January 2006 Archives

Gavin pointed to an interesting post, re-invigorating of my "theoblogizing" ways----how the "Open Source", "Cluetrain-like" thinking and Christian communities serious about living life in depth with an eye to intense formation----all that kind of stuff. This is a post to remind me to look in depth to this in the morning as I start my day. Thanks for the pointer Gav! I need to dig back into my older Theoblogical , Online Community, Virtual Community, and Cluetrain category archives, and maybe even further back into the first thoughts I had on Church and Online resources back in the early days of the public web (1993-98) when I was hasing this stuff out in the Ecunet community.

TallSkinnyKiwi: Church 2.0

Church 2.0 . . . a missional ecclesiastic response to a culture influenced by the values of Web 2.0

Emerging Church 2.0 might be those emerging churches that are shaped by new media values rather than old media. They write blog posts rather than articles, PDFs rather than books, start churches without buildings, and lack a vertically hierarchical leadership structure. Hierarchy is modular and dynamic, rather than vertical and static. I am not talking about cyberchurches that migrate to the web. I am talking about alternative faith communities that emerge online and then seek physical meetings, new aggregations of believers that connect with each other and the world through the complex networks that make up their World 2.0

A fellow "State of the Union" boycotter:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 29, 2006 - February 04, 2006 Archives

I have a confession: I'm not sure when the last time was when I watched the State of the Union address. I think I may have watched it in 2003. But I'm not even certain of that. Perhaps a glance through the archives would show that I watched a bit of it last year, I don't know.

The truth is, I find it unwatchable.

Now, I read the transcript later. I'll often go back and watch key sections so I can get the flavor of a particular passage in the speech or of a debate it has spawned.

But the thing itself (watching the actual production in real time) and then the imbecile chatter afterwards -- I just can't deal. I just find it unbearable.

Are there others out there like me? I know that a great portion of the country never watches the thing and can't be bothered with politics in any case. But are there others out there who are genuine political junkies -- downright incurables -- and yet can't bear to watch this thing?

----
Josh Marshall is like me, with some similar reasons, but I have certain theological sensibilities that make it even more ubearable than the simple political shenanigans and dishonesty (in Joshua's defense, I'm sure there's "more to it" than what I just said for him too----including a sense of "moral outrage" that is something akin to the ourage I feel as a particular type of follower of Christ). There's also the almost proud-of-it attitude that "we're gettin' done what needs doin'"---all based on the outrageous lie that further propping up of the rich benefits everybody. Too bad it's just not Christian. And even all the more "too bad" because the American political system simply just isn't capable of doing a faint imitation of the Kingdom to which Christians are supposed to bear witness.

Here's an excellent post by Will Sampson (I quote the two closing paragraphs)

willzhead: Coretta and Sam

And so, the death of Coretta Scott King, a beautiful person and a valiant fighter for people's rights, seems to ring in the change that has happened in our culture. Samuel Alito, while "pro-life", does not believe that life should include equal voting rights for minorities or privacy from intrusion by government interests. It seems to me, unfortunately, that this is the lesson of power. It is a futile pursuit, bound to disappoint. If you try to change culture through force you will always lose; there will always be someone more powerful who has different ideas about how people should act.

This is the strength of the Christian message. Rather than following someone who commanded great armies or was a captain of industry, many of us follow one who said, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." It is my hope that continued legislative losses will help the Church abandon her pursuit of power and bring her back to the radical message of Jesus. If we do that, then maybe we can start making some real change.

Amen , Will!

Notice I DIDN'T SAY "looking forward"......I probably won't even tune in, since I can hardly stand to listen to him, since it's all posturing with practically no ability (or even intention) of doing much of anything, except to put a "democratic face" on what these guys really want to accomplish, which is to drain the less fortunate , to the greatest degree they can "accomplish" and send it trickling UP. I heard an economist say a few days ago that this is the first time in history that GDP gains have not been accomanied by some lift in the standard of living for the median income family. There's more of that mythical TRICKLE down. Anyway, Thunder Jones' posts tonight on what he expects from the speech, and this part sort of echoes my thoughts of earlier tonight about Coretta.

The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones: Predict the State of the Union

Finally, out most nauseating element of tonight’s speech will be the appropriation of Coretta Scott King. She was a great lady and we are all in her debt! There will be no mention that she emphasized nonviolence more boldly than MLK. We won’t hear about her opposition to the war in Iraq. We’ll just take some time and honor the icon, but not the ideas.

Last night I read some more in Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, and I got to the place where , during the bus boycott , King's house was bombed on the evening of January 30, 1956 ----50 years ago ------and then this morning on the way in to work, I heard the news that Coretta had died. Coretta, since MLK's death, has had to constantly remind us that what MLK was called to do and the legacy he wanted went further than the notion of "racial justice", but that reconciliation was the end, and that involved confronting the problem of the poor, and the problem of war, and how the latter further burdened the former.

Jay has some good thoughts on church culture and technology usage. The email was to a group that had been discussing some ideas for doing a Methodist Blogger Event, and Cole had expressed frustration about the Southern Baptists getting an article in the Tennessean about one of their execs that has a blog and was talking about the use of new technologies.

Only Wonder Understands: It Ain't About Technology!

What I was trying to express in the e-mail that I sent was a concern regarding a culture in the United Methodist Church that isn’t able to respond quickly to change. Now there is some value to this — the church probably should be a voice of caution, considering the ethical implications of new trends or technologies. Yet, given the speed of cultural change, those considerations must come more quickly, or else the church finds itself left behind, always playing catch-up, and never being on the cutting edge of any cultural movement.

The issue for me is not about who has the coolest stuff, but rather who has the willingness to create a culture that can be missionally focused. It’s not surprising that the Southern Baptists are “ahead” of the curve technologically for their ethos includes a willingness to take on new forms in order to carry out their mission in the world. Methodists, on the other hand, plod along, creating a committee to study everything so that by the time they’ve finally gotten around to adopting a new thing, the next trend has come along.

