Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Mark 3 - "The Withered Hand" - Brad Jersak with Stefan Smart

Stefan Smart 
Actor and Storyteller 

BEHOLD! Productions
www.iam-mark.com

BEHOLD: Beyond “So what?” & “What now?” - Kenneth Tanner

The leaves of this Japanese maple in our front drive are not “useful” to me but I love beholding them.

In the church we are in the habit of asking, “What difference does this make for me on Monday morning?” or “How can I make use of this in my day-to-day life?”

We need to interrogate this disposition and these questions. All may not be well in the spaces where these questions emerge.

The contemplation of God and of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ is good for you and for the world. It does not need to lead to anything “practical.” Loitering with the person of Jesus is beneficial all by itself.

To behold Jesus, to hear his words, and attend to his actions in the gospels are enough.

Yes, taking a walk or riding a bike is good for your health but if you are only walking or riding a bike to aid your well-being, if you’re not enjoying these acts of being in and of themselves, you are missing out on the best part.

Trust leaders who invite you simply to ponder the Word made flesh, who beckon you to contemplate God and humanity by and in Jesus Christ without a to-do list.

No applications. No “what nows?”

What you can learn from good teachers is that God is present and at work in you, in the creation, and in your circumstances (that’s a very good thing); that God is the active agent in the world’s salvation; and that your gracious participation in his words and acts begins with dwelling with him in stillness of heart and mind.

Sometimes we need to trust that the sheer meditation on God that John (and the other gospel witnesses) grant us is enough; there does not have to be a “So what?” or a “What now?”

Just ponder the mystery. 

The shoulders of some Christians are weighted down with expectations and tasks that preachers put on them 52 weekends a year, year in and year out, when we end sermons with “this is what *you* need to go do” rather than “see what God has done” and “see what God is doing.”

There can be an unhealthy fixation on “results” that we need to recognize and address, in this and in many areas of our lives. The church is not a factory. People are not widgets. 

“Is this useful?” or “what difference does it make? *can* deny the legitimacy of wasting time in the wondrous contemplation of God and humanity that the person of Jesus affords us.

Nothing could be more relative to life and how to live it than contemplation of the person who is both God and human.

Slow down. Ponder. God is at work in you and in the world around you. God promises to make of you and the world what only he can make.

The Masculine and Feminine of God - Katie Skurja

The Masculine and Feminine of God

By Katie Skurja
Excerpt from Katie Skurja’s chapter in Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses (2021).

When our son was not quite three years old, you could almost see the thought bubbles form over his head when he was making a connection about some important concept. At times, announcing his astute observations could be socially awkward. On one such occasion, our friends Mark and Cynthia were visiting when I watched a thought bubble form in the air as we stood talking in the kitchen. I noticed he had been staring at them intently as they leaned against our counters. Suddenly, he lunged toward Cynthia with a finger pointing at her lower mid-section and proclaimed, “Lou have a china!” Turning toward Mark, he proudly said, “Lou have a penis!” (He couldn’t yet pronounce his y’s, so you became lou.) Even though our friends were both casually dressed in loose-fitting jeans and neither is a paragon of god-like sexuality, a child barely out of toddlerhood could proudly tell the difference between a man and woman. How much easier for a child to distinguish male and female when the sex-typical features are more pronounced? And yet, this is the issue at the heart of what catapulted Jordan Peterson onto the international stage.

In 2016, Peterson released a video explaining why he would refuse to comply with Canada’s proposed Bill C-16 on gender identity rights. His objection had to do with the compelled speech aspect of the law, which would require state employees to use preferred pronouns of individuals including made-up words for newly minted genders. Though his detractors accuse of him of extremist ideas, his greatest “sin” is rooted in standing for free speech and the self-evident truth of the biological differences between men and women. In doing so, he became a lightning rod in the culture wars.  

In speaking about men and women, I have heard Peterson on more than one occasion allude to the idea that to say male and female is not the same as saying masculine and feminine. What that difference is, I have not yet heard him specifically articulate. This absence of clarity from someone who can talk circles around most speaks to the complexity of the subject. It is far easier to talk about biological differences between men and women than the expressions of those differences in personality. Given a room of a hundred people, even a young child could successfully sort the males from the females. Distinguishing the difference between masculine and feminine is a bit trickier, providing fodder for confusion.

Part of the problem, I would like to suggest, is rooted in our language. By the very words, masculine is equated with male, and feminine is equated to female. In one psychology journal article from 1974, words such as compassionate, gentle, childlike, shy, and tender were used on a list to describe feminine. Included in the list was the word feminine itself, as if it was self-evident of what that means. By contrast, words used to describe masculine included leader, assertive, dominant, independent, and self-reliant.  Given this list of descriptors, a biological male who relates more to the feminine traits may feel like there is something wrong with him. In the same way, a biological female whose personality is better described as masculine might believe she is defective. Such people might even be susceptible to the idea that they were born in the wrong body.

