Reconciliation and Witness

I am thinking about reconciliation and martyrdom. The sense that Paul and the martyrs of the church saw themselves as filling out and completing the work of Christ on the Cross, which, Colossians tell's us is the work of reconciliation, Colossians 1:15-20. This passage of Scripture is the inscription on the Icon of Jesus Christ, Pantocrator that has been by the altar at Reconciler since we began.
My current public thoughts on this can be found here

Christmas Day Sermon

I was the preacher at the joint Christmas Day service today. My sermon a Dissonant Joy, can be found here

Englewood Review of Books: Print edition

This December Englewood Review of Books, began their quarterly print edition. I have known of Englwood Review of Books e-mail and on line editions for awhile now as well as the publisher Englwood Christian Church, so I was interested in their publishing a print edition. Though, I probably have only read a handful of the reviews published online.

The editorial introducing this inaugural quarterly print issue, stated that ..."[t}he ERB was started not only to encourage the practices of reading in our churches, but also to nurture practices of conversation..." I must admit that I had experienced neither aspect of ERB in its online edition. I have not read any of the books of the few reviews I have read in ERB, and I never had the sense of being in a conversation. So as I began reading through the ERB print edition I was a bit skeptical and yet my curiosity was peaked by such an ambitious mission for a review of books.

Pleasantly the print edition did live up to the ambition. A number of things contributed to this: the layout was inviting, interviews with authors (reviewed in the online editions), drawings that conversed with content, and poetry.

I think too the physicality of paper and print on the page brought to me a focus that I simply don't have when on line. This may be my age- I have lived longer with books than I have with computers and the interwebs. Yet, I think there is also a lesson in this about differing technologies and media having an effect on our engagement with material and ideas. Online I am constantly aware that with a click I will have immediate access to another conversation, another bit of information, in the time I spent writing this sentence countless number of tweets have passed through the Twitter stream, articles, blog posts and tweets all have links to other posts, articles and information. This can facilitate conversation, (and it has for me on more than one occasion), but it can also mean simply gliding along the surface of numerous ideas and conversations. By contrast when I sat down with a printed book and relevant to this review the ERB quarterly print edition, the ERB had my full attention. I sat alone in the library of my community and took in only one article at a time, and a deep conversation was elicited from me. I found myself being changed and effected by the reviews I was reading (I will say more about that in a moment). In the end I think ERB's print edition may well be extremely important in furthering its sense of mission, for the print edition forces one to slow down, to and to truly listen, things essential to good conversation.

Somehow reading the few reviews online I had missed the quality and character of ERB reviews(at least in this issue): each review was scholarly but not detached, each author was explicit about their own engagement with the book being reviewed. I found this refreshing, as I wasn't simply being told about the contents of the book and the effectiveness of its presentation and argument, but the place the book and the ideas given might have in our world and in my own thinking.

If you are unfamiliar with or already know ERB online, pick up the print edition. If you have experienced already something of what I found in the print edition online my sense is that that experience will only be expanded and enhanced through reading the print edition. The only negative of ERB quarterly print edition is a tiny thing about the layout that I found irritating:the continuing of a number articles at the end of journal. Having edited and published a student publication in seminary I know that at times this is simply necessary, but the frequency of it felt like it was a tactic to get me deeper into the review. If so that was unnecessary as the design and quality of the review does so with out any need of such a tactic. The moment I read the first interview, I wanted to read the whole thing.

Salvation Belief Relationship and Cosmic Renewal

Recently tweetted with Khad Young around this podcast of his on "Grace and Atheism." He asked "Does God's grace cover Athiesm". The issue though was the place of will and belief in being saved. Though the source of the line of questioning was a book that seems to argue for a universalistic determinism. The view affirms that our will or belief can bring nothing to our salvation God accomplishes it all. Yet, it rejects a Calvinist view that says only some select few the elct are saved and the Lutheran side stepping the question, and states that since salvation is all in the hands of God, based on the work of Christ on the Cross, all are (probably) saved. In the very least, having faith or believing, or accepting Jesus doesn't save one and so not believing or not accepting Jesus doesn't mean your not saved(this is at least how I understood Khad's summary).

I got hung up I think in this line of argumentation around the meaning of salvation. For Khad in the podcast at least and the author he was sighting, salvation is a transaction between God and individuals, a transaction connected to the Cross. This of course has deep roots in Protestantism, for if salvation is simply our being declared righteous by God, Justification, than we are focused on how that transaction is applied and activated. The American Evangelical position is that it takes the action of the will to have faith in Jesus or accept Jesus as one's Lord and Savior. It is at that moment that one is saved, i.e. that the transaction of salvation is activated and one is at that moment saved.

I agree that this particular view of how we are saved is a limited view. Yet, in the podcast at least, I got the sense that Khad accepted the basic underlying premise of this idea, and was arguing for a universalism based on this premise of Salvation as transaction. The point of disagreement between Khad's line of argumentation and the American Evangelical position was the point in time of activation. Thus salvation was like having a million dollars deposited in ones bank account. It's already happened on the cross 2000 years ago. God's not waiting on our acceptance of the gift of a million dollars, but has without our knowing already accomplished it.

