October 2005 Archives

I haven't pointed to James Carroll in quite a while, but he has a good article, much on the same theme as my previous post, about the hideous force of evil and how craftily sneaky it is in seeping into our culture via fear, greed, and the hubris of those such as the neocons.

Dance of the Demons

Dance of the Demons
by James Carroll

there is another way to think of evil, finding it in the juncture between individual freedom and social context. The story of Genesis posits the malevolent serpent, but what ruined Paradise was not the serpent but the option made in its favor by Adam and Eve. What follows such choice is always unforeseen, but its dynamic is inevitable: Choice leads to consequence, which leads to new and graver choice, which leads in turn to yet graver consequence, and so on. A train of action-reaction is set in motion that quickly outpaces the ability of any one person to slow it.

This phenomenon can take the form of the ''grooved thinking" of a bureaucracy or of the ''institutional culture" that trumps even the good intentions of those who operate within it. Every human choice is made inside a rushing current of prior choices, and the pressure is not good.

Saint Paul spoke of the ''wiles of the devil," but his defining metaphor for evil was systemic, not personal. ''For we are not contending against flesh and blood," he wrote, ''but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness." For Paul, the enemy was not fallen angels, but ''sovereignties" which are hostile to humanity. He was talking about Roman tyrants and an uncaring imperial bureaucracy. He was talking about politics.

The clearest instance of this phenomenon today is unfolding in Iraq. ''Wars generate their own momentum," Robert McNamara once wrote, ''and follow the law of unintended consequences." George W. Bush must be held accountable for the consequences of his fateful decisions, from the 2,000 dead Americans to the American embrace of torture to the igniting of a clash of civilizations. But the ease with which the United States embarked on Bush's unnecessary and illegal war -- with huge popular, political, and pundit support -- was evidence of an already established momentum that predated Bush, and even his father.

This is only a portion, read it at Common Dreams News Center

In our neighborhood live a handful of families who don't do trick-or-treating because its associated with some deep evil. And yet, bombing Iraq is A-OK with them. Supporting a president who does the bidding of power-hungry corporations , guts safety net after safety net in defense and support of his "base" (that's what he called the rich folks at a dinner ("Some people call you the elite. I call you my base") is all unassociated , for them, with some of the darkest evils let loose upon this earth, where "capitalism" and "global dominance" reign as God. Happy non-Halloween! (BTW, I'm all for doing a All-Hallowed Eve of Saints service at a church on this night. I wish I had such a church).

This strikes me in much as the same way as the sign in the yard of a nearby house "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" (right alongside the Bush Cheney sign this past Holiday season). It's not quite on that level of sacrilege, but the way in wich the Christmas sign shows a cluelessness about what is good; what Jesus is all about, this Halloween boycotting combined with a blindness to what Bush is actually accomplishing shows a similar poverty of knowing what evil really is.

This is a chilling and sobering sermon from the collection I mentioned in the previous post. This guy has given up a lucrative medical practice to go and live and work amongst the poor in Washington DC, working in at leat a couple of different missions of the Church of the Saviour's health ministries. He is a member of the 8th Day Faith Community of the Church of the Saviour

The Coming Exile

THE COMING EXILE
May 26, 2002
David Hilfiker

A portion of the sermon:

Jeremiah lived just before the Exile of Judah to Babylon in 587 BCE. The ten northern tribes had long since split off into the nation of Israel and had been dispersed, lost to history, leaving only the southern nation of Judah. The imagery that Jeremiah uses is raw: Judah has been a prostitute running after lovers, sullying herself, her land, and God, her spouse. Despite this promiscuity, God had been willing, even anxious to take Judah back. But eventually things progressed too far, things went on too long. Judah was no longer capable of returning to God.

There are consequences to breaking the covenant with God. Even if one doesn’t believe in a punishing, avenging God, there are nevertheless real-life consequences

· To abandoning the poor,

· To taking on other powers as one’s god,

· To forgetting that love and forgiveness, not self-aggrandizement, are the purpose of life, and

· To creating security through military power rather than the protection of God. (It’s important to remember, by the way, that the kind of security most of us yearn for is simply not available, ever. The security that God offers is real, but very different from what we usually want.)

What Jeremiah saw was the coming Exile. Long before anyone else even seemed to realize there was a problem in the country, Jeremiah saw that it was too late. While it’s always theoretically possible to repent and ask forgiveness, Jeremiah could see it was not going to happen. Things had gone too far. Jeremiah’s message was, “It’s over, folks. Prepare for exile.”

Jeremiah had it right. He saw the coming military and political crisis as a spiritual crisis, the result of disobedience and sin. The discussion, therefore, belongs here in the church because we will only have the resources to respond appropriately if we understand that the coming judgment is, in fact, judgment.

As a community we have begun to respond to this judgment. Let me identify four areas.

First, we are educating ourselves about what’s happening, recognizing that—despite the economic, political, and military power we see around us—America is in that stage of inevitable decline that happens to any Empire that forgets justice for the poor. Despite appearances, we’re already in Exile. We must begin to speak this harsh, prophetic word to the larger community. In the coming years there will be more events like September 11, further markers of our decline. As these happen, we must be ready to interpret them spiritually to the wider community as consequences of our sin and disobedience.

Second, we must convince ourselves and others that the love and forgiveness of the Gospel have become practical political necessities, not just spiritual niceties. The world has changed forever, and we don’t anymore have the luxury of leaving anyone out. Without justice, without love and forgiveness, we’ll simply not survive. This means, at the least, some kind of guaranteed economic equity around the world. We can no longer think just in terms of the United States.

Third, we must recognize how thoroughly the Empire contaminates each of us. We’ll need to go back to the Book of Revelation to discover how the early church lived through the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. We’ll have to read Bonhoeffer to see how the Confessing Church lived through Nazism. I mentioned at the beginning that the church has always been accomplice to Empire. But parts of the church—the black church in South Africa, the Confessing Church in Germany, the Quakers and slavery—have also been the leaders of the opposition. As we study Bishop Tutu, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bishop Woolman, and others, we’ll discover that our life in community becomes utterly essential if we’re not to be overwhelmed by the powers that surround us. Our disciplines become more important than ever: prayer, meditation, proportional giving, study, worship and liturgy, commitment to the poor, and simple living. Walter Brueggemann has pointed out that when the community is in exile, it needs to spend time and energy simply in preserving itself. When one lives in Exile, the need for celebration, for instance, becomes very real.

