From now on I will be blogging at julieclawson.com

I mentioned a few weeks back about possibly switching my blog host. I've been playing with creating a new blog for a few weeks and now I am finally taking the plunge and switching. The new blog is a selfhosted blog through Wordpress and is still titled onehandclapping. I've uploaded all my old posts (yes even the really pathetic early ones) and have all the same links and stuff. It still needs work and I'll be tweaking it, but it's mostly all up and running. (At least I think I've learned how to not crash it every time I try to do anything).

Anyway - here's the shameless self-promotion part as I now start from scratch with my stats and Technorati ranking. If you have linked to me on your blog could you please update the link to my new blog. And if you don't already have a link to me, this would be a perfect opportunity to add that link. :)

Since I'm announcing online changes I should also mention that I will no longer be using my ShalomMJC@msn.com email account. I can no longer access it through Firefox and am too lazy to sign into IE just to check email. So my julieclawson (at) gmail (dot) com address will be my main address from now on.

Thanks! And see you all at julieclawson.com.

Labels: Blog Stuff

As we ended our nearly two year study on the book of Luke this morning in church, we took a look at how Jesus open the eyes of his disciples to see how the whole of scripture points to him. While on one level it would have been nice if Luke had included that sermon in his Gospel, one can also interpret the entire book of Luke as being that sermon. The whole book echoes the themes of the Old Testament fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his teachings.

Part of the discussion included looking at the categories N.T. Wright presents in Simply Christian. In summing up the main themes of scripture, that represent as well the deepest longings of human existence, Wright creates four categories. These include - The Torah which defines our relationships, The Temple which represents our spiritually, The Kingdom which demonstrates justice, and New Creation which demonstrates our longing for beauty. These themes show up over and over again in the Old Testament and in the teaching of Jesus. He is calling us to live lives that tap into those longings and can be fulfilled through them. By developing right relationships, discovering true spirituality, seeking justice, and pursuing beauty we live in the ways we were meant to live.

But those are often the very things that are ridiculed by the world and discarded in favor of power and success. It is often the countercultural revolutionaries who uphold those biblical values while the mainstream promotes contrary values. I found it amusing last night that I saw that cultural struggle represented in one of my favorite movies. Moulin Rouge tells the story of the fin de siècle Bohemian revolutionaries in Paris who are seeking a new way of living out their values of Freedom, Beauty, Truth, and Love. They are of course despised and condemned as silly and impractical and told to cure themselves of "this ridiculous obsession with love." I find the movie brilliant on many levels, but it was a good reminder that pursuing the values of the Kingdom is strange and challenges the dominant paradigm of culture.

To promote right relationships and to seek justice is to love others. To discover true spirituality and beauty is to love God and his creation. To actually live out these great commandments as it were goes against the messages of selfish ambition, greed, isolation, and power that the world promotes as primary. To follow Jesus one has to be revolutionary. Being ridiculously obsessed with love is impractical but it's the way we are supposed to live. If it takes changing the way we approach everything in order to live the life we were meant to live, are we willing to do it? Is our faith real enough for us to leave everything and follow Jesus? To stop caring about ourselves and start caring for others? To join the revolution?

Labels: Church, mission, Theology

As a follow up to my post a couple of days ago regarding toys made in sweatshops, I want to point out other recent news regarding children being held in slave-like conditions to produce clothing for The Gap. An article Sunday in the London Observer revealed that children as young as ten years old have been subjected to work long hours without pay and regular threats and beatings in an Indian textile factory subcontracted to produce clothing for Gap Kids. This clothing was destined for American and European markets this Christmas. Children were being held in slavery to we could buy a $30 sequined t-shirt.

Gap of course did what it could to save its own butt and severed ties with the factory and is withholding the clothing. That makes them look good as a company, but does nothing to help the children. What is the Gap doing to assure that these kids won't be harmed because now their slaver isn't getting income? What is Gap doing to stop illegal indentured servitude that they found themselves a part of? Just severing ties saves face, but it doesn't solve the problem

This isn't the first time Gap has faced negative press because of its usage of sweatshops. Just last year reports came in of Gap clothing being made in sweatshops in Jordon where young teenage girls were trafficked in, stripped of their passports, held in slavery, beaten and raped by the factory owners. Over the last few years, Gap has attempted to overcome those damaging reports (as if the public cares anyway) by participating in token acts of charity and justice. Gap featured prominently in the Red Campaign by selling $50 t-shirts of which a portion would be donated to AIDS relief work. My favorite token gesture is the one Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee, mentioned in his recent interview with Democracy Now!. Gap apparently created a Code of Conduct for their factories - voluntary compliance of course. It was printed on treeless paper using non-toxic soy based ink, all perfectly environmentally friendly and sustainable. The problem was that it was just a PR job, it had never actually been translated into a language besides English. The document about caring for people that itself cared for the earth never made it to the people it was meant to protect. The document was only to calm the fears of English speakers wanting to know that their clothing was ethically produced.

