Interview with Bruxy Cavey: (Re)Union

Bruxy Cavey joins me on the MennoNerds podcast to talk about his newest book, (Re)union: The Good News of Jesus for Seekers, Saints, and Sinners. 

The Crucifixion of the Warrior God

Here I am interviewing Greg Boyd on The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Enjoy! 

N.T. Wright: "Our Politics Are Too Small"

N.T. Wright in his latest book, Surprised By Scripture, is offering direct commentary on a myriad of issues. I say, 'direct' because anyone who is familiar with Wright's style will know that he has a tendency towards the grandiose epic themes of Scripture. Wright, in this latest offering, has narrowed down to a singular concentrated topic. The book is laid out not as a single exposition but as a collection of essays that are meant to stand on their own. Surprised By Scripture is largely the result of Tom being asked to lecture on specific issues and topics, thus forcing an engagement and reflection into a presentable material. The result of years of speaking engagements has produced this book. 

Surprised By Scripture is not a collection of position papers. Wright remarks in the preface that he has published these collections of essays, "not as dogmatic pronouncements but as explorations into vast and exciting topics." I think that is an important preface to our engagement with the following  chapter, "Our Politics Are Too Small".

"Our Politics Are Too Small" 

Wright opens this chapter by musing that in the 1980s he never would have suspected that he would be so interested about "the question of God in public."[1] It was the work that Tom was doing on Jesus in the historical context that forced him to mature his thoughts on politics and God. This growth and maturity eventually led to Wright voicing his objections to political policies and practices. Tom writes,

"I have been used to getting plaintive emails saying, 'We like what you write about Jesus and the resurrection; we are fascinated what you say on Paul; but why are you so critical of our President?' And my answer is, " If you actually read what I say about Jesus and the Kingdom, and you understand what Paul was really about, you'll have to take the questions of God in public seriously in a whole new way. To say that I was confusing spiritual issues with political issues is simply to restate the old Enlightenment dichotomy at a moment when it is disastrously inappropriate as well as misleading." [2]

It is at this point that I want to highlight a major point that N.T. Wright is making. We have a tendency vis-à-vis the Post-Modern//Post-Enlightenment to dichotomize spirituality and politics. We incorrectly believe that spirituality is for the afterlife, whereas politics are a separate realm for this life. This assumption, according to Wright, is inherently Epicurean. Epicureanism, which stems from the third century BC Greek philosopher Epicurus, who declared that the gods, if they existed at all, were totally removed from the world and never intervened in its affairs. This is not the vision of Scripture. God is concerned about the state of this world. God is concerned about the treatment of the widow and the orphan. "[Jesus'] agenda of dealing with sin and its effects and consequences was never about rescuing individual souls from the world but about saving humans so that they could become part of his project of saving the world."[3, emphasis original]

Wright believes we can find a way forward through a fresh reading of Scripture, namely the four Gospels. The "fresh reading" will start by taking seriously the teaching of Jesus. He comments, "I have been increasingly concerned that much of evangelical Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic has based itself on the Epistles rather than the Gospels, though often misunderstanding the Epistles themselves."[4] The Western church has not wrestled seriously enough with the radical implications of the Gospels. "The four Gospels will not be able to say what they want to say but [because of Western lens] will be patronized, muzzled, dismembered, and eventually eliminated altogether as a force to be reckoned with."[5] 

So how do we read the Gospels afresh? 

1. We need to read the Gospels as an integrated whole. 

• "Attention has been divided, focusing either on Jesus's announcement of the Kingdom and the powerful deeds- healings, feastings, and so on- through which it is insinuated or on his death and resurrection. The Gospels have thus been seen as a social project with an unfortunate, accidental, and meaningless conclusion, or as passion narratives with extended introductions." [6] 

2. The Gospels as wholes demand to be read in deep and radical integration with the Old Testament. 

• "We do the Gospels no service by screening out the fact that each in its own way (as opposed to the Gospel of Thomas and the rest) affirms the God-givenness and God-directedness of the Jewish narrative of creation, fall, Abraham, Moses, David, and so on, seen as the narrative of the creator God's rescue of creation from its otherwise inevitable fate. The Gospels claim that it was this project that was brought to successful completion in and through Jesus."[7]

3. The Gospels demonstrate close integration with the genuine early Christian hope.

• "This is precisely not the hope for heaven in the sense of a blissful disembodied life after death in which creation is abandoned to its fate, but rather the hope, expressed in Ephesians 1, Romans 8, and Revelation 21, for the renewal and final coming together of heaven and earth, the final consummation precisely of God's project to be present, as Saviour, in an ultimate public world. And the point of the Gospels is that with the public career of Jesus and his death and resurrection, this whole project was decisively inaugurated, never to be abandoned." [8]

It is with these three integrations that Wright invites us to see the political nature of the four Gospel's; albeit a political meaning that is deeply integrated with the theological. It would appear that much of Christian theology has wrongly concluded that we must derive our ethical guidance for life in the real world from other sources: common sense, calculation of what will work in a fallen world, non-Christian philosophical sources. N.T.Wright is pushing us to ask an essential question: Should we not begin with an assumption that God’s revelation in Jesus’ life and teaching might well offer clear guidance for our social ethics? Should we not consider the Gospels as the launching of a whole new world?  According to Wright, we can no longer justifiably bi-partisan our approach to politics and theology. "This means would-be theological interpretations that ignore the political dimension, as well as would-be political interpretations that ignore the theological dimension, are simply ruled out as naive and anachronistic."[9]

