the parish

Why We're Staying

Here is a short answer to many questions I've received lately. We aren't leaving kaleo. That's it. We're not leaving. Which, of course, leads to other questions.

A good friend, one of my oldest friends, in fact, and a mentor of sorts to me was in town over the weekend. After an unusual Sunday night, we decompressed with the hot, hairdresser, bartender wife. I filled her in on everything that has happened and answered her questions about the blog, the church, the denomination, etc. Then she said, "You should be Methodist. You'll be okay there. Or Presbyterian (PCUSA)."

"What about Episcopalian?" I asked.

"That too. Some place where lifestyle issues won't matter."

This advice from an old friend who knows me well, knows my weaknesses and my obstinace, knows how much I dislike church, knows how much kaleo means to us, was a bit distressing. Believe it or not, I actually try to hear the voice of God in people around me, especially when they love me. I had a momentary crisis about whether or not to move on. The wife has alread informed me that she isn't doing church again; it either works here, at kaleo, or she's done. She likes the idea of leisurely Sunday mornings with pancakes, coffee (for me), an afternoon movie, and a quiet evening at home.

So, we're staying. To the Nazarenes who are glad about this, thanks. For those who aren't, sorry (but not really). The question is how much cognitive dissonance is possible within a community. It's apparent from several posts I've made here that there are many things about the Nazarene denomination with which I am displeased, not that I'm the easiest guy in the world to have hangin around your church. To be fair, it's not picnic for them either. So, why stay?

I think I believe that Christianity at its best is redemptive friendship. We have those redemptive friendships at kaleo. We aren't willing to risk losing them by going somewhere else. Also, I think I believe communities should be full of different kinds of people, so I need them as much as they need me. This is the beauty of competing voices, keeping people honest and self-reflective. And I've long since stopped believing that church is a place or a denominational affiliation. I guess we'll test our resolve to live in a community with all its promise and pain and confusion and fun. And I will continue to critique the tradition. A few of them have even asked that I do that. Imagine.

The Landscape

I've recently had very negative run-ins with Nazarenes. You all know this. (And some Nazarenes are still my friends, but more in the "Why I'm Staying" post next time.) Some of those folks think I'm a bit off the mark. They think I don't understand Christianity. They think I don't understand holiness. Some of them are afraid that I'll poison the minds of young people. Some of them don't like my lifestyle. No. I'm not gay. I'm not a woman, so I've never had an abortion. I actually believe in the deity of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the necessity of living a different kind of life. I'm not even a universalist. I do drink. I do smoke the hookah, which, by the way, contains tobacco when I smoke it. (Although I hear it's good for opium. I didn't know people still smoke opium. Awesome.) These folks are trying to convert people to Nazarene-dom. Next month is district assembly for our district. Pastors will get together and report to some District Superintendent (Naz Cardinal) and perhaps a General Superintendent (Naz Pope) how many "new Nazarenes" they have in their churches. Many of them will lie. They will count the Nazarenes that came from other Nazarene churches as new, and they will not bother to ask, "Why aren't we counting something else, like people fed, housed, loved, ministered to in prison?" Nope. So, in honor of the soon to be liars and the executive muckety-muck that will hear those lies, here's a visiting blogger who is far younger than me and far more experienced with Nazarenes. I hope she can help some Nazarenes understand that they don't really understand the culture they're trying to reach. It's not cracker-ass America circa 1955 anymore, or 1975 for that matter. Without further bitching...

Well, Here it is...

I Go to church...yet I party...

I say a prayer...yet i scream obsenities...

I sing to hymns...and shake my ass to hip-hop

I reach out to people who need it...I reach out for a towel when i'm piss ass drunk puking my guts up...

I've read the bible... i've read Cosmo...

...After looking at that list... i look like some bipolar, hypocritical jackass....

But its all true, and I don't go to church to be fake, or meet people, I go because it's a place where other people or 'only humans' can go, to be a part of a group of not-so-moral minds, with one common goal...to have a better understanding and grow as a community under the name Jesus Christ. I've been to ALOT of churches, alot of youth groups, with many different youth pastors...most of the time, finding the same thing time and time again...(in the moviephone voice)'If you give your heart and soul to Jesus Christ, and accept him as your Lord and Savior, you win..........(drum roll please)......ETERNAL LIFE!.... and then there's the small print..."you must agree to living your life 110% devoted to Jesus Christ, be nice to everyone, never hate your life, always volunteer, be charitable, never curse, give to the needy, love life...love yourself, love jesus..."

It's not so much that Christianity isn't about all those things, but throwing it all out there at once... is like interviewing for a job in india... You've got a lot expected of you but you aren't gettin' shit in return... I could be totally off pitch here... I would be more than happy to listen to any other opinions that might be out there.... Maybe I am just looking for an excuse to continue living the life I'm living without the judgement, which is a possibility, but I also think I have a pretty legitimate 'excuse'....

