Donald Miller's Prayer at the DNC

Here is the transcript for Miller's prayer:

"Father God,

This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.

We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.

We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.

Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.

Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.

Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.

Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.

Hep us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.

Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.

Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world.

A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.

Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world.

Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.

Lastly, father, unify us.

Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.

And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

God we know that you are good.

Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.

I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.

Let Him be our example.

Amen."

Thoughts?

AE

Video: Saddleback Civic Forum Featuring Obama and McCain

Part 1

Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8


Part 9


Part 10


Part 11


Thoughts?
AE

Narrative Gospel Conclusion and Reference List (Narrative Gospel Part 8)

It is my contention that the Gospel narrative is transcendent and therefore relevant to all cultures. This does not mean that our methodologies for communicating it do not need to change. In fact, quite the opposite seems to be true. If the Gospel is a message for those who do not yet believe, then their perception of the message we are trying to communicate becomes critically important. If we are attempting to actually communicate the story of the Gospel to a culture that is constantly changing, we must understand the world of our intended hearers so that what they hear us saying is what we mean to be saying. They still have a choice in the matter, but wouldn’t it be a shame if the message they reject isn’t the one we meant to communicate. The story of the Gospel existed and was communicated before the advent of modernity and it will continue to be powerful and relevant long after modernity and what we now call “postmodernity” are distant memories; until “the Story we find ourselves in” reaches its resolution. We must not insist that someone must convert to a modern epistemology in order to be converted by the Gospel. We must not use a narrative of invitation to motivate by exclusion. We must inhabit and embody the story we profess to believe. We must not only believe and speak the Gospel, but our very lives must be “good news” to the world around us. We must allow those who don’t yet believe to join with us; to walk with us; to learn to believe by belonging. In a culture that is deeply suspicious of coercive meta-narratives and power games, we must profess, inhabit, embody, and invite them into a “true” narrative that refuses to be “meta.”

REFERENCES
1. Brueggemann, Walter. Theology Of The Old Testament.
2. Gibbs, Eddie. ChurchNext.
3. Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer on Postmodernism. Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing, 1996.
4. ---. Theology for the Community of God.
5. Honderich, Ted. The Oxford Guide to Philosophy, 2005.
6. Kierkegaard, Soren, D F Swenson, and W. Lowrie. Concluding Unscientific PostScript.
7. Lyotard, Jean François, and Frederic Jameson. The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge. U of Minnesota Press, 1984.
8. McKnight, Scot. Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us. SPCK Publishing, 2007.
9. McLaren, Brian D. A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant. Zondervan, 2006.
10. ---. More Ready Than You Realize.
11. Middleton, J. Richard, and Brian J. Walsh. Truth is Stranger Than it Used to be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. InterVarsity Press, 1995.
12. Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995.
13. Smith, James K. A. Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Baker Academic, 2006.
14. Sweet, Leonard I., Brian D. McLaren, and Jerry Haselmayer. A Is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church. Zondervan, 2003.
15. Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1992.
16. Wright, N. T., and Wright. The Millennium Myth: Hope for a Postmodern World. Westminster John KnoxPress, 1999.

Believing by Belonging? (Narrative Gospel Part 7)

If then, we can access the truth of the Gospel only from “within” the narrative of the Gospel and in relationship with other believers, then how is it even possible for this narrative to engage those currently outside of it? For quite some time, the church’s strategy for engaging those “outsiders” has been (generally) what McLaren refers to as “motivation by exclusion”. The general idea was that as a community we have a set of beliefs and values, and once outsiders line up with those beliefs and values we will allow them “in” as members of our community. The church isn’t the only organization who has subscribed to this ideology, and it must be admitted that within the framework of the dominant systems of the world it makes a great deal of sense.

However, in a community that is seeking to line up with the narrative of the Gospel, it is simply antithetical to the story, and particularly to the main character: Jesus. When we read the canonical Gospels, we discover that Jesus was radically inclusive. He is constantly in trouble with the religious leaders because of his association with the very outcasts they were seeking to distance themselves from and condemn. He called on people whom he had never met, who were clearly not lined up with his beliefs and values to simply “Come follow me.” Clearly, this is not simply an acceptance or verification of all that these “outsiders” value and believe. Rather, it seems to be the means by which they come to value and believe the things that He does. Eddie Gibbs explains:

“…nonbelievers will be exposed to the gospel in a highly contextualized form. They will not be confronted with a generic, propositional message, but one in which the big story of salvation history as recorded in Scripture is worked out in the little stories of the lives of each individual and at the micro level of the local group of believers. What’s more, they will not be presented with an idealized version of the story that will later lead them to become disillusioned. Instead they will engage in open and honest dialogue with people they know well and consider credible witnesses.”

