the story we find ourselves in
Dec 21, 2014
the story we findourselves in
The Christian Church is a
premodern movement
that became a
modern institution
and now must adapt to a
Postmodern context
Post-colonialist
Post-secularist
Post-rationalist
Post-communist
Post-capitalist
Post-nationalist
Post-institutionalist
Post-patriarchal
Post-Christendom
solidarityhumility
methodologyliturgy
mission networks
story
Postmodern shifts
beau
ty
Question 1:What is the shape of the biblical narrative?
(A pre-critical question)
Hell
Salvation
Fallen History/
Fallen world
Fall
HeavenEden
Hades
Atonement, purification
Aristotelian
Real
Fall
Into Aristotelian
Real
Platonic IdealPlatonic Ideal
Destruction, defeat
Civilization, development,
colonialism
assimilationBarbarian/ pagan world
Rebellion
into barbarism
Pax RomanaPax Romana
Is there an alternative understanding?
sdrawkcab gnidaerRick Warren, Billy Graham, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Paul, Jesus
reading forwardsAdam, Eve, Sarah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
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n
e
s
i
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Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
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Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
HUMAN DESTRUCTION
HUMAN VIOLENCE
HUMAN EXPLOITATION
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
HUMAN DESTRUCTION
HUMAN VIOLENCE
HUMAN EXPLOITATION
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
kingd
om
of G
od
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy
kingd
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of G
od
Creation
CreationIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters.. (Genesis 1:1)
Real or simulation?
Finished, or ongoing?
Your role?
Crisis
Creation
Crisis
Garden - hunter/gatherers
Field - herders & crop farmers
River valley - towns & cities
Tower - walled cities/ civilizations
Calling
Creation, Crisis
CallingThe LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."I will make you into a great nation/ and I will bless you;I will make your name great,/ and you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."So Abram left, as the LORD had told him…
(Genesis 12:1-6)
Creation
Crisis
Calling
Blessed to be a blessing
Rejoining God’s story of creation, being saved from the
crisis.
Captivity
Revolutionary insight:
God is on the side of the slaves.
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CaptivityEx. 3:7 Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’
Captivity
Getting slaves out of Egypt: 10 plagues
Getting Egypt out of freed slaves: 10 commandments
Conquest
Conquest
The Bible, God, and violence:
An evolving understanding ...Pointing forward.
Conversation
Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest
Conversation
Priests, prophets, poets, sages, storytellersthrough calling, journey, slavery, exodus,
conquest, judges, kings, civil war, exile, return, continuing domination
Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation ...
Christ
Christ
Domination - Romans, Herodians, Sadducees
Revolution - Zealots
Purification - Pharisees
Accumulation - Wealthy Judeans
Victimization - Galileans, Samaritans, poor
Isolation - Essenes
Jesus - Another story …
Christ
Kingdom of God …
Calling everyone into reconciliation with God, one another, and
creation
Christ
Cross …
God forgiving, not seeking revenge
God revealed in an vulnerable victim
Exposing myth of redemptive violence
Christ
Resurrection ...
Vindication
Ascension - enthronement
Bestowal of Spirit on “all flesh”
New Embodiment of Christ
Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest,
Conversation, Christ ... Community
Community
empowered and united by the Holy Spirit
for mission
for the good of the world.
Consummation/Celebration
Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation, Christ, Community
Consummation/Celebration
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(I Corinthians 15:58)
ConsummationPossibilities (creativity) versus plans (control)
Promise as personal, not mechanistic
Participatory eschatology
Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation, Christ,
Community, Celebration
the story we findourselves in
Fr. Vincent Donovan:
Religion is our own creation. Its horizons are necessarily limited to our horizons. Since it is our creation it will serve us. In a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, we look to it as that one, solid, taken-for-granted basis to our lives. It leads us to cling to the forms and structures with which we are familiar and which we have found comforting. At the dying of an age and the birth of a new one, religion will be in the forefront of those institutions clinging desperately to that immovable rock of unanalyzed assumptions.
But revelation shatters that rock, disturbs our horizons, presents a God who is not like us at all, a destabilizing and surprising God who cannot be used to justify all our projects; instead, One who asks us questions we do not want to hear. (The Church in the Midst of Creation, p. 118)
Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing. There is no question that should not be asked or that is outlawed. The day we are completely satisfied with what we have been doing; the day we have found the perfect, unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we will know that we are wrong, that we have made the greatest mistake of all. (Christianity Rediscovered, 146)
There are many reasons to compare our churches to an old male tortoise …
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the story we findourselves in