Finally, we must find ways to act. Walter Wink writes, “It is of the nature of the Powers that they wish to appear invincible. They do not want their great vulnerability revealed.”[2] One of the perverse effects of the torrent of media images that washes over us every day is to make our little efforts feel meaningless. But as Wink also suggests, “There is no such thing as objective powerlessness. Our belief that we are powerless is a sure sign that we have been duped by the Powers.”[3] We don’t need to do big, important things. It is, indeed, up to God to use our small, individual acts of faithfulness to achieve God’s purposes. But we must do something if for no other reason than to defy the propaganda of the Powers. And allow God responsibility for the results.

I am convinced that we will only have the strength and fortitude to do this within community. This little raggedy group is our only chance.

(the above represents the latter one fourth of the entire sermon. Highly recommended)

Whoa! Such preaching! Jeremiah would have such harsh words for our country today. I am finding it harder to cal it "my country", even though there is a long way to go to truly separate myself from it where separation is needed. "Our county" for the people of God is a foreign county, foreign in so many ways; foreign in its allegiance to realities far exceeding the "values" we see espoused in our country.

In this post a month ago, I pointed to a story about a doctor who moved to Washington DC to work in various medical missions of the Church of the Saviour. I found a link to the 8th Day community -- one of COS's churches--- and several sermons Dr. Hilfiker has given there

Movable Theoblogical: Joseph's House

(Update from the below post......after posting the entry below, the problem went away again. I am really chasing my tail on this one. That freaked me out. I still don't know exactly what change does the fix, but I am going to leave it for now. I wish there was an easier style manager plugin somehwhere, or better yet, a Dreamweaver MT template editor that lets you manipulate the location, style, and look of the MT tags on your page in a WYSIWYG mode, like the DataView mode in DW. )

(Later still: I had been trying to find the fix for this by uploading the style sheet changes, which I was assuming would show up on the page when I refreshed it. When I finally published this post, the problem disappeared again. Something about the rebuilding of the main index template (the home page) has to happen before the changes show up, although I'm not sure why, since the style sheets are called via linked CSS files, so that SHOULD happen when the css files change, right? I'm all " corn-fused")

I am having a nightmare of a time with my styles in MT. I noticed a while ago that my right side bar in IE is intruding over into the main content area. It should line up with a margin of 5 against the right side of the window. I made some changes to the style sheets (in MT, with Style Catcher, there is a base-weblog.css and a specific style sheet named , in this case, theme-theoblogicalOld.css that sits in my mt-static/themes/theme-theoblogicalOld directory. A while ago, I tweaked a few things and it seemed to work. Of course, I didn't make a note of what I did. I just went on. On my next post, the problem reappeared. Something MT is adding into the template each time it writes the file. Now I can't find what it was that I tweaked to duplicate the fix. Can anybody that might be able to see in my CSS files what the heck I've done, or what I need to change to fix this, I would be most appreciative. It might also be in my main index template, which I suppose one could get the basics from the Show Code of my home page (the home page is where the problem is happening)

Jamie Smith said something in his CPB interview on "Evangelicals Out of the Box" that has stuck with me. He was talking about how those on the left avoid like the plague saying anything that "Sounds like" the Right. It seems that there may well be a tendency to do this from those who consider themselves to be trying to follow a "Third Way" ; and thus a similar tendency to NOT echo things that the left is saying OR what the RIGHT is saying.

This was highlighted for me in the part of the interview where Jamie describes what he means by fundamentalism of the left:

There is within evangelicalism, a left wing version of [right wing fundamentalism], where there's a party line, and you come to this set of conclusions and then you don't question them, [ so that ] "the worst thing in the world would be to even sound like a conservative, therefore we're going to take positions that run as far as possible from even the danger of sounding like conservative evangelical Christians, and I just find that equally maddening , frustrating and small-minded, in a way. It's people who aren't willing to risk identifying and affirming "what's right" in the Right

I also take from this that this is also an issue when it comes to the left, from WHICHEVER direction they are being critiqued. I hava also noticed creeping into this great dialogue on Radical Orthodoxy, politics, and ecclesia, a dismissive attitude toward "the left", and a forgetting of the very deep worries about where our country is headed. We don't have to assume (and I certainly don't) that this means that John Kerry would have solved most of those things, but I too felt very invested in the importance of getting the Bush administration out. I still feel a bit of kinship to some of the voices of "the left" like Al Franken, even though he doesn't have, or doesn't talk much about, the importance of faith communities in shaping us. I also have some sense that there are hidden spirtual sensibilities there that find SOME resonation with liberal-activist politics, and this loyalty thus engenedered in them is so strong becuase of the absence of other expeirnces of community in our society, a nd the absence of "resident alien" outposts. I feel fortunate to have been raised in the church, and devoted myself to some theological studies in Seminary after college, and following that for 10 years via readijng, and then again with Seminary studying communications (which also happened during the first Gulf War, which prompted numerous discussions about the way the media handled this, and the way the Churches jumped on the Nationalist bandwagon. It was then that my ties to Sojourners became strongest, as they were an all-too-rare voice of dissent.

This has been my only misgiving in all the dialogue since I began listening and reading Hauerwas, JKA Smith, and also Bonhoeffer, along with my previous year of such intense dismay over the things happening since Bush took office. As I have related several times since the election in 04, I realized then that a church-centric focus had to take center stage. Radical Orthodoxy was presented to me at just the right time, and I have that legacy of the Church of the Saviour that has been there reminding me acorss this disturbingly long period of time since I was exposed to their way of life as church, and find myself diving back in to re-consider their story and then slide back into work and family routines. It is a maddening experience to realize how seemingly impossible it is to break this cylce of being trapped in a life with deadening sameness with the culture, even though we as a family look at the world with such dismay and know that there lies within God's people a better way, but find that churches with any inkling toward the idea of discipleship are discipling people in the ways of theraeutic religion rather than the life and resurrection of Christ as lived with his people, and churches with an awareness of the need to stand against so much that is wrong in culture are ignoring the need for our being shaped by one another in more persoanl and committed ways. The Journey Inhward, Journey Outward is sop badly out of whack. This is what is driving me to take a drive over and visit them once more and seek out how this problemn could be attacked. What can someone like me do when the people I conider to be my closest "spiritual relations" are spread out acorss the country?