CLICK HERE to download and read the full article 

To get a glimpse of the brilliance of young children, check out the interview of children discussing these concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9PELJQOfXg 
Here is a shorter version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVTBnl5iEEg   
These and other teachings can be found at idmin.org.

Louis Markos' "Myth Made Fact" - Review by Ron Dart

Louis Markos, Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (Classical Academic Press, 2020).

There can be little doubt that the challenge, burden, and vocation of Louis Markos has been to make it abundantly clear that classical western mythology (and philosophy), like the Jewish heritage, is an apt and significant preparation for the coming of Christ and Christianity. There has been, sadly so, a tendency within some forms of Christianity, to demean and caricature Classical Greek and Roman thought and set it in opposition to Jewish thinking. Such a collision and clash between Athens and Jerusalem, the Academy and the Church, gratefully so, has not been the dominant approach to faith and learning within historic Christianity, but such an approach has done much to shape and define a tendency and leaning within substantive parts of protestant and evangelical Christianity. There has been a desperate and definite need to overcome such simplistic ways of understanding the Athens-Jerusalem tensions that post-apostolic and patristic Christianity engaged in, thought through, and lived forth. It was this more nuanced dialogue by classical Christians with their Classical heritage (always discerning the wheat and chaff, gold and dross) that, in most ways, created Western Civilization and the best of Christian Humanism.

It is to the credit, therefore, of Louis Markos that he has given himself, in an attentive manner, to ponder how the early church interacted with the Classical Tradition and the perennial relevance for those of us today who live, increasingly so, in a post-Christendom, post-Christian and post-structuralist context. The publication of From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics (2007) and From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Though Shaped Christian Thought (2021) are but two of a variety of books birthed by Markos that insightfully and intricately weave together the nuanced relationship of Classical philosophy and literature as a form of common grace and general revelation. It is, though, with the publication of Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (2020) that we are taken on a deeper dive into the richness and fullness of, mostly, Greek myth and the relationship of Greek myth to both Jewish thought and the emerging Christianity of the Bible and classical Christian thought and culture.

Myth Made Fact is front-loaded with endorsements and accolades (Foreword and Preface) that legitimate the larger rehabilitation and renovation project of Markos. The “Introduction” by Markos, “More than Balder”, sets the larger aims and goals in an apt and appropriate context and setting. In short, Markos is not only interested in Greek and Roman myth (he is also interested in comparative mythology) as a form of scholarly archival and museum research. He is much more committed to recovering and representing many of the perennial truths in Greek and Roman mythology that are applicable today for soul formation and a renewal of the classical virtues.

Myth Made Fact brings to frontstage 50 classical myths that reach across the ridges of time, the 50 myths divided, wisely and discerningly so, into six parts: 1) Journeys and Origins, 2) Platonic Myths, 3) The Four Great Heroes, 4) The Tragic House of Thebes, 5) The Tragic House of Atreus and 6) Love Lost and Found. Each of the myths retold is combined with a section that deals with “Reflections” and “Applications”. Markos, in these “Reflections” and “Applications” threads together passages from the Bible and larger historic events that bring to life the myths and compare-contrast them with Biblical stories.

There is, therefore, an ongoing and discerning approach, a careful weighing of Biblical, Classical myths and classical Christian reflections on the relationship between Classical myths, the Bible, and Classical Christianity—such a method evokes much in the longing heart, mind, soul, and imagination.

There has been a tendency within some forms of Christianity to be focused on the Bible and ignore how Christianity, post-Gospels, Paul and catholic epistles interpreted and applied their faith in a classical civilization (many of the early Christians who were not Jews from the 2^nd to the 7^th centuries were trained in classical literature). The dilemma of such an approach to Christianity (memoricide as a serious problem) means many modern forms of Christianity lack a minimal understanding of why most early Christians found classical myths, philosophy, literature, and theology attractive and valuable as a stepping stone to their commitment to Christianity. Myth Made Fact walks the extra mile to explain and articulate why immersion in classical myth, literature, and philosophy can enrich and deepen our understanding of Christianity. This has been the historic approach of Christianity and the recovery of such an approach is taken wisely and well in Myth Made Fact. This is also, as Markos rightly notes, why the modern mythmaking of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Star Wars (each and all drawing from classical myths) have such an abiding appeal.  

Myth Made Fact is brought to a fit and fine end with the “Epilogue: Beyond Greece and Rome” and “Appendix A-B-C” that are portals of sorts that point the way to yet further trails to take on the Classical myth-Christian journey pathway. In short, the waymarks are ample, the challenge being one of going on the journey. I might also add that in this hefty tome there are some fine paintings that illuminate and richly illustrate the myths in a visual manner.

There has been, in the last few decades, a decided movement to explore the often forgotten classical heritage of Christianity in our age that tends to be rootless, fragmented and divided (both in the church and world). It is this recovery and renovation project that is part of a larger attempt to halt the deterioration of faith and culture in a context that has no anchor or moorings. Louis Markos is, rightly so, playing a significant role in this larger project and his work in classical myth and literature (often ignored in such a rehabilitation process) should be welcomed and applauded, Myth Made Fact but one pillar in the cathedral of this rebuilding effort.