So while all token gestures are not just complete BS like Gap's Code of Conduct, they still remain mere token gestures. When coffee companies can pay their farmers below living wage and put production demands on them that force the farmers to use unsustainable practices, but by building one school near one of their coffee farms they can appear caring and just to their customers, why bother with anything more than token gestures? When a church group can volunteer once a year at a soup kitchen or fill up a couple of shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and feel like they have helped the poor, token gestures are really all we see. Acting justly has become for many a one time event and not a day to day lifestyle. We have settled for token gestures instead of holistic approaches in our lives, and so let companies get away with token gestures instead of true reform. No wonder things have gotten so out of hand.

Labels: Ethical Consumption, Social Justice

So I'm sure the Halloween parties are still continuing somewhere, but our celebrations are over. The Clawson family, at Emma's insistence, dressed up as pirates this year. I honestly don't know if she got the pirate theme from Veggie Tales ("The Pirates who don't do anything" which has been stuck in my head this entire week) or from the Dora Pirate Adventure. But we all had to be pirates (Daddy Pirate, Mommy Pirate, and Emma Pirate as she called us).

Last night our church threw a Halloween Party for the people we rent space from on Sunday morning. During the week the space is a community center for mentally handicapped adults. They are a fantastic group who are so transparent in their love for each other and their caregivers. There is a lot we can learn about true community from them. But we wanted to say thanks for letting us rent the space and so threw a big party. It was a great time full of games, crafts, and tons of junk food.

Tonight Mike took Emma around Trick or Treating and I stayed home to pass out candy and hot Spiced Apple Cider. It was really strange having it be warm enough (barely) to sit out on the porch the whole evening and for it to stay light so late on Halloween (I like this Daylight Savings change). The Superhero costumes were way down this year while the scary masks and gender bender costumes were way up. The number of boys I saw dressed as princesses, cheerleaders, and even one French maid was amusing. I saw just one Hermione and one High King Peter (from Narnia) who was really happy because I actually knew what his costume was (I apparently was the only one all evening). My favorite though was the little boy in a Darth Vader costume with instead of the mask a rainbow colored plastic mohawk. I thought it was funny. We all ate way too much candy and have tons leftover. In all another fun Halloween.

Labels: Holidays, Personal

It's that time of year again. Halloween is so over and the store shelves are being cleared for Christmas. Time to start your Christmas shopping. Unfortunately recent news has highlighted that the "Santa's little helpers" making the toys for our children are actually young Chinese women forced to work 90 hour work weeks for pennies an hour and trafficked children held in slavery forced to work in factories. Wow doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy with holiday cheer?

In a report released this past week by the National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights, the atrocities committed by companies like Gap and Mattel were revealed. Mattel has been in the news a lot these past few months because of revelations of excessive amounts of toxic lead paint in their toys. I find it very interesting that after the lead paint scandal hit the news, my inbox was flooded with emails from other concerned moms spreading the news that our children could be exposed to hazardous conditions. So far no public service emails from moms concerned that people were abused and kept in slavery to make our children's toys. Guess it's the old, "if it doesn't affect me and mine, then I don't give a shit."

You can read the full report here and a good interview transcript summarizing the report at Democracy Now!. The horrific conditions at these factories are detailed in these reports. Basically young women making Barbie Mattel toys for Walmart are paid just 53 cents an hour and $21.34 a week. "Forced to work excessive overtime, the toy workers are routinely at the factory 82 to 87 hours a week, while toiling 66 to 70 hours. The standard shift is 14 ½ hours a day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., six days a week. Mandatory overtime at the Xin Yi Factory exceeds China’s legal limit by 260 percent! Workers are routinely cheated on nearly 20 percent of the wages legally due them – resulting in the loss of two days wages each week. After deductions for primitive dorms (12 workers share each room sleeping on double-level bunk beds) and company food that the workers call “awful,” the workers’ take-home wage is just 46 cents an hour. Managers routinely yell and curse at the workers, and it is common – nearly every day – to see young women workers crying. Workers who are insulted have but two options – to bow their heads and remain silent or to quit and leave without the back wages due to them. Workers can be fired for having an “inattentive attitude” or for “speaking during working hours.” Workers falling behind in their mandatory product goal will be punished with the loss of five hours wages. Workers are prohibited from standing up and must remain seated on their benches at all times during working hours. Workers report that the factory is overcrowded and extremely hot, and that everyone is dripping in their own sweat.Workers in the spray paint department who cannot tolerate the strong acrid stench of the oil paint are immediately fired. Failure to properly clean the shared bathroom in the dorm will result in the loss of one and a half day’s wages."