Fox News treated the whole Plame affair like it was no big deal; Plame was just a clerical worker; she really wan't covert, blah blah blah. I hear the Fox-watchers echo the lines. Such is the news-ghetto these people have allowed themselves to slide into. This article sheds some actual news on the matter, rather than the Fox-fodder

CIA Yet to Assess Harm From Plame's Exposure

But after Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's column, the CIA informed the Justice Department in a simple questionnaire that the damage was serious enough to warrant an investigation, officials said.

Not that the Washington Post is purely news, unswayed by any political/ideological pressure, but my complaint here is against the echo chamber, headed by Murdoch's propagandas machine, who have pitted themselves against any journalism which dares to question the "correct" party lines. Bill Moyers was on Jon Stewart a while back (I watched the video last night), and said that the Right calls "liberal" anything which dares to "investigate" the White House).

So, to the Utilitarians who are constantly claiming that "peace advocates" are naive about the world; that "these are the kinds of things that need to be done to "do what's got to be done" (like the Colonel Jessup "You need me on that wall") , but then when such details as "the importance of covert identities" is transgressed, they seem perfectly willing to smooth this one over, and deny wrongdoing. Their hubris has gotten them this time.

Steve Bush points to a post by Jamie Smith (a.k.a JKA) responding to an article by Jonathan Kozol in Harper's

Fors Clavigera: Orwell, Foucault, and the State of Urban Public Schools

Documenting years of visits and conversations with children, teachers, principals, and education bureaucrats at state and federal levels, Kozol paints the picture of a nation that is clearly going backwards. Fifty years after the supposed 'victory' of Brown v. Board of Education, Kozol shows that civil rights legislation hasn't erased racism, and that legislation for equality needs to be backed up by tax laws that could actually fund equality--but we all know that in that respect, America is headed down the wrong road. Not even Democrats have the courage to talk about raising taxes anymore! I confess to feeling overwhelmed by the direction this nation is headed. How does this happen?

The more I read and hear from Jamie Smith , the less I disagree with and the more I find that those matters where I do disagree are far less weighty than the things which he and other "RO writers" have emphasized about just how "alien" our promised land is to the parody of wholeness and salvation offered by "the mainstream" and by "the empire"; and our value to the existence of God's people as a living and redemptive society. But we also have to be there and work at this in order to understand just how true this is.

It also does my heart good to see the disgust seething through in

Kozol provides a stark picture by considering the "head start" that suburban white children get, and shows up the ridiculous language of "accountability" that we get from the "No Child Left Behind" Act

, especially as the "stuff" starts hitting the fan with heavier and more rpeated "splats" with the inditements handed down today, and the clear indicators of on ominous trail upward. Such things as these are the typical discoveries of a group such as this administration that can BS their way through their "work" in education, while their real attenyi on and energies are in ropin off for themselves what they perceive to be the roads to wealth and power, and the education, health, and the very lives of those not "of them" are of no consequence, especially when they are perceived to be "roadblocks" to absolute dominion. There's certainly a lacking in accountability toward what their "words" pay lip service. It is showing up in nearly every arena of "responsibility" which has unfortunately been largely left to the very ones who increasingly show their unworthiness to the task.

In the early church, it was certainly taken to be very personal that noone was placed or perceived themselves to be, in a place of higher esteem than others, and this state of education in our country is one of the most glaring examples of forces pulling us in the wrong direction (which was part of , if not most of Jamie's point, as well as Jonathan Kozol )

In the Jamie Smith interview on American Public Media Friday night, one piece really hits the heart of my previously expressed concerns about the way dialogue (or lack therof) is happening/not happening between "RO and Sojo". The following reflections can also be crucial for us to remember in our treatment of the "left", whom it seems to me are much closer to RO in their "theological" reflection on what ills society. The way in which responsible "activity in response" is prioritized seems to be the issue, and Jamie talks about Sojourners as being "too much confidence in marshaling the state "machine" to get done prophetic faith"....and on that count, "too much" may well be correct. On the OTHER hand, although I think the first order of reaction/response should be "Do Something About it as a church" (ie. Hauerwas' "The task of the church is to BE the church"), I do believe there ARE people who are called to be "ambassadors" to government. Some of those are IN government ( I think of former Ohio Senator Tony Hall), and some of these "ambassadors" are perhaps lobbyists or new types of advocates for issues, which may well have some kind of ecumenical backing. I believe there are roles and places for such people and callings. But NOT to exclusion of structures in the church which marshall the resources of the People of God in that church.

This is certainly a pitfall of focusing all our talk about justice on governmental responsibilities and failings. Fail they do, and often and consistently (mostly due to not actually trying but saying they are trying). The point is, this IS the Church's job. But there ISD a value in making things visible, so that more of the people who associate themselves with churches who are NOT teaching them about "the principalities and powers" and how to name them (but in some cases even aiding and abetting these powers and finding theological rationale for it)

Here's what Jamie says in the piece on "Fundamentalism of the Left":

"There is within evangelicalism, a left wing version of [right wing fundamentalism], where there's a party line, and you come to this set of conclusions and then you don't question them, [ so that ] "the worst thing in the world would be to even sound like a conservative, therefore we're going to take positions that run as far as possible from even the danger of sounding like conservative evangelical Christians, and I just find that equally maddening , frustrating and small-minded, in a way. It's people who aren't willing to risk identifying and affirming "what's right" in the Right (could be a veiled reference to God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, don't you think?)

She asks Jamie: Are you in conversation with these "other kinds of Christians?" who are more on the left?

"There's maybe two versions of Evangelicals who are more "progressive", "leftish" whatever you might want to say . One set identifies very closely with Sojourners community, Jim Wallis, that kind of project. Now that's one that I think, persoanlly, has too much confidence in marshaling the state "machine" to get done prophetic faith"

Then she says:" I'd say that Jim Wallis is also been very effective at marshalling, publishing, and PR", and Jamie says "Yeah, and so this is probably half jealousy on my part". There's another group that I find resonates much more with me, and that's someting called the ecclesia project......tries to sketch out not a "middle ground [between the Religious Left and the Religious Right], but a third way, which has a much closer tie to the practices of the church, to thinking about the church as this alternative "polis", alternative community which exhibits its own politics"

I too like the Ecclesia Proiject sensibilties, but want to hear more specifics concerning the alternate "polis". This is where the Church of the Saviour history and narrative have much to teach the American church about what a truly alternative people and society looks like.

