Category Archives: Heretical imperative

Imperialistic thinking masquerading as missional engagement

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Pete Ward has an essay here on the nature of celebrity in culture and missiological implications. There are some interesting points raised and I value several of the observations and critic of celebrity as an entity. However when it comes to exploring the missional nature it is again theologically/missionally conservative, and IMHO falls far short of genuine missional application. His section on Beyond Functional Equivalence is well written but is rooted in a quasi imperialistic approach to missional engagement masquerading as a radical movement. Pete suggests we must “take this capital into account” and whilst he recognises the “contested meanings” around celebrity provide a fruitful area for engagement it is very much on re-interpretative terms rather than from any position of powerlessness or that our doctrines could be wrong and need re-interpreting through genuine dialogue with the people shaped by the culture.
I am not arguing all culture is good, but equally neither is all doctrine. I simply want to hold the culture with the reverence it is due and as an equal partner with the bible and tradition in the “contested” space that non imperialistic mission should inhabit.

I hope the book that is due to follow the article will address some of these issues, but I wonder if there is an inherent imperialism or notion that we have our doctrines right, rooted in the theological or publishing culture that would never let a book like this get written. As underlying any text would be the need for an heretical imperative as that is part of what enables real dialogue in the contested space of missional engagement.

Developing missional imagination 1

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So if we have thought about some of the blocks how do we develop the missional imagination. Most people realise the need to do something different as they recognise that what they have been doing doesn’t cut it anymore or their faith is maturing towards or beyond owned faith. Often there is a deconstruction process – where the ambiguity of faith is presented and the gray areas expanded, this then enables us, when we start to deconstruct enables the move from certainty towards mystery. As we recognise and encounter the mystery at the heart of faith we find a freedom to re-imagine our faith, encounter G-D rather than the God we have created in our own image, and this gives us space and inner permission to experiment.

Start the journey:
– Trust your questions
– Leave church as you know it
– Find silence
– Read Scripture from below
– Find fellow travelers
– Reject the God you know as that can’t be G-D
– Be Still but Still moving
– Spend more time at the beach or in woods
– Experiment with your own creativity, eg painting, sculpture

Conservative Greenbelt?

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Back from Greenbelt and as ever there was a great range of music, art and talks. However at the festival and on coming away I couldn’t help feeling it was all rather theologically conservative. After posting this on FB I thought I needed to think out loud a bit more about this to help me understand my feelings, so apologies if this becomes a stream of consciousness rather than a coherent post.

23 years of attending and I am hearing the same (great) speakers that inspired me when I was 17 to give up life plans and change tack. The content remains great, but culture, and I have shifted but not sure the theological content has. This obviously begs the question of should it shift and for many new people coming and hearing this stuff for the first of third time I know John Smith or Dave Andrews thoughts could turn their world upside down towards a kingdom reorientation. So what has changed or needs to be said. The love and acting out of compassion and justice remains, those values are timeless, but in the cultural shifts that have taken place over the past 20 years how do we rethink the missiology that needs to accompany the missio dei in those acts of love and justice, so we can go with God effectively.

The theme of looking sideways raised my expectations about Greenbelt this year, but the sideways looks I heard were safe glances back to tradition (although playing with this) Richard Rohr, glance back mediation (although with hat tip to worship as a whole of life experience) Laurence Freeman. Don’t get me wrong it was all good stuff but it was all stuff that was been part of my missional thinking 15 years ago.

Missionally it felt quite milky, the questions I wanted to ask were, who is genuinely taking a sideways look at the world, how do we do this and here the stories about the missional journey that starts when we do. When I was chatting with Andy Turner about this he was asked who do we need to get and I am afraid I was at a bit of loss. I certainly missed Pete Rollins. The themes that came to mind however different stuff I would like to hear or talk about would be:
Living with the corner stone and the stumbling block, going with Christ beyond the christ we know in mission
The role of Powerlessness in mission and going with G-D in this.
How the when we join up Greenbelt christian thinking and start to try and live it, it takes us beyond, Yet when one section rises in popularity (currently meditation and new monastic forms) due the consumerist culture and deep rooted individualism and selfishness it takes us away from Christ and detracts from the deeper theological work that is needed in our lives and communities.
How do we deny Jesus in order to look sideways and discover G-D in our neighborhood and can we begin that dangerous journey with the tentative courage that comes from a community like Greenbelt behind us?