I call them my mentors, you might know them by other titles such as, minister, pastor, journalist, teachers...all leaders in the church i attend... Every single one of these people, are aware of how my friends and i live my life...but unlike what you would assume, these people don't lecture me, force their personal beliefs on me, try the good ol' intervention, or excorcisms...no...not at all... in fact... they do the exact opposite, they invite me into their homes, not to discuss my life's problems or religion, but to get together as friends and buy paperview movies, and play uno, and eat really really good homemade taco soup, they ask us over and over again to babysit their children...that's right they trust us with their kids...and then i realized... my idea(a common one) of christianity was all wrong...One of the main focuses, i believe, is not to make everyone the same, or follow all the same rules, or believe the same things...but maybe to express love to those who are least expected to be loved, to give a dollar to someone who is expected to waste it, but to at least have faith in them to use it for what they need, and maybe having that faith alone will show them something more than lecturing or preaching....maybe knowing that someone in this world is rooting for you is enough to give you a chance, and the drive to take that chance and run with it.   

"He who is without sin among you, may cast the first stone"-John 8:3-11
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," - Romans 3:23

Reading as Spiritual/Life Formation

I got an email today asking me about my reading habits. A friend from church asked if I'd always been a big reader and if my reading volume has changed over the span of my life and if I read more while I was in prison. I thought I'd share my answer to his first email, and then tell you about the second, as that caused me to reflect on how certain books have shaped me. So here's my first answer:

I've read voraciously since I was a kid. Then it was all science fiction, fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff. Moved on to Stephen King, Dean Koontz. In prison I read the classics and Pulitzers as often as possible. That's where I started reading theology, church history, biography, etc. Read about 2-3 books per week for the 4 1/2 years I was in. When I was a pastor I focused on church and theology almost exclusively. Started philosophy and linguistics at SNU during my M.A. program, though I'd read some philosophy before.

Now I mix everything up. I always have one fiction book going. Just finished March, last year's Pultizer. I also have at least one theology book and one philosophy book going at a time. I'm also reading books sent to me by people who want reviews/commentaries. Then I subscribe to about 15 magazines, so I've always got one or two of those around to read. Twice a year I read a book of poetry. I'm currently on one because I've made a vow that if I receive a gift card from Border's, I'll spend it on poetry books, mainly because it's a section of publishing that needs support. And I like it.

He then asked which book had been most significant. He did mention that it was an unfair question given the sheer number of books I've read. I thought about it for a little while, and I finally realized that certain books had shaped me in different phases of my life. I broke them down into decades and here is what I came up with:

Teens. I read tremendous amounts of sci/fi fantasy, but more than any other book or series, Stephen R. Donaldson's two trilogies about Thomas Covenant made an impact on me. They were full of magic and religion and faith and battle and good and evil and super-complex, three-dimensional characters. Some of the melancholia of his worldview sunk it though (as did Michael Moorcock's Elric series) and I've still not shaken it to this day.

Twenties. I read Crime and Punishment in county jail. It utterly changed my life. It was a revelatory moment for me when I identified myself with Raskolnikov, not because we were both criminals, but because we were both arrogant enough to believe that native intelligence made us better and more deserving than others. It was the first time I really remember confronting the major folly of my life. Later in my 20's, I read G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I began to think beyond the bounds of modernity and evangelicalism at that point. He opened a door to Christianity for me that I haven't been able to close since. The book is everything Mere Christianity wanted to be and never was.

Thirties. Silence by Shusaku Endo. Never seen Christianity portrayed as Western imperialism better. What Barbara Kingsolver strives for in Poisonwood Bible, Endo achieves with beautiful, moving prose, completely believable characters, and obscene grace. The novel is breathtaking and worldview shattering. The nonfiction category was a tie. McLaren's New Kind of Christian introduced me to a way of thinking about Christianity and Christians that made me feel part of a larger group, and then I met folks who thought like that and realized I wasn't the problem. Paul Holmer's Grammar of Faith is still the most readable theological musings on Wittgenstein's and Barth's influence on theology in print. His conclusion: theology should make us holy, not smart.

Forties. A little early to tell but I'm casting my vote for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go because of the way he reveals the dependence we all have on layers of lies and for the astonishing melancholy he brings to a novel's mood. For nonfiction I chose Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination because he helped me understand how prophetic imagining and hope can shape reality, and he helped me understand calling as a posture toward the world and not a crisis moment in life.

Peace. And thanks, Mike. It was a good day thanks to you.

...Almighty...

Yeah. No. Almighty meaning can do anything? Almighty meaning can do anything that is possible in a non-contradictory sense? I've already mentioned that I don't accept the Greek categories to talk about the nature of God, and almighty is also related to the character of God.