The piece below from the program talks about how so much of the coverage of this debate about "church and state" has played out in public:

By the way, in my previous post, I know there can be lots of arguments with how I have put it there. I don't claim to have " covered it" . Many questions disagreements forthcoming may well be things I would also agree with. In my own frustrations with my own lack of a real face toface embodiment of church, I find in both the RO and the Sojo projects things with which I do not wish to be without. In both of these, I see elements in them which are lived out in concrete forms in the Church of the Saviour, a group with a history and a story with whch I deeply resonate.

I cherish friendships from proponents of both, and know others who are proponents of both. I also owe a lot to Tony Campolo in helping me to develop a theologically-based Sociology which focuses on the Kingdom of God and its embodiment in church as polis.

At this American Public Media link, Speakingoffaith.org, James KA Smith is offering up his thoughts (in Audio). I thouroughly enjoyed it.

Eric's Tasty Morsels of Thought - Cloudy day listening

On Eric's post, where he posts about his just having listened to the audio, I left this comment:

Lots of Good stuff. First time I've actually heard his voice.

On his comment on Wallis, I'd also agree. "Tends to depend too much on marshalling the resources of the state". I would just also add that in the process, he (Wallis) makes it more accessible (conceptually, intellectually, in terms of understanding and recognizing the "difference" that can be made by churches who take seriously the vision of the Kingdom of God as revealed in Scripture). But yes, I hope that he can be "re-hijacked" by a more thourough ecclesiological approach, and instead speak of the "church as politic" all its own, instead of trying so hard to speak to "Progressives" of all stripes (which he does a good job of----I don't know, maybe that's HIS gift; to appeal to "social progressives" and through his connections and stories, lead them into the back yards of church projects that most faithfully embody the People of God.

But I listened to every bit of it, and wished there was more.

I just heard the opening of the show, which I didn't hear last night (I just listened to the individual Jamie Smith segments), Jamie says:

There are days when the last thing I want to do is call myself an evangelical, and it's usually after I've heard somebody on Larry King or read some editorial James Dobson wrote and think "[exaperated gasp]...."if that's what evangeliscalism is, here's my ticket, you can have it back".....on other days though I want to sort of stand up and fight and say "No, we're not going to let you have the term, it's broader and more generous than that"

Here is a REALLY similar sensibility which has brought Wallis' articulation of it into public eye: the idea of "a hijacked faith". Wallis also specifies an "evangelical faith" that brings with it a BROAD view of Scripture. He calls for a more robust sense of what constitutes "morality".

In the beginning of the interview, Jamie is talking about the way the media portrays evangelicalism (ie "The beast is rising out of Kansas" etc.) He says that what's missing from that is a certain amount of charity; iow, why it is that so many basically good people are captivated by it?Iit's coming from fairly sincere concerns about being faithful"

I agree totally. Which leads me back to the absence of such charitable treatment of Jim Wallis. Where is this sense of charitable discourse when it comes to Wallis? Why the absence of "as much as I appreciate A it is B that causes me concern" instead of "he's just ended up a humanist"? As much as I have read of Wallis , I can't understand how he arrives at that, or even think it. As much as I have read of Jamie Smith, I also know of the many points of intesection between the telos each operates from. The areas in whcih they are saying and expressing similar concerns is a place of much deeper importance than the issue of how such concerns should be expressed in the public square. If the "public square" has its own agenda (which I believe it does) and operates with its own theology (which I also agree that it does), then it seems to me that there are many well-meaning, sincere, even faitful Christians who may be more captured by its assumptions about "rationality" and "reality" and "public good" and "the world community". MY sense is that there are also many, many public intellectuals in that category. The accusations of Statecraft and such being used right off the bat seem to be saying "You ought not listen to him, you ought to be listening to me". There are more fundamental agreements to be recognized, and then the ways in which the church is a representastive/embodiment of THE altenative vision can be addressed with a more united front. I can't help but feel that the visions of God's Kingdom are much more "seeable" from the vantage point of the Progressive, Sojourners type Christian than that of the Bush-Nationalistic-Religious Right Evangelical Christian. The way to the eccesiology and Christilogy of Radical Orthodoxy is much more inviting and discernable to the Sojourners type than the Nationalistic Religious Right type (such as expressed by the leadership and many churches in the Southern Baptist Convention). With such in mind, I feel that these "political differences" are approachable between Progressive, SojoTypes and Radical Orthodoxy (not that RO-ers aren't also , in many ways, "Progressive" in that they have a senibility for alternatives as embodied in the story of God's people.

We need some of us to really commit ourseleves to be public intellectuals to help the church think more critically about her commitments and help evangelical Christians think a little more critically about what programs they're buying into and who's banner they're flying under....and also speak to.....intelligently, generously, not-so-polemically to Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, Wall Street Journal, those kinds of outlets , too...and I hope that our generation is going to start to take that more seriously.

So the above "public intellectual" has been, in the public eye, and for many "Progressives who are also Christians or sympathetic to Christianity ("God -fearers?"), Jim Wallis. I hear Jamie's concern about "attempting to marshall the resources of the state" to"get justice done". But I am not at all sure what Jim Wallis thinks of that prospect, particualrly under this administration. But he wants to mobilize people to care about the social issues. Jamie has told us that he himself credits Jim Wallis for "awakening" him out of his "social slumber", as Wallis did for many. So it is on that score that I hope Jamie can begin to speak in a tone toward Wallis in public (as he has on the matters of his concerns over statecraft and "Constaninian of the Left?") that is in line with this, as in his call for public intellectuals in the quote above, and be "Not-so-polemical" and before he declares that Wallis has "really just ended up as a humanist", (see his blog post here) to perhaps have a two way rather than the one-way dismissal he projects in this post. I want to call for a more serious exploration of this, because I think he is wrong about Wallis in certain aspects (mainly in the way he deals with him in quick jabs rather than the more full-blown conversation about things like "how to have public conversation, and what these "Public intellectuals" need to be saying. I believe that Wallis has struck a chord, and to a certain degree, yes, there is a certain amount of "sloganing" and lack of sufficient detail about church communities and their neccessity as contianers of the kinds of people who feel called to this; indeed, a people amongst which they receive this call; among whom the spirit moves as in Pentecost.

