Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Erasmus, Luther & the Orthodox Tradition: The Apostles’ Creed - Ron Dart

On Being Orthodox: Brad Jersak with Bruxy Cavey - The Meeting House Roundtable

The Last Train Out of Monkeytown - Brian Zahnd

(This poem has deep meaning for Blind Man at the Gate, but many of the references and allusions probably only he understands. Don’t bother asking him to explain the poem, I’m sure he won’t.)

The Last Train Out of Monkeytown
Blind Man at the Gate

He caught the last train out of Monkeytown
Bought a ticket on Easter 04 and was eastbound
Left the wagon train beamed from outer space
Said adios to the obtuse and turned his face
Toward something he hoped was there

Was it the Conductor’s last call
With a shudder he sometimes wonders
What would have happened had he missed that train
He fears he’d have shrunk smaller and smaller
Until he disappeared
Not entirely invisible, but totally unrecognizable
To who he was supposed to be
The one he still hopes to become

Curiosity may have killed some cat
But not this cat
For this cat curiosity was a saving grace
Salvation from the dismal fate of the incurious
The Last Man who invents happiness
Or so he thinks
While he sits on his couch
(With seven hundred channels)
And stupidly blinks

That curious cat will tell you
Age may steal your good looks and jump shot
But don’t let it abscond with your curiosity
What’s the point of living fourscore
If you know it all in the first score
Don’t sit there until the raven croaks nevermore
A world of wonder lies behind an untried door

Truth is not a laminated card you carry in your pocket
Truth is a long hard road and you have to walk it
And you might as well know it’s a toll road too
You will be required to sacrifice your certitude
But that’s okay, it’s only a small pittance
To bid good riddance to a dead end existence

Was it a train he caught or road he walked
Seems the metaphors got mixed
Oh well
Whether he hit the road or rode the rails
He thanks God for the grace to bid farewell
To the backwaters of Monkeytown
For a journey through dark heat
To a new dawn of becoming
Becoming
Becoming

__________________

(The artwork is Train Tracks by Bob Dylan)

This poem first appeared at brianzahnd.com

The Christ Hymn: A Revelation of the Kenotic Nature of God - by Jessica Williams

There is a heaviness within me as I approach this paper that is difficult to fully express. The current cultural landscape is loud. Many groups that have been systemically marginalized are crying out for allies and rallying for long awaited justice.[1] Power struggles between opposing groups are rampant amidst an outburst of pain that is being expressed in truth. I must confess that I often feel lost and like I don’t know what to do. It is an interesting moment in history to study self-emptying power and the humility of God. There was a time in my life when, as a “Christian,” I would have turned away from much of the pain and chaos in the world when it began to overwhelm me. In part, this was the outcome of a theology I was given that had taught me that this world was not my home. I could use this to detach myself from this place and I did.[2] In recent years I have come to understand how misguided this doctrine is.[3] This World is my home and I believe that it is God’s home too.

God making God’s home on earth is one of the central messages of my faith tradition. In the Bible, both the Old and New Testament begin with a message about the closeness of God in this World. Genesis tells a story in which the very hands of God mold and form humanity and the mouth of God kisses the mouth of man, breathing life into being.[4] The creation poem reveals an outflow of generosity that reflects the nature of the Divine Spirit as a God who gives. I like to think of creation as Goodness overflowing, lovingly creating the substance for all that is; land, sky, sea and every living creature within it. And it was all called good.[5]

CLICK HERE to download "The Christ Hymn A Revelation of the Kenotic Nature of God"

[1] I.e. Indigenous rights/sovereignty, refugees, immigrants, violence against women/#metoo, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ and all minorities systemically oppressed by power.

[2] E.g. denial of pain/reality, self-numbing, not facing the truth.

[3] Escapist eschatology is often taught in the evangelical church as “The Rapture.” N.T. Wright says this, “In fact, don’t believe most of what you read about the Rapture. Many Christians, particularly in North America, have been taught for the last century and a half that when Jesus returns he will come down from “heaven” and that his faithful people (i.e., Christians) will then fly upward into the sky to meet him and be taken to heaven with him forever. Books, movies, a million radio and TV shows, and tens of millions of sermons have drilled this picture into the popular imagination. Indeed, for some people today the Rapture is more or less the center of their faith. But it’s a complete misunderstanding. It’s based on a misreading of what Paul says about the return of Jesus in 1 Thessalonians 4:14–17, just four verses, with the idea of a “rapture” in only one, as the basis for a complete theory of everything:” N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why It Matters (HarperCollins, 2011).

[4] Gen. 2:7, NASB.

[5] Gen. 1:31, NASB.

Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice — Update on #GivingTuesday

Greetings, from the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice!

 

As it has been more than half a year since IRPJ launched back in June, the purpose of this note is to update you on what IRPJ has been doing lately and to ask that you please consider three actions for us as you read through the list of our recent activities:

1. Spread the word about our online university accredited Certificate program and encourage folks you know who might be interested to apply: www.irpj.org/apply

 

2. Try to think of a few people you know who might be interested in supporting IRPJ financially and send this email to them with an encouragement that they give to us on this Giving Tuesday: www.irpj.org/donate

 

3. And please consider giving a donation of any amount to IRPJ yourself on this Giving Tuesday.

Here’s some of what we’ve been up to:

• Core faculty member, Dr. Brad Jersak, is busily developing his three courses — RS 3180: Peace and Violence in the New Testament, RS 3182: Peace and Violence in the Old Testament, and RS 3384: Wrath and the Problem of Evil — so that our online Certificate will be ready to receive students for fall 2018. 

• Director and core faculty member, Dr. Andrew Klager, is also developing two remaining courses — RS 3482: The Inner Transformation of a Peacemaker and Hist/RS 3582: Peace and Violence in Religious History — to fill out the rest of the Certificate along with the three courses he has already developed and currently teaches on peace theology and social justice; religion, peace and conflict; and practical nonviolence and peacebuilding.

• Along with its ongoing partnerships with the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, MARK Centre, and the School of Peace Theology, IRPJ has forged a new partnership with Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem and with Christian Peacemaker Teams. We are also in preliminary talks with Travis Reed of The Work of the People about a partnership that will allow us to make use of their expansive video library at a reduced subscription rate and produce new videos that are purpose-specific to IRPJ’s initiatives and curriculum.

• IRPJ is now ready to receive applications for the fall 2018 semester, with the entrance point for student applications here: www.irpj.org/apply

• As a supplement to the online presence of Clarion Journal of Spirituality and Justice, we are also developing a print-on-demand hardcopy format of this same journal that will include the best-of-the-best from the website and a few new articles exclusive to the hardcopy journal. The goal is to make sure this hardcopy journal has a distinctive front-cover design, an innovative and aesthetically pleasing layout and just feels good in the hands for those who prefer physical rather than online reading material. You can see more of what we're doing here: www.irpj.org/clarion-journal

• We are in the midst of planning our Podcast (yet to be named), which will be co-hosted by Andrew Klager and Jarrod McKenna. If you don’t know Jarrod, he is a wonderful human being and courageous peacemaker who is currently fighting for justice on behalf of refugees on Manus Island — You can read more about what he’s been up to here, here, here, and here. The format of the podcast will be that of an interview and will focus on the much neglected but vitally needed inner transformation of a peacemaker and how this translates into real-world conflicts, violence, and trauma.

