Category Archives: imagoDei

The New Freshmen Class of 2015

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The new 2011 Beloit College Mindset List for the new freshmen class of 2015 is now out.

“This year’s entering college class of 2015 was born just as the Internet
took everyone onto the information highway and as Amazon began its
relentless flow of books and everything else into their lives.  Members
of this year’s freshman class, most of them born in 1993, are the first
generation to grow up taking the word “online” for granted and for whom
crossing the digital divide has redefined research, original sources and
access to information, changing the central experiences and methods in
their lives. They have come of age as women assumed command of U.S. Navy
ships, altar girls served routinely at Catholic Mass, and when
everything from parents analyzing childhood maladies to their breaking
up with boyfriends and girlfriends, sometimes quite publicly, have been
accomplished on the Internet.”

The whole list is below the jump.

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Slipping Back

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WADI KHARRAR, JORDAN - FEBRUARY 20: Archbishop...

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“Because in fact, we are slipping back fast into something like the ancient world.  We are slipping back towards a world of narrow tunnel vision of religions and superstitious practice, a world where lots and lots of people have their lords and god, their practices and their mysticisms, that do not really relate to each other.  We are slipping away from the idea that there might be a faith that would bring all human beings together. We are slipping back socially and internationally into the assumption that there really are such differences in human beings that we can forget about God’s universal righteousness.”

Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, during Bible studies delivered at the 13th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, Nottingham 2005

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Kenda Creasy Dean in her new-ish book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church, describes the primary “faith” of American teenagers as “Therapeutic, Moralistic, Deism” rather than a form of the enduring Christian Faith.  This description of the faith-system (as much as it can be a formal “system” at this point) comes out of the results and analysis of the National Study of Youth and Religion project.

Both with Rowan and Kenda, these are pictures of where we are culturally, particularly among the emerging generations, and what is to come within the culture and within our individual lives as believers or not.  How are we ready?

Sparkhous

 

Translation

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Torah inside of the former Glockengasse synago...

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“The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind. But it was not written to us. It was written to Israel. It is God’s revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else. As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement. Since it was written to Israel, it is in a language that most of us do not understand, and therefore it requires translation. But the language is not the only aspect that needs to be translated. Language assumes a culture, operates in a culture, serves a culture, and is designed to communicate into the framework of a culture. Consequently, when we read a text written in another language and addressed to another culture, we must translate the culture as well as the language if we hope to understand the text fully.” [Italic emphasis the author’s, Bold emphasis mine]

The Lost World of Genesis One, John H. Walton (Donners Grove: Intervarsity Press; 2009, p. 9)

I think, also, that when we consider passing on the Faith to new generations we must consider how best to translate the Faith, as well as the lessons of Scripture, to that new generation.  We have to understand the emerging culture in which these new generations reside – and the emerging culture is not the same as ours, the adults who are making the decisions.

Creed or Chaos?

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Very good opinion piece by David Brooks in the New York Times.  He uses the new musical, “The Book of Mormon,” as his backdrop. This notion of speeding away from anything that distinguishes us or makes us peculiar or diminishes the rigors of the Faith will in the end result in nothing but decline and a faith that has little real impact on the world, particularly for the cause of Christ. 

A couple paragraphs:

The only problem with “The Book of Mormon” (you realize when thinking
about it later) is that its theme is not quite true. Vague, uplifting,
nondoctrinal religiosity doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow,
succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are
usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in
their convictions about what is True and False.

That’s because people are not gods. No matter how special some
individuals may think they are, they don’t have the ability to
understand the world on their own, establish rules of good conduct on
their own, impose the highest standards of conduct on their own, or
avoid the temptations of laziness on their own.

The religions that thrive have exactly what “The Book of Mormon”
ridicules: communal theologies, doctrines and codes of conduct rooted in
claims of absolute truth.

Rigorous theology provides believers with a map of reality. These maps
may seem dry and schematic — most maps do compared with reality — but
they contain the accumulated wisdom of thousands of co-believers who
through the centuries have faced similar journeys and trials.

Rigorous theology allows believers to examine the world intellectually
as well as emotionally. Many people want to understand the eternal logic
of the universe, using reason and logic to wrestle with concrete
assertions and teachings.

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Of things past and future

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Living in the past 

“One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past.  Same with countries.  You don’t want to forget your identity.  I’m glad you were great in the fourteenth century, but that was then and this is now.  When memories exceed dreams, the end is near.  The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start fresh.“

 -Michael Hammer  The World is Flat

 While I can certainly agree with the above statement, there are worthy and good things from the 14th Century that are worth keeping. I suspect what Hammer is getting at is what we might describe as “Tradition” as opposed to “traditionalism.”