In the above quote, Gibbs also points out one other crucial aspect. As this “nonbeliever” develops relationships with those in the community of faith who see themselves as embedded in the narrative of the Gospel, the nonbeliever will also learn each of their stories. Each of these smaller stories functions as a sort of mini-gospel that does not serve as a substitute for the Gospel story, but rather serves to reinforce it.

This approach is not simply a “fix” to help the church adapt her methodology so that it is relevant to the postmodern condition. Rather, I believe that it is a matter of fidelity to the Gospel narrative and the Way of Jesus.

(To be concluded...)
AE

Knowing Together (Narrative Gospel Part 6)

If individual objectivity is a myth, what happens when individuals in a community of believers are honest about their own subjectivity? What happens when they don’t deny their subjectivity, but rather own it in dialogue with each other in the context of communal relationships? Stanley Grenz suggests:

“Narrative thinkers remind us that we must view theology in terms of its relationship to the story of God’s action in history. This seminal assertion carries important implications. One ramification is that we can pursue the theological task only ‘from within’—only from the vantage point of the faith community in which we stand…Theology, then is the task of the faith community; it is a community act.”

Thus, as the community of faith attempts to interpret Scripture and speak of God we offer all of our perspectives to each other in honesty, humility and love. We learn to listen to each other and be shaped by each other’s perspectives. This allows each of us to “think outside ourselves”, not by claiming a position of objective neutrality, but by learning to hear other perspectives. Admittedly and intentionally we operate from a position of faith. We do not claim or seek objective neutrality. We have put our confidence and hope in this narrative. Kierkegaard (under a pseudonym) said “Subjectivity is truth” . Though what he meant by his enigmatic statement is somewhat debatable (which would seem to prove his point), I suspect that he was pointing to exactly the reality that we’ve been exploring.
(To be continued...)
AE

Community (Narrative Gospel 5)

In Post-Enlightenment thought, human beings were to be understood first and foremost as individuals. Individual human rationality was virtually deified. While I will note that this development was in many ways a reaction to an epistemology of unthinking compliance with authority, it was also an overcorrecting swing of the pendulum. It would seem that human beings do not have the ability to be objective, and when such objectivity is claimed it serves as a coercive tool that functions to place the proposition at hand in a position that is beyond discussion, investigation, or scrutiny (ironically similar the authoritarian epistemology it was reacting to). In contrast, Walsh and Middleton explain that in Postmodern thought:

“…we simply have no access to something called ‘reality’ apart from the way we represent that reality in our concepts, language and discourse…We can never get outside our knowledge to check its accuracy against ‘objective’ reality. Our access is always mediated by our own linguistic and conceptual constructions.”

It seems that, despite modernity’s insistence on human beings becoming “objective knowers”, such objectivity has eluded us since the dawn of time and will likely continue to do so. Individual human beings appear to be inherently perspectival creatures, thoroughly unable to disembed ourselves from our own subjectivity. If this is our predicament, how can the Gospel, particularly as a narrative, in any way be seen as a means by which truth can be communicated?
The Gospel is contained in a collection of Scriptures that we Christians refer to as “The Bible. This collection of Scripture is fascinatingly communal and frankly defies our individualism and objectivity. Though we profess it to be “inspired” by God’s Holy Spirit, it is written, not by a single author, but by many authors; not in one time period, but over thousands of years; not to individuals primarily, but to communities of believers; not to offer a single, unified perspective, but multiple perspectives on one true God, sometimes offering both “testimony and counter-testimony” . This narrative not only invites us to participation and experience, but also to community; to a place of belonging where we can “know together” .
(To be continued...)

Coercion or Invitation? (Narrative Gospel Part 4)

Coercion or Invitation?

But, one may ask, doesn’t the narrative I proposed earlier function in the same way as the myth of progress? Doesn’t the Christian (meta)narrative demand compliance? In truth, I don’t believe it does. In describing his “Critical Realist” approach to epistemology, Wright explains,

“This…theory of knowledge and verification, then, acknowledges the essentially ‘storied’ nature of human knowing, thinking and living, within the larger model of worldviews and their component parts. It acknowledges that all knowledge of realities external to oneself takes place within the framework of a worldview, of which stories form an essential part. And it sets up as hypotheses various stories about the world in general bits of it in particular and tests them by seeing what sort of ‘fit’ they have with the stories already in place.”

