Category Archives: politics/culture

Contemporvent

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I’ve been thinking over and through aspects of “contemporary” Evangelical worship practices.  This past Sunday, I was home in Ohio for Mother’s Day (I surprised my Mom – and she was!) and attended the church my sister and her family attend.  It is a growing Church of God (Anderson, IN) with a new building and all the “spiritually correct” stuff that is supposed to draw large crowds.  It was a fine enough service.  The band was very good.  The worship leader was a young guy and I could tell that he really enjoyed what he was doing – his personality was infectious.  As I watched the crowd, they were actually singing.  In many of these kinds of worship services, I’ve noticed that a large majority of the people simply stand and watch the band rather than interring into the worship experience, so I was glad to see that there was more going on than just a “spiritual concert.”  The preacher gave a good sermon.  Babies were dedicated – it was Mother’s Day after all.

North Point Ministries is a very large mega-church.  They’ve done a parody video of themselves, as I understand it, and it captures the new wave of doing church that is supposed to be the “relevant” and “contemporary” thing to do. This too, shall pass.  Not that there is anything wrong with it if it is done well and within context, but if, as is happening, everyone jumps on yet another bandwagon that is supposed to save the church in America, then it once again becomes inauthentic and just another passing fad, a puff of wind.

Here is the video parody:

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

By the way, my sisters church service was a whole lot like this – including the cool video with relevant questions.  I don’t get the impression that the pastor thinks he has all the answers, however. 

Part of me really liked it – it was fun being back in that environment, even without the all encompassing Charismatic-Evangelical aspects that are not part of the Church of God, Anderson theological belief concerning the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, I’m not there any longer.  To me, it smacks of religio-entertainment.  People come to God through it, people grow in their relationship with God and one another in the midst of it (if the pastor preachers well, that is), but I would rather be involved in a “full-bodied” experience that I’ve come to know in Catholic worship in its Anglo-Catholic form.  We all participate and we all do the work of worship and liturgy together. 

Where is this leading…

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The state of the country and Christianity in the U.S. To where is all this leading?
From OneNewsNow.org Daily News Briefing:
Ministry says some members have quit praying for Obama

COTTSDALE, AZ – A national ministry that organizes prayer for the president says it’s hearing from members who have quit praying for President Barack Obama…
His letter says the ministry has been “hit hard because some of our members are deeply distraught with our country’s leaders.” Otto writes that members “tell us that they are discouraged, disappointed, and some have admitted they have stopped praying for the president and our nation.”
Otto says prayer is needed more than ever with issues like the healthcare vote dividing Americans, and with the nation’s leaders casting aside what he calls “biblical principles.”

I’ve said before that so much of the anger we are seeing coming out of the Town Hall meetings held by Democrats around the country however many months ago, the Tea Party protests, and the healthcare coverage controversies stem from the politicized Religious Right losing this last national election. Then, of course, the Republican operatives (really the Neo-Con’s) exploit all of this for their advantage. Winning power is the only thing that matters, regardless of what it does to the country or society overall and regardless of whether it leads us to such division that the common good is no longer possible.
The rank-and-file Religious Right voters (Values Voters, American-Evangelicals of the neo-conservative kind, etc.) have been told over and over again that God is on their side and that there is no way that God would let His country (the divinely established U.S.A.) fall into the hands of “anti-Christians.” Just pray really hard, protest, write letters, give lots of money “to our organization” (Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Institute for Religion & Democracy, etc.), and “we can keep the godless, liberal, secular humanists from destroying our country!” “God is on our side, and we will win because He deems it so.” These kinds of statements come out of the various organizations all the time.
So, after the near hysterical rhetoric used by these groups in their attempt at fear-mongering in order to motivate their people to vote during the 2008 election, they lost! For so many of the Christians, suddenly the promises from their leaders that God would not let them down if they just did these things where no more. “How could this happen – isn’t God all powerful?” “Didn’t we pray, like we were supposed to?” “How could God let Satan win?” There developed a crisis of faith, a terrible feeling of being let down, a utter feeling of being marginalized, of being lied to, of no longer feeling empowered and special because God is on their side, etc.
The politicized Religious Right and their promises made to the Fundamentalist/American-Evangelical world didn’t live up to expectations, and now the rank-and-file are disillusioned and angry. And, of course, in the disappointment and anger the manipulative forces seeking power will try to exploit all this for their own advantage – they are charlatans. Again, the feelings or beliefs that “God is on our side” and “we know we love God so much and are so devout” leads them to an inability to consider that they just might have been wrong. They could be compelled to even more extreme reactions and actions.
In many ways, this mirrors the “conservative,” or perhaps “fundamentalist” would be a better word, world of Islam (and even Judaism). The Islamist terrorists are reacting out of desperation because all that they have been taught about what should happen concerning the devout followers of Islam is not the reality in the world. Allah is all great and Allah’s followers are the ones who should always win, have power, have wealth, etc., and not the infidels, particularly in the grossly immoral West. Yet, the Muslim countries, particularly Arab & Persian countries, are not at all “winning.” The bitterness, the jealousy, the anger, the disgust, the feelings of impotency, the poverty, the corruption, all of it that people are feeling lead them to extreme actions. So, they feel that they have to take matters into their own hands and do for Allah what Allah doesn’t seem to be doing for them, which often comes down to providing for their prosperity and authority and power in the world – the utter defeat of the infidels and the ascendancy of Islam in all parts of the life around the world. The disillusionment is terrible.
I think that for a significant group of Christianists in this country, they are headed down a similar trajectory that extremist Islamists have traveled. The exploitative forces may well come to believe that they can will win if chaos reigns, that instability is to their advantage, and that they will be able to attain power or money by exploiting the hell out of people’s sense of disillusionment. I think it would not take much of a push for a more radical faction to rise up among the neo-conservative, politicized Religious Right, in the name of defending a Godly America, to become violent.