• IRPJ has steadily increased its blogging presence through regular contributions on the IRPJ Blog. If you haven’t already, please visit this blog here, and learn what makes our blog different here.

• Along with our referral program that will give students who refer other students to us a discount on their tuition, we are also in the midst of developing a Coffee Club Discussion Group concept wherein enrolled students can enlist their local friends to audit our courses so that they can meet together to discuss the course material face-to-face with the help of an IRPJ workbook that we put together for them.

• Although not much planning has taken place yet, we have decided that our first 5-day symposium / retreat will take place in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in partnership with the Orthodox Peace Fellowship in summer 2019.

• Since the launch of the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice back in June, we have added a few more wonderful and experienced Guest Lecturers whom you can check out here: www.irpj.org/guest-lecturers

• And finally, IRPJ has assembled a wonderful group of people from different walks of life and experiences who now make up our Board of Advisors, which you can learn more about here: www.irpj.org/board-of-advisors 

Thank you everyone for supporting us with your finances, with your encouraging words, with you time, and with your prayers — We really appreciate it! To keep up with other IRPJ news as it develops, please visit here: https://www.irpj.org/news

 

And we’d love to hear from any of you, so please drop us a line (www.irpj.org/contact)!

 

Sincerely,

 

–Andrew P. Klager, PhD (Director of IRPJ)

 

Christ the King - Sermon by Sean Davidson

Christ the King

Nov. 26, 2017 | The Rez

Good morning and welcome.

If you’ve been with us over the past few weeks you’ll know that we’ve been exploring faith, hope, and love, waking to new life in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.

Today we’re breaking new ground as we celebrate Christ the King.

If we think of the Christian calendar, this is not only the culmination of a long stretch of ordinary time since Pentecost—when walk by the Spirit even while longing for Jesus’ return— but it’s also the entry point to the season of Advent.

So, together we’re looking far off into some other time to see Jesus as king, in the grandest sense, when he’ll finally return in glory to make things right.

At the same time, we find ourselves among God’s people in ancient times longing for the coming of the Messiah.

We’ve got two vantage points today, at two extremes: we’re journeying to the very end of all things with Jesus leading the way, but we’re also returning to the beginning, hoping against hope that God’s promises could somehow come true.

Our Gospel reading for today is from Mt. 25:31-46

Download the full transcript of "Christ the King" - by Davidson

Brad Jersak' s Autumn Readings: 5-Star Picks by Bartlett, Cavey, Greenblatt, Gritter & Huff

This autumn I've been overwhelmed by the quality and range of books for review. Before I can read and report on one top-notch title, another arrives that thrills my heart. By 'quality,' I mean please consider promoting these works to the top of your nightstand stack. They've earned it! And by 'range,' I'm saying this 'best-of' list crosses a wide spectrum of genres: we've got a creative training manual, an accessible introduction to the core gospel, some beautifully written historical theology, a faith and culture game-changer, and three volumes of breath-taking children's curriculum. I can only refer to each briefly, but I feel compelled to offer my whole-hearted endorsement before moving on. 

See the video for samples

Anthony Bartlett, Seven Stories: How to Study and Teach the Nonviolent Bible (Hopetime Press, 2017).

Tony Bartlett's manual on how to study and teach a 'nonviolent Bible' is exactly what I've been looking for. I am pleased to say that I was the first reviewer to formally announce this beautifully organized and illustrated work as my primary textbook for the course, "Peace and Violence in the Old Testament" at the Institute of Religion, Peace and Justice.   

OF COURSE the Bible is loaded with violence--and it comes to a theological head at the Cross of Christ--but the drama of redemption recorded through its pages is the great story of how God in Christ unmasks, challenges and subverts the myth of redemptive violence in our religions and our cultures. It shows us a way forward to a nonviolent reading of Scripture and practice in our lives and world. To those who recognize the voice of Rene Girard here, well done. Bartlett is one of the masters of integrating the gospel and Girard for the 21st century.

After laying out his method, Tony proceeds through seven stories of three lessons each, walking us through the following progressions:

1. Oppression to Justice
2. Violence to Forgiveness
3. The Land and its Loss
4. Wrath to Compassion
5. Victim to Vindication
6. The Temple and its Deconstruction
7. History to its End 

Each lesson includes a lesson plan (learning objectives, core texts, key points), lesson content, followed by lesson questions, personal reflections, a glossary, a list of resources/background reading and cultural references. 

To be very frank, I am both jealous and relieved. I wish I could have created this manual but know that it would have taken a lifetime. In a real sense, it may stand as Bartlett's great life-work and should see a lot of traction for years to come as study groups, churches, colleges and universities find it on their radar.  

 

Bruxy Cavey, (Re)Union: The Good News of Jesus for Seekers, Saints and Sinners (Herald Press, 2017).

I first met Bruxy over a dinner conversation that was so rich it spilled into brunch the next day. During that encounter, he shared the heart of the gospel with me in 1 word, 3 words and 30 words. And he also explained what he meant by the 'religion' he sees the gospel taking down. You can view his summaries HERE. And that led to him generously sharing a Meeting House podcast where he interviewed me on Atonement, Eternity and Orthodoxy (11/22/17) . The meeting concluded with a book exchange in which he gave me a copy of (Re)Union. 

The (Re)Union book unfolds that same gospel message. In 1 word: Jesus. In 3 words: 'Jesus is Lord.' And in 30 words: "Jesus is God with us, come to show us God's love, save us from sin, set up God's kingdom, and shut down religion, so we can share in God's life." The book unpacks all of this in a way that is truly good news. As the title suggests (and lives up to), Bruxy's expression of the gospel brilliantly addresses seekers, saints and sinners (of who I am chief). And for that reason, I've come to believe he's the best gospel communicator in Canada. At least of which I'm aware. 

But as accessible as Bruxy is, he is far from generic. He is an unapologetic Anabaptist through and through. That is, he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as his guide on the way, his guiding star to our destination and the filter through which he comes to both Scripture and our culture. As an Anabaptist, he's taken a firm stand that Jesus is the Way of peace ... some might seem him as Toronto's version of Greg Boyd or Shane Claiborne, both who know and love his work (and no doubt have a thing or two to learn from him).

So, what's the gospel? Want to communicate it clearly in a winsome way and replace the religious cringe factor? Start here!       

