Blogcast of the Common Table

OK, so I can't not post about this. :-) If perchance anybody who reads this blog from afar has ever wondered, "So what do they do at this little coffee-house church called Common Table?", my best advice is to come and visit and stay for at least a month, 'cause no single gathering is going to give you anything like a good answer to that question. My second-best advice is to come and visit at least once. My third-best (and last-ditch) advice is is to check out our (quite nifty, IMHO) web site. But while that will give you some idea of what we think about and how we relate to the wide, wild world, until recently there wasn't a whole lot there that would tell you what it's like when we gather for worship services and service-worship, our two most frequent forms of coming together IRL (in real life) to serve and love God, our neighbors, and each other.

But now, thanks mostly to the tireless creative genius of the mighty iPete, we have a rockin' blogcast site with elements to help you experience (a little bit, anyway) our current worship series, on "Space". So far, we've got posts on our first three worship services in the series: Physical Space (the [human] is in the space), Relational Space (the [healing] is in the space), and Temporal Space (the [funk] is in the space), plus one for this past Saturday's joyous service-worship, in which we made space in the lives of some friends of ours who are parents of young kids, giving them an afternoon to themselves while we transformed the inside of Jack and Pete's house into a (well-regulated) party zone for 11 kids, aged 7 months to 8 years.

There are also podcasts of the worship services, and if you keep on scrolling down, you'll find content from last year's Easter season series ("Blooms"). It's all good stuff, and although it's only a taste of our gatherings, a taste is far better than nothing, and I think it's pretty cool.

For Helen and her clergy friends

UPDATE: I want to apologize to Ann and anybody else who felt unwelcomed by my middle-of-the-night mild frustration reflected in my words in this post (which I've edited a little). One thing to note as I ask for forgiveness: the timestamp on a blogger post shows when the post was begun; I actually finished this around 3am. I promise I wouldn't have taken the time to assemble all this info in the middle of the night if I didn't care deeply about welcoming folks from my Anglican tribe into the emerging church conversation, and I honestly am deeply sorry to have made folks feel the opposite of welcome. There's nothing wrong with studying "emerging church", reading books by folks like McLaren and co., and discussing it with other folks who share an interest, but aren't directly connected with the conversation. I did that for years before I stumbled upon a community of emerging church folk five minutes from my home. But I stand by my challenge that you will not really begin to get it until you make direct contact with this web of friendships. "Emerging church" is this web of friendships, plus a whole, holistic worldview shift that is shared (in one form or another) by the folks in these friendships. It's not just a new style of worship or a new type of ministry.