If knowledge and “the way we know things” is actually ‘storied’ in nature, then the Christian narrative offers itself as a hypothesis to be tested. It invites us into itself to participate as characters; to experience the world in the flow of its narrative; to view and interpret the world through its lens. Consequently, Smith’s point from the introduction about the nature of meta-narratives becomes relevant again. Smith argues that the postmodern mantra of “incredulity towards meta-narratives” should be affirmed by Christians because it encourages us to recover both “the narrative character of Christian faith, rather than understanding it as a collection of ideas” and “the confessional nature of our narrative and the way in which we find ourselves in a world of competing narratives.” Is it possible that the Christian narrative is not a meta-narrative at all? I’m not implying that it is not true, nor am I implying that it is simply one of many narratives that have equal rights to validity. However, I am suggesting that it does not function like a meta-narrative. As previously mentioned, I doubt that this difference in function is immediately obvious to the general public, but that’s part of the point. The Gospel narrative refuses to dominate. Is passes over every opportunity to coerce. The various meta-narratives that have been subscribed to by different people groups and cultures demand assent and compliance. In contrast, the Gospel invites. This “non-meta’, but “true” narrative bids us to “Come and see.” It also must be noted that the narrative of the Gospel offers us a choice. It allows for its own rejection. Though the God proclaimed by the Gospel weeps at its rejection, Scripture makes it clear that His love endures for even those who reject Him. Further, the Gospel as embodied by those who have accepted it, still serves to benefit those who have rejected it rather than demonizing or abandoning them. With characteristic eloquence, Brian McLaren explains:

“Many people think…that religions offer benefits to adherents and catastrophic threats for nonadherents. This offer/threat combination motivates people, they assume, to become adherents out of fear of catastrophe and desire for benefits. I think the missional way is better: the gospel brings blessings to all, adherents and nonadherents alike. For example, if Jesus sends people into the world to love and serve their neighbors, their neighbors benefit, and so do the people sent by Jesus, since it is better for them to give than to receive.”

In short, the Gospel narrative refuses its qualifier (meta) and its truth refuses the qualifier “absolute”. Bringing to mind, Jesus’ admonition to simply let our “yes be yes” and our “no be no”, rather than depending on qualifying oaths or promises, it offers itself up, to stand or fall, in the experience of the hearer. It claims no inherent superior intellectual, moral or spiritual status for its adherents. Rather, any benefit that adherents have is that which is granted freely to those who accept the invitation and/or the way they are formed by inhabiting and embodying the narrative. This Gospel refuses to dominate and resists any misguided efforts from its adherents to dominate nonadherents, even in the realm of intellectual certainty. Leslie Newbigin explains:

“…if the Biblical story is true, the kind of certainty proper to all human beings will be one that rests on the fidelity of God, not upon the competence of the human knower. It will be a kind of certainty that is inseparable from gratitude and trust.”

(To Be Continued)
AE

Epistemology (Narrative Gospel 3)

Following up on the "1000 Word Gospel" post and the "Identifying Our Context" post...

EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology has to do with the general theory of knowledge (and how we acquire knowledge.) Under modernity, it was assumed that “knowledge was certain and that the criterion for that certainty rests with our human rational capabilities.” Thus, it was thought that in order to ascertain certain knowledge of “absolute truth”, one must detach oneself and approach the subject as an objective observer. After obtaining this position of detached neutrality, one must reduce the subject to rational propositions that, taken together are logically irrefutable. The attraction of such a system is obvious. If human beings can strip off our subjectivity and simply gain knowledge of objective and absolute truth, then it seems only reasonable that this enlightenment would naturally lead human beings to peace and harmony. This is the great story, the meta-narrative (if you will) into which modernity placed its faith: Progress. Human beings are freeing themselves from all of that superstitious nonsense and subjectivity, and are finally becoming “enlightened”. As they do, the world will just get better and better. After all, knowledge is inherently good, right? As it turns out, these assumptions, reasonable and logical though they may be, are not necessarily true. N.T. Wright explains:

“The myth of progress and enlightenment created the context not only for Charles Darwin, but for that which followed in his wake, namely a “Social Darwinism” that made talk of eugenics, of racial purity, of selective breeding, and ultimately of ‘final solutions’ acceptable, even apparently desirable, not just in Germany, but in Britain and America as well.”