"Chrisitans doing journalistic-like reporting about things, tend to not be very charitable toward popular expressions, of evangelical faithfulness"

So, in what I hope is coming from a very "appreciative of Jamie Smith stance", I want to point out how these very valid and valuable observations about the tone of theological debate and the concern for "appreciation" has not exactly been his methodology with Jim Wallis, who has certainly enabled and encouraged a rise of some new "popular expressions" that express exactly what Jamie expressed (ie. "I''m not going to let [evangelicals] have the term").

"Public air play individuals" seem to be his nemise; and Wallis has gotten some siginificant "aitr time" in high profile places (especially Jon Stewart). Jamie even mentions ain a somewhat joking fashion that "some of this is out of jealousy" when referring to his critique of Wallis as marshalling the resources of state, and the host points out how Wallis has been successful in "marshalling" media and PR. I can't tell how seriously Jamie said that.

Progressive Evangelical Radio Program is desirable (Amen to that, but where does such an introduction to the public begin? What issues of language come into play? And would there be some "imperfection" and even "questionable rhetoric" that would be allowed? How does on illuminate the close proximities of "Progressive/Sojo" senisbilities with the Christian and ecclesial distinctives as emphasized by Radical Orthodoxy?

I am not willing to give up or forsake the telos of either. I want to continue to look to Sojourners, Church of the Saviour, Stanley Hauerwas and RO and company, and seek to find a church home where all of these currents are a part of both the structure and the leisurely chats.

My advisor during my days at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH 1990-91, Ken has been a good friend since, keeping in touch with me (and I with him) over those past 15 years, and he's always been one to whom I spilled some of my hopes for the future. It's probably he that is most responsible for getting me on my way into my calling to Online Community issues for the Church, and how this technology can be harnessed to help the church tell it's story, and help its people extend thier conversations. This blog has been one of those ways in which I can attempt to provide examples of how it is possible to allow our online realtionships to ease our searching and finding of embodied community, and then turn around and extend some of that give-and-take and invite people into just a bit more of our lives.

It will be great having him in town.

GBHEM: What's New

GBHEM Board Elects Bedell Associate General Secretary
The Rev. Dr. Kenneth B. Bedell has been elected associate general secretary of the Division of Higher Education of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM).

I stopped by and got a bag full of books from Vandy Divinity Library that I seriously doubt I will get through in two months, as follows:

Does God need the church? : toward a theology of the people of God Lohfink, Gerhard (Renewed it---almost done....beware of upcoming posts with my reactions----book has been great----- many confronting , umcomfortable, troubling and yet hopeful things have arisen from it) HIGHLY recommended. I will probably have to buy me a copy after I have to turn it back in.

After Christendom? : how the church is to behave if freedom, justice, and a Christian nation are bad ideas Hauerwas, Stanley (Had to renew this one, still haven't gotten to it, still poring over Lohfink)

New bag full:

Sanctify them in the truth : holiness exemplified Hauerwas, Stanley

Christianity Incorporated : how big business is buying the church Budde, Michael L.

Augustine and modernity Hanby, Michael

Liberation theology after the end of history : the refusal to cease suffering Bell, Daniel M.

Theopolitical imagination Cavanaugh, William T.

The two churches : Catholicism & capitalism in the world-system Budde, Michael L.

I went to comment on a series of posts and comments here: (la nouvelle théologie: Timid, Theoretical Radicals) and found that I couldn't comment there , so I copied it here. Read the stuff there, and then come back and see what I found so compelling about their (Eric's and Pastor John's) comments.

Eric and Pastor John,

These are some great articulations of some of the very stuff I've been "into" in my reading of RO works. Both the "ragged edges" and the "pearls of wisdom" ; and I think that BOTH of these apsects can help us. I sure hope that I learn and absorb and allow myself to become more open to the life of the resurrection as a result. Gerhard Lohfink's book has been great (I'm almost done). In some ways, reading it and some of the RO stuff and especially Hauerwas, has been a little like what it used to be like for me to watch a really good romantic movie back before I met my wife. I was moved, but also depressed for the lack of such at the time. That's something of a "distant relation" to my feelings and hopes about finding myself in a community that embodies that passimon for "the assembly" and the in-depth training ground for combatting the world and its ways, and breaking out of the cycle of consumption and comfort to share in the lives of those to whom God calls us to be with.

I'm on the verge of taking that trip to Washington DC to see some people about what I can do about church; to the people who were responsible for planting the seed in me many years ago and I've never been able to forget (nor woulod I want to), the Church of the Saviour, and a couple of sets of friends who live in that area. I hope to share a bit with Gordon Cosby a little of this journey, and find out a way to proceed about how I can find such a place, and where I am to do it.

But anyway, thanks guys. These were some great reflections.

Dale

la nouvelle théologie: Timid, Theoretical Radicals

Certainly RO is writing to academics in a jargon specific to a very limited, elite social class -- far from the ecclesial basis that they claim to speak for and from.

I often feel this , and at times, even at the receiving end of being blindsided by something I haven't thought of, nor been exposed to, in all of my theological past. If someone like me has "missed all this", I think it behooves some to realize that there are people who seriously attempt to call into question "the principalities and powers" , and as Walter Wink put it, seek to Name those powers and to enable and disocver ways for communities to grow a pocket of resistance to said powers--- and that these "seekers" may yet do that, and even come to the same conclusions that RO has been "mapping" for us. But some of these studies are not so easy to come by, or to even lend themselves to accessibility at a moment's notice to the mind of one who may need space to take this in, and may well be "fruitful ground" in which insights such as that which RO has offered can blossom and bear fruit. But oh yes, that FRUIT.

Yet the Jappery article is also correct. Sometimes I wonder if any of these authors have engaged in a work of mercy; I wonder if they have let themselves be immersed in Scriptures; I wonder if their theological analysis of Eucharist is a cognitive game or really a Eucharistic offering of thanksgiving. I wonder if their thought slips into neo-Platonic emanations rather than rejoicing in the Incarnation, and if the church is not just a cool way to resist global capitalism by a nostalgic nod to socialism, rather than a live context for the sanctification of human life into the fulness of the image of God in which all were created.