Again, I hope anybody whom I've made feel unwelcome will forgive me and, if you're interested in what you've heard or read about the emerging church, will reach out and make contact. You should expect to feel welcomed - I fell down in that regard - but you should also expect to be challenged.

~~~~~

So my friend Helen (aka Gallycat, aka Helcat - the woman has more online personas than Pete) was at the Annual Council for the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia today, and she posted the following request on her blog:

There were a whole bunch of clergy attending the emerging church discussion group and I think out of the people there I had the most experience in it. Mike, you're so much more well versed in it as a whole--would you be willing to post a comment with links that the clergy I then pointed to my blog could access for more understanding?

As an aside - what's up with that? So there was an emerging church discussion group at Council, but nobody there who is doing church in an emerging church context? I'm glad it was a topic of interest, though, and I'm glad the subject was being approached in an open discussion format. For future reference, I have a lot of friends who would be happy to show up and talk with Episcopal clergyfolk (or layfolk) about emerging church stuff. I'll link to some of them below. Most of us wouldn't be looking for a speaking fee or anything - it's just a matter of being friendly and learning from each other, which are things that emerging church folk, generally speaking, dig - and most of us would prefer an open discussion / sharing / Q&A to being on either end of a lecture. We do have friends who make a lot of their living from speaking engagements - folks like Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt and Sally Morgenthaler - so if you'd like to import one of the big names, I'm certain they'd be pleased as punch to come and do that thing they do. But most of us local folks would just be interested in friendship and mutual sharing of our stories and challenges in the Church. Anyway....

So my first recommendation for any clergy (or others) seeking more understanding of the emerging church movement/conversation/whatever: please don't expect to find it on the other end of these links. Unless, that is, your next move after doing this research is to actually reach out to somebody (or bodies) in the movement and establish some kind of relationship with them. It could be in person (invite somebody to your church, or visit theirs, or invite them out for coffee or a pint), online (read a blog and comment, or send an email, or make some Facebook friends), but the first thing you need to know about the "emerging church" is that it's nothing more or less than a web of relationships. There is no unifying organizational structure, no unity of doctrine or practice or affiliation that binds this movement together. The thing that does unite us is relationships - friendships. I unhesitatingly guarantee that you will not begin to understand the emerging church unless you enter into that network of relationships, at least a little bit.

With that in mind, let me provide some links for those interested in connecting with the emerging church, with an emphasis on folks local to the Diocese of Virginia.

First, some of larger-scale networks/movements:

• Emergent Village is a nationwide network of "generative friendships" - the biggest and most formal network of the emerging church in the US. But to qualify "biggest and most formal" - I believe it has exactly one paid staff member (Tony Jones, the national coordinator), a tiny budget, and no formal structure, apart from a network of small cohorts across the country. It's a big, flat web of friends, and it the main thing it generates is new connections and friendships; but also conventions, theological conversations, gatherings, and many published books. A lot of people who are part of the EC movement are connected to EV, but a great many aren't - it's not compulsory or anything. ;-) Some prominent Episcopalians like Diana Butler Bass and Phyllis Tickle are very much involved with EV.
• Anglimergent is an online community of folks who are both Anglican and part of the emerging church conversation. You must check it out. It was created by Karen Ward, totally awesome abbess and vicar of Church of the Apostles, a totally awesome Episcopal and Lutheran church and neo-monastic community in Seattle. If you are an Episcopalian who is interested in the emerging church, and you don't know Karen, you need to correct that oversight immediately.
  
• The Ooze is mostly an online community/network, though it periodically manifests itself in the real world in the form of Soularize conferences. It was launched by Spencer Burke.
• Allelon is a partnership with some pretty amazing people at its core: check it out.
• Missional Church, aka Mission-Shaped Church, is a movement related to emerging church that focuses on the missio Dei or mission of God in the world as the defining purpose for the church. It's an outlook that can be embraced by traditional churches much more readily than "emerging church" can.
  
• "New Monasticism" is a movement of Christians living in intentional community. It's a cousin of the emerging church movement, with lots of overlap.
• Finally, Pete will kill me if I don't link you to this article on emergence, as a general phenomenon of which emerging church is a particular manifestation. It's indispensable for understanding the philosophical/scientific background for the phenomenon. The other major philosophical root of emerging church is the deconstructionist postmodern philosophy associated with such 20th-century giants as Jacques Derrida. If you're interested in interpreting that philosophy for the 21st-century church, I can recommend no-one more highly than Jack Caputo and Pete Rollins.
  

Next, some local manifestations. For folks in Northern Virginia, I recommend making contact with any of the following communities:

• The community I'm a part of, the Church of the Common Table, meets for worship three Sundays per month at Jammin' Java (a coffeehouse / music venue) in Vienna. The fourth weekend, instead of a worship service, we gather for "service-worship", in which the entire church is invited to participate in a project that aims to serve and bless folks from our wider community. We're non-denominational (or, alternately, trans- or omni-denominational), but we have Anglican DNA (we were founded by a former Episcopal priest who later left to return to the priesthood) and we use the BCP in worship.
• Convergence is an emerging church community with deep roots in music and arts, which gathers for worship in Alexandria.
• Church in Bethesda is an emerging congregation in...you guessed it. They're over the border in Maryland, of course, but you might want to check them out.
• Also in Maryland is the College Park Church Plant, pastored by our friend Jason Mack.
  
• The DC Area Community of Communities is a local network of neo-monastic group houses. Some of them, including Culpeper House (where some good friends of mine live) are in Virginia; others are in DC.
• The local-to-DC-and-NoVA manifestation of Emergent Village is the DC Emergent Cohort. We'd love for you to drop by one of our gatherings!
  

For those further south in the state:

• Revolution is a community in Fredericksburg. My friend Scott Erwin is one of its leaders.
