Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Contemplation - Brian Zahnd

Contemplation
Brian Zahnd

I practice contemplation. It’s important. We either gain new perspectives or we forever look at the world the same way — which is to say, we never change. In order to see the world the way God sees it we need contemplative breakthroughs.

In the tenth chapter of Acts we find the story of the Apostle Peter’s contemplative breakthrough — a breakthrough that altered the entire course of Christianity. The fisherman apostle was staying in the seaside town of Joppa. At noon he went up on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house to observe one of the designated hours of prayer. While in prayer Peter went into a trance (ekstasis) and saw something — a great sheet filled with non-kosher animals being let down from the sky. A voice instructed him to “kill and eat.” Peter refused saying, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice from heaven replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times. As a result of this mystical experience Peter was willing to accept an invitation to enter the home of a Gentile — something he had never done before. When Peter arrived at the home of Cornelius, a military officer in the occupying Roman army, Peter said—

You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean…I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:28, 34–35)

The implications of this breakthrough are incalculable.

The Dark Night of the What? A Self Reflection by Eric Janzen

One day as summer was approaching a couple of years ago, I made a mistake. I don’t mean the kind of mistake where you’ve done something wrong and now you’ve got to face a consequence, because it wasn’t like that. No, this is one of those mistakes any seriously spiritual person, honestly seeking after God, will eventually make—and we make it because we are either ignorant or naïve. I think I was a little bit of both, with a dash of the old Janzen arrogance thrown in for good measure. Looking back now, I realize that Jesus wanted me to make the mistake, and thus did little to warn me…sigh…such is love.

The tale begins in a church—as such things ought to—where I sat enjoying the teaching of one of my favourite prophetic teachers. It was Jon Paul Jackson for those who must know, though what he said at the time has little to do with my story. I was minding my own business, paying attention, when Holy Spirit rudely interrupted. He brought to mind a frustration that had been growing in me for quite a while and seemed to pour a little extra energy into it. I sat there squirming in my seat trying to ignore him, but as you can imagine that only made things worse. He began to speak. I’ll reproduce the conversation below…the Holy Spirit will be in Italics and I will be in normal:

“What is that frustration you’ve been feeling in your spirit?”

“You know what it is, Lord.”

Download The Dark Night of the What

John Piper and Allahu Akbar - by Brian Zahnd

John Piper and Allahu Akbar Posted: 12 Aug 2013 12:44 PM PDT A friend brought these remarks of John Piper to my attention and asked me to respond. I’ve already posted a blog on the topic of God and Genocide, but here are a few thoughts. I understand that the disciples of John Calvin feel obligated to defend their ism at all costs, but my, what a cost it is when it requires impugning the character of God! God is revealed in Jesus, not genocide. The perfect image of God is Christ, not Calvin’s ism. What I see here is the distortion of God to supreme and capricious Will in order to make a certain theological system work. As if the landmark verses of the New Testament read… In the beginning was the Will, and the Will was with God, and the Will was God. Now abide these three: faith, hope, and will, and the greatest of these is will. God is will. Once you reduce all that exists or occurs to God’s will, you have moved out of the Judeo-Christian understanding of God into Voluntarism or even Pantheism. Was Nietzsche right? Is everything ultimately about the Will to Power? In the kind of absolute determinism that John Piper espouses there is no authentic being, no genuine freedom, only the sheer will of God. Which begs a question: Is human drama (and everything else) nothing more than a movie playing in God’s head? Is what we know as life nothing more than God’s dream…or nightmare Or perhaps it begs a more provocative question… When the suicide bomber (to use Piper’s example) shouts Allahu Akbar! (God is great!) and detonates his bomb, does John Piper say, “You’ve got a point there”? But what I really want to say is this… If your theological system does not allow you to condemn genocide as always morally wrong, please pitch it and embrace the revelation of God found in Jesus Christ! Don’t begin your theology with Greek philosophical categories, begin with Jesus. And the moment your theology of God begins to not resemble Jesus, retrace your steps until you’ve found your mistake. Jesus is the doctrine of God. God didn’t give us a theological system — he gave us Jesus! And don’t let the Old Testament work you into a corner. You don’t need to defend the Old Testament to the extent that you find it necessary to justify genocide. God forbid! We can simply say this… The Old Testament is the inspired telling of the story of Israel coming to know their God. Along the way assumptions were made and they didn’t get everything right. Keep reading the Bible until you come to Jesus and then center your reading of all Scripture in the light of Christ. And finally… If we make the horrifying claim that God sometimes commands or condones genocide, we deserve all the scorn and ridicule thoughtful skeptics and critics will rightfully heap upon us. In an age when we are imperiled by a lethal mix of nuclear weapons, terrorism, and fundamentalist religion, anything less than a clear denunciation of all violence in the name of God is egregiously irresponsible. God is not a murderer. God does not command murder. God does not condone murder. God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We haven’t always known this— But now we do. BZ The post John Piper and Allahu Akbar appeared first on Brian Zahnd.

