I was speaking with someone recently who was asking what I was up to in the next wee while. By the time I’d rhymed off what was definitely in the diary I realised that a chunk of May had been accounted for, June was a complete goner and July signalled the time for my final report in anticipation of the review in mid-August.

Time, it seems, is not willing to stand still to allow me take stock for a bit. And when I do snatch a moment, I keep thinking in terms of, “But I’ve still to do…” or “I’ve never done…” And, of course, there are all the things that I’m blissfully unaware of that will hit me from out of the blue. But when I snatch a moment and look back at all that I have done, I realise that there has been a lot packed in to what seems a ridiculously short time. And it will soon be time to start dredging it all up and putting it together for a report.

It also came as a shock that I had passed that halfway point and the second half of probation looked an awful lot shorter than the first half. I’m really not convinced that time is constant at all. I think there is some bizarre warp effect that comes into effect the moment you take your eye off the clock to do something. Or maybe time is just downright sneaky.

Anyway – a couple of tangents.

I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s,  The Contemplative Pastor and have decided that it should be required reading for all ministers. More to the point, it should be mandatory reading for all vacancy committees.

I’ve also been getting agitated reading recent postings and comments on many of the US-based theology blogs I subscribe to. The issue, of course, is bin Laden. I can’t decide whether to be irritated or saddened by much of the rhetoric that passes for ‘Christian justice’. The, generally, triumphalist attitude is really quite sickening and when respected UK voices are pilloried for daring to question the tone and the actions then I do begin to realise just how vastly different US and European culture actually is. I don’t particularly want to unsubscribe from some of the blogs, because it’s mainly commenters I take issue with, but I see very little response from the bloggers to gainsay them. I’m generally quite happy to read stuff I disagree with, but this recent activity has just left a particularly sour taste.

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The ‘blue parakeets’ of the title are those loud, squawking, irritating bits of scripture we prefer to gloss over or ignore – or, as McKnight puts it, tame and cage. They are the bits of scripture that don’t fit neatly into our own system, that challenge our preferred understanding and generally run the risk of putting holes in our favourite arguments.

The first half of the book sets out the various approaches typically taken by Bible readers and interpreters. It’s a necessarily condensed characterisation but the general thrust is that there are those (at least among those who still take scripture seriously) who stick with what the Bible says as valid for all time, those who read the Bible through the lens of their particular denominational or theological ‘creeds’ and those who seek to read scripture in a way that is sympathetic to their tradition but acknowledge the need for ‘contemporising’ their understanding. He offers further, narrower characterisations within, particularly, the first category – for example, those who read the Bible as a ‘rule book’ or those who see only a series of blessings or rewards.

It is into the last category (the contemporising one) I would place myself. And in particular, a preference for what might be described as a fairly post-modern approach. However, I don’t believe that that has to mean that the Bible can be interpreted in any way one chooses. I’ve written about this before and mentioned my appreciation for the literary approach of Stanley Fish and his ‘interpretive communities’. In essence, our interpretations of any literature will always be coloured and bounded by the community within which we find ourselves reading that work. In other words, our church upbringing is going to place the limits on our interpretation of the Bible – always allowing for a bit of pushing the boundaries of course.

Although McKnight doesn’t mention ‘interpretive communities’, that would be my understanding of what he is getting at. But the point McKnight makes takes it a stage further, into an area I hadn’t really appreciated but see as being a necessary and logical extension. Not only does our interpretive community provide the ‘boundary’ conditions, if we are honest in our intention of being part of that community, we must use that tradition actively in our engagement with scripture. But that active engagement is a two-way street. We must bring our faith tradition to bear on our Biblical interpretation, but also allow our reading of scripture to push the boundaries of that tradition. And the crucial thing is that that faith tradition is one which is also affected by and interacts with contemporary culture and society and cannot help but be shaped by it.

Sympathetic contemporising is done with regard to the faith tradition, but acknowledges its changing nature – changes that come about through its mission to remain relevant in a changing world. And the point that McKnight makes is that this ever-changing re-interpretation of God’s will is the story of the Bible. It is a book, or series of stories, which charts the continuing reinterpretation of God’s guidance and will in ever-changing circumstances. Of course there is the unchanging meta-narrative of creation, fall, exile, reconciliation but all else is contemporary re-interpretation.