So was Greenbelt Conservative? – not really because the social gospel shone through the justice and love discussions.
Was greenbelt policitally conservative? – you certainly cant give that label.
Was Greenbelt missionally conservative? – ABSOLUTELY.
Where do we go from here? – Haven’t a clue except we need the artists and activists (theologians who may not have that label but can articulate their thinking) who can genuinely help us take a sideways look at the world and see the Kingdom within!

echos

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I have been reflecting around the issue of Flow and christology recently. Jonny pointed me to this great article “God inside out – towards a mission theology of the Holy Spirit”. It challenges the adage that the father sends the son – the Father and son send the spirit – and the trinity sends the church and unpacks the centrality of the spirit.

The article started me thinking about the Trinity as an echo. For a while now I have had the vague idea of church being an echo of the trinity of coming from God and continuing in the unfolding revelation of God. (if the spirit sends the church what does this say about the divine nature of the church).

The reduction of G-d to the trinity is problematic and avoids the transcendent nature of G-d beyond our understandings (not mention the other characteristics of God within the biblical narrative that do not readily fit the Father Son Spirit image).

G-d echos through the creation, all our images and encounters are echos of G-d that we are swept up with (missio dei) and join the echo of G-d towards the fulfillment of creation. The power of the echo can transcend the blocks of institutions and break beyond the walls of our imaginings, it calls us forward, beyond and out of what we know, to be more and less (at times) of what we are, towards unity as the bride of christ.

An orthodox view

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Years ago when Off the Beaten track was first published I did a training session, and described a street based communion (coke and crisps style) and asked participants – Is this church? Oli was present and has been thinking and working on his eccelesiological position in response to the question. He has published an interesting short read exploring the need for orthodoxy around the issue of eccelesiology and communion that is well worth the read and download. Find it here.

I really like the fence model he proposes and it presents a good challenge, but before I post my responses i would be interested to hear others views.

awareness and orthodoxy

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Over the past few years much of my reading has been on the more radical theology side, raising questions over perceived orthodoxy, mission etc. Much of this has given good arguements about why we need to question our approaches and offered a lot of questions about how we are shaped by culture into our orthodox views. Every few years I try to read the bible cover to cover and over the years picked some of the main examples where the text challeneges the percived orthodoxy of the day (Peters vision), but even though I have done a cover to cover reading in the last few years it is only now that I am picking up more nuances in the text and even more explicit examples (samson) where God encourages/allows the perceived orthodoxy to be broken.
Obviously there is the role of reader and what I am bringing to the text, but I am left wondering two things, how much is God directing these perceptions and how do we open ourselves up to the breadth of the text when the position of the reader plays such and important role.

DOA: Dead or Alive movie download

The Rock rip

Missional church heresy

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For my post grad I am looking at how we have separated church and mission, but reading through much of the missional church stuff I still think there remains a problem because the old definition of church that centres on church as the body of believers still remains as a part of the missional church definition (would you say this is true or do I have the wrong end of the stick) which in reality counteracts and limits the mission dei understanding at the heart of missional church as we know it.

Missional church if it is to be true to the sentiments of missio dei is more about people of faith and of no faith being on a journey of discovery (towards fullness of life for themselves, their community and the world) together and WITH an equality in this process that enables mission (the sort that Donovan describes in Christianity rediscovered) and mission dei to truly be the core of church. This means us becoming more powerless about our ideas of what church and if we are not we cannot be missional church. The example I would use is Flow church where the young people I work with call God Flow, and have agreed to come on the journey of being church, which in itself means discovering what Flow and church is, even though they are not believers in the way most people would understand believers to be.

for back ground check out how the word intentionality

is used in relation the being and growing church.The Golden Compass buy

Commitment and new monastics

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James posts some good stuff on commitment and the link to contemplative faith and covenant. Whilst I agree with issues of faith communities needing time listen stuff BUT (borrowing from Petes new book) I wonder if some of the approaches in the new monastics that the current idea of commitment to one another is an idea we need to betray in order to discover something new. We assume covenant is a two way street, and so enter into covenant relationships with those in our faith circle (I recognise that for many this also has a service to the world element) but have questions on this.
Is the centrally of covenant to one another within (however you define this) a return towards closed set models. Does this investment towards others in church/covenant

return to a weak ecceliosiology that again separates missio-dei or annexes mission to a project or task. If Gods covenant was to the world not the church and the church was the way of fleshing out that covenant post Jesus, how do we enter into covenant with the world as the central element, recognising that we need one another to help with this.Naked Weapon movie full