For all of its “propositional truth”, modernity still oriented itself around a narrative of progress. This narrative was forceful, dominating and coercive, virtually demanding that everyone get on board or get out of the way. Anyone who didn’t see the obvious truth of the narrative was deemed either stupid, naive or crazy.

(To be continued)
AE

Family: Emma's Memory Verse, Chloe's hug, and Jan's Baby

Wow! Things are really crazy right now between family stuff, ministry stuff with the new church, and grad school (I've got a paper due this week). Still, there are a couple of things I wanted to share with you:

1. Emma showing off her scripture memorizing and hula hoop skills:


2. Chloe's Hug: (Picture by my lovely and talented wife Dana)

I came home from work yesterday, like I always do, and went around to give all of my girls hugs and kisses. Chloe (coming up on 11 months old) was playing in the playroom and so I just kind of squatted down to watch her. When she turned around and saw me, her face lit up into a huge (really cute) smile and she broke into a full (baby) sprint towards me. She held her arms out wide and then, very deliberately, very intentionally hugged my neck (which was within her reach since I was squatting down). It's the first time she's done that with anyone so deliberately. I'll tell you...in that moment, everything was right in the world.

3. For those of you who may not know it, my sister Jan is probably having a baby today. I say "probably" because she went to the hospital last night and is being induced (they've already given her the medicine and they've already broken her water). I had the honor of performing the wedding ceremony for Jan and her husband Clint a couple of years ago, and now we couldn't be happier about welcoming their daughter (and my new niece) into the world! (Picture also by Dana)



Blessings,
AE

Word Cloud Of My Blog From Wordle

Lots of Link Love

Swamped with grad school, so I haven't been able to post much lately. There are several very interesting links I wanted to share with you though.

• CLICK HERE to buy the audio version of "The Shack" by William Young on itunes for $5.95.
• Need to catch up on your favorite shows or maybe even watch a few free movies? I recommend HULU and FANCAST.
• Want some legal free music to download? (Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Sixpence None The Richer, etc.) Several artists have made there music available at NOISETRADE.
• Do you need quality free backgrounds for powerpoint or mediashout? CLICK HERE for a great free resource.

Enjoy!
AE

Identifying Our Context (Narrative Gospel 2)

As a follow-up to the 1000 word gospel piece, I wrote the following piece in an attempt to identify the current context in which we are attempting to communicate the Gospel. I will probably develop this into a much larger paper for the class where I will wrestle with the questions it raises.

---

As we attempt to engage with how we can effectively translate the message of the Gospel to out culture in our time, it quickly becomes apparent that a few “new” challenges have arisen (though it can be argued that these challenges aren’t particularly “new”, but maybe just forgotten). The task is complicated somewhat by the fact that our prior engagement with modernity led us to certain conclusions and methodologies (such as reductionism and “propositional truth”) that no longer communicate what they once did (they may in fact communicate quite the opposite). Meanwhile, many in the church are unaware or have become confused about what is Scriptural or “historically Christian” and what stems from engagement or even syncretism with modernity.

Even as we must embrace the fact that neither a modern methodology or a modern epistemology are required by the Gospel, we must also recognize that our emerging postmodern context brings both new opportunities and new challenges for the Gospel. Though postmodern philosophy cannot and should not be swallowed wholesale in an undiscerning manner, it can be useful in our task of disentangling our faith and the Gospel from post-enlightenment thought. While postmodern thought is in many ways still in its embryonic stages, one clearly identifiable trend is “incredulity toward metanarratives” . The basic interpretive lens utilized by most people in contemporary western culture is characterized by a deep suspicion. In my opinion, this suspicion cuts two ways: First of all, it is deeply suspect of anything that claims to be totalizing. Grand, sweeping narratives that claim to be the one, true narrative and/or sets of propositions that demand assent are simply seen as power games or a means of coercion. Secondly, through world events as diverse as Auschwitz, the Challenger explosion, and 9-11, the myth of progress has been exposed. Progress is the “new clothes” that the emperor believed he was wearing, when he was actually as naked as the day he was born. One doesn’t need to be a particularly religious person in order to see the idol that modernity made of individual, human reason. What once seemed “enlightened” is now seen as an arrogant sham. There is indeed a deep suspicion of any ideology, concept, or system that claims to be THE answer, THE way, or (certainly) the TRUTH. Quite frankly, in many cases this stems from being disappointed again and again by such claims. Nothing arouses suspicion, mistrust, and doubt so much as certainty. In the postmodern ethos, any claim of certainty from finite and perspectival beings (as we all are) smacks of the worst kind of arrogance and naiveté.