God can do anything that is possible to do, not from a human perspective, but from the perspective of who and what God is. To talk about limiting the definition of almighty then is to talk about what kind of being God is. It's not to say that God isn't God, only to say that God doesn't have to be able to do everything we can imagine to be God. This allows me to be an open theist. God-ness does not necessarily require exhaustive knowledge of the future. In fact, the future is something that doesn't exist yet, so in a very reasonable sort of way, there is nothing to be known. Choices and circumstances and weather affect what the future will be. It is not set. If it is, we're all just playing roles already written for us. Now you can believe that if you choose, and most Calvinists do whether they know it or not, but it just seems pointless to me.

So, God can do almost anything. She can't make a rock so big she can't lift it, because that's a contradictory state of affairs. It simply cannot be done, even for someone with nearly unlimited powers. Can He destroy life and possibly an entire planet? Of course. Anything humans can do, I assume God can do as well, although exactly how a non-corporeal agent is supposed to act upon something so material as a planet or a person still defies explanation. That being said, I think God can somehow interact with the creation, and in doing so, it is God's character that limits God's power. Can God deliver to us a perfect record of His words and interactions with us? Sure. Why not? If we believe she's God, then that certainly seems within the realm of do-ability. But He hasn't, so that sort of leads to the question, why not? Obviously, it would be easier to set up a system where we were all born with a hard-line to God where we always knew what Her will was for our lives. Or, He could simply set up a big monitor and scroll the information for us. That's not how it happened though. For whatever reason, God has chosen not to use power coercively, even in the area of revealing Herself to us. When Jesus comes, he does so in a way that is very oblique. His words even are confusing and obscure. There is a willing limitedness to God's use of power. To say that God can do something is not the same thing as to say that She will. She may or may not, and it depends upon the character of God.

...the Father...

I have no idea whom this metaphor is supposed to help. It's possible that if your father was a good one, or if you yourself are a good one, then the metaphor works. However, we have to at least allow for the possiblity that "father" is a culturally defined word and role. (There is an obvious biological definition, but I suspect that isn't the usage the Apostle's Creed is getting at.) Whatever Jesus meant by calling God Father is foreign to me. Partly that is because the father who shaped my life was good in some ways and terrible in others. That is partly due to the PTSD he brought back from Vietnam. But only partly. So, how do I understand father?

Jesus talks about father as if there is some sort of ongoing communication, a relationship even. Regular readers will know I think relationship with God talk borders on nonsense talk. There is simply no way to substantiate a relationship even exists, and when people are honest, they tend to say that they don't experience much, if anything, in the way of relationship. A friend told me recently that she prayed because she thought that was what it mean to have a relationship--God listened when she prayed. If that's the definition, then I have relationship with the obnoxious 4-year old behind me in the restaurant who won't stop babbling over the booth. You might say, but God really listens. How do we know that? Well, because he answers prayer. Really? Which ones? How often? Why so arbitrarily? You might answer again, well, he's God; he can answer when he wants. That might be true, but that's not the kind of relationship we're sold when we "get saved." And what about the notion that God cares about us? What about the man who prays for a job to feed his family but can't find one? What about the woman who prays for freedom from sexual abuse but gets none? What about the Sudanese who pray for deliverance from the Janjaweed, but are raped and killed anyway? How does the definition father operate at that point? How does the metaphor help me at all at those times?

The choices offered by the metaphor don't seem all that great to me; I gotta tell ya. It's just possible, and this will sound radically orthodox, but it's just possible that Jesus had a unique relationship with this "Father" and so called him that. I know. Paul says we get to call him Abba (daddy, pop, dad) too. Great. I can call a woman my lover, my girlfriend, my wife, my mistress, but if she talks to me once every eight or ten years, and if we never have sex, and if I've never actually heard her voice (just a thought in my head that could have been her voice), then it doesn't matter what I call her: she ain't answering.

No Longer Nazarene

I told a friend when we embarked on the kaleo experiment that there always comes a time in the life of an emerging congregation when the parent congregation will seek to assert its will over against what the emergent congregation is becoming. That point occurred a few months ago for the first time. It occurred again this past week. I'll spare everyone the details, as I don't want to slander anyone and kaleo will be just fine as a Nazarene congregation, which some folks seem adamant to ensure it remain. I am also not without fault: I'm overbearing, impetuous, a bit obnoxious, prone to force the issue, outspoken, crude, and lack a certain tact that the professional clergy find a necessity to maintain their existence.

A few months ago I asked the question about the larger Nazarene church being ready for emergent. My answer then was no. Theologically, emergent has much in common with Wesleyan theology and Wesleyan praxis. However, Nazarene doctrines run up against emergent in the oddest areas, primarily lifestyle issues. I probably don't need to remind anyone the hoodoo Ingrid created with her post about my hookah-smoking. That got some of the Naz folk bunged up. Then there is my coarse language. Drinking? Yeah, that too. All this to say, emergent congregations are free to be emergent within Nazarenedom so long as they do not condone drinking (something Jesus did) or smoking (something the Bible never mentions and their founder Phineas Bresee enjoyed). And no naughty language. It's a shame the translators used euphemisms for all those wonderfully naughty phrases in the Bible.

