On Sunday Kate and I went with the friend with whom we are staying to The Brewery an artist colony downtown LA in what I guess at some point was an old brewery but which looks like its most recent iteration was a manufacturing complex. In Fact according the information part of the complex was an old brewery, and part was also part of an Edison plant, and it seems other things as well. Apparently, in some capacity artist have been living and working in the old Brewery since the early 80's. However, it does look still very industrial, and the portion of the colony that we had time and energy to look at (there are over 300 artist loft/studios according to the web site.) looks like old machine shops. The Brewery has an "open house" twice a year, in the fall and the spring.
What we saw was of mixed quality and interest. Though the spaces were often quite invigorating and there was a quasi rustic feel, and many of the artists had fixed up their lofts and studio space in very beautiful and inspiring ways. Kate was very energized by the experience, and I wasn't sure what to make of it all. The first space we visited was an artist who has post-apocalyptic Steampunk themed work and his studio and loft space was Steampunk craziness. Quite cool, but his work didn't seem to mean much, each piece was an experience, and there were techniques he had invented and perfected. Technically it was all very well executed beyond the experience of the space and his pieces I didn't see much more meaning beyond .
What we saw was mostly similar to this, interesting techniques, and a certain beauty but largely meaningless beyond the techniques and the experience of the art. Saw a photographer that did some very interesting things with cityscapes and landscapes in black adn white and sepia tones. Also, an abstract painter that worked only in industrial enamels, that I find quite captivating and had the work I liked the best but again left me seeking meaning in the pieces, but only finding the experience of various types of spaces. But not mental spaces or places in the world but only the experience of this particular canvas as a space I could inhabit for a time. Interesting but quite meaningless.
The artist Miripolski has a loft there and Kate and he hit it off and traded some of her horns for a print of one of his works. he is working on a humongous stained glass piece for the L.A. Cultural center that is the artists representation of the History of LA, with some aspect of also projecting its future. Hi work is very vibrant and colorful, and I feel very much something that would emerge out of the culture of L.A.
Overall though I had the experience of Art as manufacturing in most of the spaces. Each loft studio felt a little like a space for the manufacture and production of art objects to be experienced and consumed. If I was to be confronted or challenged or brought beyond myself it was in quite singular experiences that meant nothing beyond a singular encounter. Very little of what I saw in my small sampling of artists their studio's and work left me with any meaning beyond those encounters. I think the space of former industrial complex and manufacturing for quite literal consumption (beer) had some effect both on my experience of the art but also the artists. I also wonder if this is where art is at the moment, to produce experiences and the meaning is in the experience and nothing more.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
In Los Angeles
My wife and I came out to LA for a Friends Wedding this past Saturday, and are staying on for a few days. The wedding was very beautiful ceremony. Roman Catholic wedding and the priest an elderly man who has been priest at the church for a very long time officiated. The priest weaved a quite beautiful and quirky commentary and explanation into the liturgy. A practice he explained he took up because he knows that Weddings include people often who rarely if ever go to church and of people of a variety of religious backgrounds. One friend commented that there seemed to also be a strong proclamation of the Gospel. I pointed out that yes that was there, but because the liturgy of matrimony and the Eucharist are when fully understood are themselves proclamations of the Gospel, so if one is going to give such a running commentary one is also going to be making explicit and thus evangelizing those in attendance.
I was able to meet and hang with some friends some of home I hadn't seen in 15 years others that I hadn't seen since Kate and I moved to Chicago. So the party was great fun and a time to become reacquainted.
The city of of Los Angeles itself seems to have undergone quite a change with the its public transportation which seems to be expanding and getting even more use than when we were last here two years ago. If the song "No one walks in LA" ever was true it certainly is not rue any longer. I am noticing on this trip a emerging distinction between Los Angeles proper and its surrounding suburbs. It feels more urban than it use to I was downtown on Sunday to see the Brewery Artist Colony(that is a separate post), and downtown was quite full of life something that I think was beginning to happen when we left for Chicago but not to this degree. In all LA itself is feeling more urban and I felt a difference driving down to the coastal towns and suburbs to the south that I had not experienced before in driving around LA.