Innovative thinkers Walsh and Middleton point out that this suspicion toward metanarratives is problematic for our proclamation of what is essentially a narrative Gospel. The late Stanley Grenz articulates the same difficulty in his informative “Primer on Postmodernism”. Their point is well taken. If our Gospel is essentially a narrative, and if we would presume to say that it is in any sense “true” in a way that competing narratives are not, then we seem to have a problem. James Smith raises an interesting point, which he means more as a clarification than a disagreement with the previously mentioned authors.. He argues that a narrative is not a metanarrative simply because it is a big, sweeping, all-encompassing story, but rather due to the way it functions. According to Smith, it is only a metanarrative when it is used in a coercive way or as a means of domination. I suspect that Smith is technically correct, but I also suspect that the inherent suspicion that exists on the popular level is not so discerning (at least not on the surface). Therefore, the question that I believe we need to wrestle with is: “How do we proclaim an essentially narrative Gospel in and to a culture that is deeply suspicious of metanarratives, propositional truth, and claims of certainty?”

Resources Consulted

• Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer on Postmodernism. Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing, 1996.
• Lyotard, Jean François, and Frederic Jameson. The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge. U of Minnesota Press, 1984.
• Middleton, J. Richard, and Brian J. Walsh. Truth is Stranger Than it Used to be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. InterVarsity Press, 1995.
• Smith, James K. A. Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Baker Academic, 2006.

1000 Word Gospel (Narrative Gospel Part 1)

I'm taking a "Christ and Culture" for my grad school program at Lipscomb. Last week's assignment was to write out my understanding of "the Gospel" in 1000 words or less (if we went over 1000 words, the paper was to be returned to us ungraded). We are allowed to go back and revise it later if we need to, but I wanted to share what I wrote:

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This Is My Gospel

I want to tell you a story. Telling you this story is a risky endeavor. For starters, I believe that the Gospel contained in this story must be embodied before it can be spoken. If I tell it too early, it can come off as a meaningless fairytale that seems to fit the bill of Marx’s “opiate of the masses”. On the other hand, if I fail to tell it at all, I may rob you of the choice to embrace or reject a hope and a destiny that you may never know of otherwise. All of this is further complicated by the fact that I am massively condensing an enormous amount of material. Think of the story I’m telling you as the movie version of a really great, really long book. Without question, the book is much better than my version of it. Doubtless I will blow certain aspects of it. Unquestionably, I take too much artistic license in places and gloss over parts that are extremely important. Admittedly, some parts of it are more than a little hard to believe. Even so, I believe it. I don’t mean to imply that it has been empirically proven to me. Rather, it is a story that I have confidence in, or rather, that I have “faith” in. It is a story that both requires and is characterized by… hope.

Normally, you begin with the beginning of a story. However, we are going to begin before the beginning. Before the beginning there was God. But this God is somehow a community of three; a Father, a Son, and a Spirit. This community is so unified that the only way to truly capture it is to say “God is One”, or maybe “God is love”.

This God decides to create everything that exists, and He loves everything He creates. In the middle of His creation, God creates human beings “in his image”. They are given a special commission to bear and reflect the image of God to the rest of creation. These human beings live in a state of perfect harmony: harmony with God (he actually is said to “walk” with them), harmony with each other (indeed, it is only in community that they can bear the image of this communal God), and harmony with the rest of God’s creation. Eventually, though, the human beings are persuaded to make an incredibly selfish choice that breaks this perfect harmony, and sends all of creation on a trajectory towards death, decay, and isolation.

But God doesn’t give up on his dream. He begins to enact a plan to restore the broken harmony and make all things new. Time passes and God makes contact with a man named Abram (who’s name is eventually changed to Abraham). Though Abram is old and childless, God makes a covenant with him, in which he promises to create a great nation out of his descendants. They will be God’s people and God will bless them. However, this blessing is explicitly intended to serve an equipping function for a broader mission. These people are to be a light to the world. They are blessed in order to be a blessing to the rest of the world. Abram puts his faith and confidence in this God and begins stumbling down a path toward a God who insists that this faithful stumbler is, in fact, righteous. God is true to his word, delivers on his promises, and a nation is born.