missio Dei

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I came across this quote attributed to Rowan Williams, ABC, and wanted to use it for the Imago Dei and Red Hook efforts.
I googled the quote to try to find the original source for a citation. It seems from an address given by The Rt. Revd. Dr. Steven J.L. Croft, Bishop of Sheffield, that Williams was not the originator of the quote. So, in the larger context of the address, Croft was speaking of missionary theologians who spent most all of their ministries in mission contexts and who later reflected on their experiences and wrote down those reflections. Croft mentions a few that to him have had a great impact on Anglican mission ideas. It seems the quote came from , The Rev. John Taylor. Here is the quote in its small context:

John Taylor was a CMS missionary to Africa and former head of the Church Missionary Society. His books, particularly the Go Between God are a clear articulation of a theology for mission which have influenced a generation of theologicans, bishops and practitioners in the United Kingdom. It is John Taylor who first articulated the wonderful phrase which is now widely quoted in Anglican documents on mission:
“Mission is about finding out what God is doing and joining in”.
One of the key elements in the cluster of ideas around missio Dei is that the Trinity is already at work in the world outside the church. God continues to reach out, to call, to love those he has created. We therefore go, as the Apostles went to Philippi so long ago, confident that we will find those who are seeking.
I hope I have said enough in this section to convince you that the movement to develop fresh expressions of church by the Church of England has deep roots both in the recovery of a sense of the missio Dei in world theology; in biblical studies and in our recent practice and exploration. It is the logical and practical outworking of shifts in our theological perspective which go back now a generation. It is not the mindless pursuit of the trendy or of consumer Christianity.

The entire address of Bishop Croft can be found in his address to the General Synod of the Church in Norway; 18th November, 2009; entitled:
The Mission of the Triune God Shaping Congregations Today Working towards a Mission-shaped Church
The Rt. Revd. Dr. Steven J.L. Croft, Bishop of Sheffield
Here is the HTML version (don’t know if it will work in all browsers):
http://tinyurl.com/yktjurd
The PDF for download came be found here: http://www.kirken.no/?event=downloadFile&FamID=102589

Three-dimensional thinking

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave the Presidential address to the Church of England’s General Synod, yesterday.
Of particular interest, aside from his more balanced thinking on the whole LGBT issue and of the troubles within the Anglican Communion, of particular interest to me was his explanation of the distinctiveness of the Christian understanding and definition of freedom and liberty. (this starts around the 17:51 minute mark)
I also find very interesting his presentation of the concept of “three-dimensional thinking.” In many ways, he is presenting something that should be natural for Anglicans – really it is a re-presenting of the Via Media extended beyond the original middle way between Roman Catholicism and the Continental Reformation.