John Chrysostom and Western Christianity - by Ron Dart

There is a tendency amongst some within the Orthodox tradition of Christianity to idealize the Eastern form of Christianity and denigrate Western forms of Christianity—this can be found in many recent North American converts to Orthodoxy—such leanings have a way of appearing often in the writings of Frederica Mathewes-Green and tribe.   The Orthodox tradition holds John Chrysostom (347-407) high on its list of the Fathers of the Patristic era—in fact, St. John is one of the Three Holy Hierarchs within the Orthodox heritage. There is, though, an oft untold tale that is missed or not told about John Chrysostom of Antioch-Constantinople and Western Christianity. When this tale is faithfully recounted, a more nuanced and honest engagement between East and West will come to the fore. Indeed, when this drama is rightly told, the naïve idealization of Orthodoxy will give way to a subtler understanding of the relationship between Western and Eastern Christianity.

Birthed through blood and water" - Santo Calarco

The birth of my little girl Siena has helped me see the death of Jesus in new ways ... I used to argue about whether or not it was necessary for Jesus to die a violent bloody death ... now I see things differently. My wife experienced agony as a new life was birthed. Blood and water accompanied this new creation. Was it an act of violence? This is the wrong question. Pain, agony, blood and water are part and parcel of the birthing process ... it looks violent for sure ... but it is what it is in order to birth. I can now see that the blood and water that came from the side of Jesus and the agony he went through maybe part of the necessary process of birthing a new humanity, a new creation ... culminating with a new resurrection life! So maybe theologians are asking the wrong questions about the pain and blood involved in the death and resurrection of Jesus. To be sure it looked violent ... but maybe it was all a part of the birthing process in a sinful world.

Orthodox Contemplation in Kallistos Ware's 'The Orthodox Way' - with questions from Brad Jersak

Orthodox Contemplation
Abridged excerpts from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s The Orthodox Way   (with commentary questions on using images in prayer by Brad Jersak)

The following is an abridged excerpt from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s classic work, The Orthodox Way (1979). Kallistos (Timothy) Ware is an English bishop within the Eastern Orthodox Church and one of the best-known contemporary Orthodox theologians. 

His book includes an outstanding and accessible summary of Orthodox theology and practice, including a clear presentation on Orthodox contemplation. This excerpt is abridged from portions of chapter six.

Following the excerpt, Brad Jersak responds with some commentary / questions regarding the use of the imagination in Orthodox contemplation.

Excerpt from chapter 6 “God as Prayer”

It is customary to divide the spiritual Way into three stages. For St Dionysius the Areopagite these are purification, illumination and union—a scheme adopted in the West. St Gregory of Nyssa, taking as his model the life of Moses, speaks of light, cloud and darkness. But in this chapter (The Orthodox Way, ch. 6) we shall follow the somewhat different threefold scheme devised by Origen, rendered more precise by Evagrius, and fully developed by St Maximus the Confessor. The first stage here is praktiki or the practice of the virtues; the second stage is physiki or the contemplation of nature; the third and final stage, our journey’s end, is theologia or “theology” in the strict sense of the word, that is, the contemplation of God himself. 

To read the rest of this article, Download Orthodox Contemplation

Book Review of Richard Gwyn's 'Nation Maker' - by Henk Smidstra

Canada, according to Richard Gwyn, owes its existence as nation distinct from United States of America on John A. Macdonald.  Gwyn’s latest book, Nation Maker: His life, our times, Random House, 2011, documents and narrates how John A. Macdonald as Canada’s first prime minister, doggedly, stubbornly, or was it obsessively, pursued his dream of creating one nation based on a British centralist form of governance, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  A defining value statement of the constitution would be: Peace Order and God Government. The threat of being annexed by the United States was real, and Macdonald rejected his form of republican governance which he labeled “mobocracy.” This compelled Macdonald to forge ahead with nation building with great urgency, against great financial and geographical odds, using his persuasive personality and pragmatic political action. The book is well researched; Gwyn has gained many nuggets of insight from Macdonald’s voluminous correspondence. Though well documented and factual, the book reads more like a narrative than a textbook. The time span covers the time from Confederation day till Macdonald’s death. The main focus of the book is on Macdonald’s politics of pursuing his dream, though many insights are revealed about his personal life with his wife Agnes and their daughter Mary.