What I find most interesting in this whole thing is Mattel's behavior. This is the Mattel that recently apologized to China for the "excessive" recall of so many lead tainted toys. So if they are apologizing for attempting to make toys safe, then I don't have much confidence in their treatment of workers. This is also the company that sues someone on average once a month for Barbie copyright infringement. Apparently Barbie has more rights than the 14 year old girl who made her in a sweatshop. This is the Mattel that "sought and won special “waivers” from the government of China to pay below the legal minimum wage in its factories. Mattel also received waivers to unilaterally extend allowable working hours to seventy-two hours per week, which exceeds China’s legal limit on overtime by 295 percent." Oh and this is also the Mattel whose CEO paid himself $7,278,178 last year in wages and other compensation—which is 6,533 times what he pays his toy workers in China.

So who wants to go Christmas shopping?

Labels: Ethical Consumption, Social Justice

Yesterday in church I led the conversation on the Great Commission. We have been making our way through the book of Luke for the last couple of years and have finally arrived at the end, which of course just means we are diving straight into Acts next. For many of us who grew up in the evangelical church, the Great Commission involves nothing more than convincing other people to believe in Jesus. Preaching forgiveness and making disciples simply meant getting people to intellectually assent to a certain set of ideas. We've left out the whole part about training people in everything Jesus taught.

So yesterday we looked at the mission Jesus sent his followers on (with the help of the Spirit) in light of how Jesus himself described his own mission in Luke 4 (to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,recovery of sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed). The Spirit of the Lord was on Jesus to fulfill his mission and Jesus promised the Spirit so that the disciples could fulfill theirs as well (which included training others in the way Jesus trained them to follow). But sometimes doing that mission - spreading the message of forgiveness and freedom through our words and deeds - is hard. We obviously have failed at the whole setting the oppressed free and bringing good news to the poor (since there is still oppression and poverty), so there is a lot more work that needs to be done to fulfill the Great Commission. That's where the Spirit comes in to kick out butts.

I love the example Sarah Dylan Breuer gives as she compares what the Spirit does to a washing machine -

Washing machines don't work if the load is stagnant; without motion, there's no transformation. So the washing machines that I grew up with had something at their center that bounced around to push what's at the center out to the margins and bring what's at the margins in to the center such that the whole load could be transformed.

We call that thing at the center of the washing machine an 'agitator,' and I can think of no better word for what the Spirit does for us. The call of God's Spirit pushes those of us at the center of our world's all-too-concentrated power and wealth out to the margins to welcome the marginalized to the center. If we stay where we are and let the rest of the world stay as it is, we're not fully experiencing the presence and work of the Spirit, and we won't benefit as fully from the transformation that the Spirit is bringing.

We need that agitation, that kick in the butt, to actually be out there engaging in the mission Christ called us to. Our discussion yesterday concluded with a time of brainstorming of everyday practical things we each could do to engage in that mission followed by us having to list the excuses we give for why we don't actually engage. Here's a sampling of some of the stuff we came up with.

Ways we can engage in Mission

• - Be a volunteer


• - Get to know our neighbors


• - Live more frugally and simply


• - Take the time to be educated on justice issues


• - Learn Spanish


• - Buy Fairly Traded items


• - Do chores for your elderly neighbor


• - Go to student's soccer games


• - Write actual letters to lawmakers


• - Visit the "unseen" in our culture

Our Excuses for Not Doing Anything

• - I'm too shy


• - I won't make a big difference anyway


• - It's too expensive


• - I don't know where to begin


• - There is always something better I could be doing to help others, so I end up doing nothing at all

What would you add to either of these lists?

Labels: Church, mission, Social Justice

So last weekend we took Emma out to a local farm to pick some pumpkins. She got to ride in a wagon out to the patches to help pick out the ones we wanted. Then Mike got to pull the wagon with her and three big pumpkins back to the front :)

Tonight we carved the pumpkin. Emma really got into pulling out the pumpkin gunk and just started eating the raw pumpkin. I made roasted pumpkin seeds while Mike carved. Emma thought it was the coolest thing ever to put a candle in it and go outside in the dark. Let's just see it if last the few days until Halloween!

Labels: Holidays, Personal

I recently had the opportunity to read a review copy of It's A Dance written by Patrick Oden. When I first heard about this book I was intrigued - a theology book about the Holy Spirit written in story form. I am aware that the role of the Holy Spirit is not mentioned often in emerging church discussions. Perhaps the fundamentalist/evangelical roots of many of us in this conversation who grew up being told that the salvation of Pentecostals and Charismatics wasn't for sure and that the Holy Spirit no longer works in our current dispensation may have something to do with that. But whatever the case, I haven't heard much talk about the holy Spirit recently and so wanted to explore It's a Dance.