Wisdom for the Rulers- and the Church

Having now established a framework for thinking about theology and politics, Wright now begins to reflect on the nature of the church and secular rulers. Does the Lordship of Jesus negate our following of state rulers? Is the church meant to practice a separatist monasticism? N.T. Wright comments in this brilliant lengthy section:

"It is noteworthy that the early church, aware of the prevailing tyrannies both Jewish and Pagan, and insisting on exalting Jesus as Lord over all, did not reject the God-given rule even of pagans. This is a horrible disappointment to post-Enlightenment liberals, who would have much preferred the early Christians to have embraced a some kind of holy anarchy with no place for rulers at all. But it is part of creational view of the world that God wants the world to be ordered, not chaotic, and that human power structures are the God-given means by which that end is to be accomplished- otherwise those with muscle and money will always win, and the poor and the widows will be trampled on afresh. This is the point at which Colossians 1 makes its decisive contribution over and against dualisms which imagine that earthly rulers are a priori a bad thing (the same dualisms, as I have been suggesting, that have dominated both the method and the content of much biblical scholarship). This is the point at which the notion of the common good, advanced afresh by the Roman Catholic bishops in the 1990s and now reemphasized (though I think without full clarity) by Jim Wallis, has its contribution to make.
The New Testament does not encourage the idea of a complete disjunction between the political good to be pursued by the church and the political good to be pursued by the world outside the church, precisely for the reason that the church is to be seen as the body through which God addresses and reclaims the world. Here, I think, the essentially anabaptist vision of Wallis and others may need to be nuanced with a more firmly creational theology. (I know there are many varieties of anabaptism, and I hope it's clear that I am in considerable sympathy with many of their emphases, but there comes a point when anabaptism holds back from the dangerous task of working with the world, which I believe is just as Christian an obligation as working against the world.) "[10, Emphasis mine]

I was challenged by the above quoted section in two ways: (1)My own tendency to apathy around political involvement (2)My self identified Anabaptism. It can be very tempting as an Anabaptist (I speak personally) to lapse into an against the world mentality. I think of the history of separatism, displayed through various Anabaptist sects, as a prime example of my own tradition's inclination to be against the world. I believe N.T. Wright's challenge to the Anabaptist community is one we must examine. How are we simultaneously working against and with the world? Failure to live in the tension of this question validates Wright assertion that, "We in the contemporary Western world have all but lost the ability, conceptually as well as practically, to affirm simultaneously that rulers are corrupt and must be confronted and that they are God-given and must be obeyed." [11] 

Thankfully for my own sanity, Wright clarifies what he means by obedience to the powers. Tom draws on Colossians 1:18-20 to emphasize that Scripture teaches that the rulers will be reconciled. The rulers of the age, while ultimately failing to bring new creation, (only Christ can do that) can still be used by God to bring order to the world. This, according to Wright, is the point of Romans 13. "Not as the validation of every program that every ruler dreams up... but as the strictly limited proposal, in line wither Isaiah's recognition of Cyrus, that the creator God even uses those rulers who do not know him personally to bring fresh order and even rescue to the world."[12] 

Wright is not advocating for a blind allegiance to the rulers and governments. Tom's insistence on God's calling of rulers is yoked to a deep conviction of the prophetic role of the church. He writes, "God working through earthly rulers only makes sense if the church embraces the vocation to remind the rulers of their task, to speak truth to power, and to call authorities to account."[13] "You can have as high a theology of the God given calling of rulers as you like, as long as your theology of the church's witness and martyrdom matches it stride for stride."[14] 

Concluding Thoughts

I am deeply aware that N.T. Wright has maintained the tension in this essay. I find myself being a bit uncomfortable at the lack of an easy resolution and simple answers. That, as I mentioned in the intro to this blog, was Tom's goal in this essay, to approach the issues "as explorations into vast and exciting topics." I think he accomplished his goal. Here are some questions I am wrestling with as a result of this essay:

• How does the church collaborate with governments without the compromise of our prophetic voice?
• How can we simultaneously work against and with the rulers? 
• Is corrupt order and leadership better than chaos? 
• Might our lack of cross-bearing witnessing weaken the church's prophetic witness? Are we willing to suffer for our witness? 
• Why have we tended to ignore the political implications of the Gospels? What steps could I take towards integration?
• How can participating in the flourishing of one specific nation be representative of the transnational Kingdom of God? Should Christians not work for the good of all, regardless of nationalism?

Thanks for reading.... Some of the questions I have asked are engaged in the following chapter(s) of the book. Notably the following passage from the essay, "How to engage tomorrows world":

"Jesus's way of life is the path of self-giving love, that mission and service can never be about imposing a would-be Christian policy or ethic on an unwilling or unready public, but rather allowing Jesus's way of bringing his kingdom to work through us and in us. The Church at its best has always sought to transform society from within."[15]

 Works Cited

1. Wright, N.T., Surprised By Scripture, New York: Harper Collins,  p. 163
2. p. 166
3. p. 170
4. p. 167
5. p. 168
6. p. 169
7. p. 172
8. p. 172
9. p. 174
10. p. 175-176
11. p. 176
12. p. 177
13. p. 178
14. ibid.
15. p. 183

I'm An Anabaptist... (Okay, let me explain)

My name is Paul Walker and I am an Anabaptist. 

An Ana-what? 

Anabaptist. Okay, let me explain… 

A History Lesson

In the 16th century, the Western Church as a whole was undergoing a “Re-formation”. There was a sense of unrest and discontent around the practice of the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox and others sought to “re-form” and “re-shape” the Western church away from a dominate Catholic view. These Reformers began to spread their ideas for change through a fascinating new invention: the printing press. The printing press enabled information to be communicated rapidly and on mass. For example, Luther’s sermons were often circulated throughout Germany. The most important change in Sixteenth century that I believe partly led to Anabaptism was the mass production printing of the Bible in the common language of the people. 