Thing about our structures. Our budgets nationally are determined on a quadrennial basis (four years). These days, four years is a long time. The first I-Pods were released four years ago, but they are transforming the music business, radio distribution, etc. How can an institution that only meets every four years respond to the speed of cultural change today?

Go read the whole "It Ain't About Technology!" post in the above link on Jay's blog

Gavin was blogging on this same conversation here

This has been getting steadily worse. I'm not sure what the cause is. There is a "Dynamic Publishing" feature that seems to be related to this, but MT's online documentati on is rather unclear. Any good tutorials out there, or experience among those of you with MT experience?

12:22pm I turned on the setting that says :" Selecting the publishing model on a per template basis is a multi-step process that begin with selecting the third option, "Set each template's Build Options separately." Let's see what that does. (Gulp). 1:08 pm......I am in the midst of rebuilding everything again, since the switchover resulted in a renaming of all archives files to filename.oldextension.static So I turned off that setting and am going back to the old. I did rebuild the index file so that it would rebuild those links (I think I did---- but the point is, that the MT dynamic publishing is not for the less-than-extremely-geeky.)

It might be getting close to the time to move to Wordpress. I don't want to have to do that, if I can find the solution to this massive slowdown (I have about 3000 posts). The Blog applicaiton world is getting big and intimidating. I'll resist moving from MT as long as I can.

I've been reading this, along with the other two books I mentioned last week (The New Monasticism book and In Good Company: The Church As Polis by Hauerwas. I have some designs on rolling back through Becoming the Authentic Church again as well.

The Taylor Branch book, Parting the Waters: America In The King Years 1954-63 has me hooked. There are two more books in the series. I saw the third book , At Canaan's Edge: America In The King Years 1965-68 in the bookstore on MLK day, and so I went to the library and checked out the first in the 3 part series. The middle one, Pillar of Fire: America In The King Years 1963-65. Taylor Branch is an excellent writer. I'm about 120 pages in.

I have some quotes from The New Monasticism book as well that I will eventually be blogging about.

This from Schools For Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasiticism:

It is absolutely vital that the New Monasticism recognizes and properly names the fragmentation that inhibits and distorts the formation of community and the healing of persons in community.

I've been in a sort of fog for the past couple of months, wondering where this breath of new life is happening. It's like the "inhibitions" alluded to above are in effect, creating a gulf between us. It seems that this "healing of persons" is expected and assumed to take place OUTSIDE of community as a kind of expression of individualism; an act of the will to overcome negativity and set aside the idea that there is going to be a place where we are truly accepted for who we are. No local church I have come into contact with in years has exhibited this corporate sense of accountability to a radical notion of discipleship and the Inward Journey.

Eric linked to here (which I just saw again on their RSS feed) and decided to duplicate the link. I agree with Eric. Yes, Read:
Wayward Christian Soldiers - New York Times

What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.

A most excellent post over at The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones: On Still Not Getting It

I think the reason is that the Bush administration prefers not to view their opponents as fellow humans who are capable of reason, discourse, and peaceful coexistence. It makes slaughter a more sensible option.

By refusing conversation, the Bush administration is continuing the horrific strategy of the Truman adminstration and requiring complete surrender (or in this case annihilation). We know how Truman got his complete surrender. His bomb killed 140,000+ people (for those keeping score, that's 50x the death toll of 9/11). What will Bush's victory cost in human lives? We know that 4 al Qaeda leaders are worth the deaths of 13 women and children

On that last note, I heard a news header at the top of the news: The Bombing in Pakistan now being called a WIN for the war on terror. Yeah. A Win. That's all that matters. Right. "That's war".

It's just not Jesus.

Most recent Amazon boxes to arrive at my house:

Schools for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism (various writers involved in communal living)

They have a web, http://newmonasticism.org/


The 12 Marks

Moved by God’s Spirit in this time called America to assemble at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, NC, we wish to acknowledge a movement of radical rebirth, grounded in God’s love and drawing on the rich tradition of Christian practices that have long formed disciples in the simple Way of Christ. This contemporary school for conversion which we have called a “new monasticism,” is producing a grassroots ecumenism and a prophetic witness within the North American church which is diverse in form, but characterized by the following marks:

1) Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.

2) Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.

3) Hospitality to the stranger

4) Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities
combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.

5) Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.

6) Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the
community along the lines of the old novitiate.

7) Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.

8) Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.

9) Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.

10) Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.

11) Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.

12) Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.

May God give us grace by the power of the Holy Spirit to discern rules for living that will help us embody these marks in our local contexts as signs of Christ’s kingdom for the sake of God’s world.

In Good Company:The Church as Polis Stanley Hauerwas (I had been looking for this in the Vanderbilt Div. School Library, but it seems to stay checked out, so I gave in and bought it.

Great one-liner that suggests and points to elaboration as only Hauerwas can achieve:

the skills required to worship well are not separable from the company itself. That is why theology, even one othat is strictly "orthodox", proves insufficient for the care of the traditions, since it lacks the company neccessary for it to do its work for the upbuilding of the community
p.9 In Good Company

I just read this: via JOHO (David Weinberger) which points to this:

David Weinberger, January 2006 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging

and it is one of those pieces that get me charged up about the sociological/communal stuff re: blogging, and its coming from one, David Weinberger, who is one of the "BlogFathers" in my own "blog journey". Not that I needed convincing of what he and the other Cluetrain authors were saying, but they added quite a bit of urgency (at least for me) to the mix. They constantly called for companies to "get a clue" about the imnportance and neccessity of listening to the people for whom they were making products or providing a service.

Rebecca: from my perspective the community was much stronger in 1999, being so much smaller. You could actually know of most of the existing blogs, and realistically hope to follow a large percentage of them. So what is the quality that defines community for you? What was lacking then that exists now?

