Podcast Episode 6: The Attonement

This last week me and the other doctoral students on the Crossed Purposes podcast discuss the Atonement, Narnia, the Space Trilogy, the Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and Les Miserables There’s a general consensus that theories of the Atonement are like dates to the Prom, the more you have, the better.



Download it here

Podcast Episode 5: Hell

This last week me and the other doctoral students on the Crossed Purposes podcast discuss Hell. Is it real? Why would it exist? Is Hell forever? We also examine it though the eyes of movies, art, authors and the church fathers. Tell me if you think I know what the Hell I'm talking about in the comments!






Download it here

QDTS Episode 2 - Divinity

Podcast Episode 4 – It’s a Sin

This last week me and the other doctoral students on the Crossed Purposes podcast discuss sin in popular culture, bringing in Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek and the Wheel of Time. A fistfight almost breaks out between proponents of East and West, and Martin Luther comes up a lot.
 I would love to hear your thoughts and other questions in the comments section below.

Download it here

QDTS Episode 1: The Trinity

There are few concepts in Christianity as mind-bendingly-difficult to understand as the Trinity. It's widely considered to be one of the foundational beliefs of the Christian religion but the word "trinity" is never mentioned even once in the Bible. SO WHAT'S THE DEAL?

What is it?

The Trinity is the doctrine that God in God's nature is made up of three hypostosis (which is a fancy Greek word which means that what is referred to is a not an attribute, like goodness or purpleness but is the thing itself.) Christians believe that the three hypostosis are revealed to humans as the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit.

Where does it come from?

The origins of the Trinity, as a theological term, are rooted in the Church's struggle to understand Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus is God's greatest revelation of God's own self. Jesus, more then the Bible and more then any prophets who had come before, was believed to have revealed God in himself. Jesus was God written in human flesh (the universal language of all people). BUT how could God be both GOD and MAN. A robust theology of the divine was required. Jesus was God, but he also seemed to be in relationship to God as well. How could someone be Both Gad and in relationship with God?
The answer is: THE TRINITY!

How can you understand it?

The honest truth is you're not supposed to. One of the hallmarks of good Christian theology surrounding God is that it is somewhat unresolved. God is kind of like poetry or music. The beauty come out in the tension between notes and words rather then in the words or notes by themselves. God is the same way. Ideas about God held in tension can often give expression to who God is more then the word by themselves ever could.

Ok, but what are some ways that I can start to talk about it?

There have been two basic ways people have tried to approach the trinity. The first way focuses on how the threeness can be oneness and the other way focuses on how the oneness can be threeness.

1 to 3

If you're going to try to focus on how the oneness can be threeness one of the best ways to look at it is through an individual. There are parts of a person that seem distinct from other parts. For example my mind seems to be in someways distinct from my body, which is in turn somewhat distinct from my spirit. Mind, body and spirit are all distinct ways of approaching a single human being. Three in one!

Another way you could look at the ways that we all embody different roles, often simultaneously. I remember when my son was born I would often find myself cooking dinner while simultaneously watching my son as he was napping in a chair by my side, while I was doing both of these things I was also listening to a book on tape. In this moment I was a chef, a father, and a student. Three roles in one human being!

3 to 1

On the other hand, if you want to focus on the oneness through the threeness there one of the best ways to look at the trinity is through the lens of a community, family, or household. My family is made up of myself, my wife and my son. There are three of us, but we are all one family. This perspective helps underscore an important aspect of Christian theology.

Christians believe that God  is love, and not just any love, the kind of love that gives to others and puts others before ones own self. For God to be described as an eternal being of love it hard to understand how that kind of Love could exist without relationship. The Trinity shows us God as a community of love. The eternal love of God is not an inward pointing love of narcissism but rather out outpouring love of a perfect community. I find this image very helpful.

A couple other images

The trinity has been described in many ways, but 2 images resonate powerfully to me. One is of a father reaching out to pick up a child. In many ways the Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the two arms with which God reaches out and grabs us.

Another image I really like is the image of a heart. A heart pumps out blood into the body, but as it pumps it also receives blood back.This describes the love of God pretty well. Always being sent out and always returning.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first encountered John Green almost a year ago ago. I had subscribed to his “Crash Courses in World History” series which I had stumbled upon and become very impressed. I really loved the way that he taught history in a way that was fun for all ages and interesting (even for a history nut like myself). John was the kind of guy I wish I could go out for a beer with.