 

Stephen Greenblatt, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (W.W. Norton & Co., 2017).

In recent years, the question of Adam, Eve and the creation story has become hot once again. Some can no longer imagine that a man named Man, a woman named Life, a talking serpent and two trees in Paradise were actual historical events that could have been recorded on your smart phone. Sorry folks, no photobombs of the proto-couple! That camp nevertheless believes that the genre of mythology delivers revelation in a profound way, speaking the truth about humanity and about our lives.

Others cannot imagine how dispensing with the historical fall of Adam and Eve does not also dispense with the historical resurrection of Christ. This is especially the case when the Apostle Paul connects the death that came through Adam with the life that comes through Christ in direct parallel. Isn't the Genesis narrative of our origins essential to our faith? How many liberties can we take before losing it altogether?

Into this discussion, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Greenblatt applies his Jewish imagination to the task of tracing humanity's ancient religious creation tales through to the rise of the Jewish story of Adam and Eve. He continues from there into the background and intricacies of Augustinian "fall theology." The book then turns its gaze to a major interest of mine: Christian, Jewish and Muslim visions of the afterlife (via literature and art). And further on, the author lands into our post-Darwinian readings and reality.

All along the way, the reader is treated to a feast of faith, philosophy and politics dressed in the gorgeous prose of a masterful writer. His honest scholarship, the stunning depth and breadth of his research, and his ability to spin phrases into a literary tapestry often left me grinning with appreciation. How do I say this? The whole thing was delicious.

What I loved most was how seriously he took the power of myth as a genre, its genius in expressing and shaping reality. Greenblatt left me sensitive to the fact that speaking of anything as "just myth" is a silly, reductive oxymoron. Like Jesus' parables, Hebrew mythology can bear the great weight and impact of abiding revelation for postmodern humanity. 

And as for my own convictions, I found nothing in the book that would undermine my faith (nor did Rowan Williams, who endorsed it heartily). In fact, it significantly boosted my appreciation of the genius of Scripture, alerted me to the damaging effects of misapplied literalism, and deepened my desire to dive more deeply into the faith-world of Genesis 1-3.  

Wendy VanderWal-Gritter, Generous Spaciousness: Responding to Gay Christians in the Church (Brazos Press, 2014). 

Wendy is the faith and culture game-changer among this crowd. She's famous (and to some, infamous) in Canada for leading a movement from its existence as New Direction Ministries (once a sort of compassionate version of gay conversion therapy by prayer IMO--I say this from direct contact) into a new network of gay-welcoming, faith-seeking fellowships across Canada called "Generous Space."

The book itself is an invitation to dialogue with someone who has traversed the thin ice of what it means for the church to respond to and reconcile with the gay community. So, rather than further describing the contents, I'll share a lightly edited snippet of an actual conversation I had with Wendy this past Sunday.

Brad: You were executive director of New Directions for over 10 years, yet somehow you experienced a major shift in perspective. What were the key waypoints in your change?

Wendy: First, I became convinced that our humanity matters to God. And I observed that some of our practices involved a stripping of that humanity and of personhood. Second, I was impacted by a theme in Henri Nouwen’s book, Life Signs (1986). He said, "You cannot get from fear-filled questions to love-filled answers." He talked about moving from the house of fear to the house of life. And he raised the question, "What are the spiritual practices that lead you there?"

From that place, I've learned the importance of hitting the 'PAUSE' button. When we hit a question where there is dissonance, I hit 'PAUSE' and just keep listening. I try to avoid either-or/us-them binary thinking. I ask, rather, “How will this [conversation / issue] be different if i’m energized by love instead of fear?”

Brad: Tell me about Generous Space. What is it? What do you believe? What is your practice?  

Wendy: Today there is a groaning in the church. We know wineskins are cracked. The church has tried to address this by becoming more missional (instead of attractional), but we’re still clinging to traditional forms and old wineskins. But GS consists of communities centered in a generous, deep belongingness. And for all the pain involved in our journeys, that sense of belonging also makes it quite light.

One question we ask ourselves is how to draw towards community and communion rather than consumerism and commodity. We ask what values hold out life to others and what values energize how we choose to navigate our lives. There has been a trauma of Christianity in the Trump era, where we have had to ask what values led white Evangelicals to bring him to power. But now we need to ask the deeper questions that cause us to follow Jesus.

 

Brad: I know that being fully inclusive means you're up against the conservative Right. But being inclusive to ALL and embracing Christian faith ... isn't that also problematic when you run into the "angry Left."  

 

Wendy: Generous Space is subverting of myth of linear progress towards a Left that can also be violent, exclusive and unjust .... We want to be truly inclusive, and not simply perpetuating the new injustice. So yes, there is critique of GS from Right—charging us with moral relativism—but also from the Left for being a 'haven of oppression' by not excluding.

 

As a "Generous Space," we are inclusive of the full spectrum of queer relationships, including those who choose to remain celibate. We just had a "release and embrace ceremony." A covenant in which the former spouse has released her partner into a gay marriage but also embraced that couple so they can raise the children as a family. This isn't simply moral relativism. We need to think in terms of a "redeemed moral imagination," rather than trying to maintain the moralistic purity code of tribal Israel. We ask, "What will bring life, hope, love, resilience?"

 

Brad: Resilience?

 

Wendy: ... resilience of faith in the face of violence and the overwhelming powers of systemic corruption that stand against us.

Brad: Faith in Christ? 

Wendy: Yes. Although for millennials, there is no false innocence about their faith. Some are no longer able to put their faith in Jesus. But might they still maintain their resilience to participate in cultivating all that is shalom? I am sad when the person of Jesus isn’t part of that cultivation in a conscious way. But my theology affirms that he is, nevertheless, there anyway. He is the energy bringing about this redemptive reality. And we may even see those who identify as atheists participating in Jesus’ project of shalom while self-identifying Christians are not. [Cf. Matt. 25:31-46]

 

Tim Huff (3 titles published by Castle Quay Books):

• The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge 
• It's Hard Not To Stare: Helping Children Understand Disabilities (with Jan Fukumoto). 
• Honour the Drum: Sharing the Beauty of Canada's Indigenous People with Children, Families and Classrooms (with Cheryl Bear).  

Last but definitely not least, my friend Lise Struthers gifted me with three very special illustrated children's books--curriculum for training children how to understand, engage and include those on the margins.

The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge helps children understand homelessness. It explores how the homeless live and where they come from. That is, it humanizes them, reminding children that these folks were once children too, with hopes and dreams just like ours. The text (written in rhyme) tells children that the homeless need shelter, food and clothes, but some only ask for a smile or a talk, which can be delivered if you're accompanied by an adult. Children are reminded that despite their different appearance, we ought not to tease or be mean to the homeless. Rather, we can be kind and keep them in our hearts and prayers. The book begins with a foreword by the Honorable Hilary Weston (Lieutenant Governor of Ontario) and ends with a page-by-page discussion guide for parents, teachers and caregivers.