“Traditionalism” tends to be the clinging to ways of doing, being, or thinking as they have “always been” even when it is evident that those things, those traditions, no longer effectively engage the emerging culture and the emerging generations.

“Tradition” tends to be those things that endure from generation to generation and through multiple cultures and through trial and persecution. Those things or aspects as part of the Tradition prove their worth and pertinence through such challenge.

Within the Imago Dei Society, I and we continue to investigate emerging generations and culture because we need to understand how to translate the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to pass on the Tradition to those who come after us. What we don’t need to attempt to hold on to or pass on are those things that are tied closely to traditionalism.  The “fresh start” is something we need to be about, always.

Transitions

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These past couple of months have been a bit traumatic.  Thankfully, no one has died or been harmed in any way. I was called upon in November of 2009 to lead an effort to study, understand, and establish new ministries that are present with emerging generations and within emerging culture. The initial focus of the effort was the neighborhoods of Red Hook and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn (the 11231 zip-code). I began the world on January 8, 2010. The sponsorship of the Red Hook Project and Imago Dei was to be for three years, after which we would be on our own.

I’ve spend the last year doing the hard work necessary to get this sort of thing going – an entrepreneur, a project manager, a researcher, a community organizer, etc. I’ve meet  and talked with numerous community and religious leaders.  I’ve conducted focus groups of current residence of the neighborhoods, particularly in Red Hook, of artists, of young people of various ages. I’ve interviewed students, and the list goes on.

I studied, read, and researched adolescent development, traits of the emerging generations, and the particulars of emerging culture. My goal/intent has always been to understand the contexts in which we live not just right now, but to also understand as best we can were things will be in the 2020’s. I’m doing the work for the Church to be able to meet the culture and young people head on – to be present with them where they are – rather than trying to play catch up and doing a terrible job at it.

The Church has a terrible time being “on-time.” We tend to always be 15-20 years behind the curve, yet we think these “new” things we are suddenly enamored with are cutting-edge, when they simply aren’t. The positive side of the slow crawl of the Church is that it should be able to ride through in a good way the crass trendiness that simply overtakes everything for the moment and then is nothing, again. The is a difference in trying to be trendy in order to attract people and understanding where people are in their understanding of themselves, their world, and their place in the world and trying to be present with them in the mix. When the Church decides to ride the trend waves, all is lost. We stop being authentic to who we are and what we are.

The Church is always “other,” with respect to the prevailing culture. Why are we afraid of that, unless we have lost confidence that we have anything worthwhile to say or contribute… let alone the whole stuff about the Cure of Souls and salvific relationships with God.

Anyway, starting in January 2011, this past January, we began in earnest the doing of ministry. Because the genesis of the Red Hook Project came out of St. Paul’s Church in Carroll Gardens, and because of the formation I received within this parish, and since St. Paul’s has carried on ministry in Red Hook for over the last 18+ years since the diocese closed the parish in Red Hook (foolishly), the beginning efforts for new ministry starting out of St. Paul’s.  In addition, since we are unable to afford a space in Red Hook (the foolish part mentioned above – selling property in New York City), St. Paul’s provides the space we need to begin ministry and to experiment with what has been learned over the past year.

Currently, we have the “Imago Dei Sunday Evening Service” that is currently meeting at St. Paul’s (which at times has a larger attendance than some of the established parishes in the area).  We have the “2nd Saturdays for Good Works” that began last August (our first ministry effort).  There is the monthly Imago Dei “Red Hook Gathering” at a local Red Hook eatery and pub (Rocky Sullivan’s) where we have a bit of food, a little drink, and talk about life, faith, and how it all fits together. We have a “Home Group” meeting in Carroll Gardens with nine members.  By February, we had a very good start resulting from all the work beforehand that set the foundation upon which the new efforts rest. In addition, last month we started the “Faith meets Art meets Space” project for artists (another target group for the Red Hook Space) to intentionally investigate how their faith influences their art with the rich space of St. Paul’s nave as their backdrop.  We intend on having the exhibition and performances the first of June.

Then, in February, I was told it was all ending.  Ending because of money issues, ending because of opposition to the effort others in the diocese, ending because the will to do something new outside the convention boxes was not there.

This is a very big blow.  There have been mixed signals since February about what exactly will be stopped and what might go forward. I’ve continued working as if the project would continue beyond the June 1st cut off date, hoping that they would find the money and have the will to continue. It hasn’t happened. I was told that as of June 1st, it all ends.