The various groups of people who would become the Anabaptists,  began to read Scripture for the first time and discover the radical teachings of Jesus and his Kingdom. The Anabaptists are sometimes called the 'Radical Reformers’. This “radical-ness” was due to their commitment to put into practice the teachings of Jesus. The Radical Reformers were not content to stop at Luther or Calvin's reformation. They wanted to continue radicalizing the church back to the early church revealed in Scripture. Soon they began to baptize by full immersion and as a result received the title 'Ana-baptist', meaning 'again' and 'baptize'. 

The Anabaptists would be greatly persecuted for their beliefs by both Catholics and Protestants who killed, burned, and slaughtered the Anabaptists. The preferred way of execution was by 'third baptism', in which the unrepentant victim would be drown to death. How did this odd sixteenth century movement respond to persecution? Well, in true radical Jesus like fashion, Anabaptists overwhelming chose to follow the teaching and example of Jesus and lay down their lives rather than take up the sword. 

So… What are some of the distinctive traits of Anabaptists?

It can be difficult to generalize across a movement- that being said- there are some who have made considerable progress in defining the distinctiveness of Anabaptism. Scot McKnight provides a helpful summation of Harold S. Bender’s three features of the Anabaptist Vision:

1. The essence of Christianity, or the Christian life, is discipleship — a committed following of Christ in all areas of life. The word on the street in the 16th Century, and this word repeated often enough by bitter enemies of the Anabaptists, was that they were consistent and devout Christians. If Luther’s word was “faith,” the word for the Anabaptists was “follow.” The inner conversion was to lead to external transformation.
2. A new conception of the church as a brotherhood of fellowship. The ruling image of a church among the Catholics and Reformers was more national and institutional and sacramental, while the ruling image for the Anabaptists was fellowship or family. Joining was voluntary; the requirement was conversion; the commitment was to holy living and fellowship with one another. Thus, the Anabaptist separated from the “world” to form a society of the faithful. This view of the church led to economic availability and liability for one another.
3. A new ethic of love and peaceful nonresistance. Apart from rare exceptions like Balthasar Hubmaier and the nutcases around Thomas Müntzer, the Anabaptists lived a life shaped by love and nonviolence. They refused to coerce anyone. [1]

The MennoNerd Network via Tyler Tully has provided the following similar framing of Anabaptism:



1. Jesus Centred
2. Free Church of Confessing, Baptized Disciples 
3. Agents of God’s Shalom

I am going to add one more distinctive to the list. 

4. Simplicity. 

Okay here we go: 

Jesus Centred.  

What does it mean to be Jesus centred? Well for starters, it is the confession that Jesus is the fullest revelation, the Final Word, and the precedence of understanding the nature of God. Anabaptists believe that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.  Jesus is the true nature and character (homoousios) of God. I love the way Brian Zahnd explains this:

God is like Jesus.


God has always been like Jesus.


There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.


We have not always known what God is like

—
But now we do.

To be Jesus-centred is to follow Jesus’ teachings even above the Bible. We do not try to synthesize contrasting differences. I know that might sound shocking. But it’s not like I am trying to divorce Jesus from the Scriptures. I am not saying that Scripture does not matter, OR that Scripture is not inspired. All Scripture is inspired! (2 Tim 3:16) But Scripture is inspired insofar that it points to Jesus. Jesus says as much to the Pharisees,  “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”(John 5:39-40) Jesus' own address to the Pharisees is a sober reminder to us all that it is possible to be a person of Scripture and yet miss out on Jesus, the Word made flesh. Christian Smith summarizes:

“For many believers the Bible [not Jesus] is actually the most real and holy authority there is. They would never say this, but how things really function is not always how they are admitted and professed. I suspect that for many Christians despite what they say, God actually seems far off, Christ is a great idea and person and saviour, but what seems most real, most accessible, most reliable and, unfortunately, most controllable is the Bible.”[2]

The Old Testament may allow for certificates of divorce. 
Jesus does not. 

The Old Testament may allow for retributive violence. 
Jesus does not.

The Old Testament may stone adulterers to death. 
Jesus does not.

The Old Testament may command capital punishment. Jesus does not.

The Old Testament may execute Sabbath breakers. 
Jesus does not. 

Am I am Marcionite? -that is: someone who rejects the Old Testament scriptures of Israel believing that they portrayed a God other than that known in Jesus Christ. NO! Never!  I do not reject the Old Testament! BUT… I am inclined to follow Jesus as the fulfillment and culmination of what the Old Testament has hoped for and pointed too! 

From what I can see... 

Jesus is deliberately viewing the Old Testament as "an incomplete revelation". Jesus said of his own revelation, “"I have testimony weightier than that of John the Baptist” (John 5:36). John the Baptist was the foremost of the Old Testament prophetic tradition. Jesus weighs more than the greatest revelation of the Old Testament! When Jesus declares that "no one knows the Father except the Son” OR “ “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”... should that not at least challenge a flat reading of Scripture? I think so. 

2. Free Church of Confessing, Baptized Disciples 

“Free Church: Separation of Church & State.” 

