Apr 23, 2008
Tom Sine’s recent book, The New Conspirator’s, has been gaining a lot of attention since it was released last month. This week he’s staying with my friend and emerging peace church activist Jarrod McKenna. Tom and his wife are staying in Australia with McKenna at the Peace Tree community, and traveling around Perth doing some speaking engagements. Today, both Jarrod and Tom were interviewed on a local Perth radio station about the book, and some of the connections between Tom’s book and what Jarrod and the Peace Tree community aredoing. You can check out the radio interview over at Rodney Olson’s website.
I’m pretty excited about what the Peace Tree is doing, and what Tom is trying to encourage through his four streams of church renewal. The four streams are missional, mosaic, emergent and new monastic. As you all know these have been around for awhile, and so it is not Tom who is guilty of my comments below, as much as all of us (I am as much an insider in this conversation as the rest of us). Yet, I have also had some cautions (or maybe criticisms) of these as categories when it comes to identifying with them as the categories that define our movements.
[Read more]
Apr 11, 2008
I decided to take part in Brent Bill’s recent contest to help get the word out about his book. I know Brent through my work with convergent Friends and have enjoyed following his blog and his interest not only in Quakerism but the emerging church. He is the author of a number of books and has a new book releasing this month called “Sacred Compass” from Paraclete Press. Here’s the basic premise of the book:
A compass makes a good metaphor for our spiritual lives and the work of discerning God’s will for them. God doesn’t speak as clearly and as obviously asMapquest or GoogleMaps or GPS. Maybe that’s because we don’t navigate the life of faith via anything remotely resembling GPS. Instead, the divine compass points us the mind and love of God. Our sacred compass operates in our souls and calls us to life with God. As we move toward Divine guidance, we joyfully behold the face of a loving God gazing back at us.
[Read more]
Apr 3, 2008
Peter Rollins new book, “The Fidelity of Betrayl: Towards a Church Beyond Belief” is soon to release (June). Today I got a chance to take a peak at the prologue and introduction to the book and I’m really excited about the book for a few reasons. First, I loved his first book and still think it’s one of the best and most engaging theology books I’ve read in the last few years. Part of the reason is he uses contemporary philosphy and cultural theory in a way that is provocative, yet useful for today’s church. Second, after reading these two sections of the book I can see that it is clearly even more influenced by some of my favorite theorists, Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou, than his previous one. The title gives this away. Third, I’m excited to see Rollins utilize some of his homespun parables (a collection of these parables is to be published under the working title dis-courses). [Read more]
Mar 25, 2008
This is an article that was published back in the fall in Fuller’s “newspaper” the SEMI (that issue of the paper can be downloaded via .pdf here). There are two reasons I am posting this now: first, I held off publishing it on gathering because I submitted it to another online zine hoping they would “print” it but alas, they apparently didn’t want it or at least that’s how I interpreted three emails to them with no response back. And second (and more importantly!), Emily just got me a copy of the film today so it is on my mind. Given that The Darjeeling Limited came out this past September you may feel that this is a bit late, but in a world of such high DVD sales and rentals there’s no better time then right now (the movie was only recently released on DVD). As you will see I found the movie to be anything but a disappointment and think Anderson’s writing is very rich and worthy to be mined. In fact, many of you may remember me posting my initial reactions to the film here, and while there are some similar themes between these two, you will find that what you see below is an attempt to theorize and engage the film at a deeper level.
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Mar 20, 2008
Ben Pink Dandelion, Quaker professor at the University of Birmingham (UK) and one of my tutors has recently (as in this week) published, The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction with Oxford University Press. It’s a perfect book for someone who knows little about Quakers and doesn’t want to work through his much larger introduction (though I must say it is really good). This shorter intro is the kind of book that will cover all the really important bases: some belief and practices, a little history, key figures and what the Quakers are up to now. If you can’t wait to get your hand then I suggest downloading Dandelion’s lectures he recently did at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center on the same subject.
To announce his new book Oxford University Press Blog did a (very short) interview with him, which can be read here. It’s a great interview, it is short but contains some worthy gems, like when he is asked whether the Iraq War has helped to increase Quaker membership: [Read more]
Mar 15, 2008
Since I recently posted on Caputo’s “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” I thought it would be helpful to point out this article a friend emailed me by one of my favorite contemporary theologians, James K. Smith.
Smith, sounding a lot like Žižek (especially in chapter 2 ofThe Puppet and the Dwarf), argues that “orthodoxy” is in fact the most radical stance of all when he says: [Read more]
Mar 11, 2008
Ok, so I’m late to the game, yes, I just watched Newsies for the first time. Emily still can’t believe I just now saw it. All I can say is that in my home growing up, with four other brothers, musicals weren’t really something we willfully chose to watch (but it was my loss!).
I’m glad I watched the movie for a number of reasons. Watching it as an adult really opened up some interesting aspects to the film. First I was surprised that Disney put out such a subversive film, I mean the whole movie is about organizing unions, child labor issues and corporate greed. It’s about a bunch of filthy-mouthed street kids who are homeless and uneducated yet organize after having the cost of their papers go up. Granted, the movie is based off a true story about a bunch of Newsies in the late 19th century who went on strike against Joe Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, and so it has roots in history, it still stands out as a rather provocative tale, especially for Disney.
[Read more]
Feb 13, 2008
My buddy Kyle has tagged me to write out a quote from page 123 of the nearest book on my shelf. Well unfortunately for all of us, my book is Slavoj Zizek’s “The Puppet and the Dwarf,” which means mostly that it’s going to be difficult to make sense of it outside it’s context. Zizek isn’t really the kind of write who you can proof-text easily but I’ve tried.
The rules of this meme are as follows:
- Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
- Find page 123
- Find the first 5 sentences
- Post the next 3 sentences
- Tag 5 people
(Of course, a question arises here: if sexuality is just a metaphor [in the Song of Songs for our relationship with God], why do we need this problematic detour in the first place? Why do we not convey the true spiritual content directly? Because, due to the limitations of our sensual finite nature, this content is not directly accessible to us?). What, however, if the Song of Songs is to be read not as an allegory but, much more literally, as the description of purely sensual erotic play? What if the “deeper” spiritual dimension is already operative in the passionate sexual interaction itself? The true task is thus not to reduce sexuality to a mere allegory [which then allows us to easily commodify it], but unearth the inherent “spiritual” dimension that forever separates human sexuality from animal coupling. Is it, however, possible to accomplish this step from allegory to full identity in Judaism? Is this not what Christianity is about, with its assertion of the direct identity of God and man?
(Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf, 123)
I’ll tag:
