If you are a pastor and have been to seminary, you really need to read this post by Scot McKnight. By now, you know that I find Scot’s posts to be consistently good, but this one is very important. I had the experience last week for maybe the first time. I said something about eschatology as if everyone in the world would know what it meant, and my layfolks stopped me and said, “Wait a second preacher…escha-whatogy?!” God bless them; I needed that. I’m thankful that they were not afraid to ask me that immediately.

I’ve been working on Charge Conference paperwork all morning, and I think I’ve uncovered quite a conspiracy. Every year as charge conferences approach for United Methodist pastors, you begin to hear grumbling and complaining about all the paperwork. I agree – there’s a ton of paperwork to be completed. However…there’s a conspiracy among pastors. A wise group of pastors long ago developed this pile of paperwork for a very good reason. We can use charge conference to excuse ourselves from anything we don’t like to do for at least two months! *Gasp* Everytime I’m too tired, busy, or lazy to do something, it’s because of charge conference. These two magic words exempt you from anything you don’t want to do! “Pastor, can you…” “Oh, I would love to, but you know it’s charge conference season…” The person then nods knowingly and walks away, pleased that his or her hardworking pastor is slaving over ‘the books.’ Amazing. Don’t tell anyone; it’s a secret.

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:13-16 NRSV

Every time I visit the valley where I grew up, I have a longing to live there again. I don’t know if it is some weird sentimentality or a sincere desire to be rooted in a place where I have a history. As a United Methodist pastor, I’m a stranger and foreigner in the places I live. It makes me think of the exiles. In Israel, all of the exiles were known by name. They weren’t just anonymous Israelites stuck in a foreign land.

Abraham left for a foreign land as well, and left behind his identity as Terah’s boy and Nahor’s grandson. He knew every back road and side street in Ur, but he didn’t know the land where God was sending him. Abram could point out every house and tell you who lived there for two generations, but he left it behind.

I’ll bet Abraham thought about the land he left behind all the time. The author of Hebrews tells us he had the opportunity to return, and we all have that opportunity as well. We could settle down on a nice piece of land and do what it takes to make a living and practice an easy faith. Wouldn’t that work?

Hebrews also tells us that these strangers and foreigners desired a better country. I’m reminded of the song, “Sweet Beulah Land,” by Squire Parsons:

I’m kind of homesick for a country
to which I’ve never been before
No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
And time won’t matter anymore

Beulah land I’m longing for you,
and someday on thee I’ll stand.
There my home shall be eternal
Beulah land…sweet Beulah land.

I’m looking now across that river
to where my faith is gonna end in sight.
There’s just a few more days to labor,
then I’ll take my heavenly flight.

Beulah land I’m longing for you,
and someday on thee I’ll stand.
There my home shall be eternal
Beulah land…sweet Beulah land.

The strangers and foreigners who are our predecessors in the faith longed for a better country and I pray that I’ll desire that country too. Their witness is powerful; no wonder God is not ashamed to be called their God.

Here is a link to Scot McKnight’s blog. He has a neat article on the emerging movement that will be worth your time to read. Click on the “Foolish Sage” link within this post to reach the article.

The fourth chapter of Gibbs and Bolger’s book is concerned with the sacred/secular divide of modernity. The modern ideal suggests that there are some spaces that are cut off from the influence and presence of God. Emerging churches deny this split. Dwight Friesen of Quest, Seattle exemplifies this in a brief quote, “Even times of coffee turned into worship and to a centering on Christ.”

“For emerging churches, there are no longer any bad places, bad people, or bad times. All can be made holy. All can be given to God in worship. All modern dualisms can be overcome (p. 67).”

I appreciate the way the emergent movement refuses to “know it’s place,” so to speak. In doing this, the emergent movement seems to have the potential for transformative effects on culture as a whole. I agree with the refusal to live with the dualisms of modernity (invisible/visible, body/mind, sacred/secular), but I’m not very comfortable with the extent the emergent movement, as described in this book, seeks to deconstruct the Church. I don’t see that the refusal of dualism necessarily leads to the deconstructing process.

So…I don’t think the equation looks like this: overcoming dualistic modernity + taking holism serious = stripping away Church tradition. I’m not sure what the equation looks like, but hey what do you expect from a early morning blog post.

Though I don’t agree with Ben Witherington III (my former NT professor) on everything, particularly exegesis, I think he has done a fine job summarizing the powerful witness of the Amish during what some from the Amish community have called their “9/11.” Go ahead and read Ben’s remarks in the comments section – they’re good too.

In chapter 2, Wright talks about the current hunger for “spirituality,” and uses a metaphor of the hidden spring to describe the way religion and “spirituality” have broken through into the forefront. According to Wright, after 9/11 we can no longer ignore the impact that religion has on the everyday world, even though religion has been carefully segregated in the modern West from everything from politics to economics to art. He writes, “September 11, 2001, serves as a reminder of what happens when you try to organize a world on the assumption that religion and spirituality are merely private matters, and that what really matters is economics and politics instead (p. 20).”