• This site collects three other Emergent cohorts for Virginia: one in the southeastern part of the state, one in central VA, and one in the southwest. I don't know many of the folks in those cohorts personally, but I don't doubt that they're genuine emerging church folk (whatever that means).

OK, that's about all I've got in me for tonight. If I've forgotten stuff that I should be pointing folks at (and I'm sure I have) please feel free to add additional links in the comments. Also, there's tons of good stuff in the left sidebar to this blog, if you feel like exploring, and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. God bless, and if there's just one thing I could say (again) to you, it's this: don't just read; make contact!

Peace,
Mike

Foreclosure

There are a lot of these in my neighborhood. I see them when Tina and I walk the dog, and it makes me sad. We just moved here last year, and it hasn't happened to any of our neighbors that we've gotten to know - and by the time the sign goes up, it's too late to find out what's happened to the folks who used to be our neighbors. But I'm worried that not all of them are landing on their feet. A lot of our neighbors are recent immigrants who are struggling to make a life in this country. I'm sure it must have felt enormous to them to be able to buy a house - I know what it felt like for us, and we were born right here in the USA with silver spoons in our mouths. Too bad the companies loaning these folks their mortgages were greedy and unscrupulous, and now that huge sense of accomplishment, for at least some of our neighbors, has turned into a sense of loss and fear for the future. And everybody loses, as the economic ripple effect of this greed spreads outward from the folks who have lost their homes (and similar factors) to every sector of this interdependent world economy.

I don't have any solutions to offer. Greed is here to stay, I expect. I guess I just pray that if there are things I can do to help, I won't miss them in my naval-gazing.

Jeremiah Season 2!

I don't know if anybody who reads this blog gives a crap about this, but I'm pretty excited. Season 2 of Jeremiah, J. Michael Straczynski's excellent post-apocolyptic drama series, has never been released on DVD - but it's available on iTunes and Netflix for your instant viewing pleasure! Awesome and awesome! Also: I spelled JMS's name right on the first try! Yay me! Yay Netflix! Yay Jeremiah, Kurdy, and the gang! Like, yay! :-)

Some stuff about me

OK, this is even lamer than the last post. It's transplanted from my home page, which now has so little content on it that I think I may as well retire it. So I'm moving the biographical info to a blog post that I'll link to from the blog sidebar. It's "all about me" day! Yay! Like the last one, please feel free to ignore. But...here's some stuff about me:

I am very fortunate to be married to Tina Driskell, who is the primary earthly (earthy?) joy of my life. She expertly does all of the following (in no particular order): throw clay pots (on a pottery wheel; rarely at my head); play the piano and Irish tin whistle; grow/forage for and preserve food; make jewelry from silver and semi-precious stones; write short fiction; carve and turn wood; identify plant life; card, dye, spin, and knit raw wool; and draw. She also has a Bachelor's Degree in Biotechnology and an Associate's in Conservation of Natural Resources. Tina currently works as a Naturalist for Riverbend Park and some other parks in the area.

I'm also lucky to have a loving and supportive family, including my brother Sean and my Mom and Dad. Here are some pics of us.

Tina and I have two kids, both furry. They are: Our cat Oyasama, and our dog Machig. Here are photos of Tina and me with the kids.

I'm a 1989 graduate of Sauquoit Valley High School and a 1994 graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science. I now work for USATODAY.com in McLean, Virginia, USA, where I do web development.

My favorite author is Neil Gaiman, and I like to read comic books and watch DVDs by such creators as Craig Thompson, Terry Moore, Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski when I'm not reading spiritual stuff. Musically, my tastes are fairly eclectic, ranging from Pink Floyd to Eddie from Ohio, Alison Krauss to The Ditty Bops, Tori Amos to George Harrison, Alanis Morissette to Ollabelle, Moxy Früvous to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Also, these guys kick hiney. I like every collection of theirs that I've heard.

I also like to do outdoorsy things like hike, backpack, and jog. But not as much as Tina does, and not as much as I should, which is why I'm fat.

Brief spiritual autobiography

Somebody emailed me with a question about my perspective on Christianity and (vs.?) Buddhism, and as part of my response I rattled off a brief spiritual autobiography, since it seemed like important background for answering his question. The words felt like something worth keeping around, so I'm posting them here - not so much because I think you might find it interesting, but so I can find it again later if somebody else asks me a question that I think requires me to recount my entire flippin' spiritual journey in 1000 words or less. :-) So, feel free to ignore. Note that this is aimed toward answering a particular question, and hence it emphasizes some parts more than others. In particular, it says almost nothing about the last five years, which have been by far the most significant stretch of my spiritual history. Maybe someday I'll write a sequel. Anywho, here goes:

As a child, I was sort of brought up in the Episcopal (Anglican) Church, until I was confirmed at the age of 9, which pretty much marked the end of my family's association with church, apart from the occasional Easter appearance. (Which led me to believe that the priest at my local church only knew one story and only had one sermon.) I had a love-hate relationship with Christianity during my school years, as it seemed to me that everyone I knew who considered himself a Christian was either a) a fundamentalist wacko who was opposed to science, music, logic, and fun, or b) a lukewarm, nominal churchgoer whose faith only impacted their lives for an hour a week. I was always strongly drawn to religion and spirituality, but not to either one of those options.

In college, I minored in "perspectives on religion", and took many classes on both Western and Eastern faiths. I began studying faiths on my own time, and collecting a large library of scriptures and other books from the world's faiths. In the mid-90's, I created one of the more comprehensive and well-regarded interfaith index web sites with links to hundreds of sites on world faiths. (It quickly folded under the weight of the impossibility of maintaining all those links - this was back in the day when the best web site on Zoroastrianism was probably not www.zoroastrian.org but something like www.whatsamada.edu/~hmn1566/myzoroasterpage.html). Anyway, my point is just that I spent quite a bit of time through the 90's studying world religions, but always as an outsider. I had no religious faith or practice (though I was vaguely spiritual and vaguely theist, like many in the US these days).