The book is set up focusing on a writing assignment of a southern Californian journalist, Luke. His assignment leads him to visit and review churches in the area in search of something new and different to capture the readers attention. While the assignment is part of his job, the search echoes Luke's own spiritual quest to arrive at some sort of understanding and expression of faith he can accept. This quest leads him to a very different sort of church that meets in a pub. Luke then discovers the hows and why of this church's differences as he sits down for long discussions with the pastor and church attendees. Through these discussions we hear the stories of what brought people to this different church (often stories of pain) and are exposed to the basic theology driving the church. All the while the presence of the Holy Spirit makes itself known as the conversation returns again and again to how the Spirit is at the center of what drives the church.

I personally enjoyed reading the theological exploration in conversational format. Many of the conversations in the book reminded me of ones I have participated in from time to time. There were points where the writing slipped out of conversational mode into sermon mode, but then again when you are writing through the voice of a pastor, it is hard not to sermonize every once in awhile. Although the book does not use footnotes (they would have broken up the flow of the conversation), Oden lists his sources at the end of the book and one can tell that centuries of theological traditions and reflections informed the dialogue in the book. As I read I encountered ideas common in emerging church circles as well as explorations of the Holy Spirit that were new to my understanding of faith. It was a fun intellectual journey to take.

In the presentation of the "different" church Luke encounters, it is easy to recognize many of the trendy trappings of relevant churches. They met in a pub connected to a coffee shop/bookstore, they don't do programs, they offer a prayer room for contemplative prayer, they eschew the typical patterns of modern American churches and so forth. Nothing wrong of course with any of those things, they just fit the common stereotypes of what emerging churches look like. I appreciated that Oden went beyond describing the stylistic structure of the church and told the stories of the people who identify with that church. Reading their stories and discovering how they came to find a church home there fleshed out the theology presented in the book. Their lives represented theology lived out and were a great reminder of the real life implications of all that we believe. Through them one could see the Holy Spirit moving in the never-ending dance to draw us into faith and worship.

I think this book is a needed addition to the growing library of books on how we do church in an emerging culture. It is an accessible read and will be helpful to those who understand theology more relationally than didactically.

Labels: Book Reviews, Church, Emerging Church

I just stumbled across this article/interview with J.K. Rowling in which she discusses the religious imagery in Harry Potter 7. In it she confirms that the tombstone quotes epitomize the entire series (confirming my theories) and that Harry was a Christ figure overcoming death (sorry Dr. Jacobs).

I thought it was an interesting read and I liked her concluding quote - "I go to church myself," she declared. "I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion."

Labels: Book Reviews, Culture, Entertainment

So I had another interesting lunch yesterday. No, it didn't involve crazy people being offended that I exist, but it did involve overhearing a rather interesting conversation. I don't mean to eavesdrop, really, but it was impossible not to hear this conversation. And plus once I heard some of it, it was hard to tune out.

Emma and I once again had a day of appointments and errands and stopped for lunch. At the booth right behind us were two older women, they had to be at least in their late 60's and looked the epitome of "grandma." They were just finishing their food when we arrived, but right as I sat down I heard one of them bring up a conversation in a way that implied this conversation was the main thing she had been wanting to talk about all along. She basically told her friend that she thinks she had lost her faith. She describes going through the motions of church, still doing all the churchy stuff, but feeling like there is nothing there. She described it as being like she had been eating at a certain table her whole life but now the table just disappeared and she doesn't know what to do. She clarified that this had nothing to do with anything bad that happened, or anything a person did, it just happened.

I missed what they discussed next, but then I heard her friend suggest she attend an evening service at another church where they do things "differently." The lady replied that she wouldn't be welcome there because she was too old. She then started talking about her relatives who are agnostic but who are deeply committed to a women for peace and justice group. She said this group has been around for over 100 years passionately caring about these things. She said she felt so inadequate just now discovering that she should be caring as well. Her friend just said, I kid you not, "but that's just the social gospel".

That's all I overheard. You can see why I eavesdropped. I found it fascinating to listen to a much older person who has been integrally involved in the traditional church model her whole life having the same crises of faith and awakening to justice issues that many of us in the emerging church are having. Not that I think its weird, just more rare. I felt for her for not feeling welcome at what was most likely an emerging style worship service because of her age. I recall a similar issue at the last Midwest Emerging Women gathering. An older woman showed up to that event and told me that it was the first emerging event she felt welcomed at because of her age. In the promo material I had included a line about how women of all ages are welcome to attend, and it took finally seeing that in print for her to feel like she could participate. I hope this other lady from the restaurant finds a place to connect where her questions are heard and she can pursue Christ's call to justice. I so wanted to jump in on the conversation, but I'm the type person who would never actually do that. I am just grateful for the reminder that these questions are pertinent no matter what age a person is.

Labels: Emerging Church

So this month's Synchroblog is on Halloween, or more precisely about people sharing their thoughts, their experiences, and their expertise on the subject of "A Christian Response to Halloween" (or at least something remotely connected to that idea.) When I first heard about it I was excited to take the time to do research and pull together my ideas on reclaiming the roots of Halloween for Christians as a continuation of my post last month. But honestly I hit a wall. Nothing inspired me. Nothing grabbed my attention. The only thing I kept coming back to was a scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In this scene Voldemort has arrived in Godric's Hollow with the intention of murdering Harry. It is Halloween and he passes houses decorated for the evening and children masquerading as pumpkins. Voldemort refers to such things as "all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe."