Christians are called to no other Kingdom primary allegiance except the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus makes this claim when he declares "My Kingdom is not of this world, if it were my servants would fight."(Jn 18:36) Paul asserts this in his teaching of a Christian’s citizenship being in heaven (Phil 3:20) as well as his bold declaration that we are Ambassadors in this world. (2 Cor 5:20) The ultimate modus operandi of a follower of Christ is not found in functioning as citizens of the kingdoms of this word but as living as strangers in a strange land. The kingdom of the world is in essence a “power over” kingdom. There have been democratic, socialist, communist, fascist, and totalitarian versions of the kingdom of the world, but they all share this distinctive characteristic: they exercise power over people.  Where did followers of Jesus ever get the idea that we need to take our nations back for God? Where did we ever get the idea that any version of the kingdoms of this world could be representative of the Kingdom of God? Where did we get the idea that the way to establish the Kingdom of heaven was to pass laws and force everyone to think and act the way we do? It's worth noting that Jesus and the early church's approach to establishing the Kingdom of Heaven was never "let's pass a bunch of laws in Rome". It may seem attractive to impose Christian morality on national level, but ultimately it is an act of using the State as a "power over" people. Jesus never came to establish a Christian nation, but the Kingdom within all the nations of the world.  Followers of Jesus must realize that the hope of the world lies not in any particular version of the kingdom of the world. We do not put our hope in Democrats or the Republicans. The hope of the world lies in a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom that operates with a completely different understanding of power. It is the kingdom of God. This is a Kingdom that grows slowly, organically, and even serves enemies (Luke 13:18-19; John 12:24-26) a Kingdom is that is peace making and peace-living. (John 18:36; 1 Peter 2:9), a Kingdom is non-institutional and non-territorial the Kingdom is within us. (Luke 17:20-21), a kingdom in which serving others is foundational (Matthew 20:25-28; Mark 10:42-45; Luke 22:24-27; John 13:12-17).

Although immersed in this world, the church by her way of being represents the promise of another world, which is not somewhere else but which is to come here. - John H Yoder ( The Politics of Jesus) 

Baptized & Confessing

Baptism literally means ‘to immerse’ or plunge people into the water. The practice originated in the wider Jewish tradition of ritual washings and bathings. When people went to the Temple to receive forgiveness for their sin, they not only sacrificed animals, but also cleansed themselves ritually with water. They would baptize themselves in basins of water designed to help them wash away any spiritual impurities they had come in contact with during their daily lives. John the Baptist undertook a vocation of baptizing people in the Jordan, not as one ritual among others but as a unique moment of repentance, preparing them for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus himself was baptized by John, identifying himself with this renewal movement and developing it in his own way. Jesus adopts the symbol of baptism as a once and for all symbol of God’s acceptance, repentance, and welcome into God’s family. 

Jesus commands his followers to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...” Notice that baptism is a response to discipleship, which is the decision to pattern our lives after our Teacher (Rabbi) Jesus. Baptism is a physical response to the faith decisions we make. It is a response of obedience to the Lord Jesus. Baptism, in Scripture follows immediately after conversion. Every baptism in the Acts of the Apostles is preceded by repentance of sin and faith in Jesus. (Acts 2:38–41; 8:12; 9:18–19; 10:44–48; 16:14–15, 29–36; 18:8; 19:1–7; 22:16) Once a person has responded in faith (pistis) to confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour they are admonished by our Lord to follow him into the waters of baptism. 

The New Testament reflects on baptism in the following ways: 
I) Symbol of cleansing from sin – Acts 22:16
II) Symbol of identification with Christ’s death and resurrection – Col. 2:12
III) Symbolic of our death to sin—Romans 6:4
IV) Symbol of our obedience to Christ - Matthew 28:19

Baptism is the biblical way in which we show that by the power of the Spirit, we died to our old way of life through the death of Jesus, and live a new life through the resurrection of Jesus, cleansed from our sin in the same way that water cleanses us from filth and dirt.

Disciples

A disciple, in the Christian context, is someone who is: With Jesus, To learn from Jesus, How to be like Jesus. The call of discipleship is to live according to the new age, even while the old age is yet languishing but sure to be defeated. To rightly make sense of the New Testament, we must continually hold before ourselves the fundamental claim of the New Testament: namely that the new aeon had broken in. Aeon is the Greek word often translated into English as either “age” or “world,” and the New Testament speaks often of this “present aeon.” But the Good News is that the new aeon, the Kingdom of God, has broken into the midst of human history. The “present aeon” has not yet passed away, and it is as if the two are now overlapping. Jesus in his death set us “free from the present evil aeon” (Gal 1:4). Holiness then is call to live a Jesus centred life, as Christ is the first-fruits of the new creation. Jesus is the embodiment of Christian ethics and the new humanity/age. Jesus is our telos; our end destination for living. As 1 John 2.6 says, “ Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” Disciples should seek to re-present the risen Lord in everything we do! Our entire lives bear witness (martureo) to the truth of the Gospel. (A sobering thought) Insofar that we remain faithful to imitation of Christ, is the exact measure we participate in this present age. 


3. Agents of God’s Shalom

A theology of peace, or shalom, is fundamental to the Anabaptist distinctive. We believe that God in Christ has called us to the ministry of reconciliation that is fully revealed in Christ’s teaching and example. To be agent of shalom is to bring healing to the wounds of this world. 

For more on Peace Theology you can check out my Ten Part series on “Loving Your Enemy” here. 

4.Simplicity. 

This is to say that spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, Anabaptists are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice. 

Simplicity is about not being driven by our egos or consumer culture, and instead caring for and loving our families, communities, and other people above all else. We live simply in order to give more of our time, energy, and resources to the establishment of the Kingdom. Jesus directs us not to worry about or pursue the accumulation of money and stuff, because pursuing it distracts us from our real reason for existence – caring for others and for what God has given us.


Anabaptists, from the beginning of the movement, have long been people of simplicity and humility. Johannes Kessler, a reformer and chronicler of the early Switzerland Anabaptist’s wrote of the movement,  “They shun costly clothing, they shun expensive food and drink, clothe themselves with coarse cloth, cover their heads with broad felt hats. Their entire manner of life is completely humble.” [3]  In the same vein, Menno Simons wrote, ”We acknowledge, teach and seek no other kingdom than that of Christ, which shall endure forever, in which there is no pomp, splendour, gold, silver." [4] There are even some within the stream of Anabaptism, such as the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonites and Amish, that expressed a simplicity as a form of isolationism or anti-urbanism. Not all Anabaptists believed that anti-urbanism was the only option for expressing simplicity. There were many Anabaptists who lived in the urban context and built places of worship. As Bender comments, “The traditional simplicity of Mennonite meetinghouse architecture in Europe and America has been due in part to sincere insistence upon a modest, functional, and economical character of the meetinghouse.”[5] 

In living out simplicity we must ask an important question: how do we live this principle out in our time and our space? Simplicity, I believe, is something that must be worked out individually through prayer, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the challenge of community. My version of simplicity may differ dramatically from my neighbours. We should refrain from passing judgement on others (Rom 14.4) on how they put into practice living simply. Simplicity can easily become a new legalism if we try legislate specific practices in to a monochromatic vision of community. This is all to say that we should call others to the principal of simplicity and not demand a strict set of precepts. 

Creative Examples of Simplicity:

I believe that we cannot follow Jesus without being creative people. Am I telling you that you need to do the following things?... NOPE! It's just food for thought. Something to think about... Enjoy.

Creative Space Utilization:

This is a great example of a person who has taken a 420ft apartment and transformed it into a multi-use space. I really admire the effort and planning taken to make the most of the space available. I wonder if "transforming-rooms" could help some to live comfortably, yet affordably? Or what if re-structuring our homes could allow us provide shelter and accommodation to the less fortunate? Certainly, the number one contributing factor to household debt is carrying expensive mortgages over thirty plus years. What if we could cut back on that? 

Creative Housing Options.

They build a whole home with appliances for $33,089.72 ! That is simply amazing. Imagine owning a house that is worth roughly the average yearly income. Now compare that price to the average home cost in the U.S.A. which as of 2010 was: $272,900 [6] How would not paying an extra $239,081 (not including interest) change your lifestyle? Would you be able to give more to church & charities? Could you take more time off work? Would you be able to re-prioritize your life?

A Minimalist Wardrobe 

Britney Taylor shares her thoughts on only owning the clothes you will wear in week. She is able to travel more, save money, and only buy what she will wear. 

How to become a Minimalist

Danny Dover shares his thoughts on only owning around a 150 items total in his life. He talks about steps he has taken to live as a minimalist and why someone might consider this course of action. 

Sell Your Crap: Pay Your Debt

A Ted Talk on Minimalism. In 2008, after the birth of his first child, Baker and his wife decided to sell everything they owned, pay off their consumer debt, and spend a year traveling abroad as a family. They began sharing their journey in early 2009 on the blog Man vs. Debt, now 15000 subscribers strong. In sharing their ups and downs in the areas of personal finance, consumerism, clutter, travel, minimalism, and passionate entrepreneurship, they realized they aren't alone in a desire to explore and grow.

Thanks for reading...

Works Cited

1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/02/29/anabaptists-what-who-what/
2. Christian Smith. The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is not a truly evangelical reading of scripture. (Grand Rapids:Brazo Publishing, 2011) 42.
3. Bender, Harold S., Nanne van der Zijpp and Cornelius Krahn. "Simplicity (1958)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1958. Web. 14 Jan 2014.
4.Idid.
5.Idid.
6. http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf

What Brad Jersak is learning about the Bible.

Dr. Brad Jersak is an author and teacher based in Abbotsford, BC, where he attends Fresh Wind Christian Fellowship and serves as Reader at All Saints of North America Monastery. He is also apart of the faculty of Westminster Theological Centre (UK) with an emphasis on the New Testament and Patristics. Jersak contributes regularly to Plain Truth Ministries, the Clarion Journal of Spirituality and Justice, the Owl, and the Red Virgin. [1]

I first met Brad Jersak at a school retreat in my last year of Bible College. Brad was teaching on a topic that he aptly titled, 'Listening Prayer'. I was really impacted by that weekend of teaching and prayer. I thought, "I like what this Jersak is saying." I observed that Brad conducted the meetings in a really responsive and sensitive manner. I did not see a wild a preacher trying brew up a firestorm. I did not hear the old time message of 'sing louder, prayer longer, and try harder', that I often encountered in my Pentecostal upbringing. [2] What I encountered was an invitation to tune-in to the God who was already speaking. I couldn't believe it! It seemed revolutionary that I didn't have to work myself up in order to hear God speak. I didn't need to sing ten worship songs, or pray for an hour before the Lord might speak. I just need to listen. God was and is ready and waiting to talk to me, to walk with me, to tell me that I am God's own. Imagine that! (I have written a few reflections on Listening Prayer here.) 

I've since read his books, listened to podcasts, and seen Jersak at a few conferences. This guy is legit. This is all to say that I could not recommend Brad Jersak more highly to you. He is Christ-Centred, graceful, and a brilliant communicator. That being said, I bring us to the following helpful teaching video from Jersak: 

"What I am learning about the Bible"

1:50 - Chapter One of reading the Bible: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." 