Ron Dart            

"Infesting the Sea" - A Legacy of Pirates vs. Emperors - Wayne Northey

Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire:

The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate: because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor[Prime Minister/President].” (Saint Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson, New York: Penguin Books, 1984, IV, 4, p. 139. See too Noam Chomsky’s: Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World.)”

From the dawn of history the oppressor has always insisted that oppression was good for the oppressed. — Moorfield Storey

Each act of aggression, each new expedition of conquest is prefaced by a pronouncement containing a moral justification and an assurance to the victims of the imperial aggression that all is being done for their benefit. — Richard F. Petticrew

The Expansion of the Roman empire, which accusers were blaming Christ for having reversed, was not an automatic benefit to the human race; for “if justice has been abolished, what is empire but a fancy name for larceny?” — Augustine (The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries, Jaroslav Pelikan, 1997, p. 30.)

Roman historian Tacitus wrote so long ago:

To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire; they make a desolation and call it peace[/democracy].

Novelist J.M. Coetzee writes in Waiting for the Barbarians (1980):

One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation (p. 133).

American public intellectual Edward Said wrote in the Preface of Orientalism (1978):

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires¹, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest ‘mission civilisatrice.’

American Empire has always and supremely been about “plundering, butchering, and stealing,” “the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation,” leaving “desolation,” “destruction and misery and death” in its wake (while calling it “peace and freedom”), and long since has been in voracious bid for worldwide domination, in order to extract maximum wealth from all peoples and the Planet. Our call is simply to practise insurrection against Empire in all its avaricious, brutal and horribly destructive ways. (No small order!)

In this historical moment that supreme manifestation of Empire is the United States – to which the entire Western world is tied in various supportive ways; under which domination much of the rest of the world suffers2: in the Greater Middle East as only one example, which endures brutal will to domination and oppression at the hands of American Empire.

CLICK HERE to continue reading

For Related Reading by Wayne: "CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime"

https://waynenorthey.com/2021/10/21/the-cia-70-years-of-organized-crime/

On "A Letter from Hell" by Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey's Reflections in Response to Robin Schumacher's article, https://www.christianpost.com/news/a-letter-from-hell.html 

Interesting that the photo chosen (see it here) for Schumacher's article is along the lines of what Larry Dixon wrote (The Other Side of the Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ teaching on hell) in apparent approval of an instance of “horrific violence” by the U.S. Empire in the first Gulf War:

A brave journalist who was in Baghdad when the bombs landed, cried out in his television report, ‘I have been in hell.’As horrible as war is we would have to say to him, ‘No, you haven’t. If we understand Jesus correctly, war is only a small foreshadowing of that final condition of the forsaken (p. 14, emphasis in original).’

Besides the sanctimonious piety in these kinds of warnings, the tragic flaw in Dixon’s book begins with the title: there is no other side to the Good News, or it simply ceases to be such . . .

Or as 19th-century American newspaper columnist, Matt Miller, wrote in an ironic riff on Evangelicals’ all-time favourite verse, John 3:16 (I love the verse too!):

For God so loved the world that he temporarily died to save it from himself. But none of that really matters because most people will be tortured for eternity anyways.

John Alexander dedicates his book,Your Money or Your Life: A New Look at Jesus’ View of Wealth and Power (1986), to his father this way: “He is an unusual           fundamentalist; for he believes that inerrancy extends to the teachings of Jesus.” 

There is indeed an arcane footnote/exception–clause theology of John 3:16 at play – and more generally amongst conservative “Evangelicals” by extension. As a good fundamentalist, I discovered eventually to my shock that apparently John 3:16 has a reprised footnote inserted into so many Christians’ Bibles–what one could call a footnote/exception clause theology at work in the text. It is never stated out loud, however. But it is observably no less binding dogma.

After “world,” “whosoever,” “perish,” and “life” the footnote reads: “except our enemies.” They must in fact be exterminated–and be relegated to hell (whom as God’s enemies Christians are to hate with a pure zeal, so claims Larry Dixon, discussion of whose sad book is in my: WAR AND HELL – and Exception-Clause Footnote Theology)! Yet, I was always taught in my upbringing it was the “Liberals,” so-claimed masters of the exception clause and footnote theology, who played fast and loose with Scripture…

It seems almost invariably the case that apologists such as the writer of the article highlighted below spend inordinate energy “apologizing” for an image of God that if true, would so fundamentally contradict all ethical concepts of human decency, that one could simply grant them such a “god”–and be done with the entire travesty of religion!

Not unlike legitimizing during the Crusades the kind of message given by the Papal Legate–Chaplain–who told the soldiers at the siege of Béziers France in 1209¹:

Kill them all. God will recognize his own.

How lovely and endearing of “god!”

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Paul Zizka's "Aloft: Canadian Rockies Aerial Photographs" - review by Ron Dart

Ron Dart

Paul Zizka, Aloft: Canadian Rockies Aerial Photographs (RMB, 2021).