However, Khad puts forward an idea that actually to my mind contradicts the whole transactional metaphors, that of salvation as relationship. Though I would push further and say that salvation is cosmic, restorative and about new creation. Justification then is only one small aspect of our salvation. Sanctification, and/or theosis and the renewal of the entire cosmos, the defeat of death, and triumph over Sin and the Devil, are equally all part of what salvation means. Granted, I agree that all of this is due to God's action. However, not restricted to a singular moment but God's action in Christ through Jesus's life death resurection, ascension and parousia. through all of that God, brought the "Kingdom" to us, through Jesus Christ a new age and world and cosmos, a renewed reality, came into existence and is coming into existence. This is Salvation.

Yet the question remains what do we do with this new reality? Do we see it, do we live in it and reject it? Are we oblivious to it? What God has done makes little difference to me if either I can't see it, or don't enter into this new reality. In an abstract technical sense since salvation is cosmic all are saved, but in a concrete particular way that abstract and technicality makes little difference if I continue to live as though the old world and reality, of sin death violence are the final word. In a very real sense if I live in that world, either by ignorance or outright rejection, or some combination of the two, I am hardly saved.

I affirm with the Reformers that Salvation is that which God accomplishes in and Through Jesus Christ, but with my Pietist forbearers I must also assert that said Salvation, whether limited to God's declaring us justified, or in the cosmic sense I have outlined above, is of little use to us unless we are cognizant of the reality that this salvation creates and live according to the world and reality created through God's act of salvation. In that sense I do in a very small way share in my and others salvation. For the point of salvation is the transformation of the world and all in it bring all back into proper and whole relationship with God

The Death Notes: In the Spider's Web

The Death Notes are described on their web site and in the promotional material I received for their new single as being comparable to Sonic Youth. Yet the latest single from this new band out of Nottingham UK, "In the Spiders Web" has the haunting growling whining guitar and driving beat of the early post-punk bands around which emerged the goth scene. This particulare song seems to be more kin to Sister's of Mercy Bauhaus and Christian Death than Sonic Youth. Their new single brings to this styling an energy and freshness that both makes the sound their own, and creates something other than just another goth song.

I was both impressed by this single a bit puzzled by the comparison until listening to songs released in The Death Notes self titled 2009 EP. At first I felt that this single was quite a departure from the EP especially songs like "Seismic" or "Decide" which do have an affinity with Sonic Youth. However as I listened both to the songs from the EP again and "In the Spiders Web", songs like "Sleepers" and "Cold Dawn" push against these various comparisons. The Death Notes certainly has echoes of various post-punk/goth/experimental rock, but from this small sampling is pursuing a fresh and living interpretation of the genres.

All in all I wish I was in Nottingham or at least the UK and could catch The Death Notes live. I'd say this is a band to listen to and to watch, we'll probably be pleasantly surprised with future releases. I look forward to a full album. "In the Spiders Web" is due to be released December 13th..

Boojum and War Plays

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I had two rare experiences, one was going to a play in which neither Kate nor one of our Theater friends was in and second seeing to plays in one weekend.
As a gift from a friend we saw War Plays on Friday night, and our friend Kevin Grubb is in Boojum at the DCA Theater, and runs through Dec 19th.

War Plays, was an engrossing experience and very moving. Through a number of devices, including a pre-show where the actors all were with the audience in character and all that seamlessly wove into the show proper in the theater. We were immersed in 1940's war torn London. Mortality, love and fear were strong themes, as we watched characters put on a show for us in the midst of a bombing raid. The spell was briefly broken shortly after we settled into our seats and the show proper began as a show being done in London, even the request to turn off cell phones was said in terms of 1940's (turn off all radio receiving devices), it was for a time unclear what actions on stage were being done as the characters putting on the plays or the beginning of the plays themselves. This became clear later but it did break for me the immersive experience as I had to orient myself and experience a confusion that was as a participant in the show and not as the 1940's London Audience. Also, upon reflection I feel some of what could have been explored in such a play wasn't as the stories were all somewhat traditional romantic love stories set in war time. However, the play was deeply affecting and impacting, and I do feel I had a glimpse into some of the feelings, and experienced them myself in a limited way, what it might have been like to live in London at such a time. I came away from the show with a mix somberness and overwhelming awe at the persistence of life, love and beauty even int he midst of death horror and ugliness.

Boojum was a very different experience, and in all ways different, yet with overlaping themes of mortality and persistence of beauty and life in the midst of difficulty. Lewis Carol, or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is a difficult person to get ahold of. His works are nonsense and yet deeply connected to logic and explorations of meaning and language. Boojum weaves into this the place of music into these, not only exploring a particular work of Lewis Carol's (The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight fits) but his enterprise and the life the the Anglican deacon and Oxford don who wrote under the name of Lewis carol.

The musical begins light hearted reveling in the nonsense and play of the language as the hunt for the snark is playfully and delightfully presented along with the introduction of the hunters. While this remains all playful and one is tempted to take lightly this silly hunt for that which is mysterious in its probably non0-existence, something entirely made up, a nonsense word. Yet, even here there is an undertone of danger, of utmost seriousness, of something that is about a struggle, one that is at the core of existence. The mood of the show flips entirely as the musical continues in the second act as the silliness and playfulness turns deadly serious, while remaining playful and delightful. The playfulness is subdued by a growing sense that there is a very real danger and facing torments, questions of faith and sexuality, and fears of annihilation.

The score and book seem to me to be very nearly flawless, the performance was amazing, and impressive in its physical demaondingness for all performers. The use of costume was impressive especially in the robing and disrobing of the charicters, event o the point of the characters towards the end putting on items of clothing having belonged to other characters. The set design was restrained but extreemly effective and elegant and beautiful in its simplicity.