liberated confusion.

most of us might be familiar with the story of the two construction men who were laying foundations in Rabbi’ Jesus’ collection of parables. and some people, whether of the Christian tradition or not might presuppose that part of building your life on the sand might include having more questions than answers. that the rock might be a metaphor for solid static faith. yet, questions, doubt and uncertainty were central to being a jew. to ask questions meant you were Jew. it was an identity thing. since the enlightenment and the birth of rationalism, the idea of doubt has come with a stigma of non-authority. meaning that if you have doubt people don’t take you seriously. that as one who follows the Rabbi from Nazareth, I should have my whole faith figured out. Or even if you follow Mohammed, that you should never have certain questions, especially ones that might dismantle holy things that you should be believing in if you wholeheartedly follow your deity. i am not trying to devalue certainty at all. but, i do want to restore value to uncertainty. to bring us to the center where the tension between faith and doubt dance quite comfortably. and to invite any and all live in that tension rather than swinging like a pendulum to both extremes. we tend to see doubt and faith as mutually exclusive. but they are both sides of the same. we need one to have the other. they find value in each other. a liberated confusion is the kind of confusion that never stops asking questions and isn’t afraid if there aren’t any answers to find. a liberated confusion sips latte’s on the corner of doubt ave. and confusion lane and calls it home. that maybe believing in God is much more than whether Mary was a virgin, or whether the gospel writers ever met Jesus, or whether Paul was married or not. Albeit, important matters, but not the point. a person who dances the dance of liberated confusion dances freely and courageously into the unknown knowing that is where they are meant to be…do you want to dance?

what is relativism and why we need it….

there is a great article below that answers both these questions…check it out!

International Crisis Group Holds Briefing to Assess Corruption in Afghanistan

On Wednesday, November 25 the International Crisis Group convened to discuss the corruption surrounding Afghanistan’s 2009 elections, as well as the many reforms needed to regain stability within the Afghani government. Their briefing report, Afghanistan: Elections and the Crisis of Governance, contends that the unscrupulous process by which Hamid Karzai was re-elected president suggests a lack of competence and/or concern for preventing such corruption on the parts of both the international community as well as Afghanistan. One Crisis Group Senior Analyst maintained that Karzai’s reinstatement as president under Afghanistan’s severely flawed electoral process, “’ handed the Taliban a huge public relations victory’”.

With the intention of restoring political stability and faith in both the national and international communities, the International Crisis Group proposed a number of reformative actions. Among their many stipulations is the recommendation that individuals with ties to violent and/or criminal organizations be prohibited from holding government positions. The report also calls for an in-depth assessment of the August 2009 elections with the intention of prosecuting those responsible for the fraudulent elections. The Crisis Group also highlighted the need for constitutional reforms that would balance out the distribution of power and resources across the three government branches, as well as the across the regional communities. In addition to the many policy reforms, the Crisis Group also strongly suggests that Kai Eide, the chief of the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), resign from his position, together with a thorough review of the UNAMA’s Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (ELECT) program and the details of their involvement with Afghanistan’s electoral process.

While the International Crisis Group report detailed specific reform tactics, the crux of their message stressed how crucial it is for Afghanistan to first restore the integrity of its government before being able to effectively combat the insurgency.