The FRUITS are the true telos; it's AIM. It really is more than " just a cool way to resist global capitalism", although I see how that way of being cool seems to be enough to smoothe over our unfruitfulness. We live vicariously. I have djne that in such a big way over almost 30 years. I've give money to this and that, and done oh so few things that really provide any lasting relief outside my own little family world. I was exposed to the influence of The Church of the Saviour in 1976, and was captured by the story of that people, and have felt like I've been looking for something lost to most of the church world in America ever since. I've worked on staff of churches, and was not bold enough to sasy the things I really thought needed being said, or would find resistance to the usual expectation of church as a therapeutic session and a "boost" to help us through the week. The radical noti ons of discipleship, and the idea of intense "detoxification" from the noti ons of "Success" in the world is rarely explored. And then in those rarified times when it is, no structural implementations follow, and we slip back into the grind, becuase we haven't seen our true purpose in the light of the community.

The forces of the "dictatorship of relativism" remain so strong within the institutions of the Western world that perhaps here there is an intellectual opening that provides some space at one level that will empower the witness of the saints at another level.

That's exactly why I keep reading. Naming those powers and indentifying their intellectual and spiritual currents is an invaluable defense.

When I read stuff like this (Bush's statement, not the viewpoints of the author of this source, although I would have some arguments with his typical separation of church and state argument), I just marvel at how people on the right miss the irony and hyporcisy of it

The Democratic Daily Blog � Blog Archive � Our Holy-Roller-in-Chief

Last week in an address before the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush once again wrongly and willfully conflated Iraq, where no weapons of mass destruction were found, with 9/11, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. In doing so, he decried the ‘’evil” of terrorists who misuse religion.

‘’This ideology is very different from the religion of Islam,” Bush said. ‘’This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency of totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.”

Bush added, ‘’Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life.”

The bolded area is what I mean. Huh? And this is not what we are doing HOW? It's EXACTLY what Iraq is about. EXACTLY. What a bold faced deceiver. What a misuer of religion. And then there's Bush's "Sometimes you got to step aside from religion when you've got a job to do". That's not just "an unfortunate use of words" as some on the right have said in order to obscure the light this sheds on Bush's depth of spirituality. This points to a shallow, secularist view of "religion" as a "useful tool" to get what you want.

Now we learn this weekend that lawmakers are now pushing for further cuts in programs for the poor in ordser to defray the cost of Katrina relief. All the while, tax cuts for millionaires are being increased from 100,000 dollars to 120, 000. Shameful. Hypocritical. EVIL. But then, what else can we expect from this crew? They've already shown us their absolute belief in the spreading of EMPIRE.

Robert Webber, author of The Younger Evangelicals, from Jonathan's blog series says:

The Phaith of St. Phransus: A WEEK WITH ROBERT WEBBER- day 6

If you look at worship over the last 30 years, the movement has been primarily the nearness of God, the immanence of God, the friendship of Jesus, the relationship and even a lot of romantic terminology in contemporary music about a relationship with God. The Younger Evangelicals are sick of that stuff. They just think it’s shallow, not really real — all this romantic stuff about their relationship with Jesus. And they’re beginning to see God more on the side of God’s holiness, God’s otherness, God’s transcendence.

I'm sick of it, too.

A couple of things I like to mention when this topic comes up.

One is from the late Mike Yaconelli, who referred to the individualistic, narcissism inherent in this kind of "Praise Worship", and called it "spiritual masturbation". Crude analogy, but if you think about it, and consider just how "anti-community" or "a-communal" that idea really is, and compare it to the sexual differences, it fits. Quite a "seminal idea" if you ask me (heh....sorry)

The other is from Ken Medema, a singer/songwriter whom I have listened to for 30 years. One of my favorite songs of his is from his album Kingdom in the Streets, where the chorus goes:

I'm sick of those 'I am his' and 'He is Mine' and 'Doesn't- it-make Me Feel Good' love songs--- I've read the book and it doesn't turn out that way We need a few more 'he is ours' and 'we are his' and "he calls us to his service' work songs; he calls us together to give our lives away

I'm lookling forward to this, which I just saw on Jamie Smith's blog

Fors Clavigera: Evangelicals Out of the Box: JKAS on NPR

This segment from Lohfink's book explores what is dreadfully absent in the life of most churches: the existence of a serious effort to "socialize". It's been largely left to the sermon, which all too often resorts to "Therapy" to soothe the soul ("Chicken Soup"). The absence of any serious effort to combat the world, but rather , to seek to "take the edge off" (like a form of alcoholism) by helping us to feel better. Absent are the expectations that here we are about being shaped and transformed. Periodic "special events" and "extra-curricular" studies will not suffice ("extra" to the "curricula" that consists of the standard fare; the weekly sermon, whcih is what most people consider to be the "dues" that they pay to be counted).

The awareness that acceptance of the faith means entry into a new creation, a new form of society, is evident not only in the Pauline letters. The whole of the ancient Church was sustained by that knowledge, and for that reason it was also aware of the great significance of baptism. Baptism was seen as a change of rulers, a turning away from the gods and demons of Gentile society and an entry into the Church as the space of Christ's lordship.

All that was very concrete: probably as early as the second century the candidates for baptism each had to produce a guarantor who would attest the sincerity of their conversion. They had to take part in a three-year baptismal catechessis that carefully educated them in Jewish-Christian discernment and the form of life demanded by faith. The ancient Church took it for granted that the Christian life of the baptismal candidates would not come of itself, but had to be learned, It was also assumed that evil is powerful and that every inch of the reign of God had to be fought for. Therefore the instruction of the catechumens and baptism itself was accompanied by symbolic actions that expressed the struggle: exorcism, anointing, imposition of hands, solemn renunciation of the diabolos and his works.

p.211 Does God Need The Church?

The Church of the Saviour set the stakes from the outset, and they have avoided the slow descent into culturally acceptable religion and undemanding community.

From Gerhard Lohfink in Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God

The resurrection of Jesus is intimately bound up with the resurrection of the people of God, that is, its eschatological gathering. The Emmaus story in particular shows this with special clarity. The knowledge that Jesus is alive by no means leads the two disciples who had been departing in resignation from Jerusalem to the climactic statement of countless Easter sermons, "life has meaning,' or "there is life after death for us as well' . Instead it takes them back to Jerusalem, where the rest of the disciples are: "That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together" (Luke 24:33).

p. 206 (emphasis mine)

So proclamation is bound up with incarnation, and from the inside, with sacrament. This "life of the body" is pointing to a people redeemed, and who are a sign of the Kingdom at work. The quality of their relationships should be astonishing to the world (ie "see how they love one another"). The result of such transformed relationships is a sharp contrast to the individualism and isolation of society, and a story of contagious freedom from the world's powers.