However, as time passes it becomes clear that Abram’s descendants are vulnerable to the same selfishness and self-centeredness that the rest of us are. They are very interested in being blessed, but not so interested in being a blessing. They are very good at pointing out the darkness in others, but not so good at being light. Undeterred from His dream, God takes another step that is as radical as it is unexpected.

God becomes a human being. Not only that, but virtually everything he does in this regard seems counterintuitive from our perspective. God becomes an embryo. He is born as one of us, not in a palace, but in a stable. The heavens open and announce the event first, not to people of great importance…but to shepherds, who are arguably on the lowest rung of the societal ladder of the day. He apparently doesn’t do much that’s worth recording until he’s around 30 years old, and then everything he does goes against our notions of what a respectable God should be like. He pays special attention to the outcasts; to the poor and oppressed; to those who are drowning in their shame. He proclaims something he calls “the Kingdom of God”, which is less like political upheaval, and more God’s dream of harmony that is breaking through into our dissonant reality. Eventually, “the powers that be” make an example of him with a public execution that is as humiliating as it is excruciating. It does not have the desired effect. This man-who-is-God doesn’t stay dead. Three days after they kill him, he is alive again, but he is also changed. He is somehow both physical and eternal. He commissions his followers as a community to be to the world what he was and is to the world, and that is exactly what we are stumbling towards. It is true that we are inadequate for the task, but here’s the thing: After Jesus returned to God’s reality in his new form, He sent his Spirit to live in us, changing and forming us into who we are becoming. We believe that there is a future reality where Jesus returns to us, everything is restored to God’s intention, and all things are made “new”. Our God beckons us from this future to become what we already are from his perspective, and to partner with him in his in-breaking dream for the world. He offers freedom from death, decay and shame. In short, He offers hope.

--AE

Video: N.T. Wright on The Colbert Report

This video clip represents one of the biggest fan-boy geek-out moments I've ever had. For me, the only thing that would have made it cooler is if Batman and Iron Man walked out at the end.
AE

(relatively) Hallowed Ground: My visit to Alexander Campbell's Home

One thing that I really wanted to do before I moved from West Virginia was to visit Bethany. For those who don't know, Bethany is this historic homestead of Alexander Campbell , who is, in some sense, the/a founder of the American Restoration Movement (Churches of Christ, Independent Christian Churches, and Disciples of Christ). This post may not have relevance to you if you do not share my particular religious heritage, but I wanted to share my experience.

Bethany is about 2 1/2 hours from where I lived in West Virginia, and I thought it would be sort of a shame if I didn't at least visit the place...after all, I've grown up in this tradition, and actually have done a bit of historical research on our movement. About a week before we moved, my friend Matt Wilson came to visit, and my friend and (now former) co-worker Joe Spivy (who had been to Bethany several times before) agreed to go with us and act as a sort of guide. I don't think that Matt or I were prepared for how the experience would affect us. I'll let Matt tell you his perspective on our pilgrimage(?), but as for me, it was a profound moment in my life. Campbell's house and study are still standing, and its quite amazing how much has actually survived. As we walked through the house and as I stood in Campbell's study, this profound sense of being a part of a story came over me. I kept thinking "This is real," which is silly on one level, because I already new that. I guess it's more that it became real, or maybe tangible to me. We went to a church that Campbell actually regularly preached at, and the archives containing historical documents at Bethany college, where I saw Thomas Campbell's personal copy of the "Declaration and Address," with his handwritten notes in the margins. It was an experience that I'll treasure for the rest of my life. Alexander Campbell, and his father Thomas Campbell were attempting to be Jesus to their world in their time. Deeply embedded in both modernity and early American culture, they effectively engaged their culture with the Gospel. They spoke prophetically where they felt that Scripture called them to do so. Being fallible human beings, they made mistakes, but their lives and legacy are inspiring, none the less. I felt a renewed sense of a calling to be faithful to that legacy. As we enter into a post-modern age (whatever that may wind up meaning), I want to be faithful to the legacy of these men who effectively engaged their culture with the message of Jesus. To simply emulate their forms, constructs, etc. would be unfaithful to this legacy. To unquestioningly accept the status quo would be a betrayal of it. To constantly go back to Scripture and wrestle with faithfully translating the faith and practice found theirin for our time, is the path that they cleared for us. May I follow them as they follow Christ.
AE
Here are some pics I took with a camera phone:

This is a bust of Alexander Campbell

This is Alexander Campbell's personal study/library

This is the Inscription on Alexander Campbell's tombstone

This is a floorboard from the Brush Run Church Meeting House

This is Alexander Campbell's personal writing desk

This is Alexander Campbell's...ummmm....toilet chair ;)

Back to the Blog...