Then I began CPE hospital chaplaincy work and learned that our whole group was reading a book by John Green called “The Fault in Our Stars”. I was eager to read “The Fault in Our Stars.” It tells the story of two teenagers who are dying. One of them has lost the normal function of her lungs. One of the has lost the normal function of his leg. They meet in a cancer support group through a mutual friend who has lost the normal function of his eyes. They come together in “the literal heart of Jesus” which is the cross-section of a Church basement shaped like a cross.

The teens struggle through listening to every empty platitude about life and struggle and finding meaning in the midst of the meaninglessness of their suffering. Each teen struggles to come to terms with what their sickness means to them in their own own unique way. Gus seeks to do something heroic with his life, he wants to be remembered by doing something great. Hazel seeks to find meaning by trying to resolve an unresolved book by a reclusive author. Their friend Isaac tries to find meaning in a teenage love affair that he hopes will give him eternal love, but it doesn't even last through his surgery. The book points to an existential frustration that we all must endure at some level. We wish that we were placed on this earth for some special purpose. Life seems too precious to simply end without a crescendo. I know that I can relate to this. I hope that my life is significant. I want to write things that matter, do things that matter, and make a difference to the world. In short, I want to do great things. However I am reminded of what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said, “there are NO great things, only little things with great love.”

The title of the book comes from a line in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” This is a truly beautiful line. Throughout much of human history people have looked away from themselves for meaning. They have looked for a calling from God, or to astrology, or to platonic forms, or to money, or power, or respect. The beauty of this book is that it helps the characters find out that they are loved for who they are even as people who are not whole. The world is not changed by great endeavors but as people love one another in little ways. Gus’s love for Hazel helps Peter Van Houten come to terms with his own loss of his child. Mrs. Lancaster finds her new vocation as a social worker through the love she has in her vocation as a mother.

I love this theme because it resonates so dearly with my own fascination with Jesus. The thing that is so amazing about what Jesus shows is that God isn't interested in saving the world in a way that is beyond us. God wants to heal people through people. God wants to demonstrate his love in a way that is tangible and contagious. God chose a grace so real that you could touch it, smell it, taste it, and even kill it. God shows us love in Jesus. A love as fragile as life itself, but never broken. A love in the language of skin and bones, that is spoken by every culture.

I suppose what I’m trying to say in all of this is that John Green helped me. He helped me live inside a character who is dying. As I have spent time working as a hospital chaplain I have encountered a great deal of sorrow and pain as people are dying and suffering around me. It’s easy for me to want to jump to empty platitudes about clouds and silver linings and other such nonsense. This can sometimes be nice for people, but in the face of the immensity of our own mortality it falls far short of a lasting hope. By allowing me to live a bit inside a dying teenager, I was able to open my heart a little more. I was able to love a little better, and I hope that through reading this book I might be able to do more small things with a greater love.





View all my reviews

Ronald Grimes - A path to evaluating ritual and the litugy

Ronald Grimes, noted ritual theorist, has been one of the more formative voices in my own process of understanding ritual and how it relates to worshiping communities in their liturgy. Grimes has helped both widen the field of ritual, and has also contributed a very valuable set of parameters in which the rituals intricately woven into Liturgy can be consistently and comprehensively evaluated. Through his unique methodology he has been able to speak with depth and precision about ritual without falling into limiting it with rigid categories. I understand Grime’s methodology as a three-fold process of first recognizing ritual, then mapping the ritual field, finally Grimes proposes what I see as a third stage where one recognizes that often people fashion new rites that can respond to new situations in a given context through a process that he calls ritualizing.

1. The first stage in studying liturgy as a ritual action is to look for which rituals are actually being done. One of the powerful things about Grimes is that he does not form a hard definition of “ritual” into which all things must find their place. On the contrary he compiles common traits of ritual that can help center a person around what a ritual is without limiting what can and can’t be included. For example many rituals are traditional. Grimes recognizes that encountering something that is traditional might be a good indicator that a ritual is going on, but it is possible for something to be personally invented (and therefore not traditional) but at the same time be a ritual. Alternatively, time some traditional things are not rituals. When using this to look at the liturgy as a ritual action it is important to avoid using rigid definitions to identify rituals but, instead, to view ritual as a category of things with a broad and fluid dynamic field. Rituals are often collective, meaningful, participatory, sacred, functions that negotiate a person’s humanity, but there are many examples of rituals that do not fit into one or more of these designations. No matter how one tries to define a ritual, Grimes wants to make sure that one includes room for something that doesn't fit. As one, therefore, approaches the liturgy there must be a keen awareness that there may be rituals lurking in unexpected places. Widening what qualifies as a ritual can unveil hidden fruit for study.
   