www.acton8.org

time isn’t linear: a philosophy

if time was linear then life would only be about progression. depending on how you define progression, time might be in your favor if it is not linear. if it is linear then the processes we become a part of are already patterned and have a framework before we even get our hands on it. which in some sense means all of life is already mapped out. every breath. every glance. every moment. it’s all coordinated for you to live. the progression of your beliefs and how far they go, yep those too. how many children you have, who you marry is already in that process waiting for you to follow the linear path. Yet, Hebrew thought postulates something different, and poses that time is circular. Hebrew thought also states that time being linear is a Western idea. In the book of Genesis (when translated from the Hebrew) presupposes there was another ‘world’ or part of creation before humanity as we know it. Follow the link above to find other examples. Olber’s Paradox assumes because we can only visually see the stars that time has to be linear. (Click link to find out more). But this solely based on what we can and cannot see. But, If time is linear then your death is the end of your life. the end of all life. depending on what your narrative you subscribe to, you could go to Valhalla, finally reach Nirvana, come back as someone’s couch, go to heaven or help usher in a new kind Kingdom that will in its own time arrive on the scene when its all ready. There are many more options. But if we believe time is only linear than we have already shortened the span of our life and therefore our potential as people, as created beings, and as humanity. If time is a circle as most ancient Eastern religions assumed than life isn’t about following a progression, it becomes about discovering who we were meant to be, it doesn’t become about this one day when all things fall down and God sorts everyone out. It becomes about being agents of hope and peace, grace and love, restoring humanity and the divine, finding God in the everyday. It becomes more about a romance and less about the process. It becomes about using this infinite freedom to be Christ in all places at all times. It becomes about transformational living than living moment-by-moment.

Desmond Tutu Interview

A great lighthearted interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner and Human Rights advocate Desmond Tutu:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p8gtc/Fern_Britton_Meets…_Desmond_Tutu/

peter rollins on evangelism

Peter Rollins with IKON has this really good blog on Evangelism, thought I would share it and see what you thought. You can check his website out at: http://peterrollins.net

When we are confronted with an alternative political or religious community our tendency is to discuss what we think is valid about its view of the world and where we think they fall short. Yet such a conversation so easily eclipses the truly vital role of alternative political and religious visions. Truly great movements, the ones that continue to change, develop and persevere (even if only as an idea), can not so easily be judged and sifted. They often remain for the simple reason that, at their core, they offer a way of seeing the world that offers profound insight. Something that is too often missed in discussions concerning what we like and don’t like about the particular movement under discussion.

Instead, Žižek and others offer a different way of approaching alternative movements, even ones that are rightly judged to be dangerious. Žižek asks us to resist judging them for a moment and allow them to judge us. In other words, he invites us to see our world through their eyes.

Let us take a religious example. A movement in the Western world that continues to exist in a different way to the dominant values of society is the Amish community. Instead of looking at that community and either romanticising them or ridiculing them an interesting experiment would be to ask a different question. Namely, what do those within the Amish community see when they look at the society around them. In short, what do they think when they look at us?

When we ask this question we may, for instance, begin to discern a shadow side to aspects of our society that we previously assumed to be good. We may begin to perceive problems with our increasing attachment to social media, or our abstraction from an organic sense of time (the passing of seasons etc.), or with how we treat our elders once they are too old to have independence (putting them in institutions) etc. etc.

What we may have assumed to be good aspects of our society (or simply ‘the way things are’) may be revealed as oppressive and in need of reform.

This approach is not relativistic in that it does not claim that all worlds are equal. Yet neither does it fall into the all too safe and easy position of judging a movement from the outside. Rather it allows the other to critique our own position and improve our own society. In other words, they enable us to engage more effectively in immanent critique (which, I would want to argue, is the most effective type of critique).

This goes equally for groups that are popularly conceived of as the ‘enemy’. For instance, what would we see if we attempted to view the Western world through the eyes of someone in the Taliban? What would they make of our magazines that are full of unrealistic images of the ‘ideal’ woman, images that sit alongside adverts for plastic surgery and diet pills? Or how would they feel about the way news channels frame conflicts (almost always in non-political ways that emphasise subjective street violence over the objective violence of economic issues that feed the conflicts)? Would they see the former as oppressive in much the same way as many see woman wearing a Hijab as oppressive? And would they see the later as largely an outpouring of propaganda that fails to educate people about the effects of global politics, foreign policy decisions and economic issues?

To invite a world that we would wish to critique and dismiss to be a mirror into our own world is a difficult thing to do. It requires both bravery and humility.