There are photographic books on the Canadian Rockies worthy of a few scans and there are superb books on the Canadian Rockies—such is Aloft. The title and subtitle offer the curious the visual nature of this bounty of a book. The photographs are, indeed, taken from above the Rockies and the photographer is very much aloft, the “Introduction” by Zizka worthy of a reflective read (as are his visual gifts).

The photographs taken reflect all the seasons in the Canadian Rockies and track the varied faces and forms of the Rockies in a sort of ordered journey, Rundle Range and Three Sisters near Canmore taking the lead and initial bow, Mount Assiniboine area stepping on stage to strut its sheer beauty. Then, it’s to Banff, Lake Minnewanka, Sulphur Mountain, Mount Louis and Mount Norquay ski hill bounties not to miss.  The photographic journey turns northward to Castle Mountain, Sunshine Meadows (summer and winter on display), Bourgeau Lake, Shadow Lake, Storm Mountain and Shadow Lake Lodge next on the Rocky Mountain and Taylor Lake aloft tour. It was inevitable, of course, on the photographic overview of the Rockies that Lake Louise and Moraine Lake would be next to visit, their expansive and epic-like grandeur worthy of multiple meditative moments. Those who have lingered and trekked in the area are amply rewarded by photographs of Eiffel Lake, Sentinel Pass, Lake Agnes (tea hut ever-present), Temple, Victoria-Lefroy and Louise Ski Hill, of course. Lake Louise freezes in the winter and the shoveled Lake near Chateau is cleared and turned into rinks to skate on (many pleasant memories of skating on Louise in winter). Zizka has eloquently captured the golden beauty of the alpine larches in the early autumn, Abbot Hut above the higher tea hut suitable for many a night stay (such tales to be told from Abbot Hut). The photographic pilgrimage continues to the ever-charming Lake O’Hara region with its rich and layered history, Yoho, many trails done there and Takakkaw Falls a place not to miss (many a night spent sleeping at the base of it). The turn is then made, ever aloft, to Kootenay National Park, the Icefields Parkway the journey ever northward from an aerial perspective, Bow Lake highlighted (treks taken from there worth the doing as is kayaking on the lake), Peyto Lake frontstaged (the starting point for the Wapta Traverse).

The aerial overview maintains a northwards flight, Saskatchewan and Athabasca Glaciers illuminated, crevasses noted and Mount Athabasca (climb worth the effort) duly noted, tourist trips part of the photographic package. Jasper National Park, rightly so, comes into attractive and compelling hue, Fortress Lake, Hooker Icefield and Chisel Peak but tasters and teasers. But, to Jasper and Edith Cavell, Fairmont, Chevron and Ramparts, Tonquin Valley and Amethyst Lakes photographs not to miss (nor, in the Rockies, treks not to miss). Humber Provincial Park is given its prominent places as is Mount Alberta and the ever attractive Maligne Lake, Mt. Robson and Berg Lake next on the agenda as Jasper is left behind.

There is much more that could be said about this photographic and aerial overview of the Canadian Rockies, but for those who have done many of the trips in the area, skated, skied, trekked, hiked and climbed many of the peaks, Aloft is a memory massager and reminder of the vast, compelling, immense and perennial appeal of the Canadian Rockies. Aloft is certainly worth the purchase and the photographs, descriptions and vividness of the tour a journey not to miss.

montani semper liberi

Ron Dart                       

Boaz's Feet and Ultimate Reconciliation - Scott Klaudt

One thing I have found in a life of discovery is once you see something you can’t unsee it. It can be something you weren’t supposed to see but can’t get it out of your mind. Or something you weren’t really looking for, but it was “awakened” in you. Two of those things for me are feet and Ultimate Reconciliation in the Bible.

I hate feet. I wear socks all the time. When I was playing basketball, my feet would get sweaty gross and needed to breathe. I didn’t care, I wore my socks to bed. Looking back, I know why my feet hurt. By the end of the season, they looked like swiss cheese. Hating feet sounds anti-gospel since we’re called to “wash each other’s feet.” Sorry, give me garbage, a scrub brush, anything but feet.

Ruth is a story about feet, some of it anyways. A story where a young woman, far from home, caught the attention of the owner of the property she was working on. She was kind to her mother-in-law Naomi (husband was dead) and word spread throughout the camp. Boaz, the owner of the field, made notice. If I can be somewhat politically incorrect, I’m guessing it wasn’t just her kindness that caught his attention. You get it, don’t cancel me, please.

When Naomi finds out Ruth has caught his attention, she devises a plan. Ruth is to go to the threshing floor and lay at Boaz’s (gulp) feet. Gross. She listens to the advice of her mother and in the middle of the night lays down to warm his feet. The same way my wife puts her ice-cold feet on me to warm up. Not my thing, but Boaz dug it.  

He wakes up, makes a vow that he will redeem her if he can’t find anyone else willing to do so. He was an older man, so maybe his insecurities were sprouting up, who knows. What we know is redeeming her meant buying her. Taking her from her current situation of slavery and bringing her into his home at a price. What does she have to do? Nothing, just believe he has paid for her freedom. Sound familiar?