At Halloween our modern cultural rituals are a dim reflection of the historical practice of connecting with and honoring those who have come before. We lost the true meaning, but keep the trappings in hopes that we can connect in some way to something bigger than ourselves. We bring out the ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, and black cats not understanding what they mean, but longing nonetheless to grasp hold of a fleeting glimpse of the mysterious. We watch horror movies in hopes that fear, as raw and intense of an emotion as it is, will at least make us feel something beyond ourselves. But these things still remain trappings of a world in which we don't fully believe.

Trappings of a world in which we do not believe. To what extent does that statement reflect the entire edifice of this thing we call Christianity? How much of our faith experience involves decorating our lives with symbols of that which we think might be fun if it were real but which is obviously not real enough to make a difference in our lives? Are all the trappings of church just forgotten symbols of a deeper reality? Do we desperately seek the next worship high in order to convince ourselves that we actually do feel something?

I don't have the answers, but there are times when I take a look at what we do at church and wonder why the hell are we doing these things. I'm sure those rituals held some real meaning for some people once upon a time, but I just don't get it now. It seems like the rituals, the trappings of faith, have become the only cultural artifact of faith. Much like plastic pumpkins and ghoulish blow-up lawn ornaments have replaced the historical roots of Halloween which are now only an echo, has this production we call church replaced the life Jesus called us to live? Is what we are doing at church just a hollow cultural echo of what we were meant to be?

Halloween and Christianity are safe because they are no longer connected to their roots. We can play around with them and only occasionally be reminded of the bigger mystery they represent. I do not fear Halloween because I only see a hollow artifice without roots (not that I fear those roots, but that's another story). But I do fear Christianity when it is a hollow artifice. Trapping of a world in which we do not believe can be dangerous. Ignoring the wild and deep power of God as we engage in rituals of worship doesn't sit well with me. I think we need to start lifting the veil and start believing again.


If you want to read other more coherent contributions to this Synchroblog (that maybe actually address the topic...) check out -
The Christians and the Pagans Meet for Samhain at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Our Own Private Zombie: Death and the Spirit of Fear by Lainie Petersen
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
John Morehead at John Morehead's Musings
Vampire Protection by Sonja Andrews
What's So Bad About Halloween? at Igneous Quill
H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N Erin Word
Halloween....why all the madness? by Reba Baskett
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Hallmark Halloween by John Smulo
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Removing Christendom from Halloween at On Earth as in Heaven
Vampires or Leeches: A conversation about making the Day of the Dead
meaningful by David Fisher
Encountering hallow-tide creatively by Sally Coleman
Kay at Chaotic Spirit
Apples and Razorblades at Johnny Beloved
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Fall Festivals and Scary Masks at The Assembling of the Church
Why Christians don't like Zombies at Hollow Again
Peering through the negatives of mission Paul Walker
Sea Raven at Gaia Rising
Halloween: My experiences by Lew A
Timothy Victor at Tim Victor's Musings
Making Space for Halloween by Nic Paton

Labels: Church, Synchroblog

I have a new article up in this month's issue of the Next Wave Ezine called Welcoming the Awakened Woman. Go check it out and leave comments if you want. (And yes, for those who are wondering, I do see the irony of this article written and submitted weeks ago appearing right now given other recent conversations.)

Labels: Gender Issues, Personal

So I seem to be inadvertently pissing people off with whatever I say recently. I basically can't seem to do anything right. apparently just the mere fact of my existence is enough to anger others. To take a silly example that can't get me in more trouble since they hate me so much anyway - one of those "we think people in the emerging church are poopy-heads" sites came across my summary of the Emerging Women lunch at the Emergent Gathering. You know the lunch where we all sat around and told our stories. Really evil stuff there. Well this anti-emergent site wrote, "Here is just another reason to stay away from the emergent church.It is one sad day when "Christian" women and "men who support ‘emerging Christian women’" start sitting around re-imagining God in their own image so easily." What exactly is their issue this time? That we host mixed gender lunches? That men would ever condescend to support women? That we talk about God? I don't get it. The best part were the labels used for their post which included - abomination, feminism in the church, false teachings, and heresy. Wow I always wanted to be classified as an abomination.

Then my lunch today seemed to solidify the fact that I offend people with my mere existence. Emma and I were out running errands and stopped to have lunch at her favorite place Noodles & Company (this was mommy's apology for making her get a shot at the doctors). The lunch started out amusing. Emma had just had a haircut at one of those places that make it all cute afterwards. So with pigtails with ribbons we went into lunch. Usually Emma gets mistaken for a boy (even when she is wearing pink clothing with hearts all over it), but today nearly everyone in the restaurant commented on what a cute little girl I had. I was thoroughly amused by how the girly pigtails (as opposed to her usually disheveled moptop) changed people's perception of her. But anyway, back to the main story...