2. The second stage, of mapping the ritual field, is possibly the greatest tool Grimes has devised. He understands that in any endeavor to study ritual one brings with oneself a series of implicit questions that will be asked in the process. Grimes purposes that these implicit questions be made explicit in the process. In his own formulation of this he sets out six categories of questions that should be asked by people engaging in observing the rituals discoveries in stage one.
1. The first category asks questions about ritual space. Questions in this category would include things like: Where is the setting? How clear are the boundaries? Is the space static? Who can get into the space? How big is the space? How is the space formed? What’s the background of the space?
2. The second category deals with the objects of the ritual. It might ask questions like: What is being used and how many are there? Who owns the objects, and what’s their status? How is power at work in the objects?
3. The third category asks questions about time. It is concerned with questions like: What time of day is it when the ritual happens? What time of year? What calendar is being used? How does the ritual relate to social time? How long does the ritual take?
4. The fourth category asks questions about what is heard. This includes language and other sounds. It asks questions like: Does this ritual assume the people have a literacy? What kind of language is being used? What non-linguistic sounds are heard? What meaning do the sounds carry for people?
5. The fifth category of questions that help the observer understand how the ritual helps define and transform identity. It asks questions like: What significance to the roles have? Are there persistent effects and feelings on individuals have outside of the ritual? Who is recognized in the ritual? Who is excluded? What aspects of an individual are emphasised or condemned?
6. The final category asks questions about the actions that are done. It asks questions like: - Kinds of actions performed? Parts of body emphasized? Senses used most often? Activity or passivity most pronounced? Actions inner or outer directed?
3. The third stage, ritualizing, is often not immediately evident. It often occurs in the margins. When the rituals identified and observed in the first two stages leave places in the margins and gaps of a culture or context there often can develop a need for individuals and groups to consciously cultivate rites to address. This process is often nascent, and outside of the boundaries of the ritual norms. When examining the Liturgy as a ritual action it is important to understand that this natural process of ritualizing is possibly occurring in response to and in conversation with the mainstream liturgical action. Reflection on this kind of development can yield a deeper understanding of the rituals practices and the context in which they are practiced.

By observing these three stages in analyzing the liturgy there is unquestionable benefit. Grimes opens up new questions and places to explore. He offers a toolbox to map the action. Finally Gimes helps identify tendencies for ritual to develop along the growing edges of a context. With these tools in hand, the monumental task of studying the liturgy is significantly less daunting, and considerably more productive.

Podcast Episode 3 – Prometheus and Space Jesus

This last week me and the other doctoral students on the Crossed Purposes podcast talked about the Alien prequel Prometheus and its theological overtones, and bring up Space Jesus, Star Trek, and The Seventh Sign. We discuss if it would matter to our faith if humans were the creations of another alien race.

 I would love to hear your thoughts and other questions in the comments section below.

Download it here

My New Book: How The First Christians Changed Dying

Today I am very excited to make an announcement! Earlier this year I finished writing a book. I thought about a lot of options for publication of it and decided that I was going to release it first for the Kindle. If interest is strong enough in the book I may look into getting it published through a more traditional publishing house. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Find it here: How the First Christians Changed Dying

Please consider supporting my writing and my education by buying the book.

What's it about?
The book takes a look at how early Christians struggled with issues surrounding death by looking at how they viewed the Cross, the Martyrs, and their own worship in contrast to the many other world views.

What kind of writing is it?
In this book I have tried to balance the content of serious scholarship with a fun and accessible style so that anyone can pick up the book and follow along.

Who is the book geared toward?
You! In my mind as I was writing I continually thought of how this would sound to my readers. In many ways you are the inspiration and the reason that I wrote this book. I wanted to offer something substantial to the conversation that we've been having here for the bast five years.

How much does it cost?
If you're an Amazon Prime member it's available through the lending library for free, otherwise it's launching at $9.99.