In 1998, when I was 27, I discovered the hard way (only way) that I have bipolar disorder. As I was recovering from my first 9-month bout of severe depression, my shrink said to me something like, "It sounds like one of the habits you have that contributes to your unhappiness is a lack of mindfulness. You're always thinking about the past or the future, but you're never fully present in the moment." That rang true for me. Since I'd been studying world religions for years, I knew that the Buddhists knew all about mindfulness. So I sought out the local Buddhist communities. There were two in the phone book in Rochester, NY in 1999: a Zen center, and a Tibetan Buddhist center. The Tibetans were by far the more welcoming of the two, so to make a long story short, I soon found myself an insider in a religious community for the first time in my life, and I was a committed, practicing Tibetan Buddhist for the next three years. I received many empowerments and ordinations, and was a regular practitioner both at privately and in community.

After my wife and I moved to the Washington, DC area, I remained a committed practitioner for a couple of years, but I never really found a community that I was fully a part of, as I had in Rochester. I don't actually have the disciple to sustain a healthy meditative practice for that long without community support, so eventually, in early 2002, I woke up one morning and realized that I was no longer a practicing Buddhist, because it had been months since I'd actually practiced Buddhism. In my understanding, Buddhism is fundamentally a set of practices, not a faith or belief system - so if I wasn't practicing, I really couldn't fool myself that I was a Buddhist. I spent the rest of that year sort of sadly missing something that I'd felt I was missing for most of my life, but briefly found.

My wife and I spent Christmas 2002 with her grandparents, who lived in a small town in southwestern Arizona where most of the residents were either retirees, or folks who used to work at the mine before it closed down, and were now (many of them) struggling. We were to spent Christmas day itself at they Southern Baptist church - a prospect I was dreading. But it actually changed my life. The people of that church brought in a fest of potluck food, and opened that church hall to the entire town. There was no price of admission - folks were expected neither to pay money nor to listen to a sermon or evangelistic sales pitch. There was just love and hospitality and sharing. These were people whose faith clearly made a big difference in their lives, but who didn't seem to feel compelled to be jerks about it. I flew home from Arizona thinking, "Maybe I should give Christianity another shot after all."

When I returned home, I Googled for an Episcopal church in my area, and attended one the next Sunday. To make another long story short, I became more and more involved in Christian discipleship and ministry, and by the time I renewed my baptismal vows on Pentecost of 2003, I was a believer in Christ and a follower of Jesus. I'm still a part of that Episcopal community, though today I spend most of my energy with a smaller nondenominational "emerging" church community full of people I love dearly.

To be continued?

MESH this Thursday - 17 Jan

The time is coming - and is already here! - for the next MESH gathering: Thursday, 17 January, twenty-aught-ocho, at 7pm at Tequila Grande, (444 Maple Avenue West, Vienna VA 22180). What's not to love? Tasty Mexican food, friendly staff, and tequila, with fruit juice and ice, in glasses, with optional salty rims. Muy grande!

Also, given than we're a bunch of churchy types, we'll probably have some faith-related discussions. Or, maybe we'll discuss television. Or, the best of both worlds: interfaith dynamics on The Office (evangelicalism, Hinduism, narcissism...). It's all good. (The conversation, that is. And at least the narcissism is entertaining! Anyway....)

To review the rulez: for MESH purposes, you're considered a 'young adult' if you're old enough to drink a margarita and young enough not to disapprove. And, for the record, if you're under 21, come on out anyway - we'll just have to get you something else to drink.

The unity of the Church

I just wanted to throw down, hopefully briefly, on a topic I've been thinking about lately. It has to do with ecumenism or the ecumenical movement. In case you're not familiar with the term, here's good old Wikipedia:

Most commonly, ecumenism is used in its narrow meaning, referring to greater co-operation among different Christian groups or denominations. For some however, it may also refer to the idea of unity: that there should be a single Christian Church. In its broadest sense, the unity may refer to worldwide religious unity; here the vision advocates a greater shared spirituality across Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths. Mostly however, the term refers to the narrow sense, that of greater co-operation among Christian groups without aiming for unity.

You can read the rest of that article if you want more background. So, generally speaking, this movement refers to the efforts of various Christian denominations to forge agreements of official partnership and cooperation, or (in rarer cases) organizational unity. A remarkable example of this movement is the full communion agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA, now more properly acronymified as TEC, for "The Episcopal Church"). These major agreements are usually the result of years of discussion and negotiation between the leadership of the church bodies, and frequently involve controversial compromise. For example, as part of the ELCA/TEC agreement, ELCA Lutheran pastors can now be ordained only by bishops. This change didn't sit well with some Lutherans, to put it mildly.

Major organizations working to promote ecumenical cooperation and agreements include the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Churches Uniting in Christ, and Christian Churches Together. This is far from a Protestant-only phenomenon; the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are working on this, and many Protestant denominations are working with those two ancient bodies as well.

At the same time various church bodies are inching contentiously toward organizational unity, an opposite force seems continually to be at work within Christendom: organizational schism. Thus, where five years ago the Episcopal Church was the only official Anglican church body in the USA, now we also have the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), which include formerly Episcopalian bodies which have broken away and are now under the oversight of overseas bishops. Similarly, it seems like just about every major Protestant denomination in the US has at least two organizational incarnations which have severed unity with each other over differences in doctrine and/or practice: The Lutherans have ELCA and LCMS; the Presbyterians: PCUSA and PCA; the Baptists have the SBC and the ABC (who themselves just schismed) and others, and the Stone-Campbell folks...well, read this. (There's a cautionary tale for the emerging church if ever there was one.) The Methodists in America are doing pretty well at the moment, unity-wise, but my Methodist friends are worried.

So what's my point in taking you on this whirlwind tour of organizational unity efforts and organizational schisms within the Body of Christ? Well, first of all, let me say that the former certainly make me happier than the latter. I'm sure not going to claim that working to set aside dividing differences between church bodies and create formal agreements of cooperation and partnership is a bad thing. Just as schisms aren't all bad (they can, potentially, allow warring factions to stop being consumed by the internal battles and get on with the mission of God), ecumenical agreements aren't all good (ask, for example, the pissed-off Lutherans from a couple of paragraphs ago) - but in general, I'm not opposed to high-level church leaders spending their time working toward organizational unity. I can think of better things for them to be worried about, but I can think of worse ones, too. So, y'all be about that, bishops and whatnot. Maybe it'll keep you out of trouble.