I have mentioned before how it would be interesting to have a Sojo-RO dialogue. I also think that The Church of the Saviour (COS) ecclesiology would be a fascinating exploration for the RO project. There is so much reading of great stuff going on amongst the people of COS that there is probably some discussion of RO theology already happening there.

In my previous post, I mentioned how the RO project has brought us some sociological/theological insight into the efects of the Enlightnement notions of "rationality" and "natural theology". But RO and its insights are NOT widespread until of late (and even of late, it's only a relatively small movement). My own theological education goes back some 30 years --- including my college days--- and even though it has included a siginificant amount of sociological critique from the prespective of a version of "Social Gospel", the notions being adanced by the RO project cut against the grain of some of those "assunmptions", and the reception of such insight is affected by the way in which potentially formative insights and habits are presented to those who could particpate in this discussion.

The discussion over on Generous Orthodioxy Think Tank in the posts this and especially this (the way the comments start....but there is a long thread here which deals in spots with the polemics) and here sets forth some of the issues at stake. The important piece that I see here at stake is the way to dialogue between RO and "Sojourners types", since I must admit that I could get worried about a rift between RO and "Progressives", since I find myself to be on board with both. The Church of the Saviour's ecclesiology has been my "corrective" or "discipline" to keep me from the traps inherent in a "secular left". The Church of the Saviour's "Journey Inward, Journey Outward" ecclesiological stance is their structure for maintaining a balance between "activity and mission" and the journey as a people who are also on an Inward Journey and are DEPENDENT upon interdependence and a rdiacl notion of communitythat turns the individualism of this culture on its head.

I want "Sojourners types" to affirm ecclesiology and their existence in and dependence upon a People of God, a nd I want RO to affirm what is good and true in "movements" of the "Progressive Christian" types, even if and especially where they tend to cast their pearls before swine. The road to recognizing where this can and may occur is not going to be driven into them by haughty sounding , specialized academic notions that can only come across as "standoffish". I feel fortunate to have followed a path to RO where I was "introduced" and "invited" to it rather than scolded and told I was "getting into bed with the state". I now see more ways in which I have fallen prey to this over the years, but also know, from my experience IN IT, that there is more ecclesiological dependence amongst many in the "Progressive Chriatian " camp than is suggested by some polemics.

I have been struggling for months with how to articulate my unease with some of the critiques levelled by the RO camp against the "progressives" within the church. It began with James KA Smith's polemics against Jim Wallis, which took my surprise when I read it, coming as it did on the heels of a blog post I read from JKA about the student protest against Bush at Calvin College. I had just been introduced to some of the basic assumptions of RO (if one can speak of RO thought at all with a term like "basic") via my friend Eric Lee and from Jonathan Norman (who since has also become a friend whose church I have visited) via his blog interview with JKA. Before I made the connection between Jamie of the blog Fors Clavigera and James KA Smith, the author of Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, I read an earlier post from the Calvin College protest post's author that severely criticized Jim Wallis. I began reading the book, and then I discovered that the book author and the blog author were the same.

I tend to agree with the insights that the RO project has been advancing. I am uncertain as to how this should play itself out in the relationship between "progressives" such as JIm Wallis and what James KA Smith refers to as "Sojourner types", and those who have found in RO an unavoidable welcome recfognition of the centrality of ecclesiology, and ultimately, a theology of the People of God. I tend to see much a much richer shared love of church between these two groups than does James KA Smith. I also am concerned about what seems to me to be a danger of alienation between these groups, since I cannot help but believe that the two share a common telos, even though the "structures" these groups envision or work within are of two different strategies. The "political stage" which is in the public's eye is one which RO identifies as captive to the liberal nation state, and operates out of a modernist, Enlightenment, ultimately "natural theology". I can see this. I can see the cause for concern for those who place an undue amount of hope or personal/spiritual development in the political process AS IS.

But it is here where my caution enters. I have expressed at several points that RO and its insights are a bit of "hidden treasure", especially the recogntion that such a thing as "liberal democracy" is such a modernist heresy. It is not so apparent to many who have spent their lives under the assumption that their tireless efforts to "infiltrate" and "overturn" contemporary political corruption and skewed priorities and seek to encourage and enable a movement that has, as its goal, a faitful reading of Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God. That TRUE justice and freedom and "morality" is based on a city whose builder and maker is God.

The rhetoric I hear being hurled at these "Sojourner types" is often not very conducive to a recognition and affirmation of the common telos that exists between them, or for a trust that God's call to his people will not continue to bring us "further in" to a response as a people that will transform our every effort; both that of the "ecclesially-based expression and celebratrion, as well as the efforts to "tell the world of an alternate vision" and to ensure that the realities of the failures of the system are brought to light so that more will have the knowledge that will enable them to say NO and perhaps work against the continued expansion of evil empires.

I feel like I could go on and on, but maybe I should stop there and see what this might bring up by way of response, further questioning, both positive and negative. Let me add that I wholly subscribe to the Hauerwasian "The role of the church is to BE the church". This is the bottom line structure for all "strategy". The strategy must of necessity emante from discernment, whcih can only take place in the company of the comiitted; in the midst of the People of God. We're not "building a movement", but PARTICIPATING in God's movement.

This post by Al Mohler is yet another in a long line of posts about "Sanctity of Life" in which Mohler simply refuses to even address how war doesn't fall into every argument he makes. It's as if he doesn't even recognize its existence. But that would be to question his demonination's triumphant and almost joyful acceptance and support of the "Christian America" led by their heroes, the Bush administration. It has become a denomination seemingly perfectly willing to live with this glaring hypocrisy as they talk about their upholding the sanctity of life. They're no better than the "woman's right to choose" people who justify such "rights" on the basis of convenience and "larger picture", but refuse to notice how this is the exact argument they use for war.

Crosswalk.com - Albert Mohler's Weblog

I noticed that since my home page has moved into a new month, and I have fewer posts than woudl equal the height of the right sidebar, my white background stops and obscures the remainder of the sidebar. If anybody can look at the source of this page and see what I need to do with the template to make the main content portion extend on down to the bottom so that it is not starting the blue background too early, let me know. I'm also doing this post as a test to see if that is indded the case.