I ordered my food and went and sat down. The restaurant was crowded and so I was glad to find a table. Shortly after I arrived a businessman and businesswomen sat down next to me. The man was very loud in his complaining about having to sit this close to a toddler (apparently he didn't think Emma was cute). I'm sorry but if you don't want to be exposed to kids don't go to fast food places that serve mac n' cheese. I also got to listen to him berate the restaurant for using such an inefficient serving system, make fun of people whose houses he was working on foreclosing, and talk about why he hates Japanese people. The women never said a word, I doubt she could get a word in edgewise. I did my best to ignore his complaining and his death glares at me for having the audacity to have a child and be sitting already at a table near where he wanted to sit and eat.

But speaking of the actual food. I ordered our food and sat waiting for it to arrive. After waiting for awhile I noticed that all the people who came in after me had already been served. I asked the server about that. She checked and told me they had just skipped over my order. She brought out Emma's food and told me mine was still cooking. After a while I see other people getting the same dish I ordered so I decided to ask again. That really pissed the server off. How dare I want to actually get my food. She then walked over to the cook asked him a question, he immediately threw together my food and she shoved it at me. Things were not going well. First people don't want to sit anywhere near me then the restaurant doesn't want to serve me. Great.

So I start eating my lunch. By now Emma is finished and is getting squirmy. I am spending most of my time leaning over to pick up stuff she is dropping on the floor. At this point I am just trying to finish eating so we can leave. This is when the seriously obese women at the table behind me gets up and leans over to tell me that I need to pull my shirt down. It has ridden up and my back is exposed which is offensive she tells me. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the modesty police? I couldn't even respond to her, I just stared at her until she walked away.

I think my mere existence pisses people off. No matter what I say, people get mad. And now apparently just taking up space in this world is an affront to others. Yes, I know this is an overreaction, but there are just days when I am really tired of all this crap.

Labels: Personal

Forget "come let us reason together." Forget "love wins." These days it feels like whoever has the loudest voice wins. I know that sounds really cynical but I'm getting tired of being drowned out by those voice. Let me explain.

We do church differently at our church - call it emerging or postmodern if you like. We don't (generally) preach at people, but instead attempt to engage people in discussion and reflection. This works really well for people who are used to us or who have an bit of an intellectual bent. But occasionally we get people who show up who after listening to part of the conversation say something like "But Joel Osteen says _____". That's the end of the discussion for them. Joel Osteen has a TV show so therefore his voice being the loudest and most prominent is correct. So if we are talking about self-sacrificially serving others based on texts from Luke, but Joel Osteen said that we can have it all if we just have faith, Joel Osteen must be right. There is no interacting with the issue, no trying to determine which message holds the truth, just allegiance with the guy with the loud voice.

Then there are the issues with the radio preachers (as the Out of Ur blog recently discussed). These guys can say whatever they want and because it is Christian radio people believe them as Gospel truth. It doesn't matter if your church preaches one thing on Sunday, if the people in your church listen to Christian radio they will believe the radio guys' over you. If they are on the radio they have the loud voice and therefore must be right. So if you are say in the emerging church, but the radio preachers tell their listeners that the emerging church is a cult where they sacrifice children and have sex with Satan (or something similar) they will believe the radio guys and condemn you to hell. No honest intelligent dialogue. No pursuit of truth. Just automatic default to whatever the guys with the loudest voice are saying.

I've personally experienced this phenomenon in a women's Bible study I was in a few years ago (which yes was just as painful as it sounds). Not much deep engagement went on at this thing. Our discussions involved reading whatever answer we filled in the Beth Moore blank with or occasionally reading the study notes from the NIV. Any attempts to push the conversation further were met with confused looks of "that wasn't in the book." One week our topic was on Rahab, and I was determined to bring up the alternative view that perhaps she wasn't a prostitute. Before I could one of the other ladies chose to read from Liz Curtis Higgs' Bad Girls of the Bible on Rahab. Essentially the passage claimed that Rahab has to be a prostitute because she represents our potential to be saved from the baseness of our sexual nature as women and if you question her role as a prostitute you are unbiblical and challenging the saving work of Christ. Which of course I disagreed with even more. At the risk of being labelled unbiblical (which I eventually was at that church) I tried to speak up and was immediately shut down. Who was I to question Liz Curtis Higgs the others asked? She's the expert on bad girls of the bible, you can't question the expert. So faithful exploration and biblical study don't matter in the face of a loud voice.

The "loud" voices, the ones with clout, are considered more believable because they are prominent and reach a wider audience. As we in the emerging church attempt to rethink patterns of theology we run up against these loud voices. They don't engage us in dialogue or a willingness to learn. Instead they ridicule, spread rumors and lies, and inoculate themselves against feedback by screening their calls and emails and deleting negative (or just basically insightful) comments on their blogs (if they allowed them in the first place). I guess it's hard to remain a loud voice if you don't just shut out all other voices.

