Saturday, June 29, 2019

The Start of a Bibliography for “Paul’s Letters to the Future Church”


I am still mulling over creating a series of Pauline Letters to the Future Church. There are really three areas I would need to do research. 1. The three Ds shaping the Church, 2. The 7 Central Things the Church shall Always do, and 3. Paul’s Letters. Below is an initial bibliography as I get to thinking.

The Three D’s



Tuesday, January 1, 2019

An initial stab at a future church letter

As I mentioned last post, one way to talk about the 3Ds and 7Cs is through fictional Paul-ish letters from the future church.
Below is some initial jottings of  such a letter:


Dear Philadelphians,
              I write this offering grace and peace in the name of Jesus Christ. He is both messenger and message, the promise to us of acceptance from God even when we were unacceptable and at the same time the one who proclaims that grace to us…
              Let me try to state this better. Christ is both the content—through him you have life and have it eternally, and the medium, the words of the one who is the Word, saves souls.
              Do I now skirt heresy with these words, so be it! For I write in this painful unnatural manner of the simple Gospel message, because you have done the very same thing. You have allowed the medium to obscure the message, the internet has put a hex on you Philadelphians.
              Christ himself is obscured when you thrash about online and call it community. Further, you spit venom upon one another, I wish that it would have its affect, so you might stop tweeting for a moment and reflect upon your words. The internet warps your words, intention, and community. “The medium is the message” wrote a famous fool from the last century… these words are still true today, Christ is both the medium and message. Every key stroke you make must be filled with him, every IM, every post, every up-vote, every wink… the medium and message must be one—Christ alone…

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Letters to the future church

C: I’ve been thinking about letters this summer. I preached a paraphrase of the Letter to the Ephesiansfor four weeks. I did that with Romans earlier, I think it helps, the congregation can get past the past tense nature of God’s message.
A: And?
C: Well, it has me thinking about what kind of letters will be sent to congregations of the future—how will those 21 questionsplay out in congregations 21 years from now.
A: I doubt they’ll be letters, won’t they be emails?
C: probably, but I’m still not feeling entirely great about the internet.
A: Okay, so you’re thinking about the ancient practice of letter writing... what kinds of letters a Paul figure would write to congregations having issues with the disestablishment of the church, the overarching phenomena of decentralization and the ethnic and economic demographic shifts in America?
C: Wow, I’m glad I was able to talk to you about this Augustine, that’s exactly what I’ve been mulling over in my head.
A: Should I expect you will write a letter to a congregation struggling to confess when non-white folk have more clout in America and demand a truer account of the Church’s complicity in racist policies?
C: Yeah, maybe.
A: Or a missive to a congregation that only meets online, and the disembodied and decentralized nature of the internet makes it impossible for them to meet or even communicate with each other in a Christian manner?
C: That sounds like a good one too!
A: Or a letter pleading with a congregation to understand its worth as coming from its baptismal identity after all the favoritism Christianity has been show by American society is spent and it just hurts to admit that blessing and national bias are different things.
C: Yes! All of that and more!

Sunday, July 8, 2018

May a Christian Participate on the Internet as it is?


May a Christian Participate on the Internet as it is?
By Old ‘Gus

I know I am a hypocrite, typing and transmitting this question in such a manner, and likely to continue to engage on the internet going forward, yet I feel I need to ask the question: May a Christian Participate on the Internet as it is?
              I have observed and used this tool for well over a year, and am both over awed and disgusted by it. My primary concern is that it is anti-incarnational. My secondary concern is what social media does to us in our flesh. It is addicting, distorts our sense of time, and is set up to be innately divisive. Thirdly, it makes me ask the question What Spirit does it foster? Finally, I wonder if there was an inflection point where it could have been something more than it is?

The internet is a secondary source, a simulation of the world around us. The sun is not as bright as a screen and my friend in the flesh is more real than an avatar. Its use promotes “slactivism.” We post, or more likely re-post, links and memes and other such things, and feel like we’ve done a good deed. We have become people who believe we have done something, but have done nothing. There is a hungry man and we make a meme about it; does a man live on memes alone? There is sojourner in need, a caged child even, and we make sure we’ve said the right thing about her, does that set the captives free? A hashtag without real world results is dead. All actions on the internet are indirect actions, but it seems we have forgotten it, and in so doing we have constructed a Platonic cave for ourselves.