We are settling into our new home, and after an extended absence, I have returned to inject my random thoughts and opinions into the blogosphere. Additionally I plan on launching a new podcast of my sermons and stuff in the next couple of weeks.

As for us, we are settling into our new house and it is starting to look more like a home and less like a warehouse full of unopened boxes. Dana is amazing in her ability to turn our house into a home (among many, many other things). Emma and Chloe have been enjoying visits from various grandparents, who are excited that we are close enough to visit more frequently. The church has been amazing in making us feel welcome and in making us feel like we are already a part of their family. A large crew of them was there (with coolers full of cold water) to help us unload the moving truck, which they accomplished in no time. Yesterday was my first official Sunday as the "preaching minister", and it felt really "right".

This summer I am taking a web-based class for Grad School on "Christ and Culture". It should be really interesting.
AE

Quoting Theology: Caputo on Hope

"If at the end of our lives we find that all our hopes have been sensible and moderate and measured by the horizon of the future present, if we have never been astir with the impossible, then we shall also find that on the whole life has passed us by. If safe is what you want, forget religion and find yourself a conservative investment counselor. The religious sense of life has to do with exposing oneself to the radical uncertainty and the open-endedness of life...which is meaning-giving, salt-giving, risk-taking...Religion on my telling is a pact or 'covenant' with the impossible. To have a religious sense of life is to long with a restless heart for a reality beyond reality, to tremble with the possibility of the impossible."

--John D. Caputo, On Religion (Thinking in Action)

N.T. Wright Hopes Matthew Paul Turner does the Hokey Pokey (maybe I should have put a comma in there somewhere)

Sorry I've been terrible at blogging lately. I'll get back to regular posting soon. In the meantime, I wanted to recommend 2 books that I've read recently:



Hokey Pokey: Curious People Finding What Life Is All about by Matthew Paul Turner

In the interest of full disclosure and so I don't seem like a shill, I should tell you that Matthew is a friend. That being said, I actually liked this book. The really refreshing thing about this book is Mathew's unflinching honesty. His subject is "calling" or vocation, and his main premise is that you must have 2 things to be able to hear and follow the calling of God. You must be curious about life and you must be truly free. Those 2 notions bear unpacking, and Matthew does this brilliantly in Hokey Pokey. Those who want a straightforward, linear argument will be sadly disappointed though. Matthew makes no claims of being a theologian (though he underestimates himself in this regard). Matthew is a storyteller, and a gifted one at that. He writes his text, not so much as an authority on the subject, but rather as a traveler on a journey who invites us to walk with him. He interweaves insights (though he might object to this word) with stories and interviews, and offers the mixture as less of an answer and more of a shared path to answers. Don't let the title fool you, this is not a children's book. It is at times hillarious, poignant and profound. Turner's uncompromising honesty is sure to offend some, but it is just as sure to bless and inspire those of us who are gripped with an insatiable curiosity for more than our current experience and traditions have to offer.


Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
In the interest of full discloser, though I have never met N.T. Wright, I am unashamedly an admirer of his work. I would have picked up his latest book if it had been titled "A Short History of Earthworms, by N.T. Wright". With that being said, this book far exceeded my expectations. Sincerely, I think this may be the single most important Christian book that has been written in the last decade (at least). Interweaving theology and history, Wright argues that somewhere along the way Christians substituted a warped and anemic version of "heaven" for the Biblical concept and have almost completely neutered or lost the Biblical concept of the Resurrection. He further argues that this has fundamentally warped the identity and mission of the church. Wright then paints a picture of Resurrection, Heaven, and Christian Mission that is both Biblical and inspiring. Without any hesitation, I recommend this book to every Christian, and especially every Christian leader. May you be filled with the hope that Wright unveils in these pages.

-AE

9 Years Later

Nine years ago today, Dana and I stood in the front of a small chapel on the campus of Troy State University surrounded by our family and friends and promised to love each other for the rest of our lives. In the years that have passed since then, she has consistently outdone me on that promise. I cannot even imagine anyone that I would rather walk through life together with. She has supported me beyond anything I would have ever dared to ask for. We have two beautiful little girls and I literally thank God every single day that she is their mother and my wife. Dana is a gift from God. I am still amazed that she would choose to be my wife.