It's Hard Not To Stare follows similar themes, but this volume addresses the question of disability. Another Lieutenant Governor (David Onley) offers his foreword. The author then offers a picture of a scrabble board of key terms: Respect, Breathe, Brave, Familiar, Include, Cerebral, Look, Mobility, Ability and Prosthesis. The illustrations and text begin on the theme of how hard it is for us to understand and imagine what it is like to have disabilities. But then it moves on from our differences to our sameness, even though doing the same things may be much more difficult for others. It requires extra effort and time and care. It covers different causes like disease or accidents or age. When we become more familiar with disability, we can move from staring to caring. After the text proper, there's another page of terms, followed by the 'Sharing Pages' (discussion guide by Jan Fukumoto). 

Honour the Drum is different than the previous books. First, the illustrations and children's text on each spread face a more detailed description and discussion questions for each page. The book is all about educating children in Indigenous culture, beginning with the drum ('the heartbeat of the earth'), as well as their music, stories and dance. It explains patterns, symbols and colours important to Indigenous culture and describes what a Pow Wow is and means. Totem poles are given a page and then it's on to history, values and humour. The author emphasizes respect and honour for the elders--the keepers of tales.

The book also includes an important page on how words matter, explaining why we've moved from the misnomer 'Indian,' to 'aboriginal' (meaning 'of unknown origin') to the more accurate 'indigenous' (people of the land). In Canada, the indigenous peoples include the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people. Each have their own language, name for the Creator and way to pray. One way they honour the Creator is by caring for creation. And finally, the book turns to how we might best imagine 'honouring the drum,' where all children gather, wherever they're from. While Tim Huff has created the basic text and pictures, the major work of composing the discussion guide came from Cheryl Bear (from the First Nation community of Nadleh Whut'en in BC) who ensures that the descriptions are accurate, rich and welcoming. 

I would encourage parents to get these books for their children, and even better, encourage churches and schools to include them as embedded curriculum. 

Anglicans and Orthodox: An Ancient Tale - Ron Dart and Lazar Puhalo

A video conversation with Ron Dart and Lazar Puhalo (from July 11, 2011) and reflections by Ron Dart today.

Anglicans and Orthodox: An Ancient Tale

Archbishop Lazar and Ron Dart in Conversation          

The Bible tends to end the Christian journey with the spread of Christianity in the Mediterranean and an end of times scenario in Revelation. Needless to say Christianity spread eastward and northward to India, Eastern Europe and Russia. This is not recorded in the Bible.

Christianity also spread north and northwest to what was then called Albion and a heartland of the Celts. Neither is this recorded in the Bible.

The form Christianity took eastward and to the north became, for the most part, Orthodoxy. The form Christianity took in Albion became a form of Celtic Christianity that, in time, became the church of the English (Anglicane Ecclesiae). The Anglican and Orthodox traditions, although emerging and maturing in different parts of the world, have much affinity.

There is, in the earliest records of the church, traffic between the growing Occidental form of Christianity and the Oriental form of Christianity. The history between these two historic forms of classical Christianity, at its best, is irenical and deeply rooted in the wisdom and contemplative theology of the Patristic Fathers and Mothers of the historic Church, major Creeds and Councils. There is, in short, no need for these classical Christian heritages to butt horns and indulge in the one up man ship game and melodrama that often dominates in some quarters. We have far greater challenges before us in the 21^st century then persisting in historic internal clashes and fragmentation. The close relationship between leading Anglican contemplative theologians of the 20^th and 21^st centuries such as Evelyn Underhill, Donald Allchin and Rowan Williams and such Orthodox theologians as Anthony Bloom, Timothy Ware and Andrew Louth does need to be duly noted. The formation of The Society of St. Alban and St. Sergius reflects and embodies such an affinity between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy.

I mention the above for the simple reason that Archbishop Lazar (obviously Orthodox) and I (Anglican) have had a fond and gracious working relationship for many a decade at a variety of significant levels. We founded the Canadian branch of St. Alban and Sergius and our many video collaborations on the Philokalia, Desert Tradition, High Tory Canadian politics, ecology and literature spanned a wide spectrum. I thought it apt and fitting, given the fact that Archbishop Lazar has suffered a stroke (hopefully, the mending will ever improve) that an earlier conversation between he and I on Orthodoxy and Anglicanism be reposted--comments welcome.

The joyful photo of Archbishop Lazar and I, glass tilted high in celebration, is its own sacred text and icon of sorts.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart   

 

Erasmus, the English Reformation and the Church Fathers: Man For All Seasons - Ron Dart

It is also worth noting that in the seventeenth century, Thomas Bodley, when commissioning the historical friezes for the library reading room at Oxford, included Erasmus with other figures who established Protestantism in England. ― Gregory D. Dodds[1]

I am constantly more and more impressed, when I see Erasmus growing greater as he advances in years, and showing himself every day in a new and more exalted character . . . Therefore, wherever you are, you so live as to seem everywhere in Christendom, and will continue to live by the immortality of your fame and the noble monuments you will leave behind you. ― John Watson, lecturer at Cambridge[2]

I would that even the lowliest women read the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles. And I would that they were translated into all languages so that they could be read and understood not only by Scots and Irish but by Turks and Saracens . . . Would that, as a result, the farmer sing some portion of them at his plow, the weaver some part of them to the movement of his shuttle, the traveller lighten the weariness of his journey with stories of this kind! ― Desiderius Erasmus[3]

There has been a historic tendency, when reading and interpreting the political form of the long English Reformation of the sixteenth century, to excessively focus on Henry VIII, Mary, Edward VI and Elizabeth. There has also been a tendency, from a theological perspective, to keep the eyes fixed on Bilney, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker and lesser thinkers and activists of reform. Then, there has been much work done on the various prayer books that shaped emerging Anglican liturgical life. Needless to say, much fine research has been done on the various denominations that came into being at the time, also. There has also been a commitment by many protestant reformers to see John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384) as ‘the morning star of the reformation’. There is a serious blind spot in approaching the English Reformation from these various angles and perspectives, though.

CLICK HERE to download full article on Erasmus by Dart

 

[1] Gregory D. Dodds, ‘An Accidental Historian: Erasmus and the English History of the Reformation’, Church History, vol. 82, no. 2, June 2013, pp. 273–292, at p. 280, n. 27. 

[2] John Watson, letter to Desiderius Erasmus, August 1516. Desiderius Erasmus, The Epistles of Erasmus, from His Earliest Letters to His Fifty-First Year, Arranged in Order of Time: English Translations from the Early Correspondence, with a Commentary Confirming the Chronological Arrangement and Supplying Further Biographical Matter, ed. Francis Morgan Nichols, 2 vols., London, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 334–335.

