leadership lessons from baseball

I did tell myself I'd stop re-posting blogs from Mark Driscoll, with incredulous comments added.

But then I looked at his latest series: leadership lessons from baseball, and I had to share. It's scary; it's alarming; I'm starting to wonder if we should see it as cultish. Except that I've never heard of a cult modelling itself after baseball (yawn!) - save for the cult of baseball itself. Lesson 2 is particularly encouraging, as is the under-defined notion of "underperforming" in the later lessons. Though there is more to leadership than this, I can't help thinking that the first things I'd look for are abundances of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But those do not seem to be the characteristics of interest. Indeed, one forms the impression that Jesus wouldn't fare well as an elder at Mars Hill.

You see, I have this love-hate thing going on with Driscoll's writing. Most of it, frankly, revolts me. But - like so much else - it contains nuggets of value, some of great value. The observation in the latest of these leadership lessons that Christians would rather soldier on with something that's not working - inventing a theology of suffering to cover it - rather than address the problem itself (my paraphrase), is a good one. That's a perspective we hear too rarely, and I'm glad he brought it up. But the idea that we must sack underperforming and overpaid pastors (who? I've never met such a person), not so much.

shroud enigma

The Shroud of Turin goes on display today, apparently. This thing fascinates me: not in an obsessive way, not because I'm particularly bothered about whether it really is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth, but because of its enduring enigma.

Countless people have analysed the thing, and written peer-reviewed scientific journals about it. TV documentaries about it crop up regularly. And now two million people are expected to go and see it in the six weeks it is on show. The present Wikipedia text about it remarks, with some justification

The Shroud of Turin is one of, if not the most, studied artifacts in human history.

and yet, its exact nature remains something of a mystery.

You may recall that radiocarbon dating undertaken in 1988 gave, with a high degree of confidence, a date for the cloth of between 1260 and 1390. That has since been disputed, on a couple of grounds. Numerous theories have been put forward for how the image - the 'face of Christ' - got onto the cloth: maybe it was a photographic process, maybe it arose from clever image transfer techniques, maybe it is a radiation burn. Nobody is entirely sure.

Doesn't that strike you as curious? In our present age when science leads and directs much of our society - and take the place of a religion, for some - we have an over-studied object whose nature (never mind whose provenance) is uncertain. Although various explanations have been backed by the creation of facismile shrouds, none really matches the characteristics of the original, it seems - at least, not to the satisfaction of all concerned. And it appears to be unique in history: if it was created by an artist or 'forger', whatever technique was developed to make it does not appear to have been re-used in any comparitive object. Maybe it was the work of a genius like Da Vinci, etched onto the oldest cloth he could lay his hands upon. But if so, he took the technique to the grave with him.

Of course, the approach of the shroud's custodians does not particularly help the analysis: no doubt, with more willing curators, a fresh carbon dating round could have been completed by now. More invasive analysis could surely tell us what the image is made of, and perhaps how it got there. Or maybe not: they are cautious, but have allowed all kinds of analysis to be done. Some have argued that recent restoration work will have destroyed a huge amount of potential evidence in any case.

So we have this rather remarkable artifact, which exists in plain sight and yet whose true nature is most uncertain. It presents a riddle that may never be solved, despite the power of all we know today and the attentions of hundreds of scholars. As a counter-example for the omnipotence of the scientific method, it takes some beating. For that it deserves veneration, no matter what it 'really' is.

go the extra mile

The Tories got into a minor squabble over the weekend, after one of their senior MPs was reported as having been recorded saying that people who offer Bed and Breakfast in their own homes (a common enough small business; the bottom end of the travel accommodation market) 'should "have the right" to turn away homosexual couples.'

It's rather a storm in a tea-cup (because the same man voted in favour of the legislation which criminalizes precisely this behaviour), but it raises a few questions worth revisiting. The ostensible reason for wanting to turn away such guests is a religious - specifically Christian - one.

Firstly, it seems profoundly illiberal to legislate about who private individuals may or may not do business with - especially when we are talking of (paying) guests in their own homes. And yet we would now look ascance at someone who declined to take particular guests due to the colour of their skin, or to being in a 'mixed marriage'. It matters not whether you or I would make a moral equivalency between racial discrimination and issues around gay rights: society has chosen to do so. Race relations laws have helped to shift and shape public opinion over the last generation or so. We can discuss elsewhere how successful they have been in that; but even so, there is little doubt that significant change has happenened. Moreover, if we argue that religious conscience should trump such societal consensus, then we have little grounds to argue that sometimes in Islam women receive less than the equal treatment that our society has come to expect. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: Christians can't appeal to the notion of human rights only when it appeals (human rights may be a bogus simplistic notion, but that's a separate discussion).

But suppose you do take the view that a gay couple sharing a bed under your roof is morally reprehensible - and you feel persecuted because the law says that if you want to rent rooms to anyone, you have to welcome those guests like any others. What then?