So what do we do with this? People are allowed their own opinions, and I can ignore individuals who make fun of what I am a part of, but what about my family and friends who believe lies about me because of a few loud voices? Or who at least write me off for things I truly believe because they have been exposed to a bad representation of those things? Or what about those of us who have lost jobs because of the loud voice of others? How can we encourage church members and friends to actually think for themselves instead of swallowing whatever the loud voices tell them to believe? How can we do this without getting too cynical?

Labels: Church, Culture, Emerging Church

News stories I had to click on -


J.K. Rowling outs Dumbledore as Gay
Interesting. No big surprise. I found this paragraph sad - "But [Rowling] added that not everyone likes her work. Christian groups have alleged the books promote witchcraft. The author said her revelation about Dumbledore would give them one more reason." Once again Christians make the news for our hatred record instead of for our love.

and

Monkeys Kill Delhi Deputy Mayor
"The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi died on Sunday after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys." WTF? Wild Monkeys? Apparently these terrorizing monkeys are seen as a representation of a god and so cannot be harmed.

Labels: Culture

I stumbled across this funny yet challenging post by Lainie Petersen (whose blog I will be checking out now). I'm posting it here because I think it's great, but you can find the original here.

Top Ten Ways to Fail at Being Missional

10. Be very annoyed that some people belong to religions other than your own. Express this annoyance freely.

9. Don’t bother becoming a “regular” at local businesses. Just shop/dine/get- your-clothes-drycleaned at whatever place has the best sales that week. If, by some unfortunate coincidence, you do become a regular at a local business, don’t get to know the owner, employees, or other patrons.

8. Fixate on the quality of your missional targets: Focus on the local Unitarian Universalist minister, Mormon bishop, and Wiccan high priestess (who also owns your town’s only occult bookstore). Don’t give a second thought to that rather ordinary looking lady who you see every morning on the train. She doesn’t have a large enough sphere of influence.

7. If you see a problem in your community, don’t bother to check out what other organizations or individuals are doing about it. Just start your own project: You’ll get a lot more accomplished if you are in charge!

6. Don’t waste your time reading the blogs of other missional folk. So what if they share their own struggles, hurts, joys, and ideas freely? You take all your instruction from God, directly.

5. Never, ever, check out primary source materials produced by representatives of other cultures, subcultures, and religions. Christians have already written all you need to know about those unbelievers, and besides, cult members will have a bias that you want to avoid.

4. Avoid being “unequally yoked” with unbelievers by not engaging them in conversation, learning about their families, having lunch with them, inviting them to your home (or accepting a similar invitation), or working together to address community issues of common interest.

3. Be sure to email (from your work account, while at work) your “unsaved” work colleagues (especially those that you don’t normally interact with) with regular invitations to your church and its activities.

2. Never consider offering financial or material support to other folks engaged in missional work. After all, you need all your spare cash for your own personal ministry. Besides, most of them don’t have their own 501 (c) 3 corporation, and not getting a tax deduction would be poor stewardship on your part.

1. Learn every evangelistic technique, theory, and strategy out there, and work hard to perfect your practice of them, even to the neglect of every other area of your spiritual life. What does the Holy Spirit have to do with drawing people to God, anyway?

Labels: Fun Stuff, mission

I just finished reading a book that I highly recommend for others to read. Not because I agreed with everything in it or because it is necessarily spiritually transformative, but because it presents a constructive, faith affirming approach to a topic that is generally written about in destructive ways.

A few months ago Scot McKnight recommended to me Peter Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. This book explores some of the difficult questions regarding cultural influences on the Bible, the diversity of theological views present in it, and whether or not it is necessarily unique. These are not new questions and have been bantered around the academic world for some time now, but most lay accessible books on these ideas take one of two negative approaches. They either present these cultural and historical facts in order to prove that the Bible is not to be trusted and that therefore Christian faith is misguided. Or the books are written from a defensive standpoint in order to generally deny the validity of the historical facts so as to prove the Bible trustworthy. These agendas on both extreme are lacking for the reader who is not persuaded to give up either her faith or her intellect.

Peter Enns' book takes a third way in its approach to the conversation. It apologetically assumes an evangelical faith in scripture from the outset and then sets out to explore the historical details in light of that faith. On this approach, the author writes -

The way we can begin to address this issue is to confess at the outset, along with the historic Christian church, that the Bible is the word of God. That is our starting point, a confession of faith, not creating a standard of what the Bible should look like and then assessing the Bible on the basis of that standard. If we begin with the confession that the Bible is God's word, that it ultimately comes from him, that it is what the Spirit of God wanted it to be, that there is no place in all the messiness of the Old Testament where God says, "Oops, I didn't really mean to put it that way - I'd like to try again, please" - if we begin there, we have the freedom to look honestly and deeply at what God is doing in the Bible." p108

I appreciate that perspective. Instead of pretending to be objective in trying to prove one's agenda, I appreciate knowing the author admits the particular lens he is using to view the Bible. It isn't the only approach out there, but I found it refreshing as it led to an exploration of scripture that didn't create a false hierarchy between scripture and history. It is that acceptance of an interpretive tradition and embracing of one's cultural context that I've found lacking in most evangelical treatments of this subject.