He goes to town but nobody thought she was “worth” the money so he did what he said. Paid full price for her, paraded her around as his bride, had children with her, and they lived happily ever after. That’s it, cool story, I guess. Just wait.

The thing that I couldn’t unsee, besides disgusting feet, was something Naomi said to her while giving her the game plan:

Ruth 2:20 “Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn His kindness from the living and from the dead.”

Notice, “living and the dead.” Like those who are on the other side of the great chasm that separates us? Like his mercy that never ends, in this age or the next? I get it, some might say that’s a stretch. She was clearly referring to her dead husband and two sons we read about in the beginning. That’s true, but do the scriptures not reach into every age? Could there be a message behind the message?

The great Church Father Origen thought so!

“If you try to reduce the divine meaning to the purely external signification of the words, the Word will have no reason to come down to you. It will return to its secret dwelling, which is contemplation that is worthy of it. For it has wings, this divine meaning, given to it by the Holy Spirit who is its guide ... But to be unwilling ever to rise above the letter, never to give up feeding on the literal sense, is the mark of a life of falsehood.”

 Ouch.

Here is why I believe this story is worthy of the “hope” of Ultimate Reconciliation. Ruth was a Moabite who married into a Jewish family. The “chosen” ones.  Where did the Moabites come from? I won’t get too graphic since maybe you don’t want images you can’t unsee yourself, but you can read it in Genesis 19. The short story: Ruth was a byproduct of an incestuous relationship between Lot and one of his daughters. One daughter had a son from a booze-filled night and named him Moab. Good luck with that.  

Ruth was an enemy of God since she was an enemy of Israel. She was lucky to be married into the family to be “saved.” Then she finds herself unworthy again, and in that culture, if you were an unmarried women life was pretty much over. Dead. Then her redeemer stepped up and paid for it all bringing her, even in death, into the fold once again. Will Jesus stop doing this, even after death?

Once you get the lens of ultimate reconciliation, the lens that God’s kindness never runs out, these passages pop off the page. The same way I can go into a room and instantly see if someone doesn’t have their shoes on. It’s hard not to see it once you see it. Both the Moabite and the Jew needed saving. Both needed grace and both got it at the threshing floor which was symbolic of redemption.

Ruth and Boaz did have a child named Obed. Guess where? Bethlehem where Jesus was born too! Obed gave birth to David who would become the king of Israel and of course go way down the line, and Mary would have Jesus, who would eventually have his feet pierced so we may have peace. It’s what he does. Why? Because he is kind to both the living and the dead.  

This passage, in the spiritual realm, speaks to this matter. Jesus has even redeemed my feet. Across the top, I have tattooed “blessed are the feet that bring good news.” I took something ugly, to me anyway, and made it hopeful. Should we not hope the same from our redeemer? Can you see it?

A Handful of Reasons to Join a Church [despite the exodus] - Sharad Yadav

S harad Yadav is Lead Pastor of Bread & Wine church in Portland, OR.

As I try to remember why the hell I do this for a living, here is a handful of reasons, dear friends, to consider joining a church:

1. To join a church is to commit to a social circle you do not get to choose and can therefore show you whether your spirituality is bullshit or not

2. Joining a church is a way of practicing - among a small group of people over a significant period of time - what you’d like the world to be like

3. To join a church is to live in rebellion against the neoliberal and capitalist forces which are brainwashing you into making your consumer desire the center of the world, reducing all your experiences of the world (including all the people in it) to instruments and resources.

4. Joining a church is to organize your life around a time to confess your limitations, culpability and imperfections together with other people so that you can get used to receiving divine forgiveness and hope in response to your honesty.

5. To join a church is to resist all traditional loyalties to state, party, culture, family or affinity in an act of loyalty to a group that transcends all natural categories

6. Joining a church organizes your financial priorities around supporting an inclusive community for vulnerable people . . . that you actually have to live with.

7. To join a church is to cultivate an environment unlike your home, work, or play where your life is not measured according to any other purpose or goal than to discover and enjoy your own humanity.

8. Joining a church is a way of maintaining healthy skepticism about human knowledge and capacities in the language of divine mystery.

9. To join a church is to cultivate an imagination for how your unique talents and creative potential can be offered on purpose for love instead of money

10. Joining a church is a life lesson in how to deal with assholes without retaliating, dehumanizing or running away (in the desperate hope of not becoming an a$$hole).

Good News! Ron Dart's "The Beatitudes: When Mountain Meets Valley" is back in print

The contemplative tradition within the West tends to define the spiritual journey in three phases: purgative, illuminative, and unitive. This classification tends to ignore the fact that the contemplative journey has substantial political, social, and economic implications as well. Many modern mystics have recognized this failure in understanding and defining the contemplative pilgrimage. That is why a fourth stage has been added: transformative. It seems to me that the Beatitudes embody all four phases: purgative, illuminative, unitive, and transformative. This makes perfect sense, of course, Jesus understood the waymarks of the mature and integrated faith journey, and the Beatitudes best embody such a path between peak and valley.