The second half of the book uses the issue of women in ministry to show how some interpretations of scripture have failed to appreciate this changing interpretation and have made the Bible into a stagnant rule book. I won’t rehearse the arguments here, but I believe them to be fair.

But it leads me to the point I really wanted to make and the point which has struck me as I was reading the book.

If we accept that the Bible is the witness to a continuously-varying contextualisation and contemporising of God’s will (and I am persuaded that it is) then it places in interesting imperative on the church, its leadership and its theologians.

It seems to me that the purpose of the Bible then is not to be a source of blindly-applied rules, but rather a model for sacrilising the profane. In other words, in each and every age, we need to look at contemporary culture and work out where God is in that. The places we find God must then be celebrated, applauded and encouraged. And, of course, where we don’t find God, we seek to effect change.

But what are we looking for?

Once again I find myself in agreement with McKnight as he points out what God is ‘about’ – restoration to wholeness of individuals with themselves, with each other, with creation and, of course, with God.

And he makes one further challenging point – our model for wholeness is pre-fall (however we wish to read Genesis 1 & 2). Everything else up until Christ is a fallen model – so why are we using it? With Jesus, we are renewed, in a new community, enlivened and encouraged by the Spirit, who gifts us with discernment – discernment to see God at work in creation, in relationships, in communities. Again, why reduce that to following a set of rules from a fallen era?

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To be honest, I was a little put off by the heavy tie-in to Amazon’s Kindle store, but Amazon tends to be my book retailer of choice anyway. Besides, the Kindle does support other formats and the online conversion service for pdf and other documents seems to work fairly well. There are also a number of good programs which will convert to Amazon’s format anyway. Also, some of the large, out-of-copyright book repositories, such as Project Gutenberg, offer their books directly in native Kindle format.

But what’s it like as a book replacement? Rather good actually. Obviously it’s not a book, doesn’t feel like a book and doesn’t look like a book. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to read books. And for that, it’s rather good, as I said. It’s not like reading from a pc screen either I should point out. It’s an entirely different display technology and it is claimed to be less fatiguing than a normal lcd screen. I would certainly go along with that and I’ve read for several hours at a time without eye-strain. I doubt that that would have been the case reading from a monitor. In fact, I know from spending many hours in front of a computer that it definitely wouldn’t be the case. Is the same true of the newer tablet devices, such as the iPad? I don’t know – I haven’t tried one.

So why wasn’t I tempted to hang on for an iPad or similar? I know I come across as somewhat anti-Apple and there are historic reasons for that, largely associated with the days I used to use them at work. What they do, they do very well, or, at least, very prettily. Much as I like their prettiness though, I rarely give in to form over function. Take my mp3 player for example. The one I have is an ancient brick of a thing, looks ugly, has a clunky interface and has about as much street-cred as a thing with no street-cred. But, when I bought it, the main competition was the iPod (the older ‘classic’-style) and a few others. But few, and certainly not Apple, supported multiple codecs, direct recording from internal mic, external mic or external line source (and to multiple formats, in multiple quality settings) – at least not without additional, expensive accessories. Nor did anything at that time match the sound quality (Apple have only got close to ‘excellent’ quality with their latest generation players). I’ve also been able to ‘pimp’ it somewhat and, for the last 3 years, it has had 24 hour battery life and 32G of solid state memory – again something only the newest generation of players has caught up with. The point being that function has seriously out-classed form in this device and that’s why I bought it.

And so it is with things like the iPad. It’s too big to be a comfortable ebook reader. Its battery life means that I couldn’t go on holiday with it without a charger (the Kindle lasts for about 3-4 weeks before needing recharged). But the iPad can do so much more, I hear you say. “So what,” I reply. I’ve been through the phase of looking for the ideal device that does everything and concluded that, at the moment, it doesn’t exist. Maybe the iPad’s close, but not close enough. When it’s the size of a paperback, and has a 3-4 week battery life, and I can watch HD movies without squinting, and I can get full internet access and a keyboard I can properly type on and I can use any software from any supplier and I can properly multi-task, then I might be interested. In the meantime, give me a device that does what I need it to do and have it do it well (or at least well-enough). For reading books, the Kindle is close enough.