(Update---yup, that's the deal alright. After I posted this the first time, I see that much more of the right sidebar. The key seems to be the light blue outside border that obscures the sidebar since the content is not tall enough to extend the white all the way down. If I knew a piece of code that would create an area that is 'remainder' tall (tableheight-contentarea = remainder), then it would force the content area down to enough to uncover the sidebar. But there may be an easier way, like adjusting the blue area or something. Of course, if I keep blabbing on long enough about this, I may reach the needed content area height ---that is, until next month rolls around, so that's not such a great way to patch things. )

Jonathan has this today in his "A Week With Robert Webber" series:

The Phaith of St. Phransus: A WEEK WITH ROBERT WEBBER- day 4

I use the word “pragmatic” because they’re really shaped by the business model, the market model, the advertising model. Just as all the market and business and advertising began to emerge in the late ’70s and ’80s — and that’s observable to anybody who looks at magazines and television and notes how consumerism began to develop. It seems to me that they’ve created a consumerist church. The product is Jesus and the good life. It’s therapeutic Christianity. And they’re out to sell that. So they’ve asked themselves the question: “What’s the best way to sell Jesus and get people into the life of the church?”

What's going to pack em in? And just as importantly, how do we "sidestep" and obscure and even "turn around" those more "uncomfortable" items that glare brightly from the gospel? We can't really bring those out into the open and let those words speak, can we? We got to keep the people we have. If we upset them, then what can we accomplish? So goes the "pragmatic", ultimately "business" model.

From Bonhoeffer's Bio:

The essential freedom of the church is not a gift of the world to the church, but the freedom of the Word of God to gain a hearing....But where thanks for insititutional freedom is rendered through sacrificing the freedom of preaching, the church is in chains, even if it believes itself to be free

from No Rusty Swords, p. 117 quoted in Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, p. 660

When people criticize those concerned about the war in Iraq, and call them "America bashers", it is usually accomanied by the refrain "You should instead be thankful that you live in such a country where you have the freedom to disagree". Sort of circular reasoning. You shouldn't criticize since you should you be tahnkful that you have the right to do so, impying that you shouldn't do what you have the right to do? Okay.......But Bonhoeffers's concern here is with what that does to the proclamation of the Word. God IS the God of history, whose work SHALL be done, and whose salvation WILL be proclaimed and whose ends WILL be accomplished. Jesus announced this (the latter is more "sifting" from Gerhard Lohfink's Does God Need the Church?)

JUst found this blog while reading the blogs I often frequent, and there are many of them already here. The project of bringing Radical Orthdoxy theology into close relation with preaching and teaching is something I hope to find embodied in a face to face community, but short of that, I am thrilled to have another blog to visit and to be challenged further.

Radical Preaching

Preaching suffers today because it has become ensnared in all the pitfalls of modern society. Preaching is often little more than self-help or pop psychology. It is rational discourse. It is made to be the be all end all of Christian worship. Preaching is oftentimes placed in dialectical tension with theology. Theology becomes valid only "if it will preach."

This blog represents an attempt to, in Will Willimon's words, to "preach Christ and Him crucified, not humanity and it slightly improved."

Amen. I like to think that I am FOR the vision of humanity as God has intended it; which is something far outreaching the limitations we end up placing on God by erring too far in the wropng direction.

While I'm at it with the venting of my disgust with the Bush men, here's a couple of archived , not-published posts that I had been saving from last week, not sure that I wanted to go down that road, for fear that I'd 'tilt' again and drain energy from my exploration/reflection on what the church IS rather than what it is NOT), nevertheless, SOMETIMES such things are best allowed to vent, so:

I'm so amazed (not really) at how easily the public swallows the continued falsehoods and deceptions of this evil regime. Yes, EVIL. Destructive, murderous, and self-rigtheous. Things like this just raise up the outrage over and over again. When will the nation's eyes be opened to the extent that the scales wil be tipped, and enough people get mad as hell and won't take it anymore? There's "business as usual" (also with its usual amounts of corruption and greed and the usual vestiges of liberal democracy--- conservative political versions included--- and then there's the Bush administration, whcih has taken it all to a new level, heightened and aided by media enhanced corporate interests that are blindly racing toward the neocon dream.

Progress Report RSS - American Progress Action Fund

In 2003, Vice President Cheney asserted, "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." That wasn't true in 2003, and it's not true now. In 2003, Cheney still received deferred compensation from the contracting behemoth and possessed more than 433,000 stock options. Those options were worth $241,498 a year ago; they now are worth more than $8 million. With Cheney in office, Halliburton has received more than $10 billion for work in Iraq and received one of the first no-bid contracts for work in the Gulf Coast.

From the first chapter of Gerhard Lohfink's book:

in its first book the Bible not only narrates the story of human sin, but also the beginning of the story of salvation with Abraham. Without looking at that history of salvation and trying to live within it no one can say whether God's creation is a success or not.

It is only the redeemed who have a clue as to what "success" is. "Success" is life as God intended. This is the only "abundance" worth its weight (and not in "gold"...which most associate with wealth, but the "gold" has its worth because it is "of that city".

I have a feeling that as I read this book, I will want to (even more) read The City of God

There must be a place, visible, tangible, where the salvation of the world can begin: that is, where the world becomes what it is supposed to be according to God's plan. Beginning at that place, the new thing can spread abroad, but not through persuasion, not through indoctrination, not through violence. Everyone must have the opportunity to come and see. All must have the chance to behold and test this new thing. Then, if they want to, they can allow themselves to be drawn into the history of salvation that God is creating. Only in that way can their freedom be preserved. What drives them to the new thing cannot be force, not even moral pressure, but only the fascination of a world that is changed.

Clearly this change in the world must begin in human beings, but not at all by their seeking through heroic effort to make themselves the locus of the new, altered world; rather it begins when they listen to God, open themselves to God, and allow God to act.

"allow themselves to be drawn into the history of salvation that God is creating" --- this has been what my deepest experiences of church have shown me. Such things happen all too infrequently and in too few places. Not that God has not been active in these places and times. It is a matter of "listening to God"; and depending upon the gathered people for a "gathered" experience of Pentecost where the call of God rides on the winds of Pentecost, and many hear it and share it, and all they can do is respond with their lives.