This missive is a brief reflection and commentary on the rip-rap steps that make up the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes can tell us much about the deeper meaning of the time-tried path to the eternal peak. They can also ensure that we do not lose our footing as we traverse the slopes where mountain and valley meet.

Stephen Hui's "Destination Hikes" - Review by Ron Dart

Review of Stephen Hui, Destination Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia (Greystone Books: Vancouver, 2021). Foreword by Cecilia Point

I have before me a few first edition books (collector’s items I assume) that were pioneering guide books in their day: Mt. Garibaldi: Vancouver’s Alpine Playground (1922) by Don Munday, a signed edition of Dick Culbert’s 1960s A Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges of British Columbia, a splendid 1967 copy of Glenn Woodsworth’s A Climber’s Guide to the Squamish Chief and Surrounding Areas (signed by the superb climber and search and rescue legend Tim Auger—we spent some lovely time in Lake O’Hara many a year ago) and the many editions of 103 Hikes in Southwestern British Columbia by, initially, David/Mary Macaree, then Jack Bryceland. The more recent stepping on the stage by Stephen Hui has enriched and enlarged, updated, and revealed yet a greater variety of more and less demanding treks to take.

The publication of Destination Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia is a fit and fine companion to Stephen’s earlier book, 105 Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia. The style of both books is much the same, but this new book adds to the possibilities of trails yet to take and destinations yet to see. The book is divided into four regions: 1) Hikes North of Vancouver, 2) Hikes East of Vancouver, 3) Hikes West of Vancouver and 4) Hikes South of Vancouver (in the United States). Each hike is replete with superb photographs and headings that include distance, time, elevation gain, high point, difficulty, maps and trailhead. Photographs also include a variety of animals, waterfalls, scenic sights, thick forests, carpeted forest floors, signs, alpine flowers, wooden cabins, richly coloured clouds, and various types of glaciers. There are also many “Stop of Interest” sections that make a trip to the mountains yet more attractive and worth the effort in doing. Stephen, rightly so, makes it clear that for those keen to take to the mountains (shorter or longer trips) preparation and precautions are needful and necessary—he has a fine few pages that cover the basics of outdoor rambling so that one and all return safely and in good form.

The 55 hikes included in Destination Hikes do, as the subtitle suggests,

point to “Swimming Holes, Mountain Peaks, Waterfalls and More”. The “More” opens up more enchanted trails worth the trekking. 19 of the hikes are north of Vancouver, 20 of the hikes east of Vancouver, a mere 7 of the hikes west of Vancouver and another 9 hikes south of Vancouver (in the state of Washington). So, the bulk of the hikes in this timely beauty and bounty of a well-crafted book are north and east of Vancouver.

The Foreword by Cecilia Point is a keeper not to miss. Cecilia has an evocative way of inviting those keen to take to such sacred and time tried 1^st Nations landscapes to realize many have gone before them and their footprints still remain for those with eyes to see and hearts to feel. The Foreword is, indeed, worth a few meditative reads and much inward digesting.

The “Overview Maps” (pages 30-37) are well worth the pondering as plans are made for trips into the backcountry and means of evaluating the expectations and demands of such trips, mountain weather, and group dynamics, always, of course, the variable and unpredictable elements in any mountain and rambling trip.

I have done most of the trips that Stephen so well describes and there can be no doubt that Destination Hikes is a must-have book for those eager to take to the mountains, alpine lakes, peaks, ridges, and much else in southwestern British Columbia and further southward into Washington. The book also provides most of the information needed for safe trips there and back again and continues the unfolding journey

of solid and reliable guidebooks for those interested and committed

to mature trips into the bounty of beautiful British Columbia.

Montani Semper Liberi

Ron dart                     

Josh McDowell Steps Back and Walks Back Racial Statements

Wayne Northey's response to Michael Gryboski's article:

https://www.christianpost.com/news/josh-mcdowell-steps-back-from-ministry-over-racial-remarks.html

82 years and 150 books in, Christian “intellectual” McDowell has finally learned something about Black History in America? Thank God we’re never too old to learn! But this lacunain his awareness of historical reality of Blacks in America is  unimaginable and for an American Christian unconscionable.

As to his disparaging view that ‘social justice is our next epidemic,’ one can only pray that it may be so! In fact, Amos (5:24) shouts out:

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

To be sure: the above kind of pandemic pandemonium would be thrilling!

There is this to ponder from email correspondence with Archbishop Lazar Puhalo: Evangelicals are, in my opinion, the primary driving force of atheism in America. We are a very small voice attempting to counter that, but I suspect that ultimately Evangelicals and fundamentalists will prove to be house wreckers to Christianity.¹

In 1975 I was a research assistant for a brilliant Old Testament biblical scholar at Regent College, Vancouver Canada. Out of the blue one day, he commented that he just did not get that Clark Pinnock, an early mentor to me, who had announced an intention to teach a course that coming fall named “The Politics of Jesus.” (And incidentally, White American Evangelicals then were just beginning to discover politics in the worst way! And I do mean worst. You may read about that in my: Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.)² He paused, then added something like: “There are no politics in the Bible!”