But what have I been reading? Just a variety of ‘stuff’, including some classic sci-fi. Currently reading ‘The Blue Parakeet‘ by Scot McKnight. Excellent book and I’ll probably be posting some thoughts from it soon.

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The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. Thus I suggest that prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated.

The italics are Brueggemann’s and state the hypothesis for  the book. The extract, I believe, succinctly states the mission and problem for the church. The church needs to be counter-cultural. And that doesn’t mean that it decries culture, rather it should always be asking if this is the ‘best’ we can achieve. And by ‘best’, I would suggest that that means being more ‘Christ-like’; being fully human and fully spiritual creatures, living life in its fullest measure without fear of discrimination, oppression and injustice.

But the extract also highlights the biggest danger the church faces – becoming ‘co-opted and domesticated’. (The phrase, “Aslan is not a tame lion” has just sprung to mind). My biggest fear of Emerging Church is that the Christian distinctives get subsumed by a desire to be ‘relevant’ – faith and worship are co-opted to suit a context, rather than that happening the other way round. Domestication comes when the church is no longer proactive but reactive and is ‘used’ to provide social services or a place where religious-types can go on a Sunday morning. Or perhaps domestication has come through the church becoming a useful branch of Historic Scotland responsible for the upkeep of a bunch of old buildings. I’m sure there are many ways in which we have become ‘co-opted and domesticated’.

How easy is it though to rediscover our revolutionary voice?

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There is no sin you can commit that God in Jesus hasn’t forgiven already. The only way you can get yourself in permanent Dutch is to refuse forgiveness. That’s hell. The old baloney about heaven being for good guys and hell for bad guys is dead wrong. Heaven is populated entirely by forgiven sinners, not spiritual and moral aces. And hell is populated entirely by forgiven sinners. The only difference between the two groups is that those in heaven accept the forgiveness and those in hell reject it. Which is why heaven is a party–the endless wedding reception of the Lamb and his bride–and hell is nothing but the dreariest bar in town.?

Robert Farrar Capon
(The Mystery of Christ: And Why We Don’t Get it, 1993)

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It’s not a ‘big read’. It only took me a couple of days to get through it. It’s written in a light, very conversational tone so it skips along at an easy pace and engages you in the unfolding story. That story is Miller’s faith journey as he questions many of the religious baggage he carries as well as much of his behaviour and attitude towards himself and others. For that reason it’s very much about ‘experience’ and it has been heavily criticised for just that. In a sense it is very self-absorbed with faith growth being about growing as an individual and reconciling many of the big questions about relationships and life through a very personal lens. In essence, it starts with ‘self’ and aims God-ward.

Now this is often taken as a bit of an anathema by many who would suggest that we must always start with God and derive our meaning from that point. No argument there except that that simply isn’t the thought-world we live in these days. And interestingly (for me anyway), this was one of the themes that came out of my Masters research discussion the other day. It’s all very well having a go at someone’s ‘upside-down’ theological starting point, but if the language we use as theologians simply makes no sense to our current cultural context, we might as well be speaking Martian.

Blue Like Jazz is about ‘experiencing’ Christianity. Miller refuses to accept the label ‘Christian’ for himself, preferring instead to speak about Christian spirituality – he is a spiritual person who derives spiritual meaning from a Christian framework. I think his observations are and his experiences are exceedingly challenging and encouraging. It is a powerful testimony. I believe it could have been made even more powerful by more direct reference to scripture or theology, but that wasn’t the purpose of the book. It’s a book you could easily give to a ‘seeker’ (another contemporary term) and not feel you are Bible-bashing, but are still challenging their self-centredness and worldly outlook.

But I can’t help but feel that it still leaves a bit of a gulf between ‘true’ Christianity and some sense of a watered-down, post-modern, feel-good gospel. I wonder if Christian spirituality becomes another ‘commodity’ in the pick-n-mix religion supermarket and that if it’s all about being selfless and relationship friendly, then why not whichever framework works best for you? Why does it have to be a Christian one?

I know the book isn’t intended to be a theological tome that will encourage the pomo-generation to flock into churches, but I wonder if it short-changes those it does draw closer to Jesus. By ducking the “but why?” questions and giving an answer that is not really much better than “just because and anyway, it works for me”, it leaves open the possibility of creating either Christianity-lite or a lot of disappointed people when they discover they don’t have the underpinnings that support the times when the ‘big questions’ really matter (like when, as a friend might say, they are standing in the pits of hell asking, “how did I end up here?”).