Why publish for Kindle first?
Amazon helps writers get a better chunk of the proceeds. By publishing on Amazon I hope to be able to recover some of the cost that it took to write this book, which would be difficult if I went with a more traditional publishing house. If you want to get a hard copy I would encourage you to post a link to it on Facebook or Twitter and tell your friends about it. The more interest there is in the book the more likely it will be that I will explore publishing it more traditionally.

Remembering the Radical Missiology of The Second Vatican Council, 50 Years Later

At it’s core, the Church is a living thing, “vivified” by Christ (Lumen Gentium, 8). It is like a tree planted deep in the earth that sprouts up in every place, and brings forth life giving fruit to every culture, and like any living thing, it continues to grow and develop as new environments create new challenges and new climates to adapt to. The developments of human history are not intrinsically contrary to the life of the church, but can become new sources of life and prosperity. The Second Vatican council affirms this stating, “[the Church] ought to be enriched by the development of human social life”(Gaudium et Spes, 44). As the Church spouts up in new cultures, it is faced with both the challenges of a new climate and the richness of a new soil, with new nutrients, to draw life from. This central understanding of church, as a living and adapting community, is at the very heart of the Second Vatican Council.

Vatican II was in many ways a return to the task of cultivating a healthy living church. The Members of the council recognized that in the development of Christianity in the western world, certain expressions of the life of church had been elevated so highly that those expressions of the faith had become viewed by some as the only way that one could express the life the faith. In fact certain elements of the western tradition, like the use of Latin, could at times constitute “grave obstacles” to participation in the prayer of the church for some (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 101). The Church had become unable to express itself culturally, and liturgically in organic ways in many places of the world. The council rightly recognized that the life of the church had to conform to the ideal growing conditions of a particular time and a particular space. The vine’s of the kingdom of God were in need of a masterful gardener and the council attempted to partner with the Holy Spirit to find places to cut and other places to fertilize.

One of the key things that the council was able to recognize was that many cultures contain genius and talents that should be preserved rather than purged. This dynamic relationship is highlighted by the council when it states the Church should, “respect and foster the genius and talents of the various races and peoples” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 37). These manifestations of genius and talent may have a rich heritage of christian use already, and should be honored and respected within the life of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. These bodies are in face “sister churches” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 14). However, many cultures do not have formal rites and churches that have developed naturally in their culture. In these cases, if the particular church sees fit, and if done in accordance with the provisions of the council. The Second Vatican Council instructs the leaders of those churches to incorporate the goods things found in their culture that can be brought into the worshiping life of the Church in it’s music (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 119), religious life (Perfectae Caritatis, 19) and even in the formation of it’s liturgy. This is what genuine inculturation looks like. It finds the places of life in the culture and invites them to enrich the mystical body of Christ (which is the church) in that place. As the council states, “[the Church] ought to be enriched by the development of human social life” (Gaudium et Spes, 44).

Another powerful affirmation of the council was that all people are called to belong to the new people of God. The mission of the Church is then to bring all humanity and all its possessions back to its source in Christ. As the council states, “ In the beginning God made human nature one and decreed that all His children, scattered as they were, would finally be gathered together as one” (Lumen Gentium, 13). This ecclesiological vision of the family of God is affirmed in the council as the operative lens through which all people and cultures must be seen. It is because of this understanding that the the council states that “the pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature” (Ad Gentes, 2). The movement of the Church into other cultures is not something that it does, it is essential to what the Church is. All people find their source and their end in the life of God, and God’s life can be found at work in all peoples. The council, rightly, recognizes this reality and exhorts it’s leaders to “ lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden among their fellows” (Ad Gentes, 11). This understanding highlights that there are no people who cannot offer God’s word to the Church, and there is no culture in which God has not extended the invitation to the life of the Kingdom of Heaven.

As the Church reflects of living out it’s missionary vocation 50 years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, it is good to remember the call of the council to tend the gardens of the Church in each culture and setting that it blossoms in. The council reminds the mystical Body of Christ that it is the task and duty of the worshiping community to “open wider the doors of the Church by which the message of peace may enter the world” (Lumen Gentium, 36). This process is a difficult dance balancing the heritage of the Liturgy with the genius and talents of new contexts. It is a dance that requires liturgical nuance and ecclesial agility, but as the council reminds us if we keep our eyes on Jesus, there we will find “ the source of unity and peace” (Lumen Gentium, 9)