[3] From the Paraclesis—see the English version of Olin in Desiderius Erasmus, Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, ed. John C. Olin, 3rd edition, New York, Fordham University Press, 1987, p. 101.

The Mother of God and the Mystical Theology of Childbirth - Molly Caliger

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote, “Properly understood, Mariology is . . . the ‘locus theologicus’ par excellence of Christian anthropology.”^[1]  In a different article, Schmemann made the following profound statement regarding the place of Mary in understanding creation: “She—Mary—is the ultimate ‘doxa’ of creation, its response to God. She is the climax, the personification, the affirmation of the ultimate destiny of all creation: that God may be finally all in all, may fill all things with himself. The world is the ‘receptacle’ of his glory, and in this it is ‘feminine.’ And in the present ‘era,’ Mary is the sign, the guarantee that this is so, that in its mystical depth the world is already achieving this destiny.”^[2]

Without Mary, a theology of the human person remains abstract and theoretical.^[3] Karl Rahner^[4] replied, when asked what he thought was the reason for the decline in Marian devotion: “Too many Christians, whatever their religious obedience may be, tend to make Christianity an ideology, an abstraction. And abstractions do not need a mother.”^[5]  The Theotokos makes Christianity tangible in part because Mary was a woman, an embodied human person, with whose humanity one may identify. Women can identify with Mary as the prototypical mother; men can identify with her as the model of what it means to become a theophoros, or bearer-of-God. As the “ultimate ‘doxa’ of creation” she “informs” all of life.

CLICK HERE to Download the full pdf

 

^[1]A. Schmemann, "Mary, the Archetype of Mankind," The University of Dayton Review, 11, no. 3 (Spring, 1975): 83.

^[2]See “On Mariology in Orthodoxy,” Marian Library Studies (New Series) 2 (1970), 31.

^[3] Fr. Donald Calloway, Theology of the Body and Marian Dogmas, Part II, http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/2005/09/theology-of-the-body-and-marian-dogmas-part-ii/

^[4] Karl Rahner, S.J. (March 5, 1904 – March 30, 1984), was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthazar, and Yves Congar, is considered one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century.

^[5] Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, “Mary and the World of Today,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition) June 15, 1972. p.4. The original article by Suenens appeared as “Marie et le monde d’aujourd’hui,”  in La Documentation Catholique (3 Octobre 1971), 878-880.

Seven Times: a homily on forgiveness - Brad Jersak

 

Forgiveness: Seven Times? Matt. 18:21-35 Brad Jersak from Brad Jersak on Vimeo.

 

Gandalf versus the Balrog Descent: Tolkien's Descensus - excerpt from Lord of the Rings

"Deep is the abyss that spanned by Durin’s Bridge, none has measured it," said Gimli.

"Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge," said Gandalf. "Thither I came at last, to the uttermost foundations of stone. He was with me still. His fire was quenched, but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake. We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels. Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day. In that despair my enemy was my only hope, and I pursued him, clutching at his heel. Thus he brought me back at last to the secret ways of Khazad-dum: to well he knew them all. Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stairs. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak it climbed, ascending in unbroken spiral in many thousands steps, until it issued at last in Durin’s Tower carved in the living rock of Zirak-zigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine.”

Augustine's Atonement: God's Self-Appeasing Love Prior to Incarnation as Cure - Brad Jersak with responses B Myers, G Power & D Guretzki

I am fascinated to read Augustine on the nature and necessity of Christ's incarnation and death. I am reading from Augustine, On the Trinity, ch. 10. The chapter numbers I focused on were 10-18, while the paragraph numbers were actually 13-23. Readers can and I'd say should read it firsthand HERE:   

Augustine focuses on why Jesus died. Was it necessary? Why was it necessary? What did it accomplish? And how does this differ from the Satisfaction theory of Anselm and Penal Substitution theory of John Calvin. [David Guretzki, thanks for putting me on this question].

Here is what I believe I discovered:

1. Like other early church fathers (such as St Athanasius), soteriology begins with the Incarnation, in which God assumes human nature so he can endure the human condition, including death, in order that his righteousness and unobligated death should free us from our misery of bondage to death and the devil, 

 

2. He explicitly and vehemently denies any sense that the Son's death was required to appease the Father. He argues that the Father did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, and so was already appeased beforehand. This, along with the fact that while we were enemies, God loved us, means for Augustine that Father and Son together were already both appeased by their own superabundant love, prior even to (and resulting in) the Incarnation. On this point, forgive me for reproducing most of chapter 11, but this is central to the claim that the death of Christ, for Augustine, does not appease the Father in order that the Father might re-orient himself toward us. 

 

But what is meant by justified in His blood? What power is there in this blood, I beseech you, that they who believe should be justified in it? And what is meant by being reconciled by the death of His Son? Was it indeed so, that when God the Father was angry with us, He saw the death of His Son for us, and was appeased towards us? Was then His Son already so far appeased towards us, that He even deigned to die for us; while the Father was still so far angry, that except His Son died for us, He would not be appeased? And what, then, is that which the same teacher of the Gentiles himself says in another place: What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; how has He not with Him also freely given us all things? Pray, unless the Father had been already appeased, would He have delivered up His own Son, not sparing Him for us? Does not this opinion seem to be as it were contrary to that? In the one, the Son dies for us, and the Father is reconciled to us by His death; in the other, as though the Father first loved us, He Himself on our account does not spare the Son, He Himself for us delivers Him up to death. But I see that the Father lovedus also before, not only before the Son died for us, but before He created the world; the apostlehimself being witness, who says, According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. Nor was the Son delivered up for us as it were unwillingly, the Father Himself not sparing Him; for it is said also concerning Him, Who loved me, and delivered up Himself for me.Therefore together both the Father and the Son, and the Spirit of both, work all things equally and harmoniously; yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son.

 

3. In Augustine, there is a Christus Victor over the devil, and specifically not by power, but through the righteousness of Christ in both his life and death. The merits of Christ's righteousness are more than enough to save us, especially since his death was completely voluntary and 'unobligated,' since the devil had 'nothing in Him.'

 

4. And yet there is a sense for Augustine in which we are saved in this way from the wrath of God. However, he explains that God's wrath is impassible, which is to say, the retribution due sin (eternal death). He says:

Therefore we shall be saved from wrath through Him; from the wrath certainly of God, which is nothing else but just retribution. For the wrath of God is not, as is that of man, a perturbation of the mind; but it is the wrath of Him to whom Holy Scripture says in another place, But You, O Lord, mastering Your power, judgest with calmness.  

Thus, this wrath is not a literal anger, but simply the natural or just consequences of sin that God sends Christ to remove. Sin condemns you to death, which is God's wrath or retribution only in the sense of what is due for sin, not what is demanded in God. 