In The Immaculate Mistake: How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump (2021), by Rodney Wallace Kennedy, we discover:

President Donald Trump originated his political career by claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the USA. His “birtherism” theory was discredited, but there’s another possibility about birth. Evangelicals have given birth to Donald Trump in the immaculate mistake. Evangelicals are not a collection of dumb and irrational people; they are the creators of the demolition presidency of Trump. He is their child–the result of almost one hundred years of evangelical angst, resentment, and hurt. This is the story of how Trump has become a secular evangelical preacher and his message of fear, hatred, division, and getting even has captured the hearts and minds of evangelicals. Rather than dismissing them, this work takes them seriously and literally and offers a frank and disturbing series of portraits of their determination to win at all costs.

 

Another brilliant Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann³

encourages preachers to think of themselves as “handler[s] of the prophetic tradition,” a job description that also applies to other intellectual professions. Brueggemann argues that this isn’t about intellectuals imposing their views and values on others, but about being willing to “connect the dots”:

Prophetic preaching does not put people in crisis. Rather it names and makes palpable the crisis already pulsing among us. When the dots are connected, it will require naming the defining sins among us of environmental abuse, neighborly disregard, long-term racism, self-indulgent consumerism, all the staples from those ancient truthtellers translated into our time and place.⁴

In other words, the preacher’s task is centrally about politics, because it is all about relationships! It is, as this website is dedicated to, about preaching the Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire.⁵

One might say of evangelicals collectively: “The [movement] doth protest too much, methinks.“–WN

In McDowell’s stepping back from active ministry, he might benefit immensely from sitting at Professor Brueggemann’s feet. Perhaps Book 151 would consequently have (possibly for the first time?) authentic prophetic Christian witness in it. One can always hope . . .

But in stepping back and showing movement towards repentance and change, my wise friend, Brad Jersak, says in response to the article:

. . . as a practitioner of restorative justice, you can [surely] affirm his retraction . . . If he has both recanted and stepped back, what more would we want to see?

I can only add: Amen!–and a hope indeed to see the fruits of repentance. One is never too late for that, either. That is, our both needing it and doing so!

Mr. McDowell, one can wish in you–in millions of your white Evangelical kin–an infusion of the Spirit of Amos: But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! ⁶

And again: Amen! (Now on to my own acts of repentance . . .)

Excerpts:

Prominent Christian author and apologist Josh McDowell announced that he will step away from his ministry work and speaking events for the time being after making controversial remarks about minorities and education.

In a statement posted Wednesday afternoon to his Twitter account, the 82-year-old said that the backlash from his recent comments at the American Association of Christian Counselors conference on Saturday led him to conclude that he had to step away from his ministry efforts for a time.

“It has become clear to me, along with Cru leadership, that I need to step back from my ministry and speaking engagements to enter a season of listening and addressing the growth areas that I have become aware of through this,” stated McDowell, who has authored and co-authored over 150 books.

…

Central Baptist College Professor Aaron New was among those outraged by the comments, taking to Twitter to note that he was “kinda stunned” by McDowell’s remarks.

“Apparently he also claims ‘social justice is our next epidemic,'” tweeted New. “[McDowell, can] you confirm and/or explain? Because this is […] absolutely horrible.”

“I’m not anyone of much significance. So he doesn’t owe *me* anything,” he added. “But I do think [McDowell] should clarify or explain or apologize – just for starters.”

Grove City College Professor Warren Throckmorton wrote in a blog entry Sunday that McDowell “completely ignored the actual reasons for lack of equity in opportunity.”

“He spent the first 10 minutes of his AACC speech blasting the concept of structural impediments to equity. So Mr. McDowell, what is the reason for lack of equal opportunity?” stated Throckmorton.

“I hope this incident will be a teachable moment for white evangelicals who have mindlessly accepted the word of their talking heads about CRT [Critical Race Theory].”

McDowell issued an apology soon after his Saturday speech in which he admitted that his comments were a “generalized statement that does not reflect reality.”

Because of Love - Stacey Chomiak (at the Bridge)

Stacey Chomiak spoke at the Bridge Church, Abbotsford, BC on Oct. 3, 2021on her journey as a gay Christian.

The event marked the Bridge's "coming out" service as an inclusive, welcoming, and affirming community of people who aspire to live out their Christian faith in love, based on their understanding of the gospel, rather than driven by ideology.

Stacey is an LGBTQ Christian Speaker, artist, author, and art director who has just written, illustrated, and published her memoir, Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming-of-Age Story. 

Stacey and her wife Tams have been married for ten years and have two children. 