“ There are people I’ve come to know over the years either through their blog or through their comments on my blog. Some of them mean a lot to me. ”

Good point. The community wasn't there for me (my note: in 1999 I assume). I felt I was blogging in the dark. No readers. No reaction. No sense of community.

For me, a community is a group of people who care about one another more than they have to. I do feel part of an ever-changing community of bloggers and readers. That's not to say that everyone who ever glanced at my blog is part of that community. But there are people I've come to know over the years either through their blog or through their comments on my blog. Some of them mean a lot to me. And this is not a binary club that you're either in or out of. It's far smudgier than that, as it should be. There are blogs I read that I feel emotionally attached to written by bloggers I don't know personally but about whom I've come to care. I'm more than a reader of them but less than a community member. It's an extension of the attachment we feel to favorite printosphere writers, but the blogging world is more intimate and less guarded.

I think we need a new social norm whereby it's rude to assume that someone has kept up with your blog.

How much traffic do you get?

I genuinely do not track it. I don't have the slightest idea. I don't have any meters in place and I never ever check my Technorati ranking or any of the others. I couldn't give you a guess reliable within several orders of magnitude.

Why don't you track it?

In small part on principle. In main part for pragmatic reasons. I would be affected by the numbers either way, and neither effect would be helpful. If I were a bigger person, I wouldn't care. But I do. So I don't check.

What principle?

That we shouldn't be writing blogs in order to gain a mass market. And we shouldn't be evaluating blogs and bloggers by how many people read them.

I have been half uninterested, because of the above reason, and half afraid to know (by the amount of comments I've been getting recently, it seems all the more likely that the number of readers is small)

I have to admint I've been a bit disappointed of late in the lack of interest in my working through (and posting of) the booklet "Becoming the Authentic Church". I had gotten much less interested (although not in the least DISinterested) in theologizing and discussing Radical Orthodoxy and such, and very much concerned/obsessed/preoccupied with finding a place and a people and an opportunity to begin to experience some of what The Church of the Saviour community is wrestling with right now (and really, constantly, over the years, as they struggle to remain faithful and renewed and seeking the structures which make for the most radical formation as the People of God).

This is closely related to the kinds of things in the interview with David above. One, how much "commenting" is a sign or not a sign at all, of either the worth of this blog, or the quality of it? I recognize that the drastic cutback in "politcal ranting" I had been doing June 2004 through June 2005 will put i a dent in that right now. There are simply many more people blogging about frustrations with Bush than there are people seeking a church community that forms itself in ways that often run counter to sensaibilities floating in church life from extreme left to extreme right.

I have a feeling that this issue and the interview above, though, should be treated in separate posts, as either one in and of themselves can make for many many conversations.

This sermon by Pastor John Wright speaks to me (as have many of his) :

Pastor John Wright

Even when we talk of God in the church, we talk of God only within what is already known, what is supposedly already given. In response to radical closure of the world, we open up a little place within our selves, psychological impulses from within, maybe a spot buried deep in the brain, and we can call that God. God does not really reveal God’s own self as Other to us. No, we have to discover god, and therefore god becomes the same as ourselves. We don’t need revelation, a gift that stands outside ourselves which calls us to God. We instead speak of spirituality, self-discovery, community, the assurance of our own subjective meaning as we struggle through the blandness that is the repetition of sameness that we experience. Nothing lies outside the system. God chased from the world finds residence in deepest self. Revelation is not allowed; we live in a world that denies revelation by definition. Our talk of God has succumbed to the loss – often without even realizing it and we end up with an idol, a big projection of our own selves, our own culture.

This affirms and echoes something that has been going on within me for some time now, and in the last year or so, all the more as I have read those such as Bonhoeffer, Hauerwas, Cavanaugh, and Bell, to add to my previous years of having my concept (and the hope that it's more than such) of church brought back time and time again by the vision of The Authentic Church (and the history of such a journey that has been taking place over the past 59 years at the Church of the Saviour). The awareness that God intends to do wholly different things that lie far beyond what is "the givens" that keep us enslaved in a history told by someone other than God. Gordon Cosby constantly talks and writes of an "alternate reality" ("alternate" in the sense of "other" rather than "just another option". It is alternate in the sense of the only true reality).

Faith is the beginning of rationality, of thought, of desire that ends in love that is true knowledge. Faith is not wholly other than thought, than rationality.

This is a really good post from one of those Cluetrainer guys, Doc Searls. Doc, David Weinberger, and Chris Locke, the three who blog, basically got me in to blogging in the first place back in 2002 after I read The Cluetrain Manifesto and started reading theirs and other blogs. Thanks , Doc, for that tribute to Dr. King.

The Doc Searls Weblog : Monday, January 16, 2006

That death stands out for me because it was emblematic of the grief, hopelessness, despair and anger that followed the murder of Martin Luther King. Listen to the Dream speech, and hear the hope it brought to people of all races. That hope was real. That hope lifted a nation. That hope moved civilization forward. The Dream speech was dawn. It was light. It promised freedom. After that speech, many more people fought for that freedom, most effectively without violence, as Dr. King had taught them. I was one of those people.

via Jesus Politics:

Body and Soul: No. No. No.

Peace activists are protesting plans for a military flyover at the city's annual Martin Luther King Jr. march, saying the gesture runs counter to the nonviolent beliefs of the civil rights leader.

The city's MLK Commission said the flyover by two fighter jets from Randolph Air Force Base is meant to be patriotic and an honor to King in a city with a strong military presence.

This reminds me of the veneration Pope John Paul got from "Pro-Life" people when he died. They totally ignore how he vehemently opposed and criticized the Iraq war. The Pope had a few thngs to say about the things that represent "the culture of death", a phrase which the Religious Right adoptedf and proceeded to seriously truncate it d down to abortion and euthanasia only. IN between birth and death is outside the bounds somehow. Now we have this "Civic Praise" that is so clueless as to thnk they are "honoring" MLK with a display that is inappropriate. But the plroblem of war is never considered as such by the ones who assume it as a way of life.

In Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age, Qunetin Schultze takes on the "hype" about the Internet. I read this book in early 2003, and wrote quite a few posts questioning his portrayal.

The posts were in my older blog, under my Book Bloggin' section, and I did quite a few retorts.

I was thinking earlier about the "Virtual Church". I am now convinced that it cannot be church except as a tool which helps to express church. To the extent that churches fail to provide the avenues to radical friendship and deep commitment to one another on the journey to call and mission and reconciliation, the online conversations that re happening are "better" at being church, but I also do not feel that "church" is happening in those places which fail to provide a way to "be" church. So the question is not "can one have or "do" church online, but HOW MUCH of church is being transmitted? Traditional churches ; those "real churches" as opposed to "Virtual churches" , are in a very real sense more "virtual" than some "virtual churches" (ie. Online).

There are things about being "Authentic Church" that require "finding those who share my vision of church" that can very possibly be siginificantly aided by the ways in which online tools help find related conversations. And once these "localities"; these "places of meeting" with those who wish to explore this with us are found, the online tools can help us to keep the conversation alive in times and places and ways not previously experienced. I still have hope that my visi on for online community is not to remain "disembodied" (even though in many ways, there is a sense of "embodiment" in online conversation. In a very real and authentic way, I have come to know a certain part of a significant group of people, and these are real people who truly respond, and to whom I have truly responded. There is no anonymity here. We know each other's names, we share our thoughts via the blogosphere almost daily, and we "contact" each other on a frequent basis. Regardless of the experiences I have in discovering people driven by a similar vision of r being church as I am, the online fellowship will continue, even as they hear about my experiences in bringing my hopes into an embodied, intentional community.

I am often sickened by the way the media will play up veneration and yet ignore the very things which caused even the Democratic/LBJ establishment to turn against King: the energies and emphasis he placed upon the "further works of reconcilation" to which he turned his attention after the voting Rights act of 1965: poverty and war. I have often felt that it was these latter stages that brought about the plot and the action to have him killed. He was in the midst of planning a Poor People's march, and he had been an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war. Those two were economic dynamite; challenges to savage capitalism, and it cost him his life.

Informed Comment

Concern to save US troops from creeping cynicism must be paramount:

' I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. '

In Iraq, too, virtually "none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved." Not weapons of mass destruction, not international terrorism, not Swedish style democracy, not social justice, are actually on the agenda of the present administration.

Cole concludes:

Note that Martin recognized love as the principle that all the great religions saw as the "supreme unifying principle of life," including Islam. His religious universalism might be a starting point for Americans to rethink the Islamophobia that has become so widespread.

We cannot in any simplistic way extract a template from Martin's sermon that we can apply to Iraq today. We can, however, explore his wisdom for inspiration in how to go foward, end the quagmire, and make amends for the horrors of the way we have waged this illegal war of choice.

The whole article is worth the read. It said many of the thngs I hope were said in at least some siginificant number of American Churches yesterday. I ended up visiting my parent's First Baptist Church of X , a true mega-church in the Southern Baptist Convention, and so any mention of MLK was , unsurprisingly, absent. But Martin's vision for "the end" , whish was "reconciliation", is the key point here. The insnaity of settling differences through widespread death to those unlucky enough to live in the "selected" bombing raid areas --- the outrage MLK expressed in 1967 in his Vietnam speech, is fitting to our country's leaders cholice for war today. Only a twisted culture would consider this approach to be the "way of reconciliation". Our culture, and the apostate churches who theologically justify such madness, give their allegiance instead to the "way things are" according to our culture and its "technologies of desire", not to be "the people of God" into which God calls us. This is the blockage that keeps these churches from hearing the teachings of the Holy Spirit, which is a love that transforms and transforms. We can't do that in an isolated pocket of spiritual segregation, where "spirtual matters" are segregated from the dire need for the gospel of peace and reconciliation; the Kingdom which Jesus procalimed.

In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy

By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 16, 2006; Page A01

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"

I have cut back drastically on the amount of political outrage ranting I was doing in latter 2004/early 2005. My most choice words always came in response to things re: the Religious Right. Well, Reed was the early figure in the early risings of the Religious Right in the 80's. It seems that much of this is all of a piece, and I might say, signs of a rather disturbing cynical usage of the energies of the Religious Right by manipulating the political machinery to garner the support of the morally outraged. It's not that I don't think this "Kind of thing" hasn't always gone on, but the amount of widespread , almost "I dare you to catch me" kind of hubris with which it is carried out, is scary. I hope that some of this begins to bring about a dawning of realization by the unwittingly manipulated that they have woefully misplaced their trust. (Of course, the "opposition party" has somewhat lost its way as well. Perhaps this might bring about some widespread realization of the problems of this country's political system)

Technorati has been around, doing these things for a while now, but this is the first time I've taken notice of a major News source using it to link to blogosphere (blogospherical?) content. I have TalkingPointsmemo on my RSS list to do my keeping up with the signs of corruption bubbling over in the Bush White House and with his cronies.

Blog Report - Newsweek Blog Talk - MSNBC.com

Cool idea

This from some of my reading this morning, stuck out as a significant reflection for me:

Forgiveness is an embodiment of God's judgment of sin, however, as a judgment of grace. God does indeed judge sin, but not according to the traditional canons of justice. Such justice, as we have seen, does not accomplish reconciliation; rather it leaves us locked in struggle. For this reason, as the liberationists acknowledge, justice so conceived cannot be the final word about God. God judges sin not in order to uphold the canons of "what is due," but in order to heal all desire (of both victim and perpetrator) that it might participate in the joyous sociality of love. Forgiveness is a judgment that abandons none and seeks to reconcile all. As such it is a judgment of grace

Daniel Bell, Liberation Theology at the End of History p. 172

it is as a whole that we begin to perceive how the assemblage of knowledges, instruments, persons, systems of judgment, spaces and buildings that constitutes forgiveness as a therapy of desire avoids degenerating into a pious veneer spread over the impunity of the powerful. Taken together they reveal forgiveness to be a form of judgment. Confession, repentance, and penance are the path that the divine gift of forgiveness clears beyond sin.

