Emergent Brethren

I just finished reading my advance copy of Mark Batterson’s about to be released book “Primal: The Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity.” Having already read Mark’s previous books, I came to this book with HIGH expectations. He didn’t let me down. It is a good read and I found it very helpful. In many ways, Mark has put into writing some ideas that I have had for a number of years now.

The book’s guiding image of peeling back the layers of all that Christianity has evolved into to get back to the “primal” nature of Christianity is a helpful image. The book is designed to take an indepth look at what was most important to Jesus…. the great commandment. Mark writes, “we have a tendency to complicate Christianity. Jesus simplified it: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we are to live out the essence of Christianity, we must commit to being great at this Great Commandment.”

And then Mark devotes the chapters in the book to taking a look at what each of those four ways we are to Love God might look like in our world and lives today.

I HIGHLY recommend reading this book and look forward to Mark’s next.

I just finished reading “The Justice Project” edited by Brian McLaren and others. I received the book a few weeks ago from the Ooze Viral Bloggers and it took me a while to work through it because of my schedule over the last few weeks, with work for Veritas, my job at Starbucks, and watching the kids while Kim has been working more hours. So it has taken me some time to get around to blogging about this book.

The book is divided into five sections. The five sections are: The God of Justice, The Book of Justice, Justice in the USA, A Just World, and a Just Church. Each section then is broken down into a number of chapters each written by a different person, each writing about a different aspect of justice.

The first section regarding the God of Justice is all around God’s heart for the needy, the poor, and the oppressed. The second section revolves around how the theme of justice runs throughout all of Scripture, from the prophets, to the Gospels, and the rest of the New Testament. The third section revolves around issues of Justice in the USA, including Racial issues, elections, liberals, conservatives, family values, and border issues. A Just world revolves around issues that are broader than just the USA and includes chapters on becoming just global citizens, business of justice, just ecology, just religion, just cities, justice in the slums, and justice in the suburbs. The final section deals with Justice in the church and includes evangelicals awakening to the justice issue, planting justice churches, parenting and justice, and some other issues.

It was a great read and opened my eyes to some justice issues that I hadn’t thought about before. It also helped formulate some other things that I have been thinking about for awhile. One chapter that stood out to me was the chapter on parenting and justice. I have thought about how can Kim and I parent Kaiden and Trinity in such a way that they have a heart to work for peace and justice in the world. That is alot of the reason that we do service projects at Veritas with whole families, so the kids can realize that they bring a real contribution to the church and the world.

Here are some quotes that stood out to me throughout the book:

“The practice of justice is at the center of God’s purpose for human life. It is so closely related to the worship of the living God as the only ture God that no act of worship is acceptable to him unless it is accompanied by concrete acts of justice on the human level.”

“In The Politics of Jesus, Dr. Obery Hendricks underscores this point by putting the Lord’s Prayer in the political context of Caesar’s empire in order to shed new light on its seditious and subversive nature.”

“Jesus inaugurates God’s realm of justice on and for the earth. His entire life, death and resurrection unveil for all people in all times a true portrait of God’s justice. Justice empowers the wronged by making wrongs right. Jesus’ teaching and ministry shows us waht justice looks like in every dimension of human life- individual, social and economic.”

“Christ’s peaceable kingdom will only materialize in the Americas as emerging Christian communities disrupt the logics of racism, nationalism, materialism, and militarism and form counter-imperial communities of justice and hope.”

Probably the one quote that stood out to me in the entire book was this one, and I end this blog with this one, “Too many Bible readers have been trained, as I was, to approach the biblical text through the priestly lens, not the prophetic one. That is, they look at the priestly theme of personal justification and ignore the prophetic theme of social justice. They’re concerned about pleasing God with personal piety rather than public policy. They are more interested in being blessed than in being a blessing, quicker to bomb their enemies than to love and serve them, more preoccupied with evading justice than with seeking it first.”

Over the last year or so when reading various books about postmodernity, the culture, etc.. I kept bumping into a Philosopher/Writer name Soren Kierkegaard. When I found quotes by him, I really really liked them, underlined them, and shared with others his quotes. But I had never read anything by him so I decided to find out where the quotes that I had really liked came from. I found out that most came from a book entitled “Attack upon Christendom.” So I went to my local library, found they had a copy and picked it up. Now I am not that far into it, and it is slow going, heady, and wordy…but worth the effort.