The entire service is viewable on vimeo here (see documents below video):

The service, led by Eden Jersak and Karina Loewen, included:

• A poem, "And the Table Will Be Wide" by Jan Richardson - CLICK HERE to download "And The Table Will be Wide"
  
  
• A liturgy for welcome & inclusion, with prayers for the people, adapted from St Mary's Episcopal Church, St Paul, MN - CLICK HERE to download Liturgy for Welcome & Inclusion
  
  
• Stacey's harrowing and beautiful story of how a passionate Jesus-follower 'came out' without losing her faith. - CLICK HERE for the manuscript of Stacey Chomiak's Message - Bridge Church - Oct 3 2021

Regardless of where readers find themselves at this stage in the journey, Stacey's story is essential viewing for those whom the gospel calls to empathy. Even the most ardent conservative faith communities have a "Stacey" in attendance. How might her story inform our life in Christ with them?  

When the Sh*t Stink Lingers - Felicia Murrell

At some point in my life, I came to the realization that I don’t like being around people who once made me feel like sh*t. Even if I was the one creating the narrative about what I thought they thought about me. It doesn’t make being around these people any easier. Sh*t stink lingers on the fingers long after you’ve washed your hands. And sometimes it’s hard to separate actual people from the story you’ve told yourself about those people. But this is the arduous, brutiful (beautiful + brutal) work of healing. The separating, the unraveling. Unbinding yourself from narratives that perpetuate bitterness. 

 

As we surrender to Love’s perfect work, the fury of Love is aimed at everything that is not of Love’s kind. Stripping away all the muck that dims our unique expression as image-bearers …including the narratives we tell ourselves to protect ourselves from other people’s character defects. The things in my life, in your life that happened, happened. Nothing diminishes the veracity of your experience… 

 

The change Love invites us into is how we live and move and have our being in spite of, or rather, because of those things. How do I exist in my body in a way that isn’t fragmented or stunted? For me, when sh*t stink lingers on my fingers, my defended self goes into warrior mode - distancing, walling off, hiding out, doing whatever feels right to protect herself from pain, from hurt and harm. Whenever I catch a whiff of that foul smell, I know it’s an invitation to pause. To touch my heart. To name fear. Feel my feet supported by the earth. To express gratitude for the self who survived hell and has lived to tell it. This does not always silence the stories, but like the eye of a storm, in the center all is calm. And from this grounded state, I tell my mind: I will not live trapped in a story of my own making, and I offer myself compassion.

 

As Tara Brach says, “Compassion honors our experience; it allows us to be intimate with the life of this moment as it is. Compassion makes our acceptance wholehearted and complete.”

 

-Felicia Murrell, 2021

Assaulted and Blamed ... at Bible College - Wayne Northey

The article highlighted below begins with Megan Wohlers telling her story of abuse, and ends with these understated words from her:

And that’s not how Jesus would have acted.

Esther, my partner, works with MCCBC End Abuse in support of women in abusive relationships. A majority of them are from conservative evangelical churches in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. The program follows a curriculum, and workers are trained by one of the authors of: When Love Hurts. That author is Karen McAndless-Davis. Esther and I are privileged also to facilitate the Home Improvement Program that works with men perpetrating the harm. There is much hopefulness in both programs.

That said, what is in the article highlighted below is sick and disgusting. But it is no surprise. In my post, Evangelicals, Let’s Talk About Violence Against Women, the author of the highlighted article, Kristin Kobes du Mez writes:

In part, evangelical political identity coalesced around opposition to feminism (among other things). When feminists championed legislation to curb violence against women, evangelicals’ first instinct was to oppose it. But there was more to their resistance than knee-jerk reactionary politics. Evangelical identity was (and is) based in a gender system that makes violence against women easier to dismiss, excuse, and deny.

…

Bushnell¹ and Southard², however, remained minority voices. The majority of evangelicals in the twentieth century preferred to uphold a patriarchal gender order, defend it as God’s will, and even situate it as a nonnegotiable requirement of the Christian faith. This explains why, in the midst of the recent deluge of abuse allegationssweeping through evangelical communities, someone like John Pipercould confidently blame the abuse of women on an “egalitarian myth,” not on the unequal power relations evangelicals have imposed on women and men. For evangelicals like Piper, complementarianism—which enshrines male authority over women in church, home, and society—is the solution, not the problem (emphasis added).

…

It’s worth noting that evangelicals are not speaking with one voice on this topic. Forty-eight percent of white evangelicals support an unrepentant perpetrator of sexual assault, but 36% find this unacceptable. Women like Beth Moore, Jen Pollock Michel, and Karen Swallow Prior (and many men, too) are speaking out in defense of sexual assault victims. Initially cautious when it came to the Kavanaugh allegations, Pollock Michel was stirred by what she heard at the hearing: “I don’t know how you hear that as a woman without feeling the complete horror and panic of that moment,” she explained to the Washington Post, referring to Ford’s account of the alleged assault. “As evangelical Christians, we say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. I think it really is a moment for us to be asking ourselves as Christians about our own kind of hunger for righteousness.”

As in the past, this view seems to be the minority view.

Please see my Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by the same author of the article above, Kristin Kobes du Mez.

She makes clear again in the final chapter that

. . . evangelicalism must be seen as a cultural and political movement rather than as a community defined chiefly by its theology (p. 298).

CLICK HERE to continue reading