gathering in light

Last week I did a lecture in class on John Caputo’s most recent book,What Would Jesus Deconstruct? I have mixed feelings about the book (more on this later) but I think in either case he makes some very helpful comments. The class I am currently a TA for is Mission in Contemporary Culture. In it we basically look at the world of cultural studies and how it (or if) it can be used in the church and in theology. Caputo’s book is a great example of deconstruction (I’ll hesitantly call a method used in culture studies) meeting the church.

Caputo takes as his starting point Charles Sheldon’s classic late nineteenth century text In His Steps (where we get the famed question WWJD?) and looks at the interruption of the homeless man entering the worship service and breaking down as an example of deconstruction. That is, during a worship service, is the is the unexpected and uninvited that transforms, the exact opposite of what was ‘programmed’ or planned for worship.

The man says,

I’m not an ordinary tramp, though I don’t know of any teaching of Jesus that makes one kind of a tramp less worth saving than another. Do you?…It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do?

Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, 20-21

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I had the chance to have a little road trip and drive down on Friday to San Diego and go to AAR (American Academy of Religion). I went down because of the Quaker theological discussion group that met from 4-10pm. I had a really great time meeting tons of new faces and Quaker scholars I’ve heard about (and often read) but haven’t met. I was really pleased to meet Paul Anderson, Corey Beals, Carole Spencer and Robert Gonzalez, among others. Oh, and it was really fun seeing Margery Post Abbott again as well. There were two sessions for the night. The first was called “A Quaker Sacramentology,” and while all the papers that were read we really interesting and put together well, they seemed to mainly present classic Quaker arguments for why historically we have the particular perspectives on the Sacraments we hold. But, to be honest, I found the criticisms more interesting and exciting then the papers themselves and would really like to see some of these criticisms fleshed out better (something I’ve attempted to begin in my Quaker Life article, “Sacramental Living, Redemptive Practices and Convergent Friends,” March/April 2007.)

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Kevin Roberts, creator and editor of Conservativefriend.org, has posted an article I wrote for the site titled “Convergent Friendship and Playing With the ‘Other’ Kids” it reflects upon my experience in Ohio as well as some thoughts on Quakers and ecumenicism. If you get a chance jump over and have a look.

I’ve been reading and writing a ton while here at woodbrooke, which I suppose is good since that’s why I came here!? I just finished a fourth section to my final paper, it was on Martin Davie’s analysis of why and how Liberal Quakerism became the predominate form of belief in Britain. It took me a couple days to hammer it out, and it will take me as least as long to edit it, because it’s pretty long. I just quickly added up the word count on my various sections and I’ve got over 15,000 words so far, which isn’t too shabby. Actually, I think that’s as many words as I am required to have for my final paper for this tutorial, but I haven’t even written my conclusion yet, or added any of that fun juicy stuff where you get to argue your main points, etc.

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About a week ago I had an article come out in Young Quaker, the publication run by Young Friends General Meeting in Britain (See volue 53,number 6). This edition was the last one for Jez Smith, a friend of mine who currently lives in London, and who I worked with on the Britain Yearly Meeting Blog a Month ago. Anyways, it was a pleasure to write an article both for a different audience than what I would normally have and as a send-off to Jez who has taken a job at “The Friend” the only weekly Quaker publication in the world. Since many of you won’t have access to the article I thought I would summarize what I wrote there and open it up for discussion.

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Tony Jones, recently discussed a paper he read at Wheaton. In the paper he talks about the prospect of being an “anti-theologian,” (a designation I too find attractive) and orthodoxy as something that exists within particular events but not as an objective reality out there somewhere. I found some troubling questions for Friends given the reality of Jones’ arguement. About his paper he says, [Read more]

Today the Urban Connection of the Mennonite Mission Network has published an article on web communities. I am really excited about the article, Online Finds: Web Leads to Real Communiy by Ryan Miller, for a couple reasons. First it shows that the Anabaptists are also asking questions about the global information culture and implications for the church. And second, Ryan interviewed me and used some of our conversation in the article! [Read more]

Just today I got an email from Jarrod McKenna, a Christian activist who lives Down Under.

He says of himself, “I’m a lapsed vegetarian who’ll now eat happily my daily bread from dumpsters (but secretly longs for the flesh pots of evil big corporation burgers.) I spend my time as a nonviolence trainer for activists, students and whoever else will listen and sharing the gospel of a nonviolent messiah, (hopefully in more than just words!).”

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