Coming to LA is always a little strange for me. I have so much history here, and know it very well, but very significant changes have occurred in the last 11 years much of it connected with being in Chicago. To some degree it is a simple as that I wasn't married except for my last six months in LA and I wasn't a pastor. But Also I hadn't expected or planned to be the leader of a small intentional community or to plant a church. In any case for whatever reason being in LA feels odd and at times a little awkward, like encountering my old self that isn't radically different but different enough.
Last Night we went to the Goth club the Malediction Society, The moment I entered the club the awkwardness and weirdness of being in LA melted away. I am not exactly sure why that is. The LA Goth scene and the Chicago Goth scene each have their quirks. So it is not that the club felt exactly like a club in Chicago. It may be that the Goth subculture I chose in the last 7 or 8 years of living in LA, and something that has definitely persisted as part of my identity. We also ended up running into a guy we know from the Chicago Goth scene. Which was cool, though at first we were like is that... No it can't be he's in Chicago. Once we established that we knew each other from Chicago we didn't ask him nor he us why we were in LA.
I was able to meet and hang with some friends some of home I hadn't seen in 15 years others that I hadn't seen since Kate and I moved to Chicago. So the party was great fun and a time to become reacquainted.
The city of of Los Angeles itself seems to have undergone quite a change with the its public transportation which seems to be expanding and getting even more use than when we were last here two years ago. If the song "No one walks in LA" ever was true it certainly is not rue any longer. I am noticing on this trip a emerging distinction between Los Angeles proper and its surrounding suburbs. It feels more urban than it use to I was downtown on Sunday to see the Brewery Artist Colony(that is a separate post), and downtown was quite full of life something that I think was beginning to happen when we left for Chicago but not to this degree. In all LA itself is feeling more urban and I felt a difference driving down to the coastal towns and suburbs to the south that I had not experienced before in driving around LA.
Coming to LA is always a little strange for me. I have so much history here, and know it very well, but very significant changes have occurred in the last 11 years much of it connected with being in Chicago. To some degree it is a simple as that I wasn't married except for my last six months in LA and I wasn't a pastor. But Also I hadn't expected or planned to be the leader of a small intentional community or to plant a church. In any case for whatever reason being in LA feels odd and at times a little awkward, like encountering my old self that isn't radically different but different enough.
Last Night we went to the Goth club the Malediction Society, The moment I entered the club the awkwardness and weirdness of being in LA melted away. I am not exactly sure why that is. The LA Goth scene and the Chicago Goth scene each have their quirks. So it is not that the club felt exactly like a club in Chicago. It may be that the Goth subculture I chose in the last 7 or 8 years of living in LA, and something that has definitely persisted as part of my identity. We also ended up running into a guy we know from the Chicago Goth scene. Which was cool, though at first we were like is that... No it can't be he's in Chicago. Once we established that we knew each other from Chicago we didn't ask him nor he us why we were in LA.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Confession of a "Post-Modernist"
I confess I have become interested in Hegel and Kant again. I confess that I passed over Hegel with having read very little of his works. Spent more time with Kant but Kant and Hegel are the great Modernist systems, those Grand Narratives that claim to encompass the whole. Prime examples of totalitarian thought. This reading though ultimately fails to understand Hegel and Kant and we who come after.
Post-modernists seem to have stopped reading Hegel and Kant, we simply remember the supposed grand systems that bear their names. I am finding that much in both of their works still is operative in our culture in our questions, in our interpretations of the world. But we have forgotten the details and only remember ironically the generalized narratives and summary's of their philosophies.
I want to read them again, read them after- After Derrida and Heidegger, after globalization. Our thinking, my thinking is muddled in the forgetfulness of the details of the thinking of these philosophers, of the forgetfulness of the meaning of the Enlightenment. I confess that there is perhaps still yet no after except our own forgetfulness, our own desire to escape and wash our hands of all Europeans hegemony and totalizing thought and system. But this forgetfulness this attempted escape is to be left going in circles thinking we have made progress. I sense that in the details we have internalized much of these thinkers, not in their systems but in philosophical attitude.
We are forgetful we need to remember. And in saying this one should certainly hear Heidegger, but also Derrida. Do say it another way we have stoped reading, and we must read again, we must learn to read.
Post-modernists seem to have stopped reading Hegel and Kant, we simply remember the supposed grand systems that bear their names. I am finding that much in both of their works still is operative in our culture in our questions, in our interpretations of the world. But we have forgotten the details and only remember ironically the generalized narratives and summary's of their philosophies.
I want to read them again, read them after- After Derrida and Heidegger, after globalization. Our thinking, my thinking is muddled in the forgetfulness of the details of the thinking of these philosophers, of the forgetfulness of the meaning of the Enlightenment. I confess that there is perhaps still yet no after except our own forgetfulness, our own desire to escape and wash our hands of all Europeans hegemony and totalizing thought and system. But this forgetfulness this attempted escape is to be left going in circles thinking we have made progress. I sense that in the details we have internalized much of these thinkers, not in their systems but in philosophical attitude.
We are forgetful we need to remember. And in saying this one should certainly hear Heidegger, but also Derrida. Do say it another way we have stoped reading, and we must read again, we must learn to read.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Reading the Great Emergence, Emergence Flux, and continuity
Been meaning for awhile to read Phyllis Tickle's book The Great Emergence: How Christianty Is Changing and Why. Although I have been meaning too read the book I have also put it off: I feared my historiographical training (that instilled a respect and healthy skepticism of periodization in the discipline of history: bothnecesary but problematic for understanding much historical processes. Dividing up history into periods hides as least as much as it reveals. we'll get back to this in a moment.) But also I have am sceptical about all this talk about "emergence" specifically that this particular period of time is particularly significant in terms of emergence. Now to be clear this scepticism is from perhaps the opposite side of what one would expect. I am not denying that things have changed, nor am I of the opinion that some static immovable notion of Christianity and church needs to be preserved (though as we may get to I am do feel the need for a greater concern for the continuities and for what is passed on and being passed on.) I am a product of what was being called post-modern and what seems to be especially with Tickle being called the Great Emergence.
As one who is a product of what ever we want to and will call this shift I am uncertain that focusing almost exclusively on change or "emergence" is the best way for Christians to keep their bearings. On some level my scepticism is that apart from the rapidity of technological change, what we are talking about doesn't simply happen at discreet moments even discreet extended moments and then stop. If one leaves aside the desire to compartmentalize time one simply has flux of a continual emergence. Things morph slowly or quickly from one thing to another, one can choose to attempt to stabilize this flux long enough to make generalizations over extend periods of time but then one is also simultaneously to admit that at the beginning of period x one still has the traits of the preceding period y to a large degree and only modified slightly and by the time one can talk about period x having a full blown and distinguishable traits from period y, one is already finding traits that come in the proceeding period Z. And so forth ad infinitum.
One can perhaps then get a sense of my initial difficulty with The Great Emergence, she offers her own histiographic periodization dividing up the last 2 mellenia into 500 year periods with about 100 years in each that is bound up in an "emergence" that changes everything. This periodization is so far as I read both accross global history and specific to Christianity and the west: that is the process of this 500 year increment isn't simply Tickles construct to get at something but a real happening within the flow of time and human culture, or at least what we now Call "Western" culture.
One of the things that is enjoyable in reading Tickle as well as listening to hear speak is the poetry of her thought. She uses the image (that she borrowed from a Bishop) of that emergence every 500 years is when the Church has a "rummage sale", things get shaken up, excess is redistributed and one feels lighter. While the image of rummage sale seems apt for our time especially for those who are attaching themselves to Emergent or the emergent church. Things some thought long gone are dug up and polished off and used again and things once thought essential are tossed out, and its pretty much up to the individual or particular group exactly what is tossed and what is polished up and used again.
The Reformation (Or "Great Reformation" according to Tickle) is perhaps also aptly so described, though it seems to be a very Protestant Characterization of what happened. I have difficulty seeing Roman Catholics or the Orthodox using that characterization. However, there was enough it seems intentional on part of the reforms digging around in the attic and a good bit of jettisoning of what was thought to be of utmost importance by the reformers that I can accept the metaphor. But the two preceeding periods and their respective emergence, seems problematic. The Great Schism is a bit more complex and difficult to truly make a clear before and after. The differences between east and West in Christianity preceeded even Constantine, the roots for the final split ran deep. And many would claim that language and not any real change or even actual difference between "East" and "West" contributed to the schism. Greeks stopped knowing Latin, Latins stopped knowing Greek. Bad translations of each other's ideas Their were certainly differences but those differences weren't knew, what was new was a breakdown in communication. This is at least one theory of what happened. We know the anathema's were thrown about, but exactly why they happened at that time beyond noting the personalities involved is uncertain. It did create a new sitation that we still live with, and which Tickles analysis of emergence is based on being on the Western side of the schism, (we should not forget that if we sought to do this examination from the Christian "Greek" Eastern perspective there the Reformation wouldn't be a local phenomenon, not a pan-ecclesial phenomenon. The Schism with what are not called the Oriental Orthodox Churches, is also difficult to account in the terms of emergence that Tickle is using. Again much current interpretation of this schism is that it was all mostly a misunderstanding steming in part from culture and also from language. Those who rejected Chalcedon weren't keen to Greek philosophy and thus did not appreciate the use of the technical use of philosophy for defining dogma. Yet this doesn't explain why it happened then, for all creedal formulations fo the ecumenical council including Nicea were using technical Greek philosophical terms, that are and were accepted by the oriental Orthodox. Also, in terms of rite organization the use of a type of iconography etc. the Oriental Orthodox are more a variation on a theme than clearly distinct from either Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholicism. Then we come to the Christ event, but can we as Christians merely list that event as a simple point in a emergent pattern of history. Sure it was the right time so there was something about the time that allowed for God to act or precipitated God acting or however one wants to say this, but surely the Christ event and its tumult has less to do with patterns in history and more to do with that something beyond the merely historical took place, and that the renewal of the entire cosmos and the meaning and end of history entered the cosmos and history. Surely the Christ event cannot either be the beginning point of a particular historical pattern nor simply part of the pattern but inaugurates something beyond our histiogrpahic propensity to periodization.
So far I think there is enough problems with Tickle's approach for all of us to take a step back and be a little more cautious about coming to firm conclusions about where we are and what is happening.
As one who is a product of what ever we want to and will call this shift I am uncertain that focusing almost exclusively on change or "emergence" is the best way for Christians to keep their bearings. On some level my scepticism is that apart from the rapidity of technological change, what we are talking about doesn't simply happen at discreet moments even discreet extended moments and then stop. If one leaves aside the desire to compartmentalize time one simply has flux of a continual emergence. Things morph slowly or quickly from one thing to another, one can choose to attempt to stabilize this flux long enough to make generalizations over extend periods of time but then one is also simultaneously to admit that at the beginning of period x one still has the traits of the preceding period y to a large degree and only modified slightly and by the time one can talk about period x having a full blown and distinguishable traits from period y, one is already finding traits that come in the proceeding period Z. And so forth ad infinitum.
One can perhaps then get a sense of my initial difficulty with The Great Emergence, she offers her own histiographic periodization dividing up the last 2 mellenia into 500 year periods with about 100 years in each that is bound up in an "emergence" that changes everything. This periodization is so far as I read both accross global history and specific to Christianity and the west: that is the process of this 500 year increment isn't simply Tickles construct to get at something but a real happening within the flow of time and human culture, or at least what we now Call "Western" culture.
One of the things that is enjoyable in reading Tickle as well as listening to hear speak is the poetry of her thought. She uses the image (that she borrowed from a Bishop) of that emergence every 500 years is when the Church has a "rummage sale", things get shaken up, excess is redistributed and one feels lighter. While the image of rummage sale seems apt for our time especially for those who are attaching themselves to Emergent or the emergent church. Things some thought long gone are dug up and polished off and used again and things once thought essential are tossed out, and its pretty much up to the individual or particular group exactly what is tossed and what is polished up and used again.
The Reformation (Or "Great Reformation" according to Tickle) is perhaps also aptly so described, though it seems to be a very Protestant Characterization of what happened. I have difficulty seeing Roman Catholics or the Orthodox using that characterization. However, there was enough it seems intentional on part of the reforms digging around in the attic and a good bit of jettisoning of what was thought to be of utmost importance by the reformers that I can accept the metaphor. But the two preceeding periods and their respective emergence, seems problematic. The Great Schism is a bit more complex and difficult to truly make a clear before and after. The differences between east and West in Christianity preceeded even Constantine, the roots for the final split ran deep. And many would claim that language and not any real change or even actual difference between "East" and "West" contributed to the schism. Greeks stopped knowing Latin, Latins stopped knowing Greek. Bad translations of each other's ideas Their were certainly differences but those differences weren't knew, what was new was a breakdown in communication. This is at least one theory of what happened. We know the anathema's were thrown about, but exactly why they happened at that time beyond noting the personalities involved is uncertain. It did create a new sitation that we still live with, and which Tickles analysis of emergence is based on being on the Western side of the schism, (we should not forget that if we sought to do this examination from the Christian "Greek" Eastern perspective there the Reformation wouldn't be a local phenomenon, not a pan-ecclesial phenomenon. The Schism with what are not called the Oriental Orthodox Churches, is also difficult to account in the terms of emergence that Tickle is using. Again much current interpretation of this schism is that it was all mostly a misunderstanding steming in part from culture and also from language. Those who rejected Chalcedon weren't keen to Greek philosophy and thus did not appreciate the use of the technical use of philosophy for defining dogma. Yet this doesn't explain why it happened then, for all creedal formulations fo the ecumenical council including Nicea were using technical Greek philosophical terms, that are and were accepted by the oriental Orthodox. Also, in terms of rite organization the use of a type of iconography etc. the Oriental Orthodox are more a variation on a theme than clearly distinct from either Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholicism. Then we come to the Christ event, but can we as Christians merely list that event as a simple point in a emergent pattern of history. Sure it was the right time so there was something about the time that allowed for God to act or precipitated God acting or however one wants to say this, but surely the Christ event and its tumult has less to do with patterns in history and more to do with that something beyond the merely historical took place, and that the renewal of the entire cosmos and the meaning and end of history entered the cosmos and history. Surely the Christ event cannot either be the beginning point of a particular historical pattern nor simply part of the pattern but inaugurates something beyond our histiogrpahic propensity to periodization.
So far I think there is enough problems with Tickle's approach for all of us to take a step back and be a little more cautious about coming to firm conclusions about where we are and what is happening.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Some Personal and Pastoral Reflections on Conversion
One of the intents of the Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture is for scholarship to be put to bear on concerns of the church, of pastors and laity. I overheard a student of the seminary heatedly complain that the first presentation on whether and the nature of Paul's conversion had nothing he could take back with him into his pastoral ministry. I found the complaint odd. First because was he really saying that no one in his context looked to Paul's conversion as a model for their understanding of their conversion or the conversion of others? This could be, though McKnight made clear that in part his investigation came out of his own ecclesial background where conversion was modeled on Paul and his own conversion was articulated in ways he was lead to believe were Pauline. Could this student not take the way in which McKnight questioned not only the scripture texts around the nature of Paul's turning but also the ways in which a certain interpretation of Paul's conversion had lead to a narrowing of the sense of conversion? Or was there nothing that he could find that might lead him to in the least gain a new perspective on conversion?
I will admit that few at Reconciler are troubled by the question of whether or not Paul was a convert. However, more important than whether or not any issue presented and discussed at the symposium was a burning issue for anyone in the pew, the presentations from McKnight's presentation to the last presentation on what the effect of Zacheus' conversion had on him and what it should have had, all lead me to reflect on and question my own take on conversion. I was baptized as infant both sides of my family have deep spiritual heritages. Christian faith was something I have grown into and matured in. For much of my life I have resisted Sunday School Teachers to Youth leaders to random people trying to witness to me who tried to get me to tell a story in which there was a time before I was a Christian and a time when I wasn't a Christian. Many who are raised in the church do even as children have something of a conversion story a before and after, this was not my experience. thus I thought before this symposium, that I was not a convert, there were not points of turning simply a more or less gradual growing into the faith and my baptism, punctuated by experiences that confirmed my faith and baptism.
However, as I sat through the various presentations I noticed a resistance to the idea of conversion as being more or less central to Christian faith. And thanks to Frank Macchia's paper realized this contradicted my appropriation of the Benedictine sense of the need for continual conversion. I had resisted the idea of conversion in part due to the narrowing of the idea into some extremely stark before and after. A dramatic and radical shift, but what was emerging from the various presentations and the conversation of the symposium was that while such stark turning is part of what conversion can be, it does not tell the whole truth about conversion, and leaves an inadequate account of what turning and transformation mean Biblically and theologically. I then began to question those punctuated experiences as possible points of turning again toward God. Still not sure if any of them would be conversions but the possibility was there.
As this thought lingered over the sessions, another question that was raised more than once was the difference and/or relationship between call and conversion. Modern scholarship has tended to see them as separate even mutually exclusive. Yet the investigations of both Paul's and Peter's conversions seem to indicate that call and conversion are not easily separable (at least in these to persons). Also at some point someone pointed out that Paul seems to describe his conversion/call in terms that echo the call of prophets we find in the prophetic books. Slowly it dawned on me that it was precisely around my sense of call to ministry and then call into intentional community and the Ecumenical work of Reconciler where I did have in my own autobiography radical shifts in my story, before and after and this turning also was one in which I had more than one moment where I could turn and "go down" (as Boaz Johnson noted was the opposite of conversion) or "arise". When I first felt the call to be a pastor, it was a moment of dramatic conversion, the moment before I sensed the call I was firm in my resolution that pastoral ministry was not for me, after I simply knew this was what I was called to do. As I left seminary and was a chaplain, I found my desire for pursuing a Ph.D. dissolve in the face of regular pastoral ministry. Then while I was thinking about the role intentional community's could play in the local church, and thinking of what a protestant "monasticism" might look like I was quite certain I was not called to intentional community, only to find that I was not only called to community but called to found an intentional Christian Community. And finally I was resistant to the idea of church planting and even when I was first approached about an ecumenical church start I was going to listen to the idea, but I didn't think I would feel much draw, but was intrigued. By the middle of Tripp's and my first conversation not only was I sure of the possibility of a good friendship with Tripp, but the idea of an ecumenical church plant seemed to be what i was called to do. It was in the arena of call that I have found myself converted or needing to convert. Points of turning in which there are in my story a before and and after. I even recently wrote to Tripp in a private e-mail that I felt that Reconciler had changed me, I realized that I was trying to articulate then how both community and church have been journeys of continual conversion for me.
For me then at least I think the symposium was fruitful in the way it intends to be since even if the papers aren't of interest to the members of Reconciler (though some may find them of interest), the whole symposium challenged and broadened and deepened my understanding of conversion as a pastor, both personally and generally. This will then effect my pastoral ministry and in the end the life of the church. I would venture to say that I am probably not alone
I will admit that few at Reconciler are troubled by the question of whether or not Paul was a convert. However, more important than whether or not any issue presented and discussed at the symposium was a burning issue for anyone in the pew, the presentations from McKnight's presentation to the last presentation on what the effect of Zacheus' conversion had on him and what it should have had, all lead me to reflect on and question my own take on conversion. I was baptized as infant both sides of my family have deep spiritual heritages. Christian faith was something I have grown into and matured in. For much of my life I have resisted Sunday School Teachers to Youth leaders to random people trying to witness to me who tried to get me to tell a story in which there was a time before I was a Christian and a time when I wasn't a Christian. Many who are raised in the church do even as children have something of a conversion story a before and after, this was not my experience. thus I thought before this symposium, that I was not a convert, there were not points of turning simply a more or less gradual growing into the faith and my baptism, punctuated by experiences that confirmed my faith and baptism.