Well, didn't Jesus say something about good behaviour in the case where an unpleasant burden is placed upon you by the law? Isn't the way of love to bit your lip, suck it up, and take the guests? Which behaviour is most likely to win people over? Shutting the door on them, or lavishing love on them - in a household run along the lines which meet the standards you believe are the right ones? Of course, this runs a risk: you might discover that the people in question are human. You might discover that they are ordinary, frail, complex, warm-blooded people who need love. But if you believe in the transforming power of your faith, maybe they are the ones who will be persuaded. Here's the crucible of ideas and idologies: not in the forum or the academy, but in the B&B lounge.

That sounds a bit gushing, I know. It took me a while to get to that conclusion, but it seems robust. If the gospel is about anything, it's about bucking the trend, the tit-for-tat behaviour of the world. About giving without holding back, not about asking for special rights, or equality for ourselves. Isn't that the way to win the world?

Jesus good/Church necessary

An interesting polemic against the 'Jesus Good/ChurchBad' perspective.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7547600/Without-a-Church-there-would-be-very-little-Christianity.html

review: The Hopeful Skeptic

The Hopeful Skeptic: Revisiting Christianity from the Outside, Nick Fiedler

I haven't posted a book review in a long while. I have rather a big pile of half-read books waiting to be finished. The Hopeful Skeptic had to go to the top of the pile, for a few reasons, and is not a difficult read, so I actually have managed to get the end.

Oh dear, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Let's try again. Nick has written a light, chatty book which is thought-provoking and engaging. It's certainly not your average IVP book, as he discusses in the first few pages. The style draws you in, and it's full of tales, anecdotes, and analogies.

I first encountered Nick when I was beginning to explore the whole brave new world of emerging church - or whatever you want to call it - and found The Nick and Josh Podcast. Subsequently, as he was beginning his year-plus round-the-world adventure I drank Guinness with him in a bar in Sydney.

Packing up his appartment in advance of that trip provides the metaphor to hang the book on. What to retain, and what to leave behind? For someone wondering about all the Christian things he's held onto in the past, the same question arises. For Nick, the approach is summed up in his phrase hopeful skeptic.

He toys with the word agnostic, but decides it comes with too much baggage. I'd have to agree. So he prefers skeptic. But it seems to me that skepticism gets a bit of a bad press: perhaps it is too readily confused with cynicism. But even if not, Christians are often encouraged to be highly credulous, to ask questions in convenient places, to feel inadequate if they are not quite as confident as their peers. But a healthy skepticism is part of the path to wisdom; the foundation of scientific endeavour (perhaps even the whole academic venture). If you don't believe me, try convincing a room full of scientists that you have a new theory, a new approach better than their existing one: it quickly gets ugly.

But Fiedler's approach isn't purely skeptical - it is most definitely hopeful. In fact, the whole narrative is so suffused with hope that you can easily forget the subtitle about "revisiting Christianity from the outside", for these don't seem like the sentiments of someone outside the Christian community, just somone who has grown tired of the baggage that comes along with the term "Christian". The skepticisim is almost apologetic at times: much of the book seems addressed to an imagined individual who is fully immersed in the Evangelical world, and needs broadened horizons - but without wanting to give offence.

So some of the chapters address familiar topics of Christian formation: prayer, scripture, community, views of Jesus. But Mr Web 2.0 has to give us a chapter on "technianity", looking at how our emerging technologies can radically re-shape what we mean by church and faith.

Is it surprising and earth-shattering? That probably depends on where you're starting from. For me, no, I don't think there's too much which messed up my world view. Is it full of seminal theology? Er, no. Is it destructive or divisive? I wouldn't say so: I'm sure that's not the intention, anyway, and I can't really see it falling that way. Is it an honest and entertaining traveller's tale, a snapshot of what early 21st Century post-evangelicalism might look like? Absolutely.

Faithworks 360 Conference (part 3)

Brian McLaren was a big speaker at the Faithworks conference. He put up this slide - as did Steve Chalke! - I think he's been using it for a while, but it bears repeating.




In case that gets too small...

Our contemporary gospel is primarily: INFORMATION ON HOW TO GO TO HEAVEN AFTER YOU DIE (with a large footnote about increasing your personal happiness and success through God. (with a small footnote about character development (with a smaller footnote about spiritual experience (with a smaller footnote about social/global transformation.))))

He says we do lip-service to all sorts of ideas, but eventually, we have a naive, narrow simplistic gospel very often: something that Jesus really, really didn't.

So what is the theology of 360-degree mission? Well, he began with the observation that "Our theology is perfectly designed to produce the results we are now getting." That is, it seems, bad things, with a disconnect between how we think of the gospel and the way the world to be evangelised thinks of itself. So, he says, in place of a "church that meets my needs" we need to think of all the ways in which society is interconnected - business, government, charities, much else besides - and a world in which God's will is done ... as it is in heaven.

