Dialogue with a pagan, Part 1

My new Google+ pagan friend from the U.K.  referred  me to this video: 




Here's m y response:

As I am not a Calvinist, I have no problem believing that this fellow was once a Christian.

Our noetic structures are like rafts. The beliefs that we hold are like the logs of the raft. We are constantly adding new logs to expand our raft, and getting rid of old logs are "leaky" or which don't fit together well with the new ones. What is interesting is the criteria we use to admit new logs and to eliminate old ones. I'll be curious to hear this fellow's story, and his criteria.

When it gets below 28 degrees...

See how Valley Covenant will be serving the homeless this winter.

Last winter was especially harsh in Eugene, and in December Major Thomas Egan, a homeless veteran, froze to death on the street during a snowstorm.

In response to this tragedy, an emergency coalition of governmental, nonprofit and religious groups quickly formed to provide temporary shelter for the homeless, and named it the Egan Warming Center. Last year the shelter was located at the National Guard Armory, which is owned by the county. Over the five nights that the Center was open last year, cots were provided for 600 visitors, more than 1,200 meals were served, and about 70 volunteers helped out.

Unfortunately, the shelter had to close down due to sheer numbers of the homeless, and lack of volunteers. “We had people with complex medical problems, mental health and substance abuse issues, and there was not enough staffing to adequately meet their needs,” said Pearl Wolfe, Lane County Human Services Commission supervisor. “We could not operate in a way that was safe for everybody.”

This year, The Egan Warming Center is trying to be better prepared. Last Sunday many area churches supported the Center by donating their entire collection plates toward the effort. Three churches--Valley Covenant being one of them--will open their doors whenever the temperature drops below 28 degrees. Jim Kooiman, who has led blood drives at VCC, has taken the lead in helping us find a place of service with the Warming Center.

Training sessions are scheduled for this Thursday evening, and Saturday morning. By the last estimate I heard, the Center needs another 100 volunteers. Please pray that the Lord will raise them up, for soon the fields and streets will be white, not only with harvest, but with frost and snow.

Just Wondering...about economics and history

Transition of Virgin into a Bride/Le Passage de la Vierge à la Mariée by Marcel Duchamp

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--William Butler Yeats

It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period"

(寧為太平犬，不做亂世人; pinyin: níng wéi tàipíng quan, bù zuò luànshì rén)

One of the marks of the end of the middle ages (premodernism) is the end of feudalism and the beginning of capitalism.

One of the features of modernism is capitalism, and its doppelganger, Marxism.

Marxism has faded.
Is capitalism fading, as well?

If so, are we living in a time of transition, as modernism takes its last gasps?

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Even more exciting: if we are living in a time of economic, historical and philosophical transition, how can we Christians witness to the hope that is within us, bringing harmony and joy as we are ambassadors of Christ, the Center?

We live in interesting times.

Understanding Nominalism, Part 3: A Primer in Metaphysics

What you do depends on your vision of what is real.

At some point, the emergent/missional church needs to reconsider its metaphysical foundations, if it is going to move forward.

Philosophical metaphysics wonders about being; about what is real. Some of the questions metaphysicians ask are,

"what kinds of things are there? Only material things, or are there immaterial things as well?" (aka, ontology)

"does everything reduce into one thing, or are there many things? And if the latter, what relations do they have with one another?" (aka, the problem of the One and the Many; or the problem of Universals and Particulars")

Sometimes people use different words besides metaphysics to refer to the effort to answer these questions. You'll hear words like "narrative," or "worldview" or "presuppositions" or "story" or "hermeneutic." There are some slight variations in meaning between these words, but ultimately they all attempt, at some point, to deal with metaphysical questions.

I. A Primer in Metaphysics, Digest version

A. Premodernism:

1. The "building blocks" of reality are relationships. Being doesn't "reduce" down any further.

Matter and form. Substance and accident. Essence and existence. Potential and actual. Universals and particulars. Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

2. Premodernism uses "both-and" lenses to see the world.

Things are both able to be understood in their unity and in their diversity. What is real can be said to be both one and many. We understand what there is by using both left brain and right brain, both ratio/discursive reason and intellectus/intuition.

Everything that exists exists in a community, in a deep and real (not socially created, or individually imposed) relationship with other things. Christian premodernists believe that human sin has damaged all our relationships, with God, with each other, and with creation. Presently, apart from the Godhead, there is no perfect community, but there is hope, because Jesus Christ has come and is in the process of restoring it.

B. Modernism

1. The building block of reality is the discrete individual.

Modernists who are scientists almost always wind up being materialists, reducing everything to bits of matter in motion. Other modernists are more politically inclined, and reduce society to a contract between independently existing individuals. But whatever way you go, for modernism there is something more fundamental, more independent than the relationship.

2. Modernism uses "either/or" lenses to see the world. What is real are "many."

Modernism rejects the right brain in favor of the left. Thus, one must choose: either feeling or logic; either religion or science, either Kant's "practical reason " or his "pure reason."

Modernism tries to overcome the either/or dichotomy by desperately trying to find some unity for independently existing things. Hence, the 19th century emphasis on "the brotherhood of man," and the 20th century search for a "unified field theory."

C. Postmodernism (aka hypermodernism)

1. The building blocks of reality are...wait a minute: What reality? Yours? Mine? His? Theirs?

2. Postmodernism uses the "either/or" lens ground its ultimate power.

It sees the dead end of modernism, and struggles to avoid it by rejecting the oppression of the left brain and favoring the marginalized right brain. But in so doing, it is still a captive of either-or thinking. Either be a subject or an object; either be an "I" or an "it"; either freedom or opression, either master or slave.

What is real are the "many," but Postmodernism is skeptical of ever finding any unity for them. It rejects Modernism's attempts to overcome the either/or dichotomy, and so tries going the opposite direction, emphasizing the diversity of all independently existing things. Hence, "multiculturalism" and "diversity training."

Nietzsche, the Prophet of Postmodernism, understood that the chaos of diversity could only be overcome by the dominating will of the "Ubermensch." When God-- who is Himself a perfect community, and who has created a world to be in perfect community with Him--is dead, so is all hope of authentic relationship. The Ubermensch is the epitome of the either/or: either his will, or none.

II. Why this is important for Emergents/missionals:

The very notion of mission is relational. Mission means showing and telling others about how Christ is able to truly unify us with the Lord, with each other, and with creation.

We can't fulfill that mission if within our own understanding of self, world and God we are operating with a metaphysic/hermeneutic/narrative that contradicts and subverts that mission. Integrity of mind and heart and soul and strength are critical.

Mission without a coherent metaphysic is like trying to read and write with only part of the alphabet. The modernist understanding of mission only used the consonants; the posmodernist understanding is only using the vowels. To tell a story completely and coherently, you have to use all 26 letters. It's not an either or. It's a both-and.

So why hamstring ourselves by limiting ourselves to either vowels or consonants? We will not be able to carry out the mission of showing and telling Jesus very well, for what we do depends on our vision of what is real, and the reality of mission is that we need to be able to use both.

By extension, then, a missional church needs to experience both the journey and the destination. We need to be able to recognize both that which is universal and that which is particular; we need to know both truth as intelligible and truth as mystery; we need to both Jesus as human, and Jesus as divine.

Modern and postmodern narratives cannot support both-and thought and action, but a premodern narrative can.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. (Rev. 21:3)

There's nothing more both-and than that!

(Gary, Brian, Donald, and Leonard...are you listening?) (grin!)