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Revelation 12 : Liturgy as Formation – What Are We Creating?

May 13, 2013

Shed
Image from hellojenuine.

“But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” (Revelation 12:11)

The work of the People

One of the signs of a true artist is a willingness to work patiently and lovingly with even the most inferior materials. -David James Duncan

David James Duncan’s novel “The Brother’s K,” is about a family that lives in Camas. Papa is a paper mill worker who has gone semi-professional in Baseball and does fairly well until he has his thumb crushed in an accident at the mill. Consequently he falls into depression and begins to abuse substances. So in an attempt to regain ground and find life his healing he build a shed. Continue Reading…

In Sermons
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My Year in Photos (2012)

January 7, 2013

Instead of writing up a lengthy overview of my last year, I decided to work through my flickr account – something I update regularly – and pull out photos that remind me of last year. Here are some of my favorite memories and photos from the last 12 months. (Maybe next time I’ll make a limit for the amount of photos I can post, but not only was it hard to decide, I literally just had so much fun going through them all that it was hard to stop!)

The Daniels Family 5

Continue Reading…

In Blog Entries
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Hello/Goodbye: On Coming, Going and Our Testimonies

June 19, 2012

This is the message I brought to worship on May 13, 2012.

If we take human testimony at face value, how much more should we be reassured when God gives testimony as he does here, testifying concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God inwardly confirms God’s testimony. Whoever refuses to believe in effect calls God a liar, refusing to believe God’s own testimony regarding his Son. This is the testimony in essence: God gave us eternal life; the life is in his Son. So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects the Son, rejects life. (1 John 5:9–13 MSG)

This week not only have I been thinking about the passage of Scripture we all have been reflecting on, but I’ve been thinking, very deeply — as only one could do — about this Beatles song — Hello/Goodbye.

Continue Reading…

In Uncategorized
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Amazon Takes on Quakerism?

May 14, 2012

Some of the Basics*

Amazon is one of those companies that’s kind of off-limits for the typical American consumer. I mean, who owns a computer and hasn’t purchased at least one thing from Amazon? I know I have. And who can argue with such a “successful” business model? After-all, shouldn’t we capitalists encourage this kind of economic triumphalism? Amazon proves that capitalism still “works,” at least for some. And who doesn’t want to save money on a book, you’d could buy down the street at the local bookshop for $10 more? A number of years ago, when I was still using the “service” I used to make decent money selling my used books and getting ad-revenue from their site. So I get it, I understand why people are drawn to it.

Continue Reading…

In Featured
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Small Group Discussion Guide for "The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction"

October 15, 2010

Over the course of the summer a small group at Camas Friends Church worked through Ben Pink Dandelion’s “The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction.” The book is honestly a little deceiving. It is short, but the font is also small and it is packed full with tons of information. So while it is short, it is by no means simple. Our that started out as 20 folks ended as 6 and I think some of that has to do with the segregation between interest and real-life obligations, and part of it has to do with the sunshine. Something we celebrate whenever its rays shine down.

We did the small group over the course of six meetings. We met every other week, everyone came having read, and I lead the discussion based on a variety of questions I wrote up based on the chapters (below). We also had people break into smalls groups and share and then at the end I would take questions. Continue Reading…

In Blog Entries, Quaker, Reviews
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Celebration of Quakerism and Ben Pink Dandelion

September 11, 2009

I’m not going to make a habit out of announcing events that Pendle Hill or other organizations do, but I will tell you about the ones I think you should know about, or the ones I would attend if I could. This is no exception. Ben Pink Dandelion is going to be spending sometime at Pendle Hill and there is no reason why, if you live close, you shouldn’t try to make one of these events. Plus, since Ben doesn’t have a blog (and refuses to get one no matter how hard I try) I don’t mind helping him out some.

Ben is going to be leading a weekend retreat based on his new book “Celebrating the Quaker Way.”

There you will:

Reflect on the riches of Quaker insights and the legacy of Quaker heritage. Quakerism springs from the experience of direct connection with God, an experience of communion which leads us into the world guided by our faith. Say ‘Yes’ to our faith and all it has to offer. There will be time for discussion of themes such as witness and the use of silence, but the heart of the course will be Quaker worship, reflection, and the ministry given to us. Deborah Shaw will serve as elder for this course.