So we recognise that insitutions give stability to our communtiy, and movements try to disrupt them. Institutions preserve the merits of past movements, and movements succeed by creating new institutions or by embedding their new perspective in existing institutions. So the way we understand the gospel right now will - if it is dynamic - bring it into conflict with existing institutions, and require a creative tension as we try to work out how the gospel will transform the lives of people in 21st century Britain.

How do we understand Jesus' message? McLaren's illustration was to get a group of people to come out to the front. One represents Christ. Another represents Augustine, who looks to Christ. Another represents ... Acquinas, who looks to Augustine, who looks to Christ. Another represents Luther, who looks to Acquinas, who... Another represents ... whoever ... Barth, Billy Graham, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren. The point is that we cannot possibly look straightforwardly at Christ - we have too many interpreters in the way; too many ideas that we bring and apply to the text. (Pick your own teachers; your own chain of thought; the same applies). Perhaps we can gain traction by looking instead at the way Abraham looks to Israel who looks to David who looks to the Prophets, who look to Christ - but he didn't really explain how this helps (given that for all those people, we have the same chain of interpreters, if not more).

There may not be much we can do about that - but we need to be aware that it's there and it's happening.

A development of this was his suggestion that we need to move past a traditional theology - a 'primary narrative'' an over-arching story - based on "six lines" : a picture depicting paradise-fall-rebellion, then a choice between destruction and redemption, the latter followed by a new paradise. I don't think those were his words, but that was the gist. Instead, he talked about a new metanarrative, described by three axes describing the major activity of God: creation, liberation, and reconciliation, with the mission of God - and our mission - being to strive towards all three. [I don't claim to fully have grasped his point, yet: I think there is more about this in his new book A New Kind of Chrsitianity.]

In the final session, McLaren was careful to say that he was not wanting to claim that the past was bad and to be discarded: it's not necessarily so helpful to think of the "wrong" received ways of thinking and new "right" ways: we learn and grow. Understanding evolves: we want to know the gospel better next year than we do this year. What we need to be is a community of humble learners.

Faithworks 360 Conference (Part 2)

Sorry this has been slow coming: I intended a series of quick reflections, but somehow events overtook me.

I was tired/jet-lagged for the first session, and my laptop let me down, so my notes are poor. But I was immediately struck by the 'can do' attitude of those who spoke - David Lammy MP, Robert Beckford, and the ever energetic Steve Chalke.

I guess the take-home message of that session was that society and community are broken and needy. Churches have a long history of making communities work, of being at the heart of the community, and that's where they need to aim to be once again. And there are grounds for encouragement, because lots of people have demonstrated that faith-based charities are rather good at this. Evidently, there is much objective evidence that initiatives born out of faith - specifically Christian faith; not necessarily ruling out others - are more effective than others. For government agencies they represent better value for money: simple as that. Faith works !

This is why faithworks is promoting its '2010 declaration': the objective is to challenge the next British Prime Minister (whoever that may be) to recognise what Christians are doing, acknowledge that they do it because of their faith and to do more of this. Conference participants were invited to sign the declaration, and to encourage others to do so. So here we go, gentle reader: if you are a British voter, please click the link, and add your name.

Chalke went so far as to say that there are more opportunities than ever - and specifically in the next five years - for churches to get involved and be truly at the heart of work in their communities. So Faithworks has two perspectives: helping Churches and Christian charities to reach their own potential; and speaking to Government about how to help partnerships to happen.

In another session, he talked about the efforts involved in getting the Oasis Academy set up in Enfield. This is a (largely) government-funded secondary school, a brilliant brand new building which was hosting the conference. They run not only a school, but also community workers, a church, and so on - and are planning a health centre on adjacent land. Truly this is the embodiment of this 360-degree vision for engaging with the whole community, with faith in Christ unambiguously at the centre.

In trying to set this up, he had met great skepticism from the local council: Oasis is known as an Evangelical group: would they be using public money to proselytize? Would they discriminate? After much debate, he had remembered The Faithworks Charter which he had written some years previously (!). The charter begins with a clause which is a commonplace notion for public sector organisations, but a true breath of fresh air as a Christian statement:

We will provide an inclusive service to our community by:

1. Serving and respecting all people regardless of their gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation or physical and mental capability.

It's unsurprising as a 21st century satement, but as the first clause of a Christian identity statement ... I could imagine some debate. The next clauses, likewise...

2. Acknowledging the freedom of people of all faiths or none both to hold and to express their beliefs and convictions respectfully and freely, within the limits of the UK law.

3. Never imposing our Christian faith or belief on others.

Within a few days of forwarding this to all members of the council, Chalke got his Academy approved.


I have lots more notes to condense down to this blog. I'll try to carry on to Part 3 soon.