A review of "a Generous Orthodoxy"

Once a great leader came to the Rabbis Hillel and Shammai. When he asked the strict Shammai, "tell me what your God commands, while standing on one foot." Shammai tried, but fell to two feet, without explaining the whole of the Torah. Then the great leader came to Hillel and said the same. Hillel hopped up on one foot and said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, all the rest is commentary."
If I were to sum up McLaren’s "a Generous Orthodoxy" on one foot I would say, "Ditch mutual exclusivity. Be a blessing to the whole world. Follow Jesus, not Christianity. All the rest is commentary."
"a Generous Orthodoxy" is a very auto-biographical book and conversational in tone.
The generous orthodoxy that McLaren proposes is a curious thing, to him the Emergent Church seems to be a Frankenstein monster of his own creation. He wants to borrow the best bits of various Christian traditions to form a Christianity for the post-modern age. McLaren’s Emergent Church would be an orthopraxic, non-eschatological faith, infused with the spiritual fire of Pentecostalism, the anything to spread the gospel attitude of Evangelicals, the urge to reform of Calvinists, the spirituality of Catholicism, the methodology of Methodism, the way of relating to culture of Celtic Christianity, and the ability to get along with one another of the Anglican church.
The book starts off with McLaren trying to convince us not to read the book, always a good tactic; it wets the appetite of the reader and makes them curious. In chapter one he writes about the ways in which various groups (Conservative Protestants, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Liberal Protestants, Anabaptists, and Liberation Theologians) view Jesus as savior and decides they are all true.
McLaren tries to put the Emergent Church forward as a middle ground, or maybe a synthesis, between Liberal Christianity and Conservative Christianity. To do this he defines Conservatives as narcissists and Liberals as atheists. Actually that was one of my biggest beefs with McLaren, in his Post-modern way he re-defines everything. He is a Fundamentalist, because he believes loving God and neighbor as yourself to be fundamental to his faith. He’s Calvinist because he likes reform and believes in TULIP, but TULIP in his case is "Triune Love, Unselfish Election, Limitless Reconciliation, Inspiring Grace, and Passionate Persistant Saints."
It may sound like I didn’t like this book. Not true, it did what McLaren wanted, to make me think. There is a lot of good here. He points out a lot of skeletons in Christianity’s closet and elephants in the room that no one admits are there. He does a good job at giving a general overview of reasons for historical developments in Christianity.
In some ways I think this book was written more for Baptists considering leaving the faith because of the Religious Right, as he hits out at that portion of Christianity very hard. As for liberal Christianity he simply leaves it at that we’ve lost something important in our struggle with modernity. Really he doesn’t struggle with the questions of the Christian Left beyond saying we don’t have soul and sometimes can lead to Athiesm.
One other thing, LZ points out that McLaren may be a closet Lutheran. I am not so sure, but what is interesting is he never talks directly about Lutheranism. The closest he comes is to quote Luther’s saying "Here I Stand." That said he indirectly talks about Lutheranism a LOT. Not only does the whole post-modern thing fit in well with my faith’s paradoxical nature, but quite often when he talks about other denominations he mentions off hand Lutherans are similar to this or that. He mentions us when he talks about Roman Catholics, Anabaptists and Anglicans. I think he doesn’t know what to make of us. Or, maybe he does but he realizes we are sitting on the ground he’d like to claim for the Emergent Church. Perhaps the Emergent Church, in McLare’s eyes is simply a more rowdy, less centralized version of the ELCA?
Peace,
Chris

China's holocaust?

I don't know if this is all Falun Gong propaganda, but if there is some truth to it... God help us.

Just Finished A Generous Orthodoxy

As some of you know I'm in search of what the "Emergent" church is. After volunteering at a Christian book shop I now have 40 quid worth of research materials. I started with "a Generous Orthodoxy" by Brian D. McLaren. Its a very autobiographical book. On one hand I appriciated it as it seemed to name a lot of elephants in the room, on the other hand it also felt like debates I had back in High School, only with some sorces to back up the claims.
I'll have a more full review up hopefully sometime this week.
Peace,
Chris

The May edition of the Foundation is up

Check it out. This month we will be discussing Nukes.
Peace,
Chris

Keep the Internet Free

Another chapter started in "Days in the Cold"

I have now started chapter 5 of Days in the cold over at UniversalBones.
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris

Another chapter started in "Days in the Cold"

I have now started chapter 5 of Days in the cold over at UniversalBones.
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris

Atlas Shrugged, the movie

Rachel the woman born on the wrong continent

Remember Mike and Rachel, the two brits who are more american than should be healthy for a European (of course Britian isn't "Europe" *Wink* *Wink*) that I wrote about in this post. Well it turns out Rachel has a blog of her own (actually two of them).
Peace,
Chris
PS check it out, she's learning/praying about all 50 US states!

I’m a Lutheran Because

LZ asked "Why are you a Lutheran" and I’ll answer.
I am a Lutheran because they are gracious. Really that’s what it comes down to. Catholics have the authority thing, Methodists have the perfection thing, the Presbyterians have the double predestination thing, the Baptist have the altar call and choir. The Lutherans though hold the trump card, grace. We may have a mad anti-Semite as the regenerator of our Catholicism, but damn, we got grace right. And on top of that, or more likely because of that, we have paradoxes, which are icing on the cake.