              A good case can be made that the President is addicted to twitter along with 420,000,000 other people. The refresh button constantly promises a fresh chance at salvation, another hit of headlines and hot takes.
The internet offers a hit of immediacy, that’s its stock and trade. Everything goes down the memory hole, because we value the newest of news; presentism is the unnamed dogma of the age. Imagine how easy it would be to keep a population passive if you kept it chasing new outrage after new outrage.
And that need for newness, it fosters division. Everyone has to have an opinion on a thing, before they can process its actual meaning or implications, and so, we borrow meaning from others who are as ill-informed as us, but a little wittier. And soon enough, grasping for moorings, we cluster together into partisan groups, noting how ill-informed the other side is, and often they are, even as we recycle our own instant answers to questions we have never pondered, and never will, because there is a picture of a frog that explains it enough that we can move to the next new thing our little doped up brains have latched onto.

And, all of this vexes the spirit, and needs to be discerned. Like Paul, we need to ask which side of a great spiritual battle is buoyed up by this technology and our participation in it? Does it promote: fornication, vicious immorality, uncontrolled debauchery, the worship of idols, belief in magic, bouts of drunkenness, nights of carousing, and the like? Or worse still: instances of irreconcilable hatred, strife, resentment, outbursts of rage, mercenary ambition, dissensions, separation into divisive cliques, and grudging envy of the neighbor’s success?
Or does its use promote: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, gentleness, and self-control?

There was a time when people like my host, Chris, were foolish enough to believed the internet would bring about a second Republic of Letters, his blogsite focused on bringing about that reality has since been scooped up by a company selling alternatives to power point. Was such a possibility wishful thinking from the start, or has something changed on the internet? Was it the popularization of the internet (after all the Republic of Letters was a rather elitist institution), or Google’s method of sorting the internet, or the advent of facebook (or SixDegrees or Myspace?), or the limit of 140 characters on twitter (after all, hot takes get a lot hotter when they are so short), or the creation of the smartphone (sending messages out while doing number two does degrade discourse in a very particular way)—what made the internet what it is today? Was it inevitable? How and should a Christian use it?

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Ol’ ‘Gus responds to Rod Dreher’s article about the United Lutheran Seminary

Chris: Man, ‘Gus, this article by Rod Dreher about the Seminary made out of the seminary I graduated from really makes me mad!
‘Gus: Why?
Chris: I’m not quite sure… I mean, I still have really strong feelings about how everything went down—I mean it all shows how human we all are—but wow… I don’t even know, it feels like an outsider just poured gasoline on my house after part of it had already caught fire. I just… I just... I just wish he’d understand how meanspirited and unchristian he’s being.
‘Gus: Maybe he can, maybe telling a story could help him to repent and see how short sighted he is being.
Chris: I’m too angry to tell stories right now.
‘Gus: Let me see what I can do…
There once was a man named Dave. Dave impregnated his girlfriend his freshman year of college. They decided to have an abortion. Dave’s conservative parents disowned him for convincing his girlfriend to do this. He was so impressed with a family run fringe pro-life organization “White Shields for Choice” an Evangelical organization who, using all means necessary including violence, kept abortion clinic protestors from harassing people seeking those services. They welcomed him into their co-op and let him stay for free, and eventually he became their executive director.
              Later he had a “born again” conversion experience and left the organization. He was ashamed of working for an organization that he came to despise as baby killers and wasn’t sure how to reconcile his younger self with his new self.
              Dave ended up getting a Divinity degree and Ph.D. from Wheaton and became a successful, sane, evangelical pastor and academic. His focus was on reconciliation in South Africa and he advised Latino students, he was seen as especially equipped for that position due to spending 3 years in Peru after getting his M.Div.

              Two Orthodox seminaries a few hundred miles from one another, one in New Oreans that tended to have Greek Orthodox students (and a unique program that included a small population of often ignored Latino seminarians and professors) and one in Morgan City that tended to have Russian Orthodox students, decided to merge and function with a two campuses one Seminary model, seeing modern technology as a way to bridge the geographic divide.
              The initial merger was far from smooth. Many faculty and staff lost their jobs, or took major pay cuts, also the perk of campus housing for faculty was axed, in fact, they began to have to pay rent. There was much uproar, some of the discomforts with these major changes were masked by charges that the seminaries were becoming either too Greek or too Russian. The Latinos continued to feel like the whole thing was silly and they were being ignored, as usual.
              After the initial merger work, the seminary presidents of each seminary stepped down and a board made up of members of both seminaries was created. They looked for a president who was not beholden to either seminary and was neither Russian nor Greek. They also looked for someone who spoke Spanish and had some understanding of Latino culture. They find Dave.

              Dave only puts things on his resume that happened after receiving his M. Div. Does he do this as to not reveal his time as executive director of White Shields for Choice, or because that’s just what he does? Perhaps he doesn’t know his own motivations for making this choice.
              Eventually he comes clean and tells the Chair of the Board, Phil, who is the Orthodox Church representative on the board of National Right to Life, about his time at White Shields for Choice. He calls a few Evangelical friends and a member of National Right to Life and asks about White Shields for Choice. They don't really seem to know anything about the organization. Phil shrugs it off.
              Later two random Evangelicals show up on both campuses and asks a few faculty members “Why do you have a pro-abortion nut job as president?” They go to the board about this. Phil shrugs it off. Dave says he’ll tell everyone when he’s damn well ready to tell them.
              The Latino students and faculty in New Orleans feel listened to for the first time in a long time.