However, as I sat through the various presentations I noticed a resistance to the idea of conversion as being more or less central to Christian faith. And thanks to Frank Macchia's paper realized this contradicted my appropriation of the Benedictine sense of the need for continual conversion. I had resisted the idea of conversion in part due to the narrowing of the idea into some extremely stark before and after. A dramatic and radical shift, but what was emerging from the various presentations and the conversation of the symposium was that while such stark turning is part of what conversion can be, it does not tell the whole truth about conversion, and leaves an inadequate account of what turning and transformation mean Biblically and theologically. I then began to question those punctuated experiences as possible points of turning again toward God. Still not sure if any of them would be conversions but the possibility was there.
As this thought lingered over the sessions, another question that was raised more than once was the difference and/or relationship between call and conversion. Modern scholarship has tended to see them as separate even mutually exclusive. Yet the investigations of both Paul's and Peter's conversions seem to indicate that call and conversion are not easily separable (at least in these to persons). Also at some point someone pointed out that Paul seems to describe his conversion/call in terms that echo the call of prophets we find in the prophetic books. Slowly it dawned on me that it was precisely around my sense of call to ministry and then call into intentional community and the Ecumenical work of Reconciler where I did have in my own autobiography radical shifts in my story, before and after and this turning also was one in which I had more than one moment where I could turn and "go down" (as Boaz Johnson noted was the opposite of conversion) or "arise". When I first felt the call to be a pastor, it was a moment of dramatic conversion, the moment before I sensed the call I was firm in my resolution that pastoral ministry was not for me, after I simply knew this was what I was called to do. As I left seminary and was a chaplain, I found my desire for pursuing a Ph.D. dissolve in the face of regular pastoral ministry. Then while I was thinking about the role intentional community's could play in the local church, and thinking of what a protestant "monasticism" might look like I was quite certain I was not called to intentional community, only to find that I was not only called to community but called to found an intentional Christian Community. And finally I was resistant to the idea of church planting and even when I was first approached about an ecumenical church start I was going to listen to the idea, but I didn't think I would feel much draw, but was intrigued. By the middle of Tripp's and my first conversation not only was I sure of the possibility of a good friendship with Tripp, but the idea of an ecumenical church plant seemed to be what i was called to do. It was in the arena of call that I have found myself converted or needing to convert. Points of turning in which there are in my story a before and and after. I even recently wrote to Tripp in a private e-mail that I felt that Reconciler had changed me, I realized that I was trying to articulate then how both community and church have been journeys of continual conversion for me.
For me then at least I think the symposium was fruitful in the way it intends to be since even if the papers aren't of interest to the members of Reconciler (though some may find them of interest), the whole symposium challenged and broadened and deepened my understanding of conversion as a pastor, both personally and generally. This will then effect my pastoral ministry and in the end the life of the church. I would venture to say that I am probably not alone
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Some General refelction on the NPTS symposium on Conversion
Well, I have had a few days to mull over the 8 sessions of the NPTS Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture. I have a few general observations.
Consensus seemed to be among all participants (presenters, respondents, and attendees, who spoke) that conversion is better understood as a process in which one continues to deepen what may have been in fact the first event of conversion. There was also consensus that conversion was difficult to define in satisfactory ways that covers all instances of what we may wish to call conversion. Also there seemed to be agreement though this was not thoroughly discussed, that there are a variety of types of conversion (Lewis Rambo, in his book on conversion identifies, I believe at least four general types of conversion.) Also, most seemed to feel the need to approach conversion with care: either because the desire to see people convert has caused pain, or because questioning conversion for participants was itself (at some point in beginning the investigation) an unsettling thing, and because of the knowledge of the power dynamics involved in conversion.
The symposium also wrestled with some issues that no one came to firm conclusions. There was at times expressed both by respondents and attendees who raised questions in response to each presentation, a concern for how one would relate the sociological and psychological definitions and presentation of conversion with the Christian theological claims about conversion to or into Christian faith. The issue and problem of the relationship of Conversion to baptism and salvation were also raised. Here then were concerns about what role did humanity play and what role does God play in conversion. Even Rambo admitted that the sociological and psychological the weight is upon conversion as a human act and attempts to understand it as such. Rambo though would not then assume that the theological questions are thus answered or dealt with, and he encouraged an interdisciplinary approach for both theologians and any other discipline looking at conversion, that does not deny the distinctive perspective of each discipline. I observed a sense that for some participants the practical theological and pastoral were not dealt with directly by presenters and respondents.
