2008/06/19

The Shia Newspaper

Someone put "The Shia Newspaper" in my letterbox a couple of days ago. You can read it online, if you want to see.

Fascinating.

I've seen a number of Evangelical (and Evangelistic) tracts presented as tabloid newspapers. This has much in common. Even down to the whole-page rant about why Darwin was so utterly wrong, and how his "prattle" has evolved... There's also a lot of mumbo-jumbo completely incomprehensible to outsiders.

Indeed, at 32 pages, totally devoid of any form of advertising, it's quite a heavyweight document: the format may be tabloid, but the articles are all longer than those in The Times and its ilk. You can admire the time and effort which has gone into producing and delivering it, but also sincerely doubt it is going to have much of an impact upon those who have received it, like I have, via a random delivery.

It's a salutary reminder, all the clearer for coming from outside my own faith community: sharing the message of Christ and his Kingdom is not easy. Engaging in some worthy activity may make us feel better (and may, by his good grace and some serendipity, advance the kingdom anyway) but eager hard work is not the same thing as effective communication.

[Yes, the self-conscious emerging punchline would say something about a relational gospel, too. You can fill in the details...]

2008/06/18

Colossians Remixed: the event

I spent today at an event organised by blah. I think I probably found it via Jonny Baker's blog, though I can't really remember. I spoke to several people who asked me why I was there: I think the answer is that having read lots of books and blogs, I thought it was time to get out and actually meet some of these emerging church-types: what do they wear? how do they smell? do they really all carry Apple Macs?

Meeting people was probably the most valuable part of the event. There was an interesting cross-section of South-of-England Christendom. I was particularly pleased to be introduced to folks from some emerging-type gatherings in Oxford: "home", and mayBe. Interesting that they both seem to be part of the Anglican Fresh Expressions: but I guess that's the sort of people you expect to meet at a CMS-hosted event.

That's not to say that the event content wasn't worthwhile, too: the speakers were Toronto-based husband and wife Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat. They were giving an overview of the themes in their book Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. A nice mix of straight talking (with a little interaction), large-group interaction, and small group discussion - the teacher in me is at least as interested in the format as the content! I don't get to sit and participate from this side of the "fence" too often.

They started by talking about how that in order to understand Colossians (or any scripture) we have to understand context: the Jewish context, the Roman context, and our context as readers (there was a fourth, the micro-context of Colossae: the whole Philemon/Onessimus situation). Keesmaat is a former pupil of Tom Wright, and so the Jewish context bit is a big deal, part of the "New Approach to Paul" - a bit of theology which is slightly lost on me.

The big idea, though is that Paul's writing is deeply subversive towards the prevailing Roman system - the Pax Romana coming from a highly organized but highly violent society, with a stable economy built on slave labour and keeping the Roman Citizens in the style to which the had become accustomed. And without naively looking for one-to-one correspondences, we can see many similar patterns in today's western society. Ergo, our calling is likewise to subvert the prevailing order.

They speak persuasively, and so I really want to read the book. Somehow, the message starts to sound similar to that other well-known Toronto activist's Naomi Klein - a politics I have some passing sympathy for, but eventually I'm inclined to reject. The compassion which motivates it is spot-on. The analysis of the ills of globalization is far less clear. But perhaps that should be the subject of a separate blog, because this one is already over-long.

The book is, in essence, a commentary on Colossians (evidently, it describes itself as an anti-commentary), and a fairly academic one, at that, I'm told. I'll look forward to reading it, if I can manage the theology.

2008/06/16

Storing up treasure

I don't often find that my doodlings here cross paths with my professional life. But a recent post in an information security blog pointed me to the rather remarkable "You've Been Left Behind" Services website. For a modest fee, they will store for you emails and messages to be sent to loved ones after the Rapture has taken place.

The quote appears to run like this:
"The unsaved will be 'left behind' on earth to go through the 'tribulation period' after the "Rapture".... We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ one last time. You will also be able to give them some help in living out their remaining time. In the encrypted portion of your account you can give them access to your banking, brokerage, hidden valuables, and powers of attorneys' (you won't be needing them any more, and the gift will drive home the message of love). There won't be any bodies, so probate court will take 7 years to clear your assets to your next of Kin. 7 years of course is all the time that will be left. So, basically the Government of the AntiChrist gets your stuff, unless you make it available in another way."
Now, I can't find this on the site anywhere. It certainly would be a great way to mount an identity theft operation: most people who lodged details there would almost certainly forget about it after a little while. Maybe they've taken down that particular suggestion for now.

The world is always slightly more odd than you expected it to be, it seems to me.

My Walk to Work

Today, I thought I'd try something different. I have a lovely walk to work. It is beautiful and serene. I'm not sure this timelapse video does it justice. I thought it would be easier than uploading lots of still photographs.

2008/06/08

Review - Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture



Review
Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture
Michael Frost


This book has had pretty good reviews all round, so I had to read it. If truth be told, it's been on my "current reading" list for some months. It went all the way to Australia with me, and back. Only now do I discover that while I was there, I was driving right past Morling College daily - I could have called in to see the author! He's doing a tour of the UK later in 2008, so I rather hope I can go to hear him speak anyway.

And I think that would be worth doing. Certainly some of the sections of the book are sit-up-and-take-notice-good. The central theme of the book is well-expressed by the title: that Christians - specifically, those of us living in Western society - are like exiles in the culture which surrounds us, cut adrift from the Christendom we once called home. Christians are called in the New Testament to live as aliens and strangers in the world, but the present position of the church vis-a-vis the rest of society is something we haven't experienced in well over a millennium.

So we get passages like this:

The experience that faced the Jewish exiles mirrors the church's experience today. In fact, the biblical metaphor that best suits our current times and faith situation is that of exile. Just like the Jewish exiles, the church today is grieving its loss and is struggling with humiliation. ... The passing of Christendom might be compared to the fall of Jerusalem, and there is no going back.


Such talk is at once refreshing - we don't often dare say such things - and challenging. If we admit that there's no foreseeable return to the way faith was practiced a century ago, say, then we have to reconsider, maybe, just what we are here for, and how to do it. I guess that is what the remainder of the book is about.

And that's where some of it seems to unravel. Much of it is a great re-imagining of what church ought to be about, or could be about. But that's inter-mixed with some frankly bizarre sections telling me how to improve my diet ("drink more water"; "don't overdo carbohydrates"; "eat more protein"...), and be good to the planet ("recycle plastics"; "replace ordinary lightbulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs" ...), and some half-baked economic theory. The principle is sound - I'm sure that missional living must impact how we shop and run our households, as well, as what we claim to believe - but the detail seems somehow ... small.

So, like Punch's Curates Egg, I'd have to offer the review "Good in parts". If you can get past the atrocious page design and font choice, the slight academic verbosity, and the curiously nit-picking social science norms for citation and referencing (frankly I don't care that the author referenced a particular web page on the 21st February 2006), this is an excellent and thought-provoking read.