Emerging Church

Last night we had our third evening on Anabaptism, my personal confession about why I call myself an Anabaptist. The previous evenings were Who Were the Anabaptists? and Anabaptist Lives.

We had quite a full house, including a visit from a tourist on this website, which was great. I had a blast, but then it was an evening about something I'm deeply passionate about, so I was always going to enjoy it, wasn't I?

Anyway, I thought I'd upload the presentation I created to the site, which you can download below. The presentation is in PowerPoint format, and, as before, I've also created a clickable QuickTime to this page.

Here it is.

So, in the light of the last post on The Hidden Face of God, I propose that our Lent meditations this year are based around the theme of lament.

Deep Memory.

Exhuberant Hope.

We're going to host a Sunday evening reflection each week through lent, with some readings from the Bible, some poetry, and some songs.

Stay posted for more details. I'll try to post any helpful materials we produce on the website, in advance of the date where possible, for you to use also if you'd like.

I've recently been reading a wonderful book by Walter Brueggemann called 'Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World'. I've never read any Brueggemann before, never had the opportunity I guess, but when a friend on the Advanced Workshop course spluttered over his coffee on hearing that I'd never read him, I thought I'd give it a go. So, I went for a Brueggemann overdose with some birthday money and got four books in one go, of which this is the first one that I've read (more from the others in due course, I'm sure).

The book is sublime, and I heartily recommend it to anyone! It's a collection of essays by Brueggemann on the theme of the meaning of Scripture in today's post-Christian society. Each essay stands alone, but there is a thread that moves through them all, that being the heart of creativity and imagination rooted in the story of Yahweh.

Well, here's the next post on the current train of thoughts about the old classic phrase of believing, belonging and behaving (constructed in whichever order you want).

Last time around I put together some thoughts on the old paradigm of first confronting people with beliefs. If you read that post you'd know that I suggest we find ourselves in something of a paradox with regard to beliefs. Having beliefs as a starting point can be deeply problematic in our polysemic, polymorphic world, especially when beliefs are held and espoused rigidly and dogmatically. On the other hand, we all hold beliefs, whether we accept it or not. One cannot operate as a human being without believing that certain things are true (murder is wrong, education is worthwhile, a red light means stop, etc). We neglect conversing about beliefs at our peril.

So given the ambiguity about engaging over beliefs, what about connecting through 'belonging' to eachother and to a community beyond?

So, again it's been a while since the last post. Why do we have to earn money to live...?

Anyway, time for some further thoughts on belonging, believing and behaving, and whether that is helpful language in the post-modern world.

In the good old days of modernity believing was always the place to start. It was assumed that the basis for conversation between people was essentially apologetic - arguing, in both the best and worst possible ways, about logical, philosophical, spiritual, theological and ethical issues until one party or another was intellectually convinced of the 'way the world is.'

Sorry it's been a while since my last post - half-term school holidays and earning a crust have come in the way of writing anything much here of late. And I've been wondering what to post after the last essay I put online about reading Joshua as a Christian. I think I will follow this up with a series of posts about reading the Bible after Christendom, after modernity and in the context of alternative and emerging churches and Christian faith communities.

For the time being, however, I've got another issue on my mind.

It's frequently said that a distictive characteristic within emerging churches is that of belonging to a community before any mention of believing comes along (if ever!), let alone behaving - that life is lived as a spiritual journey of discovery, a vast expanding horizon of experiences and possibilities. And yet, and here is the irony, there is often also a strong missional emphasis it would appear.

So, a question arises - after modernity and after Christendom, how might we go about encouraging people to consider the challenges of Christianity, and the challenges presented by Jesus? Does the believing, behaving, belonging analysis of evangelicalism bear any relevance at all?

This is the final installment of my Advanced Workshop essay on the place of Joshua and the conquest narratives in a Christian faith.

Now, after completing the suspicion and the retrieval of Joshua, I offer some thoughts on the ethical dimension of Ricoeur's hermeneutic, before concluding the essay.

So now that you've got the essay in it's entirety, what do you make of this exercise with Joshua? Does this help in reading Joshua within a Christian faith? Do you think this is a valid reading? Do you have any other suggestions or reflections?

Please leave your comments. This is a very important issue and it would be good to keep some discussion going on the questions raised.

Here's the next installment of my Advanced Workshop essay on the place of Joshua and the conquest narratives in a Christian faith.

Today I conclude the retrieval process, and propose ways in which Joshua itself might actually be appropriated as Christian scripture.

I will be interested to see what you make of this retrieval, and whether anyone has any alternative suggestions for appropriating Joshua using Ricoeur's hermeneutics.

Today is another installment of my Advanced Workshop essay on the place of Joshua and the conquest narratives in a Christian faith.

So far we have looked through the suspicions of Joshua from the point of view offered by Ricoeur's hermeneutics of suspicion, examining the way symbolism is used in the text to offer us a world view. We've also critiqued the text by exposing the text as an instrument of power and domination, and taken to task the ideology that the text proposes.

Today we begin on the track of retrieval, using the full power of Ricoeur's hermeneutics to look at ways of progressing from the first naïvety through the suspicions and beyond into the possibilities of retrieving the text and discovering a second naïvety.

I hope you find this discussion helpful, stimulating and enjoyable. Ricoeur is crucial for any contemporary discussion of hermeneutics, for engaging with the Bible, and for thinking about how to retain faith even though everything one believes in is questionable.

Please leave your comments and reflections.

Today is the next episode of my essay on appropriating Joshua and the conquest narratives as Christian scripture.

This section completes the process of suspicion by drawing on socio-critical reflections and ideological criticisms of the text. In doing so, we examine more fully the difficulties with living with Joshua as a part of the Christian Scriptures.

Comments and thoughts are most welcome.