Here are just a few quotes that have stood out to me.

Translator: “Certainly the notion of ‘Christendom’, ‘a Christian world’, ‘Christian lands,’ under ‘Christian rulers,’ is now more problematical than it was a century ago when S.K. wrote.”

“So then sermons should not be preached in churches but in the street, in the midst of life, of the reality of daily life, weekday life.”

“Verily there is that which is more contrary to Christianity, and to the very nature of Christianity, than any heresy, any schism, more contrary than all heresies and all schisms combined and that is to play Christianity. But precisely in the very same sense that the child plays soldier, it is playing Christianity to take away the danger(witness and danger correspond) and in place of this to introduce power (to be a danger for others) worldly goods, advantages, luxuriously enjoyment of the most exquisite refinements.”

So that is only the beginning of this book. Over the next few days I will post more about Attack Upon Christendom, but also on two other books that I have read or am reading. The two books are Advent Conspiracy (will do a post on Amazon.com for this book) and The Justice Project (an Ooze Viral Blogger book).

The book that I am currently working through that I got from The Ooze Viral Bloggers is called “The Seven Faith Tribes” by George Barna. I am about half way through it. I believe this is the first book I have read by George Barna and so far I am having a difficult time with it. Maybe it’s because I have been pretty busy and so much of the reading is broken up into pieces. In the book Barna lays out 7 faith tribes that make up America. The 7 tribes are Captive Christians, Casual Christians, Mormons, American Jews, Muslims, Spiritual Skeptics and Pantheists. In each chapter he spells out what these tribes believe, think, and feel in regards to politics, religion, the Bible, and various other issues.

I think one of the issues that I have with this is that he paints with a very broad stroke. For instance, he says that 4 out of 5 Americans consider themselves Christian (which boils down to 80% of the population). He then spells out what these 150 million people believe, how they act, and what they think. I realize that this is the limitation of such work. Anytime you do a survey of American Religion, thought, and life you will have to use a broad stroke, but I was hoping to find something more in this work.

Now I am not saying that I didn’t find anything helpful…..Here are some thoughts that I have agreed with or been challenged by:

“The future of America depends more upon the compassionate engagement with society by devoted Christians than upon their persistent insistence of their moral supremacy.”

“Sadly, Christians in America are not seen as loving, but we currently have a window of opportunity to demonstrate our love in the midst of hard times, confusion, and cultural chaos facing the nation.”

“Increasingly, we demand that the world embrace the worldview we possess or we respond in hostile ways: public criticism, nasty blogs, and text messages, lawsuits, angry letters to public officials or professional associations, confrontational letters to the editor, damage to property, or other means of retaliation.”

“Another paradox is that although they (Pantheist) view poverty as one of the most significant issues facing the country today, they have no personal interest in getting involved with the poor or with programs designed to address poverty.”

“Their (Muslims) identity is spiritual more than nationalistic.”

As I am only half way through the book, I will share some more later about how Barna sees these 7 faith tribes coming together to, what he calls, “restore our country to greatness.”

The other day while at my favorite “book store”..Ollies…you know what they say…”Good stuff cheap”, I picked up several books. One was Death by Suburb and another was called “The Ministry of the Missional Church” by Craig Van Gelder.

As I was reading Gelder’s book I came to a chapter dealing with Spirit-Led Ministry in context and was struck by something he had written. In a section dealing with Relating the work of God’s Spirit in the World to Congregations in Particular contexts, Gelder encourages congregations to ask two questions that he believes need to be regularly asked in relation to the contexts that the congregation find themselves in.

The first question is “What is God doing?” He says, “Discerning this work of God is foundational for effective ministry. The church is called and sent to participate in God’s mission in the world. The responsibility of the church is to discern where and how this mission is unfolding.”

The second question that Gelder encourages congregations to ask is, “What does God want to do?” He says, “God desires to bring all of life into reconciled relationship. The church must seek to understand how the intent of God, as expressed in the gospel, can work itself out in a particular context to contribute to this ministry of reconciliation.”

Those two questions have stuck in my head and I think can give Veritas a framework to move forward in mission and ministry. I will be sharing these questions in the months to come, before the launch, and after the launch as well. So I ask you…what is God doing in your context and what does God want to do?