Bell p.171

The highlighted phrase also addresses the issue of how the typical conception of forgiveness for all is in constant misuse as " pious veneer"; it is not meant to be "absolution" without "healing". The oppressor has just as much at stake as the oppressor, for they too must accept and participate in the healing. I recall a little debate between Steve Bush and Jamie Smith on this one. Steve seemed to be missing this aspect; this warning of Bell's about the "pious veneer" that seems implied if the many facets of "the refusal to cease suffering" are not taken together.

It seems to me that the problem that churches have in America (and elsewhere, too) is that an acceptance of the premise of justice as "what is due" visa vi the typical progressive Christian advocacy, is so often also missing the "technology" ingredients (ie. " the assemblage of knowledges, instruments, persons, systems of judgment, spaces and buildings" of which Bell speaks). The "funds" are insufficient to mount resistance. It looks like Gordon Cosby's vision of "Being Authentic Church" is even more of a requirement; the idea that we must have inclusion of these folks who are the poor for whom we advocate; that the "programs" for which Progressives rally and advocate are not "given over" to government (and this is not to exclude neccessarily the good that can come from "getting a story told" that seeks to hold government accountable to "practice what they preach"; and to show where this is not being lived out in actual practice and being stifled by political "expediency"). The Church of the Saviour has initiated a host of programs that have existed for years that simply set up the networks and staff the programs that actually do the work, unattached to the success of whatever "supplemental" political efforts may be ongoing to bring these needs to the attention and priority of government programs.

Absent also is the process of determining mission, via the evoking and discovery of gifts within the body of Christ. Without these "birthing structures"; "formation" technologies and a society that lives in and around these, the way is opened to letting desire be corrupted. The way is opened to build "buffers" between us and the least of these.

via AKMA here

from Todd at Reverend Ref +

What about specific issues? The first thing I noticed about the show was how much money was involved; from the Webster home to their neighborhood to the church to the building fund account. If anything, this is the poster-child show for the addage that money doesn't solve your problems.

fromJane at Hoosier Musings on the Road to Emmaus

There may well be priests somewhere who live in pristine, tidy family legacy mansions and have household help to serve Sunday supper; but I've never met them. The clergy homes I know tend to be of the "three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half, slightly-shabby, in-need-of-a-good-decluttering" sort. And Sunday supper is far more likely to be a) eating out, b) ordering in, or c) scrounging for leftovers, because no one has the energy to think of cooking. Likewise, it is the rare church indeed that has that kind of money.

These are similar to what I was struck with; ie. the plush house, the snobby family that their adopted son's girfriend has, and the "go for the laughs" Jesus. I could have known that from the previews, though.

A lingering thought as I read people's comments like "I have to wonder what our Lord and Savior thinks of his portrayal. This show demeans all true committed Christians, whether Episcopal or not." (from a comment on this post):
Just how much CREDIT are we giving a TELEVISION show (and by association, pop culture) for having ANYTHING important or serious to say about anything regarding the church or Jesus?

I started this blog back in mid 2002 with an idea--- and that's where Theoblogical was born. It is the idea that there is a role for blogging (and by association, Web technologies in general) in the method and shape taken by knowledge and interpersonal communication in the theological world, and online community is emerging from the geeky subculture Where Wizards Stay Up Late (the book written in 1996 chronciling the roots and invention of what is now known as the Internet --- or if you're George W. Bush, "the uhhh ....Internets").....online community, in other words, is coming out into the open as various "social networks" spring up, powered by a multitude of various network technologies. The 2004 election cycle and the Dean campaign brought even more of this to light (and Joe Trippi's book , The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was a good narrative of this "revolution".

I "made my mark" , so to speak, as Theoblogical, becuase I was focused on the role of Online Communication in the ministry of the church. It seems that this is my NICHE. I'm not an exemplary programmmer, but one who has always been comfortable with gadgetry (I was playing with the earliest audio cassettes, the first on the seminary dorm hallway to have a VCR ---circa 1979----- which I luged back and forth with me to Cincinnati from Louisville, KY on my weekend stints as Youth Minister at Ninth Street Baptist Church. Ten years later, after doing some full time Youth Ministry, and some Audio-Video Sales and INstallation, I returned to Seminary at United Theological Seminary in Dayton OH to enter the MARC program (Masters of Arts in Religious Communication) in 1990. My advisor was Ken Bedell, and he was a Computer Communications specialist, and my intial intro to him was his presentation to the United Seminary chapel on one of my pre-enrollment visits, where he had a dial up connection to Ecunet, and projected the video up onto a screen above the choir loft, and entered in prayer requests from the chapel participants regarding the earthquakethat had just taken place the night before in the Bay Area (this was October 1989) .

I later particpated in a Doctor of Ministry program group that did the majority of its work online (about 3 or 4 Face to face, yearly meetings between 1994 and 1997). When I moved to Nashville from Cincinnati in 1997 to take a job at the United Methodist Publishing House (where I worked until 2002), I laid aside my thesis which was studying Online Community and its implications for the church. I have often desired to take up those studies again in a very disciplined way. I have always kept an ear to the ground and on the bookshelves and various Internet articles for what people are saying about the use of Computer Communications for the church. I began a church website where I was, in the pre-blog days (at least pre-my-awareness of Blogs), where I included disucssion forums and used some database driven functianlity to allow for keeping the site up to date with an online Web-based back end. The forums became the point of some controversy when I asked a few questions about a very questionable , "command-decision" by the pastor to suspend post-sermon discussion as a part of the worship service that had been a long-standing tradition for several years--- and this was done on the Sunday following September 11, 2001. There were numerous conversations in little clumps of people all over the building for a long time after the service. I had been trying , prior to that event, without success, to set up follow-up meeting with the pastor, who was still new (only about 5 months), to continue my laying out for her the sense of call that I felt to enable some "technological extensions" to the church community to allow members to know more about the people in the church, to tell the story of the church to the "Internet audience", and to provide ways for people from the outside to find people concerned about various points of need in the world and to find that these are being discussed and acted upon by Christians in this particular church community.