Projecting the I into the Thou

Last night Yan and I got talking about perceptions of reality. By the end of the discussion I’d decided that Dialecticism the process of having a Thesis (within this conversation label this personal preception), anti-thesis (label this opponents perception), and considering the first with the second coming to a third perception, or Synthesis, is a very Christian action. That is, to remove our faces from our bellybuttons (Luther) we need to consider the bellybuttons of others. That is, to realize the weaknesses of our own arguments we need to view ourselves from the enemies point of view (MLK Jr.). That is, to truly love our neighbor as ourselves (JC) we must allow him the same benefit of the doubt, the same tottering inconsistencies, the same assumptions of good intention, which we give ourselves. So, when we consider our own subjective view, and that of another, with equal weight. That is when we "project the I into the Thou" (MLK Jr.) only then can we enter into dialogue and form a synthesis that reaches closer to that thing we often call Truth.
This morning while showering I got to thinking that, while Dialecticism may fit into the very specific context of last night’s discussion, what does it mean to the wider world. Is it possible to project the We into the Thous? With a global world how does dialectacism work? Does it become a bunch of collective ideologies synthesizing with one another?
Or, do we move to a Polylectic, that is each individual enters their personal perceptions into an ongoing web of perceptions and is pulled in multiple ways, in probably a continuous and ever-living discussion with a whole host of anti-thesises. And if this is the case, and there are presumably going to be new anti-thesises popping up, where does that leave the synthesis within such a system? It seems a lot like the "Web of Power" that Foucau (sp) talks about (though that seemed to be a more coercive form of thought... maybe).
Just some thoughts this morning. Does anyone know of a more proper term than Polylectic, I'm guessing there is some sort of post-modern term out there?
Peace,
Chris

I won't be able to make it to the rally, anyone willing to go for me?

I'm over in Jolly old England so there is no way for me to rally against Genocide. This is really important, with all eyes focused on Iran, with talk about Human Rights in China, the current killings have once again been hidden behind the headlines of the day.
One cry only.
NEVER AGAIN!

Religion Map

I saw these cool demographic maps of religion in the States. Check it out!
Peace,
Chris

The books I got from Spring Harvest

You may ask, what caused Chris to give up a week of vacation time to work at a Christian book store? For one I was excited about the idea of going to Spring Harvest, and I was intrigued by the idea of working at a book shop (after all I’m a bookworms bookworm). But the other incentive was 75 quid worth of books! And here is what I got.
Gods Politics, by Jim Wallis
A Generous Orthodoxy and The Church on the Other Side, both by Brian McLaren
John Calvin: His Life and Influences, by Robert L. Reymond
Simply Christian, by Tom Wright
The Christian Handbook (by Augsburg Books, this was the only book I found at the shop by a Lutheran Publisher)
Pastors under Pressure, by James Taylor
Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell
Emergingchurch.intro, by Michael Moynagh
And The Gospel According to Tolkien, by Ralph C. Wood
As you may have noticed a lot of the books are about the Emergent church. The Emergent church is a movement that is big in the UK and is starting to catch on in the States. I don’t know what to think about them, their opponents hurl all kinds of attacks against them, one has even said they are too Lutheran, so I want to decide for myself what they are up to. Beyond reading the books I intend to find an Emergent Church and go there sometime, be it in Cambridge or the heart of London.
Peace,

I’m back from Spring Harvest

I spent the last week in Skagness working at a Christian book stand, Wesley Owens, at a Christian event known as Spring Harvest.
Spring Harvest was exhausting, exhilarating, non-liturgical, phony, and deep.
It was exhausting, we worked a full day, and this last day a 10 ½ hour day. Starting midnight last night I stood "security" for a Christian rocker named Chip K. as his Christian-punk fans got stuff signed. As the british would say I’m cream crackered/ shattered/ and nackered.
It was exhilarating. I met a ton of new people who I found really cool. From Peter, a Nigerian who’s invited me to a missions conference in his home country next year, to Mike and Rachel, two Londoners who love America and I could see them one day immigrating to the Carolinas.
It was non-liturgical. Holy week was not a good week to go to Spring Harvest. There were so many hustle/bustle Christian events going on that no one seemed to know it was Easter (let alone Good Friday etc) until I told them. Also the worship was very, very, very evangelical (well, to be fair it was an evangelical event) people holding their hands up high, people talking about Glory, without Cross, redemption without exile. Still, the songs and the atmosphere is quite energizing, and I very worshipful.
It was phony. Somehow evangelicals have a way of cheeping faith and a way of mimicking the culture around them (not that Lutherans don’t, it is just a different type of mimicking). For example there is bible for everyone, the Woman’s Bible, the Man’s Bible, the Extreme Bible, the Slacker Bible, etc. And by and large the only difference is the cover, and a few pages in the front of the Bible. Further the Christian bands seem to all be described as "it’s like X, only Christian." For example, one of the bands that signed CD’s, TBC, was "like the Spice Girls, only Christian."
It was deep. There was a "debate" on the Trinity at one point. Afterwards two members of the audience who had asked anti-trinitarian questions were hanging out outside discussing things. One guy was a Christadelphian, think Baptist that sees the Devil as our evil inclinations and believes the Holy Spirit is simply a) God’s actions and b) Jesus’ spirit. The other guy was an eclectic, believing YHVH was simply a deity among deities, who all work for "El Elyon," the Most High. Most of the other deities drowned in the Flood (Gen. 6. Sons of God etc), YHVH was the only one who made it, and Jesus showed us how we can be without sin, but we are not allowed to explore his other gospels because of Constantine. But in fact he chilled with the Essene and probably went to Asia. As a Religious Studies guy I found his interesting, it was like I had an Essene in front of me, just projected through modern/historical critical eyes… Then that all crumbled away when he started sighting The Davinci Code.
I ended up chilling with the Christadelphian. We discussed our faiths (you see a Lutheran is just as weird sounding as a Christadelphian to the English), and sparred a little. He made some good points about infant baptism, I made some good points about the Holy Spirit (as base he couldn’t explain Pentecost and Paul’s Trinitarian language).
Overall it was a good experience, the only thing I regret is the timing, and that couldn't be helped.
Peace,
Chris