Enns places the Bible and modern evangelicals firmly in their historical settings. About the Bible he writes, "It was not an abstract, otherworldly book, dropped out of heaven. It was connected to and therefore spoke to those ancient cultures." p.17 and "That the Bible, at every turn, shows how 'connected' it is to its own world is a necessary consequence of God incarnating himself"p20. The issues arise when both conservatives and liberals approach the Bible expecting it to be something it is not. When we desire for the Bible to speak only to the issues of a modern scientific society we display our arrogance in assuming that we are the only one's God has ever cared about conveying his word to.

The book then presents three issues that have generally not been handled well in evangelical theology. First it explores why the Bible looks so much like other Ancient Near East literature. Then it looks at the theological diversity present within the Bible itself. And finally it looks the sometimes weird (and generally out of context) ways in which the New Testament authors make use of the interpretive traditions of their day to interpret the Old Testament. Basically, is the Bible really unique, does it have integrity, and how should it be interpreted? Each discussion is fascinating and is helpful in that it is very open about the difficult parts of scripture. The result is a unique perspective that sees the Bible as the inspired word of God, but that embraces its very human and cultural elements as God's incarnation to us. We can therefore appreciate its diversity instead of deny it and allow the Bible to be what it is instead of what we wish it would be. So if these are issues you have ever struggled with or are just mildly curious about, I highly recommend this book as an easy, informed, and faith-affirming approach to the subject.

Labels: Book Reviews, History, Theology

Maybe I just don't know much about gardening (which is true), but it seems strange to me that I'm still getting produce from my garden in mid-October in Illinois. And it's not just the winter squash either. I'm still picking chard, tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash. I'm not complaining about the food, I made a really yummy chili tonight with those tomatoes and peppers. But mid-October? We usually have our first snow by now.

Labels: Personal

So I've been toying with the idea of switching my blog to Wordpress. I really like the cleaner look of Wordpress and (especially) that you can have different pages within the blog. But I'm not too keen on having to pay money for the ability to do anything interesting with my template or for decent storage. Plus in switching blogs I would loose all the links and stats here. It's a hard call.

So what do you think? Is it worth it to switch blogs? Is it just a stupid idea?

Labels: Blog Stuff

I was browsing Amazon earlier and stumbled upon John Perkins' new book With Justice for All: A Strategy for Community Development. This is the John Perkins who help co-found the Christian Community Development Association, but apparently Amazon has got him confused with another John Perkins (not a Christian) who also promotes justice issues. Now I haven't read the book yet, but the description sounds interesting - With Justice for All is Perkins s invitation to live out the gospel in a way that brings good news to the poor and liberty to the oppressed (from Luke 4:18). This invitation is extended to every racial and ethnic group to be reconciled to one another, to work together to make our land all God wants it to be. And it is a blueprint a practical strategy for the work of biblical justice in our time.

But apparently the Amazon mix-up has really pissed a few people off. While that is somewhat understandable, what I found to be really intriguing are how the disgruntleds' comments convey negative cultural perceptions of Christianity. For example, they write -

I saw the email from Amazon encouraging me to buy at a discount the "latest" book from John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and other fantastic eye opening books. If he had, instead of a book that preaches about how Christianity and the Churches of Christ will be our Saviour, it would have been a fantastic book about how we as people in our local communities need to take care of our communities through active involvement in buying sustainably grown and produced products, avoiding purchasing from the various corporate entities like WalMart etc. and manufacturers that have products produced by sweatshops and to instead reduce consumption and to care for one another in our communities with local action. Guess if anybody doesn't figure out that this book is NOT from the John Perkins who we all know and love, that this book will be a big disappointment and extremely confusing.

and

The John Perkins we all know and love is the one who confessed his sins to mankind. this other guy, whoever he is, sounds alright i guess, but being Christian, it is doubtful he is really truly interested in the betterment of mankind.

Yes, yes I know they should have taken the time to discover this John Perkins' beliefs and perspectives before they dismissed the book as generally being anti-justice. But their gut reaction was that it could not be about helping people or doing justice because it is Christian. That is disturbing. So even though certain people are claiming that we don't need to talk about biblical justice because all people are decent and support justice anyway, this perception (which is the true reality) begs to differ. Not that I was planning on stopping talking about justice issues, just that the implications are bigger than I thought.

Labels: Social Justice