Since then, various "Church Web" outfits have grown up as the Web gets bigger, and becomes more a part of the "business world" and project management. As organizations and business discover the advantages of having an online community, the church has "caught on", and yet rarely move beyond "shovelware" from various brochures.

More on this to come.

2 NBC affiliates refuse to air controversial ‘Book of Daniel’; show said to mock Christ - (BP)

Conservative groups including the American Family Association and Focus on the Family have urged supporters to contact their local NBC affiliates to protest the show, which stars a drug-addicted Episcopal priest who has a wife who downs mid-day martinis, a 23-year-old son who is a homosexual Republican, a 16-year-old daughter who sells marijuana and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sexual relations with the bishop’s daughter.

I saw this last night , and my most 'offended moment' came when the parent of the adopted son's girlfriend matter-of-factly mentions how the son was laying on "My Jag"; and at the time, I didn't know this character is the bishop.

Waliszewski said in a statement on the Focus on the Family website Jan. 5 that Jesus is made to look like a “wimpy, white-robed visitor who cares little about evil, addictions and perversity. This Christ glosses over a teenager’s sexual romps with a ‘He’s a kid, let him be a kid.’”

“I doubt NBC would consider portraying a Muslim cleric or Buddhist monk in the same light. And rightly so,” Waliszewski added. “Why? Because to do so would be mean-spirited and insensitive. But for some reason, portraying Jesus as a namby-pamby frat-boy-guru is fine. I’m extremely disappointed that NBC has chosen to air this program.”

The "casual attitude" I am uncomfortable with is the lifestyles of the characters. (the "jag". the extremely "upper class" setting of the whole cast, and taking offense at a Jesus who is casual and flippant about "loose morals" that don't include taking offense also at a "bishop" who blithely bags about his "jag". The Jesus character is not a surprise, since this after all, is a TV SHOW. They're going for laughs and the "irreverent edge" is where it is usually found for the general audience.

As for the “I doubt NBC would consider portraying a Muslim cleric or Buddhist monk in the same light. And rightly so,” I say that Muslim clerics or Buddhist monks are not the majority in this country. If they were, and they took the same flippant, clueless tact that the American media takes toward Christianity , they'd be casting "offensive", "edgy" Muslim characters, and being "politically sensitive" toward the minorities. I believe the real "attack" on Christianity comes in the assumptions that the "bishop's" "Jag" (and probaly countless other things, like the entirely unquestioned, comfortable living in what looks a lot like a "gated community"---- I only saw the one episode last night......and oh yeah, the "bishop's wife" is a bigot, stating that she didn't plan on having any oriental grandchildren. What kind of bishop gets married to someone with that attitude? I guess someone who goes around dropping that he has "a Jag")

Of course, those things are not the sort of thing at which the Southern Baptist press takes offense. They want Jesus to be "angry and condemning" and dispaly the sort of smug arrogance as they do toward "impurity".

I don't think I'll be having this show on my schedule, although I'll probably have to linger on on it now and then when I'm channel surfing on Friday night.

Larry Hollon blogs from the Phillipines where he is with Methodist leaders, and the tales sound eerily reminiscent of Central America 20 years ago.

Perspectives

Manila--Yesterday was a long, hard day. After hearing one story after another of murder and mayhem the mind reaches a shut down. It can take in no more.

The stories are chilling.

Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!

"Just about everybody in the world knows what we're against," SBC president Bobby Welch has said. "The overriding thing that has to happen now is the world needs to be reminded in no uncertain terms of what we're for."

It's going to take another 25 years to undo what 25 years of virulent , smug hate and hostility has reaped. And that's if they change their direction NOW.

The BCE's Parham said while the ad portrays "a denomination with a central focus of caring for those who suffer," that image "has no substance" in a Cooperative Program budget that allocates about five cents of every dollar for human needs.

"The ad masks the real nature of the SBC and misdirects viewers about the denomination's priorities," Parham said.

Kind of like "Compassionate Conservatism" eh?

I have completed the bookshelf's hotspots here: Movable Theoblogical: The Office Bookshelf

There are two additional shelves over my computer desk:

ACADEMY OF HOPE
1501 Columbia Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 2029
202 328 1044 (fax)
aoh@aohdc.org
www.aohdc.org

ANDREWS HOUSE GUEST HOUSE
2708 Ontario Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 483 0799
office@surfglobal.net

BETHANY, INC.
Good Hope House
1715 V St. SE Washington DC 20020
202 678 4084
Admin:202 889 5000 x 115
bhiggins@bethanyinc.org
www.bethanyinc.org

CHRIST HOUSE
1717 Columbia Road NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 1100
developmentoffice@christhouse.org
www.christhouse.org

CITYWORKS
1526 14th St. NW #308 Washington DC 20005
202 667 1502

COLUMBIA ROAD HEALTH SERVICES
1660 Columbia Road NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 3717
202 588 8101 (fax)

COMMUNITY MEDICAL CARE
1201 Brentwood Rd. NE Washington DC 20001
202 832 8818
www.unityhealthcare.org

CORNELIUS CORPS
614 S St. NW Washington DC 20001
202 232 9745

DAYSPRING RETREAT CENTER
11301 Neelsville Church Rd. Germantown MD 20876
301 428 9348
301 428 0567 (fax)
dayspringretreat@verizon.net
www.serve.com/dayspringretreat

THE DIASPORA
2025 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington DC 20036
301 762 2420
tchubers@aol.com