What in the world do I do, now? I am fighting a real melancholy – a mix of disappointment, anxiousness about attempting to find a new place of ministry, real concern about the people who have a stake in this effort and now will be left high and dry, a profound sadness about suddenly leaving the people of St. Paul’s and the lone priest for a growing congregation in a lurch (I’ve been ministering in this parish for 7 years). In a month and a half, I’m gone.

Ideally, I would love to continue working at St. Paul’s to continuing implementing all that I’ve learned this past year, all the ideas and plans that have been developed and are ready for implementation, to continue ministry development in Red Hook, etc. But, the parish doesn’t have the money for a second priest and the diocese will not “pay me to be at St. Paul’s.”

There are several of priests I am in conversation with who know that pouring new wine into old wine skins just doesn’t work. I had great hope that this project might be an exception, but it is not. The Imago Dei Initiative and the Red Hook Project are new wine efforts, and the wine skins of the present institution will not make space for them at this time.  What then do we do?  Do I try to find a secular job to support myself and continue doing the work, anyway? I did that sort of thing for four years, and it is very unhealthy, but that may be the sacrifice. These priests (and lay people, too) know that we are going to have to do something on our own.  This is just the way the Church is and the lessons of history bear this out.  What am I willing to do?  Right now, I’m depressed and anxious. Do I just take anything that may come along, even if I sense that it wouldn’t be right?

Another consideration is that I’ve made a life here in NYC.  It has only been the last several months that I’ve felt that I have friends with whom I have enough history and comfortableness to not feel terribly lonely. It has taken me six years to get to this point.  The prospects of moving to another city, another place where I will have to start all over again at this point in my life just is not something I want to do.

Yet, there may be a very good and real opportunity to put into place what I have been dreaming of and planning for over the last couple of years in another diocese, city, and state.  Is this of God?  Is this the next step? Do I simply forget about the relationship issue and go? I don’t know.  Right now, I’m not emotionally in a particularly good place to be making these kinds of decisions.  I’m very thankful for the support of friends and family.  We shall see what happens over the next month and a half.

Where are we?

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coptic_web.jpgSometimes, groups within the Church (whether the larger Church universal or this Church, as in the Episcopal/Anglican Church), come to feel as if they are sitting by themselves in the midst of a wilderness.  Sometimes, the reasons for such feelings (or realities) are do to geography and location, sometimes are because of sociopolitical or theological issues of disagreement, sometimes they are because the greater organization just doesn’t get what the groups are doing and to one degree or another ostracizes the various groups.

What can be done? There are a lot of things that can be done, but one of the “solutions” that is almost always and only destructive is separation. When a Church or parish or family or even friends separate, failure has already occurred.  We can attempt to clean up the mess by giving all kinds of justifications for why the separation, the split, is good or profitable or better than the alternative.  Well, we can try to spin the separation all we want, but we have already failed.

Within this new kind of ministry, the Imago Dei Initiative, outside the walls of current experiences of “church,” it is too easy for people to attempt to force us into already established modes of operation and definition that are no longer working very well. These modes of operation and definition are tending to fail in these days because the center of gravity – the very purpose for the existence of Church – has been overwhelmed if not usurped by the prevailing culture. As the whelming continues and as we continue to lose members and lose the interest of growing percentages of the population as a result, we like to lob bombs of accusation against those “godless liberals” or those “fundamentalist conservatives” and spin, spin, spin how it is all those other peoples’ fault.  But, the very act of conceiving of and wanting to throw bombs is, again, already a sign of failure.

Is it true – I mean truly true – that new wine cannot be poured into old wine skins? I want to think (believe) that there is a way, with God’s help. I wonder – more than wonder at this point and suspect not. Not much of what I witness and experience leads me to believe that it is possible.  Where, then, does that leave “new wine” kind of Christian communities and ministries within the greater structures of the Church (and I’m specifically thinking about Episcopal/Anglican Churches)?

All I can say at this point is that we are called to be faithful. I content that that to which we are to be faithful firstly is God and the restorative, reconciling relationship made possible again through Jesus the Christ. We are able to do this by the enabling of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. I find it quite true that we can take confidence in the “enduring Christian Tradition,” and for us that enduring Tradition is in the Anglican form. 
 
I say “enduring” because it helps us jump out of the never-ending, swirling, swirling eddy of chaos that we find ourselves as we continually lob bombs and accusations about theology and politics and piety and all the rest.  That which is “enduring” is not bound by ideas that call themselves conservative or liberal.  It is apolitical, or should be.  For me, and for what I envision for the Imago Dei Initiative, “enduring” is that which has survived through 2,000 years of persecution, trial and tribulation, through countless cultures and languages.  That which has survived and continues to thrive is “enduring Christianity.”