11:04 - Why we should not read our Bible 'flat'. 

13:03- "I ended up in a Mennonite church" OR...reading our Bible through the lens of Jesus.

14:42 - Reading the Bible as training and not just for information. 

15:54- "The Youth Pastor teaching cycle"

16:50- Chapter Two: "Jesus Centred Training Time". 

24:27 - Chapter Three: Confronting the Ugly Parts of the Bible. "Why didn't I see the 'icky stuff' before? I was either skimming or reading the Bible like a cartoon.... I think I was ignoring the 'bad parts'."

25:52- Here is the problem with ignoring the ugly parts of the Bible. "Atheists are NOT ignoring it". 

36:13 - "I am glad I didn't stop here." 

37:00 - Two suggestions for reading the ugly parts of the Bible. 

45:00-  Chapter Four: The Jesus Lens: Reading the Bible with Jesus as our Rabbi. 

46:47- Closing exhortations and application.  

Footnotes

1. Information lifted from www.bradjersak.com 

2.I don't mean to say all Pentecostals present this approach. I am merely conveying my personal life long experience of growing up as a Canadian Pentecostal. I remember all too many meetings where God was not going to 'show up' unless we yelled louder, prayed harder, and sang longer. 

Greg Boyd's MennoNerds Interview

The MennoNerds network recently hosted Greg Boyd for an interview conducted by the ever helpful and courteous Robert Martin. Greg shares about his journey to an Anabaptist perspective and the fallout that has had in his theology. The biggest fallout, that will hopefully soon hit the shelves, is Greg's upcoming book: The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. If you are a Woodland Hills "podrishioner" (like I am) you will know that Boyd has been working hard on this book for the last few years. I honestly think I've personally been waiting for this book for a good four years. ;) It's a good thing that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. I got the sense in this interview that Greg has reached a finality and clarity to his seven years of research and thinking about the violent portraits of God. 


Anyway.... Enjoy this great interview:





Thanks for reading!

God Bless,
Paul Walker

The Song, the Table, and the Kingdom.

An Ode to the Christmas Day Truce 

It was night before Christmas, when throughout the battlefield. 

Soldiers sang of 'Silent Nights' and a Christ revealed. 

They soon left behind guns and declared a ceasefire. 

Men traded their hate for a place in the choir. 

In the horror of War there was a peace for a moment

We found 'humanity' in the face of our opponents 

We no longer saw 'the enemy' through the sights our guns

Instead we shared together in Communion as God's united sons

To our shame, the Christmas Day Truce was not destined to last

For the Powers that be, would have 'the other side' gassed 

Men laid down the way of the Cross and took up the Sword for "some glory"

We believe in the old lie: Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori

The Christmas Eve of 1914 was one of strangest examples of the power of peacemaking to ever be documented in modern warfare. Soldiers, on both the German and English//French sides, left their trenches and ceased hostilities during one of the fiercest wars ever fought on the planet. The event is called today: The Christmas Day Truce. 

The setting of this Christmas Day Truce was the trench warfare of WWI. It was most brutal form of warfare the world had seen yet, with an estimated average 14,500 men dying each day. Trench warfare is the stalemate of two opposing forces who have 'dug in' to secure their positions. This approach to warfare makes any advancements extremely difficult. Soldiers were forced to go over the top of the trenches, into no-man's land, and charge toward the opposing side in order to overtake the 'enemies' position. These methods were rarely successful as the 'entrenched' side had a tactical advantage by being hidden from direct fire. 

The men in the trenches were farm boys, clerks, and tradesmen. In the Commonwealth alone, over a million men volunteered in the early days of the war. They received basic training, and were rushed off to the front. Nothing could have prepared anyone for the horrors of trench warfare. It was cold, muddy, and the air had the stench of rotting flesh. It was a hell on earth. These were no battle hardened  troops on the night of Christmas Day Truce. These were husbands who missed their wives and children. These were young boys who missed their mothers and fathers. I can only imagine that the morale of those men in the trenches must have been at an all time low that Christmas Eve. 

The trenches were not that far apart from each other. You could hear the shouts from the other side. You could see the 'enemy' from the forward trenches. It is this unique setting that set the scene for something amazing to occur. 

The Germans began by placing candle lit Christmas trees along their trenches. These trees are know as Tannenbaum Trees. This caught the attention of the English troops, who peered in curiosity and amazement at the sight of these Tannenbaum Trees. Soon the Germans began to boisterously sing out loud an assortment of Christmas carols: 

“Stille Nacht, heili’ge Nacht” 

(Translation: Silent Night, Holy Night) 

In a popular telling of the story, a German is said to have shouted across the trench:

“English men… sing us a song”

It's said that a mean spirited English gentleman yelled back: 

“We’d rather kill than sing” 

The Germans responded, 

“You're singing just might kill us, if it's bad enough.” 

Both sides laughed, and soon the carolling began to rise up on both sides. The singing eased the tension and gave way to celebration.

The leaders on both sides came out of the trenches and agreed to a ceasefire for 24 hours. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man's Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties.  

Sergeant-Major Frank Naden writes about the Christmas Day Truce:


“On Christmas Day one of the Germans came out of the trenches and held his hands up. Our fellows immediately got out of their trenches and the Germans got out of their's, and we met in the middle, and for the rest of the day we fraternized, exchange food, cigarettes and souvenirs. The Germans gave us some of their sausages, and we gave them some of our stuff. The Scotsmen started the bagpipes, and we had a rare old jollification, which included football, in which the Germans took part. The Germans expressed themselves as being tired of the war and wished it was over. They greatly admired our equipment and wanted to exchange jack-knives and other articles. Next day we got an order that all communication and friendly intercourse with the enemy must cease, but we did not fire at all that day, and the Germans did not fire at us.”

