For the few who arrive at this site on a regular basis, you may have noticed a longer lapse between blog entries lately. It looks like I probably won't post anything until after next week. Why? Because I am currently training for a marathon (I'm up to 20 miles now), am putting on a retreat next weekend (not ready at all), and am dealing with some frustrating junk at work.
The one thought that is consistently stuck in my head is this: is there really any sort of "church discipline" any more? When does grace call us to call others on the carpet for things they've done?
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: Soul Shaper by Tony Jones.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Relevancy
I was greatly challenged this week concerning my thoughts on relevancy. Like many church practitioners I have been attempting to share the gospel in a "relevant" way, which typically means playing songs or videos that relate to the culture, or using the popular lingo to talk about the gospel. I don't think any of this is wrong in and of itself, but I realized that there is a much bigger portion to relevancy that I have not fully put into practice.
The sort of relevancy I'm talking about is how the gospel relates to specific areas of our culture and media. What does the gospel deconstruct? What does it affirm? What sort of critique of modern culture does the gospel of Christ provide?
All of this is stuff that I have done, but never with this idea surrounding it. I think relevancy at this point becomes a question of "How does the culture line up with the gospel" rather than the slightly different but apparently much more followed question of "How does the gospel line up with the culture"?
Maybe all of this is just plain obvious to some, but it was eye-opening for me this week.
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: Six Degrees by Duncan J. Watts.
The sort of relevancy I'm talking about is how the gospel relates to specific areas of our culture and media. What does the gospel deconstruct? What does it affirm? What sort of critique of modern culture does the gospel of Christ provide?
All of this is stuff that I have done, but never with this idea surrounding it. I think relevancy at this point becomes a question of "How does the culture line up with the gospel" rather than the slightly different but apparently much more followed question of "How does the gospel line up with the culture"?
Maybe all of this is just plain obvious to some, but it was eye-opening for me this week.
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: Six Degrees by Duncan J. Watts.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Derrida Quotes
Something has not yet arrived, neither at Christianity nor by means of Christianity. What has not yet arrived at or happened to Christianity is Christianity. Christianity has not yet come to Christianity. What has not yet come about is the fulfillment, within history and in political history, and first and foremost in European politics, of the new responsibility announced by the mysterium tremendum. There has not yet been an authentically Christian politics because there remains this residue of the Platonic polis. Christian politics must break more definitively and more radically with Greco-Roman Platonic politics in order to finally fulfill the mysterium tremendum. Only in this condition will Europe have a future, and will there be a future in general. (page 29)
The crypto- or mysto-genealogy of responsibility is woven with the double and inextricably intertwined thread of the gift and of death: in short of the gift of death. The gift made to me by God as he holds me in his gaze and in his hand while remaining inaccessible to me, the terribly dissymmetrical gift of the mysterium tremendum only allows me to respond and only rouses me to the responsibility it gives me by making a gift of death, giving the secret of death, a new experience of death. (page 33)
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading and Quoting From: The Gift of Death by Jacques Derrida.
The crypto- or mysto-genealogy of responsibility is woven with the double and inextricably intertwined thread of the gift and of death: in short of the gift of death. The gift made to me by God as he holds me in his gaze and in his hand while remaining inaccessible to me, the terribly dissymmetrical gift of the mysterium tremendum only allows me to respond and only rouses me to the responsibility it gives me by making a gift of death, giving the secret of death, a new experience of death. (page 33)
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading and Quoting From: The Gift of Death by Jacques Derrida.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
The Church
The recollection of the crucified Christ obliges Christian faith permanently to distinguish itself from the 'Christian-bourgeois world' and from Christianity as the 'religion of contemporary society'.
A Christianity which does not measures itslf in theology and practice by this criterion loses its identity and becomes confused with the surrounding world; it becomes the religious fulfilment of the prevailing interests, or of the interests of those who dominate society. It becomes a chameleon which can no longer be distinguished from the leaves of the tree in which it sits.
But a Christianity which applies to its theology and practice the criterion of its own fundamental origin cannot remain what it is at the present moment in social, political and psychological terms. It experiences an outward crisis of identity, in which its inherited identification with the desires and interests of the world around it is broken down. It becomes something other than what it imagined itself to be, and what was expected of it.
-Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp.38-39.
What if every American Christian read this quote, and while they nodded their head in agreement, really began to understand it and see just how terribly we have corrupted the Gospel, perverting everything Christ said to make our democratic/materialist/capitalist system feel like it came from Jesus' mouth? I don't know how much longer I can put up with all of it.
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: PERELANDRA by C.S. Lewis.
A Christianity which does not measures itslf in theology and practice by this criterion loses its identity and becomes confused with the surrounding world; it becomes the religious fulfilment of the prevailing interests, or of the interests of those who dominate society. It becomes a chameleon which can no longer be distinguished from the leaves of the tree in which it sits.
But a Christianity which applies to its theology and practice the criterion of its own fundamental origin cannot remain what it is at the present moment in social, political and psychological terms. It experiences an outward crisis of identity, in which its inherited identification with the desires and interests of the world around it is broken down. It becomes something other than what it imagined itself to be, and what was expected of it.
-Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp.38-39.
What if every American Christian read this quote, and while they nodded their head in agreement, really began to understand it and see just how terribly we have corrupted the Gospel, perverting everything Christ said to make our democratic/materialist/capitalist system feel like it came from Jesus' mouth? I don't know how much longer I can put up with all of it.
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: PERELANDRA by C.S. Lewis.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Monday, October 03, 2005
Our Hermeneutical Task
I am on a real hermeneutical kick these days. After reading the articles mentioned on my last post, I finished Slaves, Women and Homosexuals by William Webb and continued my slow reading of Gadamer's Truth and Method. There is much for us to ponder as we study the Biblical text and think about what it is leading the Church to do.
I believe we have to read the Bible with a redemptive-movement hermeneutic. This means that we study biblical trajectories and ponder how those trajectories speak into our culture. For example, both women and slaves are treated better as scripture moves through time. The same can be said for homosexuals in the fact that they are no longer murdered, but cannot be said for the acceptance of their actions. As I wrote before, we must interpret scripture with the help of the Spirit, seeing the life in the text today.
This requires the church. Moltmann wrote that it was the Spirit, which is true, but we need to be able to discern the voice of the Spirit, which is done in community. We need to the voices of other believers (and even non-believers) to bounce ideas off one another and speak truth into our lives. Following a redemptive-movement hermeneutic is tricky and easily prone to error. The Spirit must be heard, and it is through the individual and the church of individuals that this happens. Our hermeneutical task is to listen to God's Spirit speak through the text, the culture, and our fellow believers, past and present. What a task!
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann.
I believe we have to read the Bible with a redemptive-movement hermeneutic. This means that we study biblical trajectories and ponder how those trajectories speak into our culture. For example, both women and slaves are treated better as scripture moves through time. The same can be said for homosexuals in the fact that they are no longer murdered, but cannot be said for the acceptance of their actions. As I wrote before, we must interpret scripture with the help of the Spirit, seeing the life in the text today.
This requires the church. Moltmann wrote that it was the Spirit, which is true, but we need to be able to discern the voice of the Spirit, which is done in community. We need to the voices of other believers (and even non-believers) to bounce ideas off one another and speak truth into our lives. Following a redemptive-movement hermeneutic is tricky and easily prone to error. The Spirit must be heard, and it is through the individual and the church of individuals that this happens. Our hermeneutical task is to listen to God's Spirit speak through the text, the culture, and our fellow believers, past and present. What a task!
Peace,
Matt
Currently Reading: The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann.
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