Our call to ourselves and to others is to begin to experience anew the Tradition – those aspects of the Faith that have gravity and traction in the tactile world which help people to experience their Christian faith as consequential. We call people with intention and persistence to give themselves to the practice of the enduring Christian Spiritual Disciplines.  These habits are simple and straightforward – the study of Scripture, the practice of prayer, the fellowship of believers, the worship of Almighty God transcendent and eminent, and the giving of ourselves for good works.
 
A problem we often run into is that we take up perhaps one or two of these and end up – even with only two – practicing them halfheartedly. Our busy world works against such discipline. When we do this, we end up experiencing a profoundly diminished form of the Christian faith. This is where much of American Christianity finds itself. All aspects of the Disciplines are important equally and need to be held in right balance, which means that as Christians our lives will by necessity look quite different from most other peoples’ lives.

How do we avoid throwing bombs, becoming disillusioned, ending up angry, being ostracized? How do we avoid separation and splitting up? Commit to the development of the Disciplines. Love God with our entire being. Love our neighbors as ourselves. Profoundly difficult stuff to do, but with God’s help we are able. Find like-mined people for support, encouragement, and accountability.

We want to find and bring together these kinds of people – these like-minded people who desire to be the imago Dei, the imago of God, where we work, play, study, help others, and have fun. The fields are ripe for harvest.  People everywhere are seeking God and the significance found in a restorative relationship with God. In the emerging culture, it will be this kind of witness by consequential Christians that will make a difference.

This is how and what we want to be.  God help us.

(Photo: The Coptic Christian chapel at Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan. @Copyrite 2011 by Bob Griffith, all rights reserved)

“Blab-casting”

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I recently read an essay by Elizabeth Drescher on the “rd Magazine” website entitled “Turn Off, Slow Down, Drop In: The Digital Generation Reinvents the Sabbath“

I love this paragraph:

At the other end of the spectrum, fantasies that the application of new
technologies to traditional practices will, in themselves, enrich life
in general and spirituality in particular are no less misguided. Take a recent blog post on the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, which shared with italicized surprise the utterly unremarkable finding that “use of visual projection equipment in worship is not
related to church growth.” No kidding? Survey says: a dull video or
lame music is just dull as a preacher blah-blah-blah-ing on in person
with no relational interest in or connection to the people to whom they
are blab-casting. So, too, an engaging, interactive minister who
genuinely connects to people and encourages their connection to one
another is going to be compelling face-to-face and in
technologically-enabled engagements (see, for example, @texasbishop, @MeredithGould, @jaweedkaleem).  [emphasis mine]

For some reason, and this gets to some of the other stuff in the article and in the life of the Church in general (particularly the Mainline denominations and more particularly the Episcopal Church, of which I am a priest), we think we must manage God.  After all, if we don’t manage God everything will just fall apart and we will devolve into nothingness. (Yeah, and how is that going for us?)

The Episcopal Church is in crisis because we are a dying institution (has little to do with the gay-issue or the conservatives leaving the Church – although it has a whole lot to do with it… irony).  So many people are rushing to do triage and to save this venerable national treasure, but the ways and means they are trying to save it are little more than the same old things that have been going on for the last 40 years that have gotten us into the mess to begin with.  They dress up these tired old ways and means in hipster clothing or Emergent garb thinking that things like PowerPoint presentations, bad rock-ish music, hip-cool candles and flashy lights, casting off vestments, or better yet taking out pews, sidelining the Prayer Book, explaining away Scripture, or outlawing Rite I language will magically make the Church all rad (yes, I know) so that streams of young people will suddenly fill the empty spaces. What they end up doing is just another form of blab-casting. 

What we so often forget is that Jesus is the one that builds the Church, and if we so manage affairs of the Church according to trendy culture dictates that Jesus is nicely tucked away out of site, well, we have already failed.

There are streams of young people filling churches. Just not our churches.  Around where I live (Brooklyn, NY), within an 1/2-hour walk I can take you to at least 5 churches that are in the hundreds of members each and are made up almost exclusively with those under, say, 32 years of age.  They beg for people over 40 to come to their churches.  St. Paul’s, where I serve, has a very close relationship with a few of these churches.  You know what they are doing in their services?  Old Hymns song out of hymnals. Traditional liturgies (they are rediscovering the significance of liturgy).  We use Rite I at St. Paul’s for our principle liturgy (Rite II other times – we aren’t protesting anything), but when we talk about changing to Rite II, it is the 20-somethings  who have been coming in greater numbers over the last 5 years who protest the loudest.

This is why my work in the Imago Dei Society/Initiative isn’t focused on being trendy, but on understanding emerging generations and emerging culture to find out not how to become like them, but to discover how to translate the Faith to them in ways they can understand, form them into consequential Christians, and learn how to receive, living into and pass on the enduring Tradition in its Anglican form. This doesn’t play too well when those attempting triage are bent on re-hashing the latest hip-cool thing the culture throws at us (even when all the evidence shows that what younger people are looking for is something substantially different from all that hype and manipulation). 

Lenten Discipline

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Blackfriars.jpgLent officially began last week, but today, Monday, March 14th, I embark on a personal (I don’t know what word to use) Lenten discipline to find out what it is like to be focused on an identity as a “sacramental priest.” 

I’ve been talking to my spiritual director about what it means to be priest.  When I finished seminary, I spent the next four years being a data analyst for a research project at the Church Pension Fund. It was a good job at a great place to work, but at the beginning of my priesthood my identity continued not as a sacramental presence within a community of people, but as a “company” man, a techno-geek, a secular person in the work-a-day world rather than the “God person” among people. My most productive time was spent playing with numbers in a cubical rather dealing with the cure and care of souls. Then, this past year I did work in ministry full-time, yet most of my time was taken up in the development of a new ministry – more organizational, more research oriented, and more financial than sacramental.

In addition, many of the models for “priest” lifted up in the Church have developed over the years to be more like a therapist-priest, or social-worker-priest, or political- or social-activist-priest, or corporate-manager-priest, but not a priest that is devoted to sacramental ministry – the Cure of Souls.  What does it mean to be a priest that is more sacramental and focused on “God-work” than a corporate executive, a social activist, a therapist, or a social worker?  I know that a priest in full-time ministry wears many hats, and I like that.  Yet, too often it seems that the sacramental presence is overwhelmed.

My spiritual director talks about the priest as the “God-person” in a community, a neighborhood, within a society. People need to know that there is someone present who is connected with God and is dedicated to be a helpful presence, an encouragement, an identifiable representative of God available to people, so my spiritual director says.  This really cuts at my Type-A, achievement compulsion. I don’t know if I know how to be this kind of person.  I realize that my identity as a priest is not “what I do” or “how much I do” or “how well I do,” even though those things are important considerations, but to be the God-person being about what God-people do – pray, worship, study Scripture, dispense the sacraments, and be about the Christian formation of God’s people.

To that end, beginning today I am dedicating myself to a process that will lead to a deeper understanding of what it means to be the God-person, a sacramental priest, within a parish community and in my neighborhood community.  At St. Paul’s Church (199 Carroll St., Brooklyn, NY) in the Red Hook and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods of Brooklyn, I will be a sacramental priest in the Anglo-Catholic tradition by engaging in:

+ Morning Prayer at 7:30 AM – Monday through Thursday (this is already an Office done at St. Paul’s)
+ Evening Prayer at 6:00 PM – Monday through Thursday
+ Low Mass – 6:30 PM – Monday through Thursday
+ Meeting with one person each day
+ Guiding/coaching the people involved in Imago Dei Initiative’s “Faith meets Art meets Space” project for artists

On Fridays, it is the custom at St. Paul’s to have morning Mass at 9:00 AM and during Lent Sheila Reed conducts Stations of the Cross at 6:00 PM.  So, Fridays are already taken care of (this is also my weekly day off).  Saturdays will be “management” stuff and for the doing of Good Works.  Sundays, High Solemn Mass at 11:00 AM and the Imago Dei Evening Service at 5:00 PM.

I’m striving to live more fully into the Imago Dei Society’s Rule-of-Life: http://imagodeiinitiative.org/life/rule-of-life/

This is my Lenten Discipline.  I’m not sure what will come of it, but I’m sure I will be changed. God always works in ways I just don’t understand and can rarely anticipate.  I plan to blog the experience.  We shall see, by the mercy of our Lord.

Dabbling

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From a short article in Newsweek (Feb. 14th edition, pg. 6) dealing with e-books and the future of print books into the future.

“The Future of the Book” – from James Billington, librarian of Congress:

“The new immigrants don’t shoot the old inhabitants when they come in. Our technology tends to supplement rather than supplant.  How you read is not as important as: will you read? And will you read something that’s a book – the sustained train of thought of one person speaking to another? Search techniques are embedded in e-books that invite people to dabble rather than follow a full train of thought. This is part of a general cultural problem.” (emphasis mine)

What impact might this “dabbling” have on the “train of thought” of the Gospel? What impact might this development have on already short attention spans?  How might this impact our engagement with knowledge, that requires sustained and perhaps linear processes? How might this change teaching and learning?

I believe this is an important idea or consequence to investigate.