything without money as much as I could. But Donors also want to play a part in the Great Commission. Especially the more exciting stuff that I have been involved in this past decade -the mission of God in the global emerging culture - and I have a responsibility to make space in the playground for them also.

It seems trite these days to go back to asking what Jesus would have done, but I think it's a serious point. The gospels suggest that the merry band shared a common purse, and that they probably welcomed gifts. But did they go out fundraising? I wonder if it's a point about gift theory. If you put together a Christmas present funding proposal to your parents about how exactly they are going to get that great gift you so want, and what a boon it would be to your life, is that present still 'gift'? I think something of the gift is destroyed by the proposal.

Vaux was a very small project. I remember going to see the Bishop of London at the House of Lords and him sitting down saying 'So what do you want to see me for? Do you need some money?' His jaw almost hit the floor when we said we didn't. We accepted gifts, sure. But we never went out fundraising. Why? Because it seemed right to live within our means.

I love Schumacher's principle of Small is Beautiful and sometimes wonder if much of the industrial mission machine has moved away from this. The subtitle of his work is 'A Study of Economics As If People Mattered', and it is of course the relational that is central to all we do. How much funding should we need for that?

If these donors want to 'get in' on the global emerging culture, why not just give freely? Oh - because they want to make sure their money is being used wisely. How can they do that? As Andrew hints, they need to get relational. But much more so than they might already be doing. Forget the funding forms and spin culture.

I recently went to speak at a large, modern, beautiful church and was speaking to one of the congregation about the building. 'It's horrendous!' they moaned. 'It's costing us so much to keep up'. So sell it. Live within your means. Accept gifts. And if that means scaling back some big projects, fine. The Church™ will survive.

Technorati Tags: Consumption, Mission