Football in No-Man's Land 

Another report tells of a Christmas Day Mass. A Chaplin serving in the war gathered the joined congregation of Germans, English, and French. The Mass was delivered in the familiar religious language of Latin that was common among Catholics around the world. The chaplain would have opened with the words:

In nominee Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. 

Translation: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

They sang, they prayed, and shared the Eucharist with each other.
 The former enemies shared pictures from home, chocolates, schnapps, and wine. Soccer games were played. Friendships were made, addresses were exchanged and every soldier who experienced the events was forever changed. The Christmas Day Truce was truly an amazing peculiar event that baffles historians to this day. The immediate result of the truce was a break down of hostility across the waring lines. Reports suggest that in some areas the cease-fire lasted until after New Year's Day.

Leaders on both sides of the conflict were shocked and shaken by the unofficial Christmas Day Truce. It took serious action for fighting to resume in some areas. Commanding officers were forced to rotate the troops out of area, because the troops had lost the will to fight. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of the British Corps, had to issue official orders forbidding friendly communication with the opposing German troops. Fraternization with the enemy is amount to treason. The whole story of the Christmas Day Truce was even censored by government on both sides. The story is said to have finally been broken by the New York Times, and subsequently the British papers followed suit. In the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to try to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat. Troops were also rotated through various sectors of the front to prevent them from becoming overly familiar with the enemy. World War One finally came to an end on November 11, 1918. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts of world history.

The Song, the Table, and the Kingdom. 

I share the story of the Christmas Day Truce as a launching pad to talk about the Church’s witness to peace. 

There is a lot that could be said, but I would like to focus on few key things from the events of the Christmas Day Truce: SONG, TABLE, and KINGDOM.


SONG:

"Song of the Angels" by Luzia Vizoli

On that fateful Christmas Eve in 1914, the soldiers on both sides began to sing the songs of the church instead of the songs of hatred and hostility. It's amazing to think that the songs of 'holy nights' and 'Christ come into the world' literally disarmed the hostilities of war and shut down the war machine for a day. The power of the song has never been so obvious. 

I believe in our lives we are constantly 'singing songs' with our actions and words. The writer of Proverbs puts it like this, "The tongue has the power of life and death." (18.21) Or in other words, what we confess, both in our lives and as a collective community, will become a reality. When we sow seeds of hostility, hatred, and evil we will ultimately reap hostility, hatred, and evil. It's an unfortunate truth in a decaying world. The church, however, is called to sow seeds of life and not death. James, the brother of Jesus, promises us that peacemakers who sow in peace will reap a harvest of justice and righteousness.(3.18) 


The Song of the Church is to be the promise of another way, another world, right here and right now. When the earth sings the songs of hatred and animosity; our calling as the Church is to prophetically testify and bear witness to the Prince of Peace. The Church is the voice that cries, "Let the world sing a new song!"Theologian John H. Yoder sums this up beautifully when he writes, 

Although immersed in this world, the church by her way of being represents the promise of another world, which is not somewhere else but which is to come here. That promissory quality of the church's present distinctiveness is the making of peace, as the refusal to make war is her indispensable negative transcendence. The church cultivates an alternative consciousness. Another view of what the world is like is kept alive by narration and celebration which fly in the face of some of the "apparent" lessons of "realism."[1]

Too often the Church has matched melodies with the songs of men and perpetuated the status quo. Imagine the scene that C.S. Lewis provides us in his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Narnia is under the reign of White Which who has subjugated the land to a perpetual winter. When the Church gives our ultimate allegiances to anything other than Christ, we are like those who have aligned themselves to the rule of the White Witch. The church is called, much like Mr. & Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tumnus, to resist the reign of Jadis the White Witch and proclaim the true reign of Aslan. We may suffer persecution from the forces of the White Witch, as Mr. Tumnus experienced, but we proclaim Aslan as the rightful ruler of Narnia. To those who sing the songs of the White Witch, the Church declares boldly that: "Aslan is on the move."[2] 

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.(2 Cor 5.20) We are God’s agents of redemption, the salt and light of the world.(Matt 5) We sing a new song that prophetically declares the reign of Jesus in the world today. Have you heard this song?

A song of reconciliation

A song of forgiveness 

A song of peace 

A song of healing to a broken world

TABLE:

The table that I speak of is the Lord's Table, also know as the Communion Table. While I doubt there was a literal table in No-Man's Land that fateful Christmas Day; there was a call for Christians on both sides of the conflict to share in the Lord's meal. The Communion Table is a call to unity in the body of Christ. It is the common - union table. To suggest that those who partake of the bread and wine would be at war is a scandalous thought to unity of the Body. The Apostle Paul's primary correction of the communion practices at the church in Corinth was the division at the Lord's table. "I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you." (1 Cor 11.18)Paul directly confronts the division of the Lord's table by writing, "Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!" (1 Cor 11.22) Dr. Stanley Hauerwas reflects on the implications of the call to unity at the Lord's table:

The Eucharist becomes the meal of unity binding Christians through time and space to be one body, one Christ, for the world. That we have been made one makes it impossible, therefore, for Christians to contemplate killing other Christians with whom we share this meal. Such killing is not murder, it is suicide. [3]

There is nothing more scandalous to the unity of the body of Christ than partaking in Common - Union and then functionally denying that union through the shedding of blood."It will not suffice to simply cite “our duty” to the Powers as justification for killing brothers and sisters in Christ on the other side of a political dispute. It is this factual rupturing of the unity of the body of Christ that is so very often overlooked in many conversations about Christians and war making.”[4] 

The Table of Lord invites us to a new humanity in Christ. It's a humanity where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3.28) The Table invites us to leave our division behind us for Christ's sake, and to make every effort to maintain the unity of the church. If we take the path of warfare, we will ultimately participate in the suicide of the Church. Pastor Brian Zahnd suggests that Church has indeed committed suicide (as Hauerwas suggests above) in the past century of World Wars. Zahnd writes:

This may explain the death of Christianity in Western Europe following the two world wars. It was mass suicide. Or Mass suicide. Selah.[5] 

KINGDOM: 

"The Deserter" by Boardman Robinson, 1916.