I love you, Dana.

Adam

Family: Quick Update

I've got a grad school paper that I've got to finish by midnight, but I wanted to give a quick update of what's going on with us.

• Our house in WV is under contract and we have a contract on a house in SC. We should actually be able to move house-to-house (which is a real blessing). Thanks to all of you who have been praying about this.
• Chloe is crawling "faster than a speeding bullet" and she's also started "giving fives". I don't care who you are, that kid's smile can melt your heart.
• Emma got her cast off. She was a little upset when her knee and ankle were still sore (even though we told her they would be). She is walking much better (more normal) every day. She says the funniest things. The other night we put her to bed and she'd been in there maybe 1 1/2 minutes when she yelled out "I had a bad dream!" We said something like "Honey, you haven't even had time to go to sleep yet." Without missing a beat, she replied, "It was a daydream...you know...when you dream while you are still awake."
• Dana's parent's flew up this weekend for a quick visit. Its always great to spend time with them, though this grad school paper kept me from being as good a host as I should have been. Dana and the girls have really enjoyed their visit, and are chatting and dreaming about how easy it will be to "get together" or even for Emma to spend the weekend with them in the near future. Dana has also enjoyed having her personal "stylist" (her mom) at the house.
• My parents are coming up at the end of may to help us pack up and move. It is not particularly easy for either one of them to get away, and we appreciate this more than we can even express to them.

Hope that sort of catches you up. Back to the paper!
AE

Busy Week

I have a really busy week this week, so my blogging will suffer.  Should be back on schedule next week, with a few extra posts thrown in for book reviews.
AE

Quoting Theology: N.T. Wright on the Church's Mission

"There has been a lot of talk where I work about a 'mission-shaped church,' following a report with that title, urging today's church to regard mission not as an extra, something to fit in if there's any time left over from other concerns, but as the central and shaping dynamics of its life. But if this is to mean what it ought to mean, we must also reshape our ideas of mission itself. It's no good falling back into the tired old split-level world where some people believe in evangelism in terms of saving souls for timeless eternity and other people believe in mission in terms of working for justice, peace, and hope in the present world. That great divide has nothing to do with Jesus and the New Testament and everything to do with the silent enslavement of many Christians (both conservative and radical) to the Platonic ideology of the Enlightenment. Once we get the resurrection straight, we can and must get mission straight. If we want a mission-shaped church, what we need is a hope-shaped mission."

--N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Moltmann's Hope (Part 6: Conclusion)

New

Rev 21:5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” TNIV

If Jurgen Moltmann has a favorite verse in the Bible, Revelation 21:5 may well be it. As the title of one of his more recent books proclaim, Moltmann believes that our story “ends” with a “beginning”. However, it would be a mistake to assume that he believes that history is heading towards a return of all creation to its original state. On the contrary, Moltmann believes that this “new creation”, this “new heaven(s) and new earth”, this “future of God” is qualitatively new. He argues that:

“The future is God’s new creation. It is not a return of primordial day, nor is it a prolongation of the past. Past history and the new future which is prophetically promised no longer belong within the same temporal continuum. They are contrasted as ‘old’ and ‘new’. They become two separate times which are different in quality. Their unity is to be found solely in the faithfulness of God, who lets the old become obsolete and creates what is new.”

Afterlife

So, what will the experience of the afterlife in this “future of God” be like? How will we experience it? In Moltmann’s view, all things, even human beings are made “new”. Christ’s resurrection serves as a “firstfruits” of this truth, and it is a truth that Moltmann cherishes. He writes:

“If Christ is to bring everything again, then nothing can be lost to him, not even that which we cannot hold on to here. What we have loved, what we miss, will return again in his future, for the resurrection is stronger than death. Everything which is divided by death will be found again in the resurrection. I find this hope to be very comforting, for it makes us ready to let go what we cannot hold on to, and gives us the strength to live with the pain of separation and forsakenness. The separation from the people we love and the forsakenness which love experiences are not the end, for they are not the last of all.”

For Moltmann, this is not just true in the personal sense or even solely in the sense of being true for human beings. In his view, this is true “cosmically”.

Not only does Moltmann believe that all things are “made new”, he further contends that these temporal things become eternal. This is achieved by God becoming “all in all”, which Moltmann conceives of as a sort of future panenthiesm. In essence, he believes t