 

5. Christ does not die in order to appease God's wrath through punishment (not at all), so that God is freed to forgive us. Rather, God in his love, graciously spares not his own Son in order that through Christ's unobligated, voluntary death, we are saved from the consequences of sin (bondage to the devil / fitting eternal death). God is not obligated to the law of retribution, but as in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, overcomes the devil's legal demand for retribution with the far greater reality of self-giving love.

 

The important thing is that God (Father, Son and Spirit in undivided harmony), in his own *self-appeasing love* and reconciling grace, which precedes and initiates the Incarnation, sends the Son to assume human nature to bear the human condition and to free us from the just consequences of sin (i.e. that is, to justify us), by overcoming the devil's claim on us with his righteousness.

 

**In Augustine's totalizing view of grace, nothing can be required to appease God, reconcile God to us, or free God to forgive us ... or salvation would not be by grace alone! Rather, the reconciling grace of God acts first to free us via the Incarnation. There's no penal key that unlocks God's ability to forgive, but Christ is the grace-given key that unlocks us from the prison of human misery, eternal death and diabolical bondage.

 

In this sense, Calvin and even Anselm are not simply extending Augustinian retribution, but rather, they depart from Augustine by implying that Christ's Incarnation and/or death must satisfy something that frees God to enact grace. Rather, for Augustine, grace enacts the means by which we are freed. The necessity of Christ's Incarnation / Crucifixion is about what God must himself do to free us from Satan, sin and death, which are the consequences of sin (and metaphorically, what he means by impassible wrath). 

 

As I understand St Augustine, his departure from the other fathers is not on this point. Instead, it begins with his misread of Romans 5 on original sin as inherited guilt; his doctrine of massa damnata, which founds and funds his monergism of unconditional grace; and thus his unilateral/unconditional election/predestination. And it is these elements which later Augustinian Reformers (such as Luther and Calvin) will employ to teach 'bondage of the will,' total depravity and double-predestination. 

Response by Ben Myers

Nice work, Brad. Just a couple of thoughts to add: in my observation, Augustine's most common way of talking about 'atonement' seems to be with metaphors of healing and medicine. Christ is a medicine that heals our nature. What do we need to be healed from? Aug's usual answer (repeated hundreds of times through his works) is pride. It's specifically the humility of the Son (in both incarnation and crucifixion) that functions as a medicine to heal our pride. (But don't think of pride as just a false attitude - it has a kind of ontological weight; it's a disorder of the soul that pulls us away from God and toward ourselves, i.e. toward nothingness.) Anyway I don't have all the details totally clear in my mind but I would say that seems to be the general picture of how the 'atonement' works in Augustine.

Response by Archimandrite Gerasim Power

This is a very interesting post, Brad! Very refreshing in fact. The Blessed Augustine is quite the enigma to everyone, especially Eastern Orthodox Christians. His theology is at first sight, really way out there.

His understanding of the incarnation tends not to emphasize the idea that Christ would have been incarnate whether we had sinned or not, in order to fulfill God's plan of theosis, and that after the Fall, it took on the quality of a 'rescue mission', so that the plan would continue.

In order to understand anything of his theology, one must first understand the man himself. He was a brilliant rhetorician with exceptional Latin, and a very weak knowledge of Greek. He led a typically dissolute life in the 4th cent. Roman Empire. His very patrician father was rather ill-tempered and stern, his mother, gentle and pious. He was highly educated and also was once a rather duelistic Manichean. His conversion was not only an intense spiritual thing, but also quite emotional, as was he. His love for God was extremely deep, his remorse and contrition over his former way of life, almost overwhelming, his gratitude to God as his Saviour, beyond words. It is in his short, but significant monastic writings (yes he was a monk of sorts), his homilies, and his Confessions that we can get a true picture of just who this guy was and what made him tick - including theologically.

While not, of course, agreeing with many of his theological ideas, I do feel that the Scholastics of the Mediaeval period in the West, not to mention the Protestant Reformers of the 16th, have largely misunderstood, hijacked, and distorted the thoughts of Augustine. Only by really looking at the man himself and his life can we actually get anywhere near understanding his ideas, theological or otherwise. My favourite quote of his, coming from his Confessions, where he totally bares his soul to me really sums up what Augustine of Hippo is all about - and it's among the most beautiful of thoughts:

"You called, You shouted, and You broke through my deafness. You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness. You breathed Your fragrance on me; I gasped and now I pant for You. I have tasted You, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace, Oh Beauty ever ancient, ever new, how late have I loved You!"

Response by David Guretzki

Some good stuff in this article, but I think you over reach on point 4. Augustine's resistance to wrath as a perturbance in God does not mean that wrath is therefore ad extra to God and somehow now a descriptor of the human. Augustine does in fact still talk about appeasing God's wrath through the mediation of the Son. Rather, he is saying that wrath of humanity is tainted by emotion (that's his Platonism coming through) but for God, wrath is impassioned and therefore just. But it is still IN God and sent by God to abide on humans in their sinfulness. So I think you may be reading in to Augustine a notion of wrath as "natural consequences to sin" where it isn't.

See his Letter 164 to Evodius regarding the Descenus. 

It also might be important to note the date of the letter relative to City of God. Augustine did develop. 

See also this Brigham Young article on "The Harrowing of Hell." It seems to echo a few things about what I thought about Augustine. 

Brad's Final Thoughts

I am grateful to Dr. Ben Myers, Fr. Gerasim and Dr. David Guretzki for their contributions. Between their insights and the further readings they suggested, I have come to the following thoughts and questions, all still tentative and contingent on further study:

1. The big question for me is whether or not Augustine’s position on the descensus requires him to come up with an alternative necessity for the death of Christ that leads to satisfaction motifs. It need not if the death and resurrection itself functions as the mechanism by which God frees us from death.

2. After reading Augustine's Letter to Evodius, I concluded that that Augustine’s version of descensus is much narrower than the Eastern Fathers and Liturgy, which unanimously speaks of Christ's death and descent to metaphorically “raise up Adam [human nature] with himself" by his resurrection. That is, the Eastern decensus seams Christ's death and resurrection together for the ontological salvation of humanity from death.  

Augustine's focus in the letter focuses more narrowly on debates within the descensus discussion re: 1 Peter (and there’s a wide range of opinion on this even in the East). But what he seems to hold in common with them is that Christ descends by death into death, but Satan, death and hell cannot hold him. He is victorious over them by the resurrection, SO THAT the elect are raised by grace to their resurrection from death to life by faith (?)--not in some afterlife rescue but here and now (by grace thru baptism?) and at the end of the age (and this seems how the East applies it as well).

So in Augustine's embrace of Christ’s personal victory over death by death, at least in this letter, he follows the other Fathers logic that there is no need for some additional atoning mechanism (eg satisfaction, appeasement) to justify the Father’s forgiveness. His grace initiates the saving act by which Christ assumes human nature, endures the human condition and overcomes it in himself, and does so righteously. My tentative conclusion is that his conservative interpretation of descensus maintains the necessary core: that God cures death by unilateral death, descent and resurrection. His issue with the East will not be on that front, but re: his monergism. 