DISCIPLES HOUSE
3321 16th St. NW Washington DC 20010
202 232 6519

DISCIPLESHIP YEAR
1640 Columbia Road NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 1102
mstubbs@slschool.org

EMMANUEL HOUSE
2735 Ontario Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 745 2657

ENTERPRISING STAFFING SERVICES 614 S St. NW Washington DC 20001
202 232 4830
202 232 5683 (fax)

THE FAMILY PLACE
3309 16th St. NW Washington DC 20010
202 265 0149
202 483 0650 (fax)
www.thefamdyplacedc.org

THE FESTIVAL CENTER
1640 Columbia Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 0072
202 328 7483 (fax)

FOR LOVE OF CHILDREN
1816 12th St. NW Washington DC 20009
(202) 462 8686
www.flocdc.org

GOOD SHEPHERD MINISTRIES
1630 Fuller St. NW # 105 Washington DC 20009
( 202) 483 5816
( 202) 986 6921 (fax)
www.goodshepherdministries.com

HARVEST TIME
11315 Neelsville Church Rd. Germantown MD 20876
301 601 9400
301 601 2931 (fax)
harvesttime@starpower.net

JOSEPH'S HOUSE
1730 Lanier Pl. NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 9161
202 265 7174
202 588 7097 (fax)
www.josephshouse.org

JUBILEE HOUSING
2482 Ontario Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 299 1240
202 299 1246 (fax)
jknight@jubileehousing.org

JUBILEE JOBS
2712 Ontario Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202 667 8970 202 667 8833 (fax)
info@jubileejobs.org

KAIROS HOUSE
2544 17th St. NW Washington DC 20009
202 328 6155
202 328 6148 (fax)

L'ARCHE
2474 Ontario Rd. NW
Washington DC 20009
202‑232‑4539
Res. 1:     2474 Ontario Rd. NW
                202‑462‑3924
Res. Il:     1724 Euclid St. NW
                202‑387‑1179
www.larchewashingtondc.org

LA CASA
1812 Ontario Pl. NW
Washington DC 20009
202‑232‑3416

LIFE PATHWAYS
c/o The Potter's House
1658 Columbia Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202‑332‑0599 (phone & fax)
etetaz@msn.com

MANNA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
614 S St. NW Washington DC 20001
202‑232‑2915
202‑667‑5196 (fax)
www.mannadc.org

MANNA, INC.
828 Evarts St. NE Washington DC 20018
202‑832‑1845
202‑832‑1870 (fax)
www.mannadc.org

MINISTRY OF MONEY
11315 Neelsville Church Rd. Germantown MD 20876
301‑428‑9560
301‑428‑9573 (fax)
office@ministryofmoney.org
www.ministryofmoney.org

MIRIAM'S HOUSE
PO Box 73618 Washington DC 20056
202‑667‑1758
202‑667‑4638 (fax)
www.miriamshouse.org

NEW COMMUNITY CHURCH AFTER‑SCHOOL & ADVOCACY PROGRAM
614 S St. NW Washington DC 20001
202‑232‑2915
202‑332‑9798 (fax)
ncasap@erols.com
www.ncasap.org

PASTORAL COUNSELING & CONSULTATION CENTER
2025 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20036
202‑234‑0202
202‑234‑0185 (fax)

THE POTTER'S HOUSE
1658 Columbia Rd. NW Washington DC 20009
202‑232‑5483
202‑2324055 (kitchen)
202‑232‑5493 (fax)
administrator@pottershousedc.org
www.pottershousebooks.org
11 am‑3pm, M‑Th; 11 am‑ 10pm Fri. (live music 7‑10); 10am‑6pm, Sat.

SAMARITAN INNS
2523 14 th St. NW Washington DC 20009
202‑667‑8831
202‑667‑8026 (fax)
hope@saminns.org
www.samaritaninns.org

SARAH'S CIRCLE
2551 17 th St. NW
Washington DC 20009
202‑332‑1400
202‑667‑9529 (fax)
info@sarahscircle.org

SERVANT LEADERSHIP SCHOOL
1640 Columbia Road NW Washington DC 20009
202‑328‑7312
slschooi@slschool.org
www.slschool.org

SIGN OF JONAH
248016 th St. NW, Ste. C
Washington DC 20009
202‑667‑9195
202‑667‑2844 (fax)
signofjonah@starpower.net

SITAR CENTER FOR THE ARTS
1700 Kalorama Rd. NW #101 Washington DC 20009
202‑797‑2145
202‑483‑0789 (fax)
www.sitarcenter.org

TELL THE WORD
2025 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington DC 20036
202‑387‑9300
office@surfglobal.net

WELLSPRING
11411 Neelsville Church Rd. Germantown MD 20876
301‑428‑3373
301‑428‑3374 (fax)
missionwel@aol.com
www.wellspringministry.org

WORLD PEACEMAKERS
11427 Scottsbury Tern Germantown MD 20876
301‑972‑4041
worldpeacemakers@compuserve.com
www.worldpeacemakers.org

THE CHURCH OF THE SAVIOUR
Ecumenical Headquarters
2025 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20036
202 387 1617
office@surfglobal.net
9:30 a.m. 3:00 p.m., M F

Worship Sundays 11:30 a.m.

COVENANT COMMUNITY
Meeting at the Festival Center
1640 Columbia Road NW
Washington DC 20009
Contact:
Allen & Phyllis Holt
holtallen@earthlink.net

Worship Sundays 11:00 a.m.

DAYSPRING CHURCH
11301 Neelsville Church Rd.
Germantown MD 20876
dayspring5@verizon.net

Worship Sundays 10:00 a.m.

EIGHTH DAY FAITH COMMUNITY
Meeting at the Potter's House
1658 Columbia Road NW
Washington DC 20009
Contact:
Marcia Harrington
mharr927@yahoo.com

Worship Sundays 10: 15 a.m.