The hot, disappointed hairdresser wife and I have officially submitted our resignation as members of Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene. I say this plainly so that those in Nazarene lurker land will know and be relieved and leave certain friends the hell alone. We will continue to attend kaleo. We will put into practice that thing I have so long believed, that a church consists of the people who are committed to God, one another, and the world, irrespective of a location or official imprimatur--we will remain friends with those who have loved us and that we have loved.

I have no parting shots for the Nazarene church. There are things I'd like to say, but I still have friends in the organization, friends who believe the ship can be turned. I wish them the best in that quixotic endeavor. Those who stumble over alcohol and hookah and profanity will not easily embrace homosexuality, "aberrant" atonement theories, or decentralized ecclesiology. For those of you who are thinking that they shouldn't, you are firmly in the evangelical/fundamentalist camp. This experience just further emphasizes how far I'm removed from that sort of theological read.

Some of you will read this and email me to ask for details. What you get to know depends upon how well I know you. Some of you will know everything, and I'll also be happy to tell you whom to talk to in order to get another side of the story. Grace and peace.

...in God...

Before I say anything else, here's this from a post in December '04 that I still sort of agree with:

"God is a concept. This is not to say that God isn't real, doesn't possess genuine being, isn't sentient, etc. It's just to say that apart from what God chooses to specifically reveal to us about Godself, we are left to invest the concept of God with whatever meanings we choose. Now, I tend to believe that God revealed herself in the person of Jesus. Still, the best record we have of that event is indirect revelation. What we are left with is a Bible full of metaphorical language about God."

So, I believe in God. But what is God? Who is God? I tend to reject the Greek categories right away. Omniscient? Sorry, I'll opt for open theism here. Omnipresent? Maybe in a panentheistic sense. Omnipotent? Depends on what you mean. If you're going to parse it like Calvinists with all that sovereignty talk, then I'll happily disagree. If God isn't at least like Jesus, then I'm not interested. If God is just like YHWH from the Tanakh, I'm still not interested. That guy wasn't even sure who he was, so how am I supposed to know him when I see him?

Here's the easiest way to say this: if "I believe in God" means I believe in the creator who revealed herself in the form of Jesus, and really, really is like Jesus, then I believe in God. If not, then I'll embrace atheism with open arms, because there simply is no reason to believe if God is as he is revealed in the Old Testament. That God can't be trusted. He might change his mind at the last second. That God isn't sure of what's going to happen next. That God can't decide whether to love us or kill us. That God can't decide who the good guys are. Jesus, on the other hand, is unequivocal about God's character. God loves. God suffers. God dies. God vindicates. God waits. God participates. God is just, good, righteous, and merciful. God forgives because God chooses to forgive. God suffers because God has asked us to suffer. God waits because we are expected to wait in hope with no f***ing communication 99 percent of the damn time.

I believe in God. God help me, I do.

Senryus in Honor of Christian Magazines

For Christian Century:

Graphics on the page?
Why break up such pretty text?
You don't like red lines?

For Geez:

I like the idea
of holy mischief; although
It should be funny.

For Christianity Today:

Diversity of
opinion makes for a good
read. You should try it.

A French Word for Shower and a Sympathy Card

The hot, mischievous hairdresser wife asked me to title this entry "a douche and a sympathy card." I guess I'm just too squeamish. Anyway, she's in line at Walgreen's last night when she notices that the woman in front of her is purchasing a generic brand douche and a sympathy card. An odd combination, I agreed, when she got back in the car and told me about it. We've played this game for years where we buy odd combinations at Target or Walgreen's and check out without comment. Susan's favorite, and she's yet to actually go through with it, is a hammer and a goldfish. My personal favorite is vice-grip pliers and condoms. She would like input from the brilliant and not so brilliant readers (really, sophomoric would work well here) about possible combinations.

A brief sports interruption

I am an OU fan. I had no choice. I'm a third or fourth generation OU fan. Unlike many OU fans, I actually spent a couple semesters there. That being said, I wasn't even upset about the loss tonight. I mean, even if you're an OU football fan and you hate that ending (and I mean everything that happened from the interception return for a touchdown that I thought ended it, through the hook and ladder on 4th and 18, the 25-yard scamper by Peterson on the first play of overtime and finally, the ballsy two-point conversion play that was sheer genius--was anyone in the place not fooled?), you are not a football fan. As my friend Cheese said, "That will be a disney movie in 20 years. OMG, what a game. Interruption over. Peace.