Show Recap

Yesterday, I went to see the Flobots and Matisyahu. Flobots were amazing! They sounded great live and put on a solid show. Not much flash, just a solid performance. Matisyahu was an interesting experience. He played for almost two hours, which was actually a little much. It turned out to be, more or less, one big continuous jam session. After the show ended, I was happy with all that had transpired and decided two things (1) that I have had my fix of Matisyahu and can move on and (2) I can't wait for the next Flobots album.

Two Things

(1) Matisyahu and Flobots in a matter of a few hours! I will have a post about the show tomorrow

(2) Theological Thought of the Day (Maybe I am going to try to start doing this more)

Theology is not an intellectual project in the sense that intellectual projects are undertaken by individuals. If an intellectual endeavor ever becomes the end of theology, we certainly have idolatry of the conceptual nature. Instead theology must be reconcieved as a communal event in which God inhabits our language in love which brings others together. Thus, theological enterprise must be dialogical in nature due to its necessary communal aspect. This approach is productive because it always holds any theological conclusion in the air, because there are no such thing as a theological conclusions. If theological ends or conclusions are ever reached then we have only ended with an idol. Let us seek to engage in the event of theological discourse in love amongst friends.

Big Week!

Events for Monday through Friday:

Monday- Paper Due/Bowling? (if time permits)
Tuesday- Work on Paper for Wednesday / Purchase Dustin Kensrue's latest album
Wednesday- Paper Due
Thursday- Sub / Work on Paper due next Wednesday / Go to the Flobots/Matisyahu Concert*
Friday- Sub / Work on Paper / Hang out with my future wife*

As you can see this is going to be a busy week for me. Hands down the highlight is going to be experiencing the Flobots/Matisyahu Concert!! I am extremely excited for this event. I have not been to a concert of this proportion in a number of years. Over the past few years the only shows I have been to have been either Shane and Shane or Derek Webb. Expect a blog recapping the event on Thursday night or Friday morning.

*Subbing will have to be cut one of these days

Articulating the Soul

This book has been articulating the thoughts of my mind and feelings of my soul. I would highly recommend that you buy it and read it as soon as possible. I would love to dialogue with some of my friends about the theology of this book. It is a short and fairly easy read. Let me know who is in to read it.

New Dustin Kensrue

Dustin Kensrue has a new Christmas album coming out on November 18th. Currently he is releasing one new track a day at his website leading up to the release of the album. (Click on the ornaments hanging on the wreath to hear different songs.) I loved Dustin's last album and what I have heard so far from the Christmas album has been delightful. So go check it out, let me know what you think, and then buy the album from iTunes next Tuesday.

Hilarious Good Samaritan Video

H/T: Tony Jones

Education and Eschatology

As some of you may know, I am a substitute teacher. Along with substitute teaching one of my weekly activities is working with the Junior High group at my church, Action Company. Every now and again, I will substitute in a Junior High class. This past Friday, I subbed for a 6th grade English class. This was only my second time back to the classroom for the 2008-2009 school year. Well, this experience prompted me to start thinking about the needs of Junior High students. I wonder how might a teacher inspire these youths to robust human flourishing? Being a theologian by trade, I have concluded that the place teachers must begin with is eschatology. What do you mean by eschatology is what you are probably wondering? What I am trying to get at is that most of these students have either no vision for the future or one that is severely truncated, seeing as it is most certainly formed by the pop media culture we raise our youth on. This is an utter and complete travesty. What students need to counter the banal narratives they drink in from the T.V., radio, and Internet is a robust eschatology – a deep, real vision of possibilities held by the future. They need to see that there is a future that is possible, which challenges the status quo of their lives. What has been need not be! This is what an eschatological vision offers to these young people. How might we, as educators, begin to offer young people an alternative eschatology? (This is an important question that needs to be wrestled with by all Junior High teachers. I only offer a few suggestions at this point.) I think this can happen in a number of ways. First, we must name the narratives our students are receiving for the scripts that they are. In naming these narratives as scripts, we can then show them that multiple scripts are on offer. The script offered by MTV is not the only one available. Second, we need to be storytellers, purveyors of alternative narratives for young people to embrace and live within. This can take a number of forms. It can be through pedagogical methods, lesson structures, and the texts offered to the students. Third, educators must exhibit the influence of a robust eschatology within their own lives. If we have no alternative eschatology ourselves, then our teaching will certainly be hallow and unconvincing. Educators must speak and live prophetically against the status quo. They must not simply be cogs in the wheels of the dominant culture pushing America along. These are a few suggestions, which deem more conversation.

I want to make one more point about this whole issue of eschatology and youth education. Central to eschatology is imagination. Eschatology beckons us into the future and in doing this opens up new vistas on the future. While eschatology is the end, imagination is the means to the end, the key that opens the door to the future, so to speak. If imagination is intimately related to eschatology then it is young people, those who have not yet had their imaginations domesticated and solidified who have the greatest opportunity to embrace a robust eschatological vision for the future. Thus it seems Junior High is the most opportune and crucial time for offering radical eschatology to persons.