In ikon we run an experimental group called ‘The Evangelism Project’ that was formed out of this idea around six years ago. ‘The Evangelism Project’ is a group of people who visit different political and religious groups, not to evangelise, but to be evangelised. Not to reform the other but to invite the other to reform us. In the project we have found that, as we see our world through the others eyes, we come to see some of things we believe and do in a different light. Here the other offers us a profound gift that enables us to transform our own community in positive ways that we would otherwise have been blind to.

‘The Evangelism Project’ is not an interfaith dialogue as we are not there to share what we have in common (and thus avoid what we don’t). Indeed there is no real dialogue at all. We are there to learn, to see our world through the others eyes in order to begin to locate (and then deal with) the shadow side of our own position. Interestingly however, time and again we have found that by allowing ourselves to be evangelised it encourages others to want to recipricate.

As Kester Brewin pointed out in a provocative post recently, we can even do this with racist groups like the BNP. Here the point is not to strengthen their position but to weaken it by working out why many people (rather than just a lunatic fringe) are drawn to the movement and then addressing the issues properly.

So I still very much believe that evangelism can change the world, and hope to help show that Christian faith communities can demonstrate this by continually inviting people to evangelise us…

The Jesus and Santa Interview.

What does Christmas mean to you?
Jesus: I like the word Advent. It is an arrival of sorts, an invasion of hope, love, redemption, healing, grace, compassion, forgiveness and transformation that all people can join in and on and Christmas is a reminder that through my birth we can all give this to each other not just one time a year.

Santa: It’s a busy time of the year for me. I am usually in Barbados the rest of the year, I don’t like the cold as much as people might think. I would encapsulate the spirit of Christmas in one word: ‘Giving’.

How do you think people view you?
Jesus: I think people tend to think of me as this religious leader who lived long ago and was trying to start a movement that only a few people could be a part of. But, there is so much more to my message then just the cross, or my divinity, it was always bigger than even me. I was the carrier. I was the one to come to show people how they could be more like the Divine. I hope they can know that now.

Santa: I think most think I am this overwight glutton who promotes entitlement, that’s not how I started out you know. It was about helping those in need and giving them hope. I never meant to be an icon that promotes such oppressive behaviour.

Do you have any challenges to one another?
Jesus: hmmm….just one. Kris, I get the idea behind the good and bad thing but it has gotten into the minds of people that they need to do things to please me or my dad. Sure, love, compassion and giving are good things to do, but I already love people regardless. And it is a bit anemic only because my death has fully restored all of humanity in the eyes of my family..all three of us sit around talking about how good they all could be and are.

Santa: More of a question. Would you ever think about marketing yourself as a chocolate or marshmallow-shaped Jesus?

What is one good thing you would say about each other?
Jesus: I think this fighting over whether one should focus on me or how Santa is the opposite of who I am is a bit of a misnomer. I like that Kris advocates this idea that we are all meant to be givers and not takers and like him be people who freely give without expectation. There are certain aspects of his journey that support my Kingdom. Like the act of generosity that keeps on giving, the jolly disposition and helping out those who are “smaller” than you. Those in need. I wish people wouldn’t give him such a hard time.

Santa: I like his hair. It’s long and flowing like brown-sugared cotton candy. But really, I like that he is about living a better way and loving others unconditionally and never seeking the big sit at the front of the table. I wish we could spend more time together, I know I could learn from him.
Well, Thank you guys for being willing to take part in this interciew. It has been very insightful.

Any last words?
Santa: Live long and prosper.
Jesus: (Thinking to himself: I have been already doing that for a long time now). “Love one another”. There is no better gift wrapped or unwrapped.

cultural autism.

I grew up loving kaleidoscopes, they always seemd to intrigue me. You could look through the small viewfinder lens and twist and twist and see a variegated schema of colors and sometimes if you twisted it just right you would get all the colors working together to create this rainbow of diversity.