But, my real point is directed toward you rank-and-file priests and ministers (by which I mean every single follower of Jesus, in case you didn't click through those links just now). If you're listening, folks, here's what I think about ecumenism:

The ecumenical movement is a fine thing, but for the love of God and God's mission, don't wait for it. Don't sit around like a spectator at a sporting event waiting to find out who will win in the end: the forces of unity ("Score! The Episcopalians and Movians have forged an agreement!") or the forces of schism ("Touchdown! Conservative Methodists break away from UMC!"). This game is gonna be going on for an awful damn long time, and quite frankly, IMHO, it fundamentally doesn't matter. The Body of Christ is already one.

Let me say that again: the Body of Christ is already one.

Among the breathtakingly beautiful "farewell speeches" of Jesus recorded in John's Gospel (words given to his disciples on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion) exists this passionate prayer of our Lord (John 17:20-26):

20 "My prayer is not for them [Jesus' current disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

You may disagree with me, but my personal, deeply-held conviction is that when Jesus prayed this prayer, he wasn't praying that some human institutional bodies in the third millennium would manage to forge agreements of organizational partnership at a rate faster than those same institutions were schisming. Verses 25-26 above, as well as my beloved John 13:34-35, explicitly tie our Lord's vision of unity to the mission of God, and make this loving unity the hallmark and fundamental characteristic of the Church. It's not optional, and it's not something we can undo. We can (and do) act like we're not one Church, but I'm pretty deeply convinced that we are one Church: one holy catholic and apostolic Church, as the Nicene creed puts it.

The unity for which Jesus prayed, in my opinion, has JACK to do with organizational/hierarchical/institutional unity. It has everything to do with loving one another - despite, or better yet celebrating our differences.

So please, please, please don't wait for organizational leaders to negotiate an agreement between church bodies before you start actively loving and working with your sisters and brother in Christ, regardless of organizational/denominational affiliation. We are one Church, and we really just need to start acting like it. Make friends across denominational and organizational boundaries, and where those friendships begin to bear missional fruit, go with it unhesitatingly. (We should be making friendships as well with people of other faiths and of no faith, and celebrating the fruit of those friendships as well - but as I said, within the Body of Christ I believe this is fundamental to our identity as a Church.) Worship together, serve the poor together, break bread together, theologize together, heal together, create art together, study Scripture together, grow together, goof around together, learn and teach together, and preach the good news together - celebrating the fact that you do all these things in different ways. Don't wait for your leaders to declare "full communion" - we are one Church. Let's love one another - as Jesus prayed - that the world may know God's love in Jesus, and Christ's love in us. Amen, and amen!

"X is invalid" vs. "Y is [also] valid"

Honestly, I think "Kingdom" (nee "Emerging") Grace's blog (including comments) is about the most interesting thing I'm reading lately. Lots of really good thinking and discussion on church leadership and structure. Today she begins a series on Frank Viola and George Barna's new book Pagan Christianity by quoting two statements from the preface:

“We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to exist.”

Also:

“In short, this book demonstrates beyond dispute that those who have left the fold of institutional Christianity to become part of an organic church have a historical right to exist.”

I think there's a really, really big difference between statements of the first form and those of the second. In particular, on those occasions when I attempt to lay down my self-righteous smack on issues related to church leadership, polity, structure, etc., etc., I hope I always mean to make statements of the latter "Y is [also] valid" form - though without the whole "beyond dispute" hubris - as opposed to the former "X is invalid" form. I do feel that certain aspects of our contemporary institutional church that are almost universal - including many of the ones examined by Viola and Barna - probably ought to become (by contrast) almost nonexistent in the postmodern world, because I think in more and more contexts they will do more harm than good. But I think context is everything, and I think that things like (for example) church buildings, clergy, sermons, seminaries, hierarchies, etc. have been and still are appropriate in many contexts - but probably never should have been as universal as they became. And, I suspect the contexts in which they do more good than harm are becoming more and more scarce.

But anyway, my main point is that I hope I avoid making statements like "X has no right to exist" when I really mean to say "Y, though different from X (and despite the near-universal assumption of the need for X) does have a right to exist, can work, etc." If you catch me doing the former, please smack me down. Srsly.

Alienseseseses vs. Predatorseses

(See, it's the 6th Alien movie and the 4th Predator movie. Get it? Heh.)

Yep, as I predicted, AvP:R sucked. Not too much worth saying about it. As I suspected, the filmmakers thought that "achieving the atmosphere of the classic films" meant "lots of rain". On the other hand - and thank God for this - they did discover and include the one thing these movies have sorely lacked all along: stupid horny teenagers. Not. (Well, the stupid horny teens were certainly there, but naturally all they did was make it seem even more like a run-of-the-mill B horror flick.)

They threw in some vaguely plausible never-before-seen Alien evolution as a plot device to ensure that there would be lots and lots of Alienses around, and the movie contained exactly one (1) Predator, who was utterly irrelevant to the plot, and not even particularly badass. The very final moments of the film did throw one nice bone to fans of the Alien franchise, though, so they get points for that.

I hope they let the franchises lay fallow for a while, now, until somebody comes up with an actual good idea for another movie. Alas, Tina and I were part of the problem by adding to the opening-weekend box office. But Alienseses make Tina happy, so we went. :-)

Book Review: Only Begotten, by Gary Glass

Only Begotten is a novel by my friend Gary Glass, which he's publishing online, a chapter a day, on onlybegotten.com. It's a retelling of the final years of the life of Jesus - roughly the same period of time that's recounted in the canonical Gospels. So you could call it the Gospel According to Gary.