              Eventually a student googles President Dave and notices that near the end of the first page of Google there is a pro-choice page. The news about the President’s past involvement with White Shields for Choice breaks, the students feel betrayed, the faculty feels betrayed.
              Soon enough other conservative seminaries start to send letters saying they don’t feel comfortable sending their Orthodox students to a seminary where the President hides his pro-choice leanings. The faculty, still bruised from all the horror of the merger, takes a vote of no confidence.
              The Latino students point out that when Trump was building a border wall and deporting their families the faculty and students stayed silent or even silenced them… but now that it is an issue of abortion everyone has went nuts. They are largely ignored.
              There are protests, donations plummet. Dave calls a meeting where he discloses his past and the board describes who knew what when.
              Things get stirred up on social media, anti-abortion activist alumni put out petitions that many people sign. Dave responds with a set of steps for going forward that seem to include punishment of students and faculty who use social media.
              The next day the board fires Dave and removes a majority of its members. Phil is removed as Orthodox representative to National Right to Life.
              Dave responds by trashing the Seminary in the media.
              Bad press all around. Christian community hurting and bruised and in need of words of hope. The Orthodox church as a whole is wounded! My God!

              Then along comes Marilynne Robinson, on her book tour about her new book “What are We Doing Here?”. She pens an essay that does not describe the situation at the seminary in the best possible light, but instead insists that the whole episode proves that Americans don’t properly understand the Puritans. Liberals, both Christian and Secular, hold this essay up to complain about how Evangelicals, and Conservative Christians in general, are uniquely responsible for Donald Trump’s election and that these events expose the hypocrisy of the Right writ large. Ex-members of the Orthodox church see this as one more example of why they no longer are members of such a backwards faith. Other, more malicious folk, claim this article prove that Christianity is illegitimate.

Chris: Quite a story, you missed some point and embellished others and maybe even got a few facts wrong… but a good story. Do you think there is any change Rod Dreher will repent for his article?
‘Gus: Well, he is a Christian, isn’t he?

Friday, December 29, 2017

What's "Old 'Gus: On the Kingdom of Heaven" been up to this year?

This blog has been around for nearly a year now… and it seems like time to reflect on it a little bit. 
In 11 posts Old ‘Gus and I: 
-looked at the Parables of Matthew’s Gospel
-the implications of Donald Trump from ‘Gus’ longer view lens
-considered the future of the Church and my own vision of where we ought to be going, 
-speculated about societal differences between moderns and ancients.

I think these subjects are still worthy of reflection in the new year—so expect “On the Kingdom of Heaven” to continue in 2018.

Thank you all for reading and I hope you will continue to do so!

Friday, August 11, 2017

Trump Vs. the 3 D’s

‘Gus: Have you ever thought that your analysis of where America is going could be wrong?
Chris: Of course, but what’s wrong with it in particular?
‘Gus: Well, not wrong, but that it is not inevitable.
Chris: Honestly, I guess I assumed if the 3D’s, Disestablishment, Decentralization, and Demographics are major factors shaping my country and my church, then they are inevitable.
‘Gus: You might be wrong, at least about inevitability… In point of fact, I think this Trump guy everyone is so obsessed with might be trying to curb the inevitability of the 3D’s, or maybe, in point of fact, is doing the same thing you are thinking of doing—figuring out the best way to ride them to a particular end.
Chris: I’m not like Trump!!!
‘Gus: Hold up… your end goal is to create people who fear, love, and trust God, using the historical practices of the faith, in a world shaped by the 3D’s.
Trump’s end goal is making America Great Again, he will do this by using the 3D’s, in a world where people are worried about American Strength, Safety, and Pride.
Chris: How is he using the three D’s… oh, my!
‘Gus: Exactly.
Chris: He’s telling everyone he’ll make people say, “Merry Christmas” again—it is a grievance against the Disestablishment of Christianity in America.
He’s used Twitter, a traditionally decentralized thing, to create a centralized narrative—everyone is talking about what he says, he’s shaping the discourse!
And his rattling the cages of anti-immigrant nationalists and stoking the hurt of white middle class people who see their economic demographics shift—it’s all there.
‘Gus: I wouldn’t put it all together like that, but essentially, yes.
Chris: So… he sees the same zeitgeist as I do…
‘Gus: Without saying things like “Zeitgeist.”

Chris: Right…