The retreat “Celebration of Quakerism” happens November 8-12. You can click here to find out more about the event.

Ben has been a big part of my own theological training and PhD process over the last 3 or so years. I have been deeply impacted by not only his scholarship and tutelage, but also his friendship. I would highly recommend taking the chance to join him in this personal spiritual journey if you are able.

BenPinkDandelion

Ben Pink Dandelion is professor of Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, a tutor at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, and the author of numerous books on Quakerism, most recently, The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008) and An Introduction to Quakerism (Cambridge, 2007). He edits the journal Quaker Studies. He is passionate about trying to live faithfully and about letting Quakerism feel its own power.

In Blog Entries, Quaker
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Barclay Press Post: Repetition and A Non-Liturgical Liturgy

March 16, 2009

Here’s my latest installment at Barclay Press. As you’ll notice I worked at weaving a number of ideas I’ve had together and tried to initiate a forward step in a Quaker understanding of “liturgy.” More on this to come.

What Quakers were against wasn’t forms but rather things that became objects and ultimately obstacles for our belief. Anything that takes the place of or “prevents us from experiencing the true reality” of our social situation or the reality of the kingdom of God was to be questioned by the church. Two assumptions play into this reading, first in every generation we have to ask this question again, “what is preventing us from experiencing the reality of our social situation, from the reality of the kingdom of God?” It’s not enough to simply duplicate a black and white copy of everything the first generation of Friends did – that requires no faith and betrays yet again a faith fixated on something else. But neither can we simply dismiss their keen insights either. As Pink Dandelion has argued silence itself has become a form, a fixation, that can lead to disbelief but neither can we get rid of this because we know that rituals, pastors, etc. can also become obstacles to faith.

(From Repetition and A Non-Liturgical Liturgy)

In Blog Entries, Quaker, The Theological
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Everett Cattell's Principle of Authority (pt. 3)

August 21, 2008

Series contents | Intro | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Mustard Seeds and the Kingdom

Cattell’s understanding of authority is derived from Christ, who is the head of the church. He argues that there is a tendency in the church to choose some one authority over another. Christ as head relativizes arguments over authority of Scripture, tradition, Spirit, etc. Rather we “must see the organic whole and each part functioning within the total organism, and each organ receiving its relative authority from that which is Christ” (Cattell, 8). This statement sounds close to post-foundationalism (a philosophical-theological movement newly espoused the later half of the twentieth-century). Continue Reading…

In Blog Entries, Church in Mission, Featured, Quaker, The Theological , , ,
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Douglas Gwyn and the Convergent-Covenant

June 12, 2008

Just came across these two quotes from Quaker historical-theologian Douglas Gwyn’s book “The Covenant Crucified,” and it got me thinking about some of the work I did in a previous project I’d never written about:

Given its biblical frame of reference, the religious Right retains a more explicit covenantal self-awareness.  But because the biblical code is metaphorical, not analytical, the religious Right (indeed, all biblically based groups) often struggles over how to live a biblically faithful life in our present social grid, how to address a modern, scientific, and technological society using this code.  Under these conditions, fundamentalist groups shift decisively toward the purity/pollution code of covenant consciousness.  Here, questions of private morality, sexuality, family relations, and devotion to church life are foreground, and wider, structural dimensions of covenant faith – a just and peaceful society (the gift/debt code) – recede into the background.

Douglas Gwyn, Covenant Crucified, 366

For Gwyn, the “Religious Right is puritanical??? because moral standards “become fetishes, detached from evolving patterns of life,” and operates out of a desire to reinstate Christendom, often at whatever cost. While the left holds onto contraction philosophy, over against the early Quaker and biblical notion of covenant, which ultimately, “reduces covenant faith to constitutional rights” (367). Continue Reading…

In Convergent Friends, Featured, Quaker, The Theological ,
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Who's Your Patron Quaker (non)Saint?

May 29, 2008

While I was at QUIP a few weeks back a woman asked the youth editorial board if we had Quaker patron saints. I’m not sure if that’s the actual phrase she put it in, but it works. I’ve added the non- just so we all know that, of course, there are no Quaker saints! But still, who is, or are, your patron Quaker saints?

By this I mean at least one of two things (but you can add more):

  1. A Quaker you find to be important in your spiritual development and Christian formation.
  2. A Quaker who is theologically profound for your thinking

Continue Reading…

In Blog Entries
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