I usually start any long post with disclaimers, so - here we go. First, I do believe this is my first attempt at a book review, so apologies if it sucks. (The review, that is - not the book.) Second, regarding the suckiness (or lack thereof) of the book - I have to say I was quite surprised. Not surprised that I enjoyed reading it - I expected that. Gary's one of the smartest guys I know, and has a way with words. I wasn't sure if he'd turn out to be gifted at storytelling and characterization, but I wasn't surprised to find out that he was. So, just to be clear, it was a great read. Hard to put down, a real page-turner, and, for you Da Vinci Code fans, short chapters! :-)

What did surprise me, though, was that overall, I was happy with the picture of Jesus that Gary paints. Quite frankly, I expected to be put off by it. I hesitate to characterize Gary's worldview based on our conversations, but suffice it to say that it's definitely not what most people would think of as "Christian". Gary can correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of his outlook on life is this:

1. Start by accepting the world as it is, life as it is, and people as they are.
2. Trust reason and something like common sense as your guides to doing the right thing in this clearly-seen world with these OK-just-as-they-are people.
3. Faith and religious practice might possibly be helpful if they operate within this framework, but chances are that they'll only distract or mislead you. Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices are probably the most helpful / least harmful.
   

So I expected that a point of view like that would shine through in Gary's portrayal of Jesus. (It did.) What I didn't expect was that I'd like it! (Mostly.)

Jesus the Tathagata

Gary's Jesus at the beginning of the story is a grieving recent widower. Not just grieving - wrecked. The loss of his beloved Anna has drained Jesus of almost everything he had or was. Almost - but not quite everything. He still has his sense of loss, and it still consumes him. After a short sojourn with his cousin John the Baptist and his disciples, Jesus enters the wilderness. Reduced to nothing but basic need - food when starving, water when dying of thirst, sleep when too exhausted to remain awake - Jesus has an experience of awakening, not while sitting under a tree like that other well-known awakened one, but while wading in the Dead Sea. He returns to civilization a changed man, begins (quite against his will) to accumulate disciples, has many adventures with them, and, in the end...well, I won't give it away, but he doesn't sail away with a pregnant Magdalene to found the Merovingian line of French kings.

So is this a story of Jesus the Buddha? Not quite, and this is where I was surprised. Like the Buddha, this Jesus has been utterly transformed by an experience of awakening - but this is still recognizably the Jesus of the canonical Gospels. This Jesus is a healer and an exorcist. This Jesus is a fearless practitioner of radical hospitality, friend and lover of tax collectors and prostitutes. He's a teacher in parables and a sayer of hard sayings that seem to glorify himself. He's a people person who would often give anything to escape the crowds (if he had anything to give). This Jesus sends his followers out to heal and teach and exorcise. This Jesus is a forgiver of sins.

In other words, pretty much like the Jesus of the Gospels. The difference is that, in Gary's story, all of this stems from Jesus' emptying of himself, and his awakening to a worldview much like the one I outline above: accept life as it is, accept people as they are, use common sense and reason from there. This Jesus isn't so much a theist (he does talk of God's kingdom, but never calls God "Father") as a pantheist, or perhaps a panentheist. Or perhaps he's just comfortable with mystery when it comes to these questions - quite a bit more comfortable, in fact, than I've previously thought my friend Gary to be! A late conversation with his brother, James, is priceless:

— But there is something about you, my brother. Something that makes you a stranger to me. Something — I don’t know what — I don’t know how to say it.

— Maybe there’s nothing.

— No! It’s there. Something very good.

— What do you think it is, James?

— Is it God?

— Not the God you’re looking for.

— There is only one God.

— How do you know?

— I’m a Jew!

— Is God?

— Are you?

— Before there were Jews, there is God. You’re looking for the God of your fathers, the God of the book, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. You’re looking for other men’s Gods! Isn’t that idolatry? Isn’t that whoring after false Gods? The one God is the God of the living. Therefore look for God among the living. But when you look out at the world you don’t find that God here. What do you find? You find the living world, the living God. The real God in the real world. Right here and now. Right here!

Jesus tapped James on the chest.

James shook his head —

— I don’t understand how you can call this God.

— Do you think you can understand God? Beware the God of your understanding, brother! Beware the God that suits you. Isn’t a God as small as your understanding too small to make the whole world? Isn’t that also idolatry? Isn’t that also whoring after false Gods?

— How do you know this, brother? Didn’t we both grow up in Nazareth sons of Joseph and Mary? How can you sit here now and tell me with such authority that all that we learned at our father’s knee was idolatry?

— It wasn’t idolatry then. It became idolatry when I began to see.

— See what?

— See God.

— You see God?

— I’m looking at God now.

James was transfixed by his brother’s eyes. Jesus looked at him completely without fear — with no reservations — nothing held back. His eyes were full of sorrow and full of innocence at once. His gaze was absolutely accepting and utterly uncompromising. Tears came into James’s eyes. He didn’t even know why. He never had seen such fearlessness in any man. It was astonishing and wonderful.

I quite like this Jesus, overall - and I like Gary even more now after having read his story.

Jesus the Accepting Transformer

If I have a quibble with this Jesus, it's that his philosophy - so clear to him as to be invisible (he constantly denies that he has anything to teach) - doesn't quite make complete sense to me. The key, for this Jesus, seems to be to accept both the world, and each person in it, as they are. Yet, Jesus himself has changed utterly in the course of his life. I think Jesus would say that he didn't actually change - he just became who he really was - but how does one tell the difference? Jesus heals Jonas the demoniac and Caleb, a man with an unclean skin disease - among others. He gives brutal tongue-lashings to those who act out of unthinking prejudice or selfishness. Why didn't he accept all of these people as they were? I don't disagree with Jesus' actions - like I said, I like this Jesus - but I'm not sure I buy that the universe is quite as simple as he and Gary make it out to be. It didn't seem to me that Jesus, in this story, was faced with any really interesting ethical dilemmas. Consider this exchange between Jesus and his disciples James and John, the sons of Zebedee:

James said —

— Teacher, if this is how it is, then what is prayer? If God is in me and I in God, who is praying to who?

— That is a subtle question, James, my friend! Now look if God is in you and you are in God, and God is in me and I am in God, then when you and I speak to each other, who is speaking to who?