Attributes of autism tend to include:

Sameness is resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted.
Ritualistic behavior involves an unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual. This is closely associated with sameness and an independent validation has suggested combining the two factors.
Restricted behavior is limited in focus, interest, or activity, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy, or game.

Some religious views might include a worldview that pervasively excludes the possibility of other belief systems containing any truth whatsoever. I would hope we could all sign-on to the reality that truth is bigger than one systematic approach to why we are here. That truth is in each of us as Jesus offered (John 14:6). Not that all truth could be handled by one person, but that when we come together, we get to experience truth in its fullness. Remember Jesus himself is linked up into a partnership, a community of sorts. And in more than one place, he says we can be just like Him. In fact, one place, He tells us to go and be like Him. This idea is beyond pantheism or any other label one might find to try and fit this, because it bigger than you or I or a group of people. It is a framework designed by God that we can all join in and seek to find truth together. But, when we get comfortable in our way of seeing the world rather than seeing the value in different worldviews we suspend some of our reality and promote a cultural autism that was never meant to be.

Christianity isn’t the only place where we can participate in the perpetration of cultural autism. It is something we can do in other faiths as well. Or politics. Or emotions. Or worldviews. Or family dynamics. If we are to move out from this then we must be able to move through the whole autistic spectrum to find what we are looking for. You never know what you are looking for until you find it.

the elephant’s foot on the mouse’s tail.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu

religious apartheid.

Apartheid—meaning separateness in Afrikaans (which is cognate to the English apart and -hood)—was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and early 1994.

We have had the civil rights movement. We had a woman who defied the local bus system’s seating chart. The blacks were supposed to sit in the back of the bus, and she (Rosa Parks) decided to sit in the front. Her act helped set in motion a movement for change, especially for the African people, especially those who lived in America at the time and even now. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu had a hand in breaking the chains of apartheid and brought hope into a hopeless situation. They sought to essentially redraw the boundaries and invite even their enemies into this new kind of circle that everyone could be a part of. It was a journey to aggressive inclusiveness that we are still partaking in.

I wonder if in the language and theology of the Church (historically speaking) if we too have condoned a spirit of apartheid?

If apartheid is defined as separateness then maybe we have. If the idea of salvation is defined as something we can pray into, that would be akin to someone seeking membership into a club where there is a membership fee to join. What if salvation is more than something we verbally say to God? To use a familiar phrase, what if salvation is something that we do by voting with our feet? (What if faith is action? Sure, the author James seems to differentiate between the two, but to him, it seems like their is a symbiotic partnership that takes shape over time.) Salvation is simplistically translated from the Greek and Hebrew as ‘healing’. If you talk with a doctor they might inform you that healing is a process that happens over time. It doesn’t happen in the moment. And I would argue that the healing of Jesus is more of a movement we can join in by not only experiencing healing from his hands, but by promoting healing in the lives and situations of other. Maybe the reason why we are healed isn’t to join a club, but rather to heal others. To take that healing to those in need. But when we attempt to minimize the message of Jesus down to a prayer or a small exclusive band of followers we without knowing it have minimized the global message of healing for everyone that has already taken place through the powerful act of Jesus on the cross. Which also includes Jesus coming back after the 3-day nap. It is these two acts together that signify a metaphor for daily living. We die to destructive decisions and selfish ways or another way to say it is “we learn from them”, and then through the process of rebirth we come to discover more of who we are meant to be. But when we take the message of Jesus and transform it from being a powerful inventive movement of love that everyone could join in on, we become a community (albeit, without knowing it at times) who supports a sort of religious apartheid that separates one another from the love of God. Jesus crafted a message that allowed all people from all backgrounds who have light and dark histories to go and build a new way of life into their immediate and global contexts. This is a part of what it could mean to be saved. To be saved from ideas and theologies that seek to minimize the inclusive message of Jesus and go and restore cities and hearts and lives back into the healing of the Christ-man. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could be a part of a movement that condoned peace, grace, love, redemption and forgiveness and through these acts bring people into the movement of Jesus?