That is, Augustine could in good conscience cite the Apostles Creed without altering the essential meaning of ‘descent.’ Calvin, on the other hand, knowingly reinterprets the creed to relocate desncensus to the Cross, where he views it, not as Christ's victory over death, but the unleashing of the Father's wrath on the Son.

 

AND YET, when I read the City of God, Guretzki's point stands: I cannot see Augustine's wrath described there as simply consequence. Rather, he doubles down on retribution and describes eternal conscious torment as both directly imposed and divinely maintained. By this stage in Augustine's developing (or devolving?) theology, there can be little doubt that he sees retribution IN God (contra the Eastern Fathers), but I am not yet sure that I see wrath-appeasement IN God as essential to his atonement theory.

After Sutherland Springs: What and Whom We Worship - Kenneth Tanner

Statement by Sherri and Frank Pomeroy:

Broadcast or social media are not usually helpful in the aftermath of great tragedy. But anyone who can should see the press conference from earlier this afternoon with Pastor Frank and Sherri Pomeroy.

Beyond the unspeakable horror of losing a teenaged daughter to such inexplicable violence, their words and faces express the deep lament and pain of losing perhaps more than half of their congregation to violence.

The sorrow of losing even an elderly member of our fellowship to natural causes, or of anyone to an accident, or of a friend you have sat with (and joined in their struggles) to an overdose is shattering to the soul of a pastor.

But having 26 fellow believers, 26 people of all ages that are in your heart, no less or no more than your daughter? AND your daughter? How does one survive that?

Their sacred little beautiful space was also decimated and—according to the Pomeroy’s—irreparable. And how do you anyway go back to such a desecrated place and find joy and peace again?

These people were also a critical infrastructure of care within the marginalized and desperate peoples surrounding their small church. This act destroyed hands and feet and arms and hearts that served Sutherland Springs.

A culture that worships violence—and we do worship violence—must wake up to the costs of homage to false gods. And one of the ways we stop worshipping false gods is sorrowful repentance.

Guns in church are not the answer.

Listen to the Pomeroys and ponder what and whom you worship.

 

The Balfour Declaration: Nov 2 1917—Nov 2 2017 - Ron Dart

It is 100 years today since the Balfour Declaration was brought to the fore. The Balfour Declaration attempted, when read with some care, to balance the needs of Arabs living in Palestine at the time with the increasing demands of the Jews for a homeland in Palestine. The fact that David Lloyd George and Lord Balfour had pronounced Zionist and philo-semitic leanings (given their conservative Biblical upbringings), and, equally important, worked closely with Chaim Weizmann (a Jewish chemist who did much to serve the English military effort in WWI) does need to be noted.

It was in 1897 that Theodore Herzl birthed the Jewish Congress with the earlier aid of many a fervent Christian Zionist--20 years later guided by the more diplomatic Weizmann (1^st President of Israel) the Balfour Declaration came into being. The fact that the Declaration, in an imperfect way, attempted to balance the conflicting demands of the Arabs and Jews does need to be noted (against the Zionists who see the Declaration as a free pass to invade and occupy Palestine). The balanced nature of the Declaration created many a problem for the English in Palestine as they attempted to heed the more moderate nature of the Declaration. The emerging Israeli military often turned on the English as they were convinced the land of Palestine was theirs and theirs alone. Both the English and the Arab Palestinians, again and again, faced the Jewish hawks. It is quite understandable why, in time, the English handed over Palestine to the United Nations--ideologues tend to trump moderates and, as the heat increased, any sense of light dissipated.

What would history in Israel-Palestine be like today if the Balfour Declaration had been more justly and peacefully heeded by one and all in the conflict?

Ron Dart          

Martin Luther and the 95 Theses - by Ron Dart

100 years have passed this October 31^st 2017 (October 31 1517) since Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to Albert on the door of Wittenberg. Such a posting signals the birth of the Protestant Reformation and the shaking and shifting of the tectonic plates of Western Civilization. The recently published 2016 biography of Luther by Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, is worth more than many an ample read (indeed many a reread). The in depth probes by Roper unveil and reveal much about Luther that is admirable and disturbing, questionably prophetic yet undeniably worrisome. There can be no doubt, though, that Luther (and those who followed him of lesser lights) brought into being the modern world as we inhabit it.

It is important as we linger and meditate on the 95 theses that we also ponder the needful critiques Luther was levelling at the imperfect Roman Catholic Church of his time and the path and direction Luther would take when he felt unheeded, opposed and marginalized by the RC Sanhedrin. Did Luther need to break from Rome? Such are the arguments of many Protestants? Did he, really? Erasmus, for example, was as critical of Rome as was Luther but he never felt he had to depart the church. What was it about the differences between Erasmus and Luther that drove Luther to be schismatic and Erasmus to uphold a commitment to the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church?” Erasmus certainly agreed in spirit and content with the 95 Theses and many of the positions Luther took after he posted the 95 Theses.

It is these sorts of questions that held me as I looked into the eyes of the Luther statue when at the Lutheran College in Alberta more than a decade ago. I tend to nod more to Erasmus than Luther, but the latter clash between these two men reveals much about a way of interpreting and applying the Bible to personal, ecclesial and public life. Why did Luther (and protestants who stand in such a schismatic tradition) take the positions he did when other equally valid choices were before them. “Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other”. Was such a stance his only option? He could have, in fact, done other—Erasmus and many others did who shared many concerns with Luther—do a read of Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet and reflect on whether Luther could have done other—sit Luther and Erasmus beside one another and heed and hear their speech. I often return to my look into the eyes and soul of the statue of Luther and ponder such questions. 

Amor Vincet Omnia

Ron Dart

That Moment: Incarnation, Participation & Eternal Life Now - Kenneth Tanner

That moment when you realize that Jesus' incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension are not just about saving YOUR everlasting soul but about saving the one human nature shared by all who bear flesh, and about renewing the whole of the good Creation.

That moment when you realize that salvation is not only about entering eternal life when you die but a real-as-blood participation in the divine nature RIGHT NOW.

In other words, that moment when you realize that the incarnation, embodied life, cross, resurrection, and ascension are not just about YOU and not just about HEAVEN.

THAT is the moment you LEAVE BEHIND infancy in Jesus Christ and GIVE your life and future (which no longer matters so much, which no longer causes anxiety) to God's saving mission for the life of the world.

That is the moment you GROW UP, remove the focus on yourself and your eternal future, and take up the self-sacrificial love of Jesus that seeks not only the eternal glory of others but that all persons might enter the DIVINE WAY of life and love all things as God loves all things HERE and NOW.

That is the moment you become an ACTOR in Christ the human's saving mission to make ALL THINGS NEW.