— I don’t know.

— Don’t you see that this too is just the way the world is made to be? Whether we question or accept, pray or keep silent, contend or embrace, deny or affirm — we are in all things expressing God’s creation. We are always in the will of God. It is impossible to deviate from the way things are.

John objected —

— Then why shouldn’t I turn to thieving and whoring and drinking and gambling?

— Wouldn’t you miss your wife and sons and daughters?

— Why don’t you?

— That life does not appeal to me. I am living the life that is given to me.

— Does it appeal to you?

Jesus laughed —

— Not always!

OK, but what if a live of thieving did appeal to Jesus? Would that then be acceptable? As long as that was who he truly was? Somehow I find this unlikely, in light of the compassionate, just Jesus portrayed elsewhere in the story. I think, in the end, that this Jesus would agree with the Jesus of the Gospels and the Buddha of the Sutras - not everything about us ought to be accepted. Some aspects of us - those that cause us in our greed or selfishness or anger to ignore the well-being of our fellow creatures - ought to be named sin or poison, and transformed.

Jesus Our Brother

In the end, I found Only Begotten to be a touching portrayal of a very human Jesus. A Jesus who, through suffering and awakening, became a man whose fearlessness and clarity and fullness of life were nearly impossible to resist. It's a portrait of a Jesus who is just like each of us, yet unlike any of us. A Jesus who is our brother, our healer, our teacher despite himself. Thanks, Gary, for this portrait.

Now, tell me how I misinterpreted it. :-)

Peace!

P.S., While you're discovering Gary's brilliance, you must check out his photography on ShutterGlass.com. ZOMG, it's awesome stuff!

My church is famous

Alright, since Stav blogged about it, I guess that means we're not trying to be so humble as to not acknowledge the attention. ;-) A national news magazine, U.S.News and World Report, published a nice little sidebar about our church along with a larger article on "A Return to Tradition" in various faith contexts (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant). The main article is interesting and rather balanced, and the sidebar on Common Table is pretty good, I think. The reporter, Jay Tolson, took the time to talk to folks and get to know us a bit.

(The photo of my friend Julie lighting a candle in our participatory Advent wreath is by USN&WR's Jim Lo Scalzo. Jim, let me know if you mind me using it; it's a great photo.)

OK. 15 minutes begins...now. :-)

Authority in the Church

This week, Kingdom Grace (the artist formerly known as "Emerging") did an insightful commentary (entitled The Gender Issue) on an Allelon article by Sally Morgenthaler (entitled After the Show is Over: The Rise of the Feminine in the Postmodern Turn). The two articles, plus the discussion in the comments on Grace's post, make for a fascinating and thought-provoking meditation on "authority" in the church. Did Jesus intend for some of his followers to have "authority" over others? Are authority structures, roles, concepts of prestige, etc. a product of culture?

Many folks in groups who have been denied authority and prestige in the Church (women, minorities, gay folks, etc.) are quite rightly hurt and angered by the very real injustice of that denial. (They are also, quite rightly, hurt by the very real history of the church's lack of respect for them and valuing of their gifts. Let me state up-front: I don't think there's any room to question that the church needs to respect, value, and nurture the gifts of all God's people. But I'm drawing a distinction between respecting and valuing someone, and putting that person in a position of authority. Bear with me.)

The question that I think is being raised here (or, at any rate, the one that I'm raising), is this: Is there another way to resolve this injustice, apart from seeking to put those who have been disenfranchised into positions of authority and prestige? I think that there is, and it gives me a lot of hope.

The other option would be the creation of church communities (and organizations and networks) that aren't built around the concept of some followers having authority over others. Ones that are instead built around mutual servanthood and mutual submission. As Grace says,

The ultimate issue is whether we are ready and willing to embody mutual submission in all of our relationships with one another to the degree that we are even willing to address the structural systems of church and the use of power and position within those structures.

This raises all kinds of questions. What about folks (like many dear friends of mine) whose love of God's Church is inexorably bound up with their love of existing church structures (such as denominations, megachurches, publishing houses, mission organizations, etc.) which have dynamics of authority and prestige built into their very marrow? They may have no choice but to seek authority and prestige if they feel called to change those systems, as opposed to leaving them and seeking their own way. But I have to admit that I do share Sally's fear:

Whether male or female, our questions must ultimately move beyond power and equality to those of ecclesiastical integrity. As important as mutuality is in the kingdom of God, it is quite conceivable to be mutually and equally participating in a failing and misguided enterprise.

This is hard stuff. Another question: could this whole train of thought simply be a ruse on the part of straight, male WASPs like myself (and others who currently have "the upper hand") to pacify the oppressed and keep them under our heel while we hold tight to the reins of authority and prestige? Hellz, yeah! I have no doubt that this line of reasoning has been and will be used in that fashion. Maybe that's what I'm doing right now. Be vigilant.

Here's another question: Does an end to authority and prestige mean an end to leadership? I don't think so, but the question is begged: what would leadership look like in a world like this? Good question.

This leads to another important question: what consequences would this have for the shape and organization of communities and churches? Would they necessarily be small? Would the joining together of Christians communities necessarily be done through peer networks, not hierarchies?

Would this mean giving up some of the benefits that come with the existing authority-and-prestige-based systems? Salaries? Pensions? Book contracts? Would it be possible to opt out of the quest for power and fame, and still make (at least part of) a living from church-related work? (I think so, but these are hard questions.)

I'm certainly not saying that this is the only faithful path to pursue within God's Church. But I am saying that I think it's one faithful path, and it's one for which I have great hope in this postmodern, post-Christendom, post-authoritatian age that we might be entering.

Perhaps the issue is not that everyone can't be The Man. Perhaps it's that we don't need The Man in the first place. Maybe we should just wish him well and go follow Jesus.

Wisdom on giving. Really.

UPDATE: In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably note that my Beloved Employer ran a prominent article last week about how "alternative gift giving" wrecks family harmony. But, IMHO, it's a lot more balanced than the MSN article that we savage below. :-)