As I say, the book isn’t meant to take people to that place (solidity, not hell), but rather expose them to a testimony that might get them engaging in the discussion about what Christianity (or Christian spirituality) is all about. And that’s not a bad starting point. Indeed it’s a place where many ‘hit them over the head with the Bible’ churches simply can’t even get people to in the first place. But the big question for me is how you then engage them in meaningful discussion that is theologically sound, God-centred and unashamedly Christian? And how to draw them beyond even selflessness into a concern and compassion for the world we live in?

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I’m very glad I did. I found it to be quite a compelling read. Just to be clear – it’s a novel and it’s ‘fiction’. By that I mean that the story is made up. Like many novels it’s a composite of the author’s experience, circle of friends, family and so on. In that respect, the outline story isn’t even all that great. It’s contrived and compressed and wouldn’t generally merit a second glance in a discount book shop. It’s also a bit ‘American’. But, if you ignore that aspect of it and treat it simply as a vehicle for the ‘main story’ then you’ll find a very thought-provoking piece of writing.

On one level it’s an apologetic, on another it’s very evangelistic but I enjoyed it for its theology. It can be read ‘lightly’ and without any real engagement but then it would be a pretty poor novel. But it deserves to be read ‘engagingly’. It does a great job, in my opinion, of trying to find words to describe the Trinity and the consequences of its presentation of the Trinity (I don’t want to give away too much – it is genuinely worth reading). It stirs up issues of ecclesiology and what it means to be ‘church’. It challenges Christian behaviour and our response to others. It tackles the big questions of evil and why do bad things happen. It touches on eschatology and heaven and rebirth. Above all it’s a story about redemption and what it really means.

In many respects it resonates with my own developing theology. It comes up against the usual language barriers when a word or phrase is used that you twitch a little at. But the the book’s trying to speak of God and language is never sufficient to do that. So in that respect, the book isn’t ‘perfect’. But then I’ve yet to come across a theology book that is. It would be a great book to run a discussion group on. I suspect it would challenge many of the popular conceptions of God and the Christian life.

I do see why it created such a stir when it appeared. Conservative evangelicals especially were up in arms (here’s a little spoiler – God the Father is mostly portrayed as a comfortably built Afro-American woman – but there’s a very good reason for that). It definitely challenges much ‘cosy’ Christianity. It certainly challenges Sunday Christians. It gives Bibliolatry a real savaging. What it does emphasise though, over and over again, is that being a Christian is about being in a relationship with God. Where the book may well challenge you is what the nature of that relationship is.

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‘I look at it like this,’ he said. ‘Before I heard him talk, I was like everyone else. You know what I mean? I was confused and uncertain about all the little details of life. But now,’ he brightened up, ‘while I’m still confused and uncertain it’s on a much higher plane, d’you see, and at least I know I’m bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.’

Treatle nodded. ‘I hadn’t looked at it like that,’ he said, ‘but you’re absolutely right. He’s really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance. There’s so much about the universe we don’t know.’

I couldn’t help but think how true this was. It seems to me that the more I study and read at university, the less I realise I know and so the level of ignorance becomes more profound. Kind of humbling really.

And as for its application for faith – it’s even more serious. I wonder if those who spout forth with certainty about what’s God wants/expects and the rights/wrongs that are so Biblically clear are simply living in a tiny bubble of reality?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some existentialist angst bubbling to the surface, just a very apposite thought following on from yesterday. Yesterday was the first day of my placement at Camelon and I was involved in a meeting to plan out the preaching and teaching themes for next year. The focus is to be on the Apostles’ Creed and about its individual statements of the Christian faith. Can they be treated as absolutes? I suppose that in a sense they must be. Our faith must have some bedrock or foundation and for the Christian that must be God; Father, Son and Spirit. Can we go beyond that? I think the answer has to be yes. But we do so in the uncertainty of faith.