“Seeing something in three dimensions is seeing that I can’t see everything at once: what’s in front of me is not just the surface I see in this particular moment… So seeing in three dimensions requires us to take time with what we see. It may help us look more critically at solutions that seek to do too much all at once; and perhaps to search for structures that will keep open the ability to learn from each other.” (Source)

This is something I want to thank more about.

A Blessing for the Purell Ablutions

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Fr. Mike Kinman, on Facebook, wrote the following. We are all using copious amounts of Purell these days. I’m sure GoJo (based in my old town of Akron, OH) is pleased, even if, as Mike mentions in the blessing, we are initiating some sort of super-virus.

Holy God, creator of all things in heaven and on earth, we give you thanks for the gift of this Purell, for ethyl alcohol, it’s active ingredient and for Isopropyl Myristate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Aminoethl Proponal and other inactive ingredients whose purpose is known only to you and in files that cannot be released by the Food and Drug Administration until 2079. We humbly ask that your love and care for all creation not extend to the microbes we hope to eradicate through our sometimes fanatical and paranoid cleansing and that you guard and protect us from all superviruses we might be unleashing on the world through the same. We also beg your protection and indemnification for ourselves, Johnson and Johnson, Gojo industries and all other subsidiaries from liability and physical or spiritual damage from the use of this sanitizer. Finally, may the chemical cleansing of our hands be a an outward and visible sign of the cleansing of our hearts, and may the pungent and alcohol-laden scent waft heavenward as incense in your presence. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, who, like Purell, comes as fire and burns away all that is not worthy of surviving in your presence.
Let the church say … AMEN.

Clarification

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Someone pointed out to me that she was offended by a comment I had written a while back. It came from something I wrote that dealt with the rise of promiscuity and how she interpreted my comments – that I asserted that the fault lay at the feet of women.
I want to make a clarification in case others may have interpreted what I wrote in the same way. I don’t know whether I simply wrote that piece badly or whether she misinterpreted what I wrote, either way I need to clarify.
First of all, just to be clear, I in no way believe that women are separately at fault for the rise of promiscuity! Promiscuity and infidelity have been the domain of men for as long as men have been around, to our shame. As Christians, neither are esteemed as positive or appropriate behaviors or attributes.
Women had a part to play with the rise of promiscuity and infidelity, of course – it takes two to tango, after all. What I think I tried to assert before was that the female contribution to the rise came out of what I consider to be a mistaken assumption or tactic of the woman’s liberation movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s – that for women to have equality with men, they had to take upon themselves male attributes rather than demanding that men acknowledge, respect, value, and esteem unique attributes that women can bring to the table. For women to be equal, it seemed, they had to become like men. So, as the thinking might go, since women thought that to be equal they had to become like men, they too often took upon themselves the worst of male attributes.
Or, something like that.

We are witness to the change

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In an article from Christianity Today, December 2009, entitled, “A More Social Gospel: Campus ministries swap pizza for compassion.”

… Advocates believe such efforts reclaim the church’s true calling.
“The social message and the traditional evangelism approach go hand in hand, ” said Bob Marks, recruitment specialist for Chi Alpha, an Assemblies of God ministry active on more than 200 campuses worldwide. One example: The University of California, Irvine chapter focused on human trafficking last year.
Josh Spavin, an intern with the University of Central Florida’s Campus Crusade for Christ chapter, said traditional evangelism still works, but times have changed with this generation.
“Students tend to not just take it unless they experience it or see it in someone else’s life,” Spavin said…
Spavin said he hopes his chapter will launch an HIV/AIDS outreach with a campus gay and lesbian group…

I’ve been saying as I’ve talked about the Red Hook Project and the ImagoDei Society that our culture is moving into a pre-Constantinian environment where society and the prevailing culture are no longer “Christian” – we are Post-Christian – and that if we hope to have an impact on people or society, then they have to see something compelling and different in the lives of those of us who claim Christ. They have to witness something different about us and that we certainly are not just a mirror image of the worst of the prevailing culture.
This quote from Spavin simply is another example of this trend or idea.
I also find it very interesting that a Campus Crusade for Christ chapter would be willing to do anything with a campus gay group. Of course, if they have an underhanded goal that this will be a vehicle for them to get these homosexuals to repent and give up the “lifestyle,” without a willingness to even suspect that their presumptions could be wrong, then their efforts will most certainly fall flat. If they revert to such tactics, then they will simple go backwards into a way of being that at least with these later unchurched generations does nothing but reinforce the negative image of Christians in general.