~~~~~~

OK, I should warn you that this article contains naughty language, and so does this blog post. But if you're man enough or woman enough, please read the article. It is wise and true.

Cussing aside, some would find the ideas espoused far more offensive than the words chosen. But I just wanted to say, I agree with every word of it. (Except calling the stupid bitch on MSN a fat cow. That's not nice.)

As a culture, we have so thoroughly perverted what "giving" is supposed to mean that I'm afraid we need a bit of a detox. Christmas is about giving - this is true. It's celebrating the birth of the one who gave everything to be present to us, and to save us from ourselves. It's about giving (as Jesus did) our presence, our love, our healing, our reconciliation, and our good news. "Giving" is about presence. Not presents.

Good stuff, P3T3.

Alienseses

Tina and I have been re-watching some of the Alien movies. I thought I'd share some brief reviews for your edification.

Alien - Classic. Scary. Genre-defining.

Aliens - Possibly the most overrated sci-fi movie of all time; definitely the most overrated Alien movie. I can barely stand to watch this flick. Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser's characters annoy the living piss out of me. The thing looks ridiculously dated with its '80's fashion and big hair. The acting is abyssmal, and the tension is nill because you don't give a crap about any of the characters, with the exception of the little girl (cheap ploy), Ripley (whom you only care about because she was a badass in the previous flick), and the android, Bishop, who is this movie's one positive contribution to the franchise. OK - and I'll admit it's cool to see Ripley in the robotic exoskeleton taking on the alien queen.

Alien³ (aka Alienses) - The most underrated movie in the franchise. I like this one almost as much as the original. Tense writing, interesting characters, really impressive acting, and a willingness to buck Hollywood convention and expectations (in other words, it does things you don't expect - imagine that!)

Alien Resurrection (aka Alienseses) - Oh, Joss. Joss, Joss, Joss. It's hard to believe that this thing was written by my beloved Buffy creator. I'm pretty sure it was studio-ruined like the original BtVS movie, but still. It ends up being one of those guilty pleasure movies that's fun, but by no stretch of the imagination good.

Alien vs. Predator - This was a movie based on a comic book that looks like a video game. There've been a lot of movies like that in recent years. It's another guilty pleasure movie. It's fun. It's got some great moments. It's got Lance Henriksen. They're making a sequel. They seem to be really proud of the fact that there's a lot of rain in the sequel. I'm guessing it'll suck. But who knows?

There you have it. If you want to borrow the DVD's, let me know.

Shopping is demonic

Tina and I went shopping on Sunday. Both of us were kind of wishing we'd scheduled some painful dental work, instead.

I was thinking, as we slogged somewhat desperately through several different stores - looking for a small list of items, among a reasonable-sized crowd of friendly fellow-shoppers and clerks; this could have been worse! Anyway, I was thinking:

Shopping is evil. It's demonic. Here's why: If you're someone who likes shopping, then you'll spend lots of money because you enjoy doing so. And if you're someone (like Tina and me) who puts it only slightly this side of waterboarding on a scale of fun activities? You'll buy whatever it takes to make the job go away. Either way, they getcha. It's insidious. You've made a deal with a devil the moment you walk through that automatic sliding glass door into that brightly-lit shrine of consumption.

I'm with Rev. Billy.

P.S., Grocery shopping is exempted, mostly, from this diatribe. I like food.

Waiting

Hey. It's Advent. I'm waiting. Waiting for some grace, and blessing, and glimpses of the kingdom. I'm waiting expectantly, and hopefully. I think some good stuff is coming soon.

Want to wait with me? I'll make some hot chocolate. With marshmallows.

Let's see what God has in store.

This makes me smile

Check out this video: Persepolis



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The graphic novels it's based on were really good.

HT: Whitney

A force for goo

This is really old news, but I've been interwebs-impaired for most of the week. There was an article on the Opinion page of my Beloved Employer this past Monday on the Emerging Church. The writer (a stringer, unfortunately, so I couldn't just walk down to the 3rd floor and say howdy) seems to be a fan of the movement, calling it "A Force For Good" - but I found the truncated version of the headline in the online story's URL more amusing. :-)

In sadder news, Beloved Employer is laying some folks off. :-(

Events this week

If you're local (to the DC/NoVA area), don't miss these fun and faithy (faithiness is next to truthiness!) events this week:

TUESDAY: The DC Emergent Cohort will gather at the Front Page on Dupont Circle (right near the Dupont Metro stop), 7pm. Sara won't be there, so we can behave in an unseemly and embarrassing manner, if we so choose. ;-)

WEDNESDAY: It's Karaoke Night at The Lamb Center (Fairfax county's only daytime homeless shelter), from 6:30 - 8pm. Come join Lamb Center clients and teen and adult volunteers as we together seek and find our inner ham. And seek and find Christ, too. Maybe the two are related.

THURSDAY: It's MESH-a-rita's Tres: We'll be slurpin' 'ritas, wolfin' burritos and chattin' about life, the universe, and whatnot at Tequila Grande, (444 Maple Avenue West, Vienna VA 22180). Thursday, 15 November, 7pm SHARP(ish). Join us!