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I got vouchers (Amazon and the bank type) and a big stack of dark chocolate including my favourite Green and Black’s Maya Gold. I don’t eat milk chocolate because of the milk – lactose seems to bring on my sinusitis, so I avoid it. There was also a bar of Co-op orange and spices. Very similar to the Maya Gold but a bit more orangey – very yummy. Trying to avoid eating any before bedtime or I’ll not sleep.

Haven’t decided what to spend my vouchers on but I may order a wide-angle tele-converter for my camera. Or I could just buy more chocolate. Decisions! Decisions!

And I’ve got a delicious home-made birthday cake as well.

The girls are back from Malawi and are spending time with grandparents. It seems to have been an amazing trip and there are some photos and tales on the website.

I’m also reading another NT Wright book – Paul, In fresh perspective. Definitely recommended. For a ‘traditionalist’ scholar, he really opens up some fresh ideas and challenges conventional wisdom. Maybe that says more than anything. There is still so much to learn even from ‘traditional’ teaching never mind having tread on emerging pathways. This one is about the major themes of covenant and creation which run through scripture. That in itself is not so radical, but it it the implications which Wright draws, particularly in how we read Paul, that are challenging. I’ll post on it when I’ve digested it some more but it’s an outlook or theology that really appeals to me and makes sense to me.

Oh well, chocolate beckons.

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I’ve been reading Tom Wright’s book ‘Surprised by Hope’ and he is very adamant that it isn’t. His main contention in the book is that the main focus of preaching and teaching in the western church has been about ‘fitting us for heaven’. It’s the place Christians go when we ‘shrug off this mortal coil’. There’s no better achievement than to leave this world behind and for our immortal souls to live eternally with God. It’s the focus of much of Evangelicalism – saving souls. It’s reinforced by our hymns, prayers and liturgy. And it’s also utterly wrong, or at least short-sighted, according to Wright.

To focus on heaven as an end point is to bow to a Platonic understanding of life – essentially, what is physical is undesirable, what is spirit is to be desired. It’s a dualistic world-view where physical is bad and spiritual is good. And yet, when God created the universe (the physical) He declared that ‘it was very good’. Furthermore, the teaching of the New Testament does not give heaven as our final destination. We are not destined for some nebulous, cloud-sitting, harp-playing, spiritual existence. The focus of the Gospel, the good news, is that ‘death has been defeated’. Not in some spiritual sense but it bodily actuality. The resurrection of Christ bears testimony to that. He is the ‘first fruits’. He is the pattern to which we will all, one day, be conformed – a new, physical, life, not bound by death and glorified by God. And what’s more, this is not a promise for people, but is for all creation. After all, where are the physical to live if not in a new world – a new-created and joined heaven and earth? And that resurrection body overcomes the decay of death, not by our own power, but by that of the Spirit.

This is the main thrust of Wright’s book and he explores some of the implications of this. Perhaps the single, biggest implication is for the here-and-now. In re-creating us in resurrection life, God affirms the goodness of creation, of physicality. Life matters! And it matters in the here-and-now as well. What we have, in the gift of the Spirit now, is a foretaste of that resurrection life, albeit a pale shadow, seen in a mirror dimly. Wright suggests that in the new heaven and earth, there will be work to do. We will be called to fulfil our duties as stewards of creation – a duty we’ve largely failed at now. Our Spirit-filled life now should be a reflection of that. The purpose of evangelism is indeed salvation, but not for the sake of ‘saving souls’ (that’s back to the dualist view of physical bad/spiritual good), but for bringing people to Christ so that they may know the Spirit and thereby be empowered to bring about God’s kingdom on earth (Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven) as a foretaste of the full glory yet to come.

And yes, there’s still a place for heaven, hell and judgement but you’ll need to read the book for that (or catch me in a quiet time to blog about it).

This is the first time I’ve read any of Wright’s work, apart from a brief foray into it last semester for academic purposes. But, I have to say, so much of what he writes (in this book anyway) resonates deeply with my own outlook. As my theology has been shaped by my learning at uni, I’ve been aware of many gaps. I’ve also been aware of deeper discontent with the Evangelical focus on a future in heaven (often to the detriment of our duties on earth). This book has filled in some of those gaps (or at least given me much raw material with which to start filling them in) and I look forward to reading more of Wright’s work. I’m told that his commentary on Romans is excellent, so I guess I’ll have a busy reading list over the summer.

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