Morning

Open my eyes
The scales fall away
My body cries
Not yet another day

Preferring paralysis to motion
A strange contradiction
Wretched I am the ocean
I deserve perdition

Transforming Grace

Let me throw this thought out there for any of you from the College Community who might be checking my blog now that the new college website is up. (Props to Jon Phelps for all his hard work on retooling the website.) In this post, I want to offer a lens (only one amongst many) to you for interpreting the Transforming Grace project our church community is currently undertaking. I would like to suggest to you that Transforming Grace is more than simply a project of remodeling for the sake of comfort, beauty, and function. It is instead an embodied critique of modernity and Cartesian ideology. The foundational philosophical epistemology inherent to the modern project is concisely expressed in Descartes’ (in)famous dictum: “I think, therefore I am.” The world is construed upon the foundation of the thinking self. It is the mind, and the world of thought, that is preeminent. Thus, it follows that the physical component of reality becomes only tertiary as a substantial component of reality and the world, at best. If we operate from this modern ideology then we are left with the quite uncompelling reasons of comfort, beauty, and function for the Transforming Grace project. The uncompelling nature of these reasons are highlighted further in the face of the prevalent poverty of both Long Beach and the world. But I think if the reason for the Transforming Grace project is an embodied critique of the modern, Cartesian ideology so dominant in the West then we might have a more theologically compelling lens for interpreting the project. This post is already getting too long, so I will not outline all the reasons why modernity need be critiqued. Let me just say that modernity, which finds its most robust expressions in the oppressive metanarratives of the last hundred years including fascism, Marxism, and global capitalism, is arguably more hostile to God’s good creation than many of the devastating social injustices that inhabit the world, because of the simple fact that it quite possibly is the purveyor of such injustices. All this being said, let me with the utmost brevity explain how the Transforming Grace project critiques modernity. Holding in mind what I noted earlier about Cartesian ideology, we can understand Transforming Grace as an affront to any such ideology which does not take seriously the physical world. Transforming Grace is a project founded upon the premise that the physical world actually matters. The mind and the world of ideas is not the chief component of reality. The world is actually deeply physical. This is the primary proclamation of the Transforming Grace project: physical space matters to God! This announcement flies in the face of the Cartesian dictum so foundational to modernity. Through taking seriously the physical space entrusted to our community by God, we announce the good news that modernity and all its evils do not have the final word. “Another world is possible!” This is how we might hear the message of the Transforming Grace project.

(This is a short post for a huge subject, so please give me some grace for my omissions and indulgences. I would like your thoughts on the Transforming Grace project. Also, do you find this lens for interpreting the project compelling?)

Barth

How about this for a theological hermeneutic:

"Barth's task of biblical interpretation does not begin by demythologizing the text in order to make it relevant to a modern audience, but instead uses the biblical narrative to demythologize the various modern hegemonies that repress human freedom."

Community, State, and Church; p. 43-43.

A Prayer on Easter

Saturday, go out and vote for there is no hope

Fill up your tank, drive away

Take out the ammo and guard the door

Trust me there is nothing more!

Sunday, hold your ballots and hear the stir

Grab your bike, push the pedal

Believe me there is a chance

Yes, go out to dance!

A Theology of Five Iron Frenzy

Five Iron Frenzy has been a instrumental player in the drama of my Christian growth. I have been listening to a lot of FIF recently, and have been inspired to write a theology of Five Iron. To be honest, I have no idea how I will even approach this task, but nonetheless I am pretty excited to see how it develops. So keep an eye out for this new blog series. If are interested in listening along I am going to listen through and reflect on the albums in chronological order beginning with Upbeats and Beatdowns. (My goal is to examine at least one CD a week, so at least try to check back weekly.) Hopefully, after this chronological examination and reflection I will be able to synthesize the history and theology of FIF into a concise theological whole.

P.S.  Christian ska may be dead but its voice still echoes in the heads and hearts of a select group of sisters and brothers

Toward a Political Theology

Here is an excerpt from John Franke's Barth for Armchair Theologians. So far I have found this to be a delightful and stimulating read.

"In other words, attempting to open up society and bring it to Christ is not humanly possible. Human beings would have no more success in bringing society to Christ than they would at bringing Christ to society. IN light of this state of affairs, the only possible answer is to let God be God. It is God's help that we need, and we will "deceive" society about this reality "if we set to work building churches and chapels and do not learn to wait upon God in a wholly new way." We must learn to wait because "God alone can save this world." - Barth for Armchair Theologians, 53.

Thoughts on Satan, the accuser.

My dad proposed an interesting thought, that has not been fully processed and may not be true, but nevertheless, it is a thought, and a very intriguing one at that. It has probably been thought of before and written extensively on by some genius well beyond my own intelligence. In spite of this, I thought it could contribute well to the theological journey that we are all on. Here it goes…

So, in Isaiah 5:20 among the list of “woe’s,” there is one that calls out “woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.” This seems to be saying that a particular group of people are deceived into thinking that good is bad and bad is good. Things, in this type of thinking are just plain upside down. A recent example, to go further, would be Hitler. He was able to bring himself to think that massacring a whole race of people is a good thing. Thus, darkness became light.

And it is here that I want to bring in a interesting and intriguing thought. Could it be that Satan follows this type of thinking? Could it be that he thinks God is the evil one and he is the one bringing truth and light to the world? Think about it, we follow the Christ because we believe he is the truth (comments aside as to what “truth” is). Competing religions (Islam, Muslim, Heaven’s Gate) all think that they are the people who actually have the truth. In reality however, they are in darkness. And Isaiah “woe’s” these types of people. If humans are capable of this type of thinking, why can’t angels be as well?

So let’s bring this back to Satan in the Garden of Eden. What did he say to Eve about the tree in the Garden? Basically, he said that God was lying to her and her husband. “Surely, God does not want what is best for you, he is a power-crazy creature bent on getting all the glory and keeping things under his rule. Let me tell you what will really happen. You will actually become like God, knowing good and evil. God does not like this idea.” And what happened after they ate the fruit? Adam and Eve knew good and evil. And so in one sense, Satan was telling Eve the truth. Now, obviously, there were many unwanted consequences that Satan failed to mention and this is traditionally where it has been said that Satan lied. But the text does not reveal that Satan could foresee these consequences. Could it be that he simply wanted “free” humans from the tyrannical power crazy Creator God? Could it be that he has some sort of warped sincerity in this scene? Could it be that he truly believed he knew what was best for the humans and God was lying to them? Now, take this to the scenes in Job 1-2 in the “throne room,” and to Matthew 4 where Satan tempts or tries to convince Jesus to join his side and, at least on the surface, this idea holds up.

In summary, Satan is out trying to rid the world of a god who he sees and evil and awful. This is not intended to be sympathetic towards this evil character, but rather is intended to show the deceitfulness of evil. It is so deceitful that even Satan himself is deceived. As I have thought about this whole thing, it seems to hold some water with just general observations about the nature of evil thinking. “Evilness” seems to never happen with intentionality, but with the thought of trying to do good. It generally seems to start with a wrong view of the character of God (bad theology). They have turned darkness into light and exchanged the truth of God for a lie (and God gave them over). Satan seems to be the ultimate represative of this movement.

So, it is extremely important that we watch our own theology and faithfulness to God as we live this short life. This comments on the incredible difficulty in understanding God and placing faith in him, which we all experience in following him It takes a special type of thinking and a special leap of faith to trust in the sovereign creator of the universe who likes to keep secrets (Is. 55:8-9, Deut. 29:29).