That is the moment you are no longer the exclusive center of God's saving words and actions but one who bears the cross with Jesus on behalf of OTHERS so that ALL MIGHT BELIEVE.

That is the moment you JOIN Christ's saving purpose to restore the created order, still subject to chaos and decay by humanity and the dark powers.

That is the moment you cease worrying about your eternal destiny and FIND ETERNAL LIFE NOW by living a life that reveals heaven in the present moment.

This profound humility of God in Jesus Christ is not about YOU but about ALL PERSONS and is not merely about all persons but an offering that heals time, redeems nature, and brings all things once more into that unity that God—the Father, Son and Spirit—intended from before time, from before all the worlds were framed.

Review of Frank Schaeffer's "Letter to Lucy" - by Brian McLaren

Editor's Note: CLICK HERE to read chapter 1 of Frank Schaeffer's "Letter to Lucy"

free.

 

I am one of thousands (millions?) who became a devotee of Francis Schaeffer in the 1970's. Escape from Reason, The God Who is There, He is There and He is Not Silent, True Spirituality, Pollution and the Death of Man ... I devoured everything he wrote. For a generation of young fundamentalists like me, Schaeffer was our gateway into the world of philosophy and art. He told us we could use our brains, that we could take art, literature, and film seriously, that the counter-culture had some things right ...

 

I remember feeling ... dismayed, I suppose is the word for it ... when Schaeffer became an apologist for the Religious Right. Had he been co-opted, or had he sold out ... or was he really in league with Robertson, Falwell, and their fellow culture warriors?

 

I think it was in Francis' book A Christian Manifesto where I felt especially alarmed. As I recall, he held up Oliver Cromwell (!) as a spiritual hero of sorts, and there were intimations of armed rebellion against the government, wrapped in talk of "lex rex" versus "rex lex." (In fact, I remember in the early 80's hearing about "Christian Militia" in the deep south who were training in weaponry, inspired by Schaeffer to prepare for war.)

 

I also was a fan of Francis and Edith Schaeffer's son, Frank. His A Time for Anger made me laugh out loud and introduced me to a master of the art of rant. Years later, I read Frank's Calvin Becker trilogy (Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma) and (this is an old English major speaking) I still feel they are three of the most delightful and insightful novels I've ever read. His "And God said, 'Billy!'" was also quite powerful, reminiscent of the great Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, but even more God-haunted.

 

Frank and I became friends through Wild Goose Festival, where we're two of the resident grandpas walking around, thrilled to see honest young people passionate about justice and an authentic spirituality in an era of so much crass religious crap. (Frank would have used much more vivid diction in the preceding sentence.)

 

When Letter to Lucy became available, I was one of the first to download it ... which suggests one of many unique things about the book. It's best read on an IPad or other digital device, the bigger the screen and the higher the resolution, the better, because this book isn't simply a feast of words ... it's a visual and musical feast as well.

This is Frank's ode to beauty, his theology of beauty if you will, because like many of us, Frank has let go of so much that he inherited from fundamentalism, but he hasn't let go of the pearl of great price ... a deep reverence and passionate love for beauty, which for Frank, is the best and most trustworthy signature or trace of the divine that we have. 

 

One feels Frank's grandchildren, especially Lucy, present on every page, because he is writing for them, not to them as much as for their benefit. He acknowledges the megatons of crass religious crap that are being spread liberally on us all by the bigly (believe me!) dispersal fan of Donald Trump; Frank challenges us not to surrender to that political and religious shower of stench, but to defy it by seeking beauty in the ugliest of administrations.

 

Through beauty - in forms from jazz to classical, from sculpture to film, from children's literature to Shakespeare - we can survive these times, and build a better world for our grandchildren on the other side, Frank argues.

 

But he doesn't just argue. He demonstrates. So when he mentions a great piece of jazz, you can click and listen. When he mentions a great piece of sculpture, you can see a photograph of it on the page. He lets us sample the ways he is enriching the lives of his grandchildren.

 

Along the way, he talks about his family, his upbringing, his faults and mistakes, his misadventures in the rumbling bowels of the Religious Right. At times he's furious, at times, hilarious ... but throughout, he's as sincere as a furiously loving grandfather can be, and that passionate sincerity is downright ... evangelical, in the absolute best and lower-case sense of the word.

 

Yes, Frank has joyfully left fundamentalism/evangelicalism behind, but he is still an evangelist ... of beauty, which signals goodness, which points to truth. And in this, he shows that he has not betrayed his parents at all; rather, he has found the heart of what they loved most in Christianity and in God (remember Edith's Hidden Art?) ... and he is setting it free from the tacky religious duct tape in which it was bound.

 

This is a beautiful book, and I recommend it to all who yearn for liberation from what religion and politics have become in the age of Trump, Fascism, and Lies. Buy it (download it) here.

 

Brian McLaren 

website: www.brianmclaren.net

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-D-McLaren/65814657989?ref=ts

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New project: Convergence Leadership Project - check it out!

2016 book: The Great Spiritual Migration

 

Swimming in Mercy - Cynthia Bourgeault

Swimming in Mercy

 

[W]hen we think of mercy, we should be thinking first and foremost of a bond, an infallible link of love that holds the created and uncreated realms together. The mercy of God does not come and go, granted to some and refused to others. Why? Because it is unconditional—always there, underlying everything. It is literally the force that holds everything in existence, the gravitational field in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Just like that little fish swimming desperately in search of water, we, too “swim in mercy as in an endless sea.” [1] Mercy is God’s innermost being turned outward to sustain the visible and created world in unbreakable love.

To think this way perhaps takes some getting used to. From our traditional theological models, we are used to thinking in terms of God “up there” and ourselves “down here”—God wholly unknown to us and of a fundamentally different substance, of which we are but a very distant reflection. But as the language of modern quantum physics penetrates increasingly into the basic metaphors of theology, allowing us to think more freely in terms of “conservation of energy,” we can begin to see how God and creation actually exist in an energetic continuum. Just as we now know that matter is actually “condensed” energy (i.e., energy in a more dense and slow-moving form), would it be too great a leap to say that energy as we experience it—as movement, force, light—is a “condensation” of divine will and purpose? In other words, energy is what happens when divine Being expresses itself outwardly.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3) 

If we understood Word to mean at root vibration—the out-speaking of the divine will and purpose—then the Word is that which makes manifest the fullness of divine purpose as it moves outward into form. This “energetic” reading of the Gospel text might help explain the persistent mystical intuition undergirding so much of the New Testament that Jesus Christ, as the human incarnation of the divine Word (or Logos), is the fundamental ordering principle of the cosmos “in whom all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

Gateway to Silence:
We live, move, and have our being in love.

References:

[1] Psalm 103:11, from the Psalter in The Book of Common Prayer (The Episcopal Church: 1979).

Excerpted from Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God (Cowley Publications: 2001), 25-26, 27-28.