FESTIVAL CHURCH
Meeting at the Festival Center
1640 Columbia Road NW Washington DC 20009
Contact: Margie Ford
margie_ford@hotmail.com
or
Jerry & Carolyn Parr
carolynparr@hotmail.com

Worship Mondays 6:00 p.m.

FRIENDS OF JESUS CHURCH
Meeting at the Potter's House
1658 Columbia Road NW
Washington DC 20009
Contact: Sydney Johnson
sydneyj2003@earthlink.net

Worship Thursdays 5:30 p.m.

JUBILEE CHURCH
Meeting at Sarah's Circle
2551 17th St. NW
Washington DC 20009
Contact:
Kurt Finsterbusch
kurt@socy.umd.edu

Worship Mondays 6:00 p.m.

LAZARUS CHURCH
Meeting at the Ritz in the
Primary Plus Center
1631 Euclid St. NW
Washington DC 20009
Contact:
Mike Little
mike@samaritaninns.org

Worship Thursdays 7:00 p.m.

NEW COMMUNITY CHURCH
614 S St. NW Washington DC 20001
202 332 0220
info@newcommunitychurchdc.org
www.newcommunitychurchdc.org

Worship Sundays 11:00 a.m.

POTTER'S HOUSE CHURCH
1658 Columbia Road NW
Washington DC 20009
202 232 5483
administrator@pottershousedc.org

Worship Wednesdays 6:30 p.m.

SEEKERS CHURCH
276 Carroll St. NW Washington DC
20012 202 829 9882
www.seekerschurch.org

Worship Sundays 10:00 a.m.

The Potter's House
202 232 5483

Dayspring
Retreat Center
301 428 9348

Festival Center &
Servant Leadership
School
202 328 0072

On this shelf, at top center is the place of honor on my bookshelves, where books by Gordon Cosby and Elizabeth O'Connor sit.

Our family had a copy of Call to Commitment , that had somehow made it into our home after my Mom's father died (this next November 11 will mark 40 years ago!) . Although basically everything theological and church related from my grandfather's library went to someone's church library or some pastor's library, this book ended up on our shelf. I was to remember seeing that at our house in my childhood, and when I was 20, I picked it up and statrted reading it when some people in my youth group, most of us in college now, were talking about The Church of the Saviour. Our youth minister had told us a story or two about them during our high school years. When a bunch of us started meeting regularly following a MIssion trip, in a couple of years we were, one summer, renewiing those HIgh school Youth group meetings over at the house of one of our members. 5 or 6 of the people in this "Call to Commitment" discussion went to DC that summer (1976) ---we were all 19 and 20---- but I was unable to go with them due to my job, but they came back all abuzz. One guy and his girlfriend, who had gone, asked me over one night and told me of a plan to keep "seeking" into the notion of church that had been given to them from all of our reading and their visit and discussion with Mary and Gordon Cosby. He asked me becuase I had begun reading Call to Commitment with them, and afterwards immediately gone out and bought Elizabeth O'Connor's other books: Journey Inward, Journey Outward (the "sequel" to Call to Commitment, as well as Our Many Selves, Eighth Day of Creation, and Search for Silence, and soon after that , The New Community, and Gordon Cosby's Handbook for Mission Groups.

We proceeded with the misison group idea and took up "Our Many Selves" as a common discipline to work together as a resource for intense sharing of ourselves and our journeys. We met on Friday nights during college, and OUr Many Selves became for me a hugely significant book (It's subtitle was "A Handbook for Self-Discovery", but iut was anything but a "Therapy Model" that one usually gets from titles like that. It was an intense book of exercises and readings from numerous writers on various aspects of discovering the "many selves" that exist in us, the selves that wake up at particular situations and in the face of certain experiences, all of which need redemption and healing. It was in this book that I was first exposed to Dietrich Bonhoefer, and bought copies of Cost of Discipleship and Life Together and Letters and Papers From Prison, the latter of which I don't remember what happened to my copy. I think someone who had been trying to find it offered me some relatively enticing sum of money to the financially strapped seminary student that I THOUGHT I was.

I was also introduced, via Our Many Selves to various of the Christian classics such as The Cloud of Unknowing, The Dark Night of the Soul, Meister Eckhardt and the works of Carl Jung.

More in a bit. This is fun for me, remembering this stuff.

OK, the hotspots are all the way down on the leftside bookshelf. The right side and the various little "satellite stacks" will come later. I was just thinking how this might even be a good way to catalogue/photograph what I have in the house in case of something unforseen such as a house fire. I thought of that last night (possibility of fire) when we discovered that our outside heat/cool unit was not shutting off when the AC/Heat blowers had turned off......I had begun checking everything when we notiiced our electric bill shooting up to double of that last month (it hasn't been much colder in December....some , but not much) so we were suspicious. It was also about 75% higher than last year in December, even though this year has been far milder than last. So it was running last night, and I was unsure about removing the big pull fuse from the box; unsure of how to properly shut things off. I figured this had been going on for a couple of weeks, so I figured one more night wasn't going to start a fire or anything. The heat/AC guy showed up this morning and sho' nuff, it was a "Contact" that had kind of melted together, that had kept the circuit connected when it was supposed to be OFF. THat set us back about $180, but I was afraid it might have been worse.

Anyway, I was about to say something about the Elizabeth O'Connor books. Next post.

I decided that this is not such an exercise in vanity and nerdiness as I first thought. It gives me the opportunity to do some fun reflecting on the past 30 years of reading. (Maybe 31) I started my theological reading with my membership in the WORD book club, soon after I discovered Keith Miller and Bruce Larson's The Edge of Adventure (I haven't gotten to Keith Miller's shelf yet in my hotspots that I'm adding to my bookshelf photo (in my post from last night). But I do have some John Killinger, Bruce Larson, Bob Benson, and Elton Trueblood, all of whom were a part of those years of reading in college of the writers in the "Lay Renewal" movement. It was a time of which the present Emergent Church movement today reminds me. There was a movement, sort of a Pro