“Elite Fundamentalists,” The Family, and Uganda

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As many may know, there is a proposed bill making its way through the Ugandan parliament that is incredibly draconian, yet consistent with those Fundamentalists (Christian, Jewish, or Muslim) that believe God demands the death of homosexuals (as described in the Levitical Law Code for Jews and Christians – Leviticus 20:13). Of course, even Fundamentalist Christians do not abide by even the demands of the Moral Law spelled out in Leviticus (despite the assertion that the Moral Law is still in force for Christians), yet they are all too quick to demand obedience to the Moral Law when they think the issue of homosexuality is concerned.
An article from the Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, concerning the proposed Ugandan law and the British Commonwealth entitled, “Uganda’s anti-gay bill causes Commonwealth uproar.”
The issue concerning the proposed Ugandan law comes off the heals of reports of the politicized Religious Right and Neo-Con’s exportation of the Culture Wars to other parts of the world. Read about the report from Political Research Associates entitled, “Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia.”

A groundbreaking investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA) discovered that sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars. U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American fight.

Much of these efforts come out of the groundwork over the past decade of the Institute of Religion and Democracy (IRD). Read the “Reforming America’s Churches Project” (and here) of the IRD.
What this group does not recongnize or wants to admit is that in the same way they believe the mainline denominations have capitulated to the prevailing culture in order to be “relevant,” so have they and the Evangelical/Fundamentalist denominations capitulated to the same culture, only on different issues. There is legitimacy in the recognition that when the Church – of the conservative or liberal bent – takes on as its primary focus social or political agendas, it gives up its mission and its power. The more fundamentalist left and right do the exact same thing to the detriment of the cause of Christ in the world, but form opposite ends of the socio-political spectrum.
Then there is “The Family.” Listen to a report from NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross interviewing Jeff Scarlet, researcher of “The Family” and author of, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.”
Read the Fresh Air transcript from the episode entitled, “The Secret Political Reach of ‘The Family.'”
From the transcript, this brief portion:

GROSS: Let’s talk about The Family’s connection to Uganda, where there’s a, really a draconian anti-gay bill that has been introduced into parliament. Uganda already punishes the practice of homosexuality with life in prison. What would the new legislation do?
Mr. SHARLET: Well, the new legislation adds to this something called aggravated homosexuality. And this can include, for instance, if a gay man has sex with another man who is disabled, that’s aggravated homosexuality, and that man can be – I suppose both, actually, could be put to death for this. The use of any drugs or any intoxicants in seeking gay sex – in other words, you go to a bar and you buy a guy a drink, you’re subject to the death penalty if you go home and sleep together after that. What it also does is it extends this outward, so that if you know a gay person and you don’t report it, that could mean – you don’t report your son or daughter, you can go to prison.
And it goes further, to say that any kind of promotion of these ideas of homosexuality, including by foreigners, can result in prison terms. Talking about same sex-marriage positively can lead you to imprisonment for life. And it’s really kind of a perfect case study in the export of a lot of American, largely evangelical ideas about homosexuality exported to Uganda, which then takes them to their logical end.
GROSS: This legislation has just been proposed. It hasn’t been signed into law. So it’s not in effect yet and it might never be in effect. But it’s on the table. It’s before parliament. So is there a direct connection between The Family and this proposed anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda?
Mr. SHARLET: Well, the legislator that introduced the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family. He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda.

From the HarpersCollins website description of Scarlet’s book:

They are the Family—fundamentalism’s avant-garde, waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the new chosen—congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a “leadership led by God,” to be won not by force but through “quiet diplomacy.” Their base is a leafy estate overlooking the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside its walls.

This all reminds me too much of Christian Reconstructionism or Dominionism – read about both here and here. The interconnections between these people, groups, and efforts are not by accident. While the coordination behind many of these efforts are the work of what I think is a relatively small and radical group of people, the influence of their work both domestically and internationally cannot be denied.
Andrew Sullivan comments on all this on his blog, “Christianity vs Christianism, Love vs Power.”