The kingdoms of hostility rely on the preservation of the ideological myth of redemptive violence. Central to the myth is the division of 'us' and 'them'. It is the myth that the enemy is less than human. It is the myth that the only way to make a better world is power enforced through violence. It is the ideological belief that peace is a goal to be attained and not the means toward the end. It is nation against nation; kingdom against kingdom; man killing other men. 

Jesus has a different Kingdom. Jesus does not allow us to participate in the division of 'us' and 'them'. Jesus does not reciprocate the myth of redemptive violence. Jesus taught his disciples to turn the other cheek to violence and pray for their enemies. Jesus did not join the Caesars//Herodians in the powers of oppression and refused to unite his movement with the Zealots who sought to overthrow their oppressors through violence. If Jesus the Messiah was not going to use violence to rescue the oppressed nation of Israel, then how could we as followers of Christ ever claim to use violence as means of conflict resolution? There is a better way, the Jesus way. It is the way of overcoming evil with good. The Gospel is a subversive force to the systems of domination, division, and supremacy; precisely because it undermines them through the power of cruciform love. Walter Wink reflects on this:

Not only did Jesus and his followers repudiate the autocratic values of power and wealth, but the institutions and systems that authorized and supported these values: the family, the law, the sacrificial system, the Temple, kosher food regulations, the distinction between clean and unclean, patriarchy, role expectations for women and children, the class system, the use of violence, racial and ethnic divisions, the distinction between insider and outsider—indeed, every conceivable prop of domination, division, and supremacy. The Gospel is a context specific remedy for the evils of the Domination System.[6]

The events of Christmas Day Truce directly challenged 'The Powers' ability to maintain the myth of righteous violence. The willingness to reflexively kill someone who had never done them any personal wrong suddenly vanished through encountering the humanity of the 'other'. The Powers and the authorities were disarmed through Christmas carols and acts of hospitality. This is why the backlash of the Christmas Day Truce is so striking to me. The Powers on both sides of the conflict needed to threaten execution for fraternization with the enemy in order to shutdown any efforts to declare 'unofficial truces'. Generals on both sides were forced to rotate troops from the front due to their inability to kill. The Powers must do whatever they can to prevent soldiers from experiencing the shared humanity of their targets, whether they are citizens of Germany, Japan, Italy, or Iraq and Afghanistan. To experience empathy towards 'the other' is counterintuitive to humanity at war. 

It grieves me to no end that the Church does not witness to peace in a world of war. Too often Christian churches join the patriotic fervour with their nationalistic blindness, refusing to teach what Jesus had always taught about violence. We become religious versions of the shared cultural assumptions of our age making us the chaplains of the status quo and no longer prophetic.[7]  

Joyeux Noel, a 2005 movie about the Christmas Day Truce  captures a scene that demonstrates powerfully the co-opting of church as the tool of the Powers. Check out this scene:

SUMMARY OF THE ABOVE SCENE: 
Near the end of "Joyeux Noel” there is a powerful and sobering scene, a confrontation between the Christ-like, lowly, anti-war Scottish chaplain and his pro-war Scottish bishop while the chaplain was giving last rites to a dying soldier.

The bishop had come to relieve the chaplain of his duties and abusively ordered him to return to his home parish because of his “treasonous and shameful” behavior (being merciful to the enemy) in the battlefield.

The chaplain tried to explain his actions to the authoritarian, pro-war, German-hating bishop, saying that he had just performed “the most important mass of my life” and that he wanted to stay with his comrades who were rapidly losing their faith and were in need of his ministrations.

The mass that he had presided over on Christmas Eve, had been attended by German, Scottish and French Christian soldiers (and one Jewish German officer) who had prayed together and been transfixed by a powerful rendition of Ave Maria. The bishop cruelly denied the Christ-like priest’s request to stay – and in a thought-provoking scene, he removed his little wooden cross from around his neck, leaving it swinging as he walked out the door.

As with so many of the victims of organized Christianity, the priest had lost his faith in the institutional church.

The bishop then proceeded to deliver a pro-war sermon to new recruits -the exact words having been obtained from a homily that had been delivered by an Anglican bishop in England during WWI. These new troops were being brought in to replace the suddenly reluctant veteran combatants, who now refused to obey orders to kill. [8]

One last word from Tony Campolo....click here.

Thanks for reading...

Works Cited

1. John H. Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, pg. 94
2. C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, pg. 146
3. Stanley Hauerwas, Commentary on Matthew, pg. 219
4. York, Tripp ed. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: What about Romans 13?
5. Brain Zahnd great blog, http://brianzahnd.com/2013/10/mass-suicide/#more-3154
6.Wink, Engaging the Powers, 65–86
7. Lifted from a Brian Zahnd tweet.
8. Summary of the scene from http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/16/the-christmas-truce-of-1914/