To Wright, the hidden spring of spirituality breaking into full view is the second feature of human life that suggest an echo of a voice. This hunger for the transcendent points away from modern secularism and toward a possibility that humans are made for more. The current quest for spirituality in the modern West contrasts with the global tendency to merge religious thought with everyday life, as is seen in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and Central & South America.

He goes on to explain that the current move toward spirituality is to be expected from a Christian viewpoint. “If anything like the Christian story is true…this interest is exactly what we should expect because in Jesus we glimpse a God who loves people and wants them to know and respond to that love (p. 24).” Yet part of our story as Christians is that humans are damaged by evil and need more than self-knowledge and better social conditions. Instead, we need rescue and help from outside of ourselves.

Of course this is by no means a consensus, and Wright describes an alternative in the work and thougth of Freud. Spirituality could simply be a projection of our hopes writ large. On the other hand, Wright reminds that we can embrace the current search for spirituality by embracing relativism i.e. certain things are true for certain people. However, he argues that this skews the meaning of the word truth. One can see that Wright has a particular view of truth as well. I wonder if this is the view of truth that can respond to the questions raised by Freud and the relativists.

“[the search for spirituality] may be the echo of a voice – a voice which is calling, not so loudly as to compel each of us to listen whether we choose to or not, but not so quietly as to be drowned out altogether by the noises going on in our heads and our world (p. 27).”

I believe Wright is on to something even though he again fails to deal in significant depth with philosophical questions of truth and the inner need for spirituality. One might argue as well that he paints the global picture of seperation of secular and sacred with far too broad a brush. Yet, as a Christian, I agree that our inner hunger for ‘something more’ is suggestive of a need for the transcendent presence of one who reaches out to fill that need.

Wright begins his latest work with the injustice that is evident in the world, and questions why we cannot or have not made any more progress than we have over the centuries. Further, why do we even have the feeling that the word isn’t “right” as it stands? From the Turkish slaughter of millions of Armenians, to Adolph Hitler, to the conflicts between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, we have been far to privy to injustice even within the last century. Why are things the way they are, and why do we expect or hope for something better?

Wright gives three basic explanations: 1.) “It is a dream, a projection of childish fantasies, and we have to get used to living in the world the way it is (p. 9).” 2.) “…the dream is of a different world altogether…a world where everything is indeed put to rights…but a world that has little purchase on the present world except that people who live in this one sometimes find themselves dreaming of that one (p. 9).” 3.) “…ther is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear – someone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justices, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being rescued at last (p. 9).”

Although he doesn’t explore more possible explanations that I imagine there to be, he continues by pointing out that three major religious traditions go with option #3:

Judaism – God made the world and built into it a passion for justice out of his own passion.

Christianity – God brought his passion for justice into play in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

Islam – God’s will is fully revealed in the Koran a work containing the ideal that will put the world to rights as it is obeyed.

Wright suggests this book is to explain and commend the Christian tradition: a tradition that is grouded in the real world by the incarnation of Jesus, a tradition that is about justice (inherited from Judaism and embodied in Jesus’ passion), and a tradition that is about us and our integral involvement. In other words being concerned about a world put to rights is to be deeply human.

Of course all of this is questioned by those who immediately point to the crusades and Spanish inquisition. “Haven’t Christians been a part of the problem rather than part of the solution (p. 12)?” Wright says yes and no. Yes, there are those who do horrible things in the name of Christ, and there are those who do horrible things knowing them to be wrong without claiming Jesus supported them. Yet no in the fact that the wicked things Christians have done have been in part because of a muddled and mistaken belief about what Christianity actually is. Wright states, “It is no part of Christian belief to say that the followers of Jesus have always got everything right.” For Wright, the best witness to the truth of the Christian faith are those who have got it right at least in many respects: John Woolman and William Wilberforce in their rebuke of slavery, Martin Luther King, Jr. in his passion for African-American rights, Desmond Tutu in his engagement with apartheid.

“…this longing for things to be put right, remains one of the great human goals and dreams. Christians believe this is so because all humans have heard, deep within themselves, the echo of a voice which calls us to live like that. And they believe that in Jesus that voice became human and did what had to be done to bring it about.”

Although this is an important place to start because of the ubiquity of injustice in the world, this seems to be a pretty foundationalist way of thinking. Is injustice and longing for justice a foundation on which to build a theology? Can we truly ground so much on a sense that things aren’t like they should be? Wright seems to be working from a foundationalist perspective, and I’m not sure where that might lead.

One of the best books I’ve read in a long time is Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. I intend to blog through this book over the days and weeks ahead. It is simply one of those books you can’t read just once.

Author and scholar, Scot McKnight has a new book coming out on Mary, the mother of Jesus. The title is, The Real Mary, Why Evangelical Christians can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. Check out this link to a pre-print excerpt and see what you think.

The Real Mary