Consensus seemed to be among all participants (presenters, respondents, and attendees, who spoke) that conversion is better understood as a process in which one continues to deepen what may have been in fact the first event of conversion. There was also consensus that conversion was difficult to define in satisfactory ways that covers all instances of what we may wish to call conversion. Also there seemed to be agreement though this was not thoroughly discussed, that there are a variety of types of conversion (Lewis Rambo, in his book on conversion identifies, I believe at least four general types of conversion.) Also, most seemed to feel the need to approach conversion with care: either because the desire to see people convert has caused pain, or because questioning conversion for participants was itself (at some point in beginning the investigation) an unsettling thing, and because of the knowledge of the power dynamics involved in conversion.
The symposium also wrestled with some issues that no one came to firm conclusions. There was at times expressed both by respondents and attendees who raised questions in response to each presentation, a concern for how one would relate the sociological and psychological definitions and presentation of conversion with the Christian theological claims about conversion to or into Christian faith. The issue and problem of the relationship of Conversion to baptism and salvation were also raised. Here then were concerns about what role did humanity play and what role does God play in conversion. Even Rambo admitted that the sociological and psychological the weight is upon conversion as a human act and attempts to understand it as such. Rambo though would not then assume that the theological questions are thus answered or dealt with, and he encouraged an interdisciplinary approach for both theologians and any other discipline looking at conversion, that does not deny the distinctive perspective of each discipline. I observed a sense that for some participants the practical theological and pastoral were not dealt with directly by presenters and respondents.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Session Seven (cont.)
Three correlations- and this risks simplifying the complex.
Augustin's context of a Bishop pastoring those whose spirituality that is less than athletic, influence Augustine interpretation as he attempts to interpret the texts as for those under his pastoral care?
And with Wesley, is it his context of fighting nominal faith lead to Wesley's interpretation?
and IN our time in which Christin morality is not dominant and thus don't have the category of sin and they will only have that category and struggle after conversion and not before?
Looking at history of interpretation, which have proved enduring and credible across contexts. But for Romans 7 drawing that map of plausibility is difficult. And so it is hard to see what direction to take in interpretation.
However, there are things we can see there is a sense of Romans 7 of a movement towards God through the struggle with sin. Though thee may be other things going on at the same time.
The ways Protestant have give attention to this aspect of Romans 7 they have emphasized to heavily introspection. In their introspective use is where Protestant interpreters find a pastoral application of Romans 7. This use of the text we find unfaithful to Paul, even though Paul was using the idea of struggle with sin as a journey to God.
But do we know how to use this text and how Romans 7 addresses us, both about sin and conversion?
Howe do we think this text should be used in the mission of the Church?
Augustin's context of a Bishop pastoring those whose spirituality that is less than athletic, influence Augustine interpretation as he attempts to interpret the texts as for those under his pastoral care?
And with Wesley, is it his context of fighting nominal faith lead to Wesley's interpretation?
and IN our time in which Christin morality is not dominant and thus don't have the category of sin and they will only have that category and struggle after conversion and not before?
Looking at history of interpretation, which have proved enduring and credible across contexts. But for Romans 7 drawing that map of plausibility is difficult. And so it is hard to see what direction to take in interpretation.
However, there are things we can see there is a sense of Romans 7 of a movement towards God through the struggle with sin. Though thee may be other things going on at the same time.
The ways Protestant have give attention to this aspect of Romans 7 they have emphasized to heavily introspection. In their introspective use is where Protestant interpreters find a pastoral application of Romans 7. This use of the text we find unfaithful to Paul, even though Paul was using the idea of struggle with sin as a journey to God.
But do we know how to use this text and how Romans 7 addresses us, both about sin and conversion?
Howe do we think this text should be used in the mission of the Church?
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