The Bible and the Postmodern Imagination

Having read Brueggemann's book recently - Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and the Postmodern Imagination - I just want to say that I think it is outstanding. Brueggemann is a brilliant writer and thinker and I think in this book he hits the nail on the head in terms of the direction the church should take and the role of the Bible in the postmodern world. What I like about it is:

• He understands the power of the 'story' (or 'propaganda', depending which word you want to use). Advertisers wouldn't spend so much on telling us their story if it didn't matter.


• He understands the key role of the Bible in countering that story. If a biblical counter-imagination is not employed, "the Christian congregation will rely on the dominant infrastructure of consumerism." For me, this is why the Bible really matters - the insfrustructure of consumerism is debilitating and dehumanising.


• He makes the Bible utterly relevant to our age, without being under the thumb of postmodern preoccupations.


• He demonstrates brilliantly the signifance of the Bible as story, rather than a set of propositions.
• It is hopeful, yet academically rigerous. So often academia can lead to cynicism and can get caught up in concerns about modernist truth claims. Somehow he remains utterly postmodern, academic, yet faithful and hopeful.
  

Nothing I have read in ages has inspired me so much. Read it and enjoy.

Rediscover Bible in Community

Check out great interview with Tim Conder on Homebrewed Christianity about 'Rediscovering the Bible in Community' and some stories from his church.

Felt big echo of my own dream of church - an open and authentic, contemplative and sacramental community of grace and peace in action.

Love the stuff around on:

Place of christ/spirit/text in community (u know we love respecting the text (God of) round here)

Provisional humility and providing space for faith not control to coerce

Church as transformative organism

Shape and form of Emmaus Way similar to lots of my experience but also combines open ethos, self aware deep church and human diversity and sacramental patterning of life - all of which are kids I would chose to hang with (tooooo.....many.....y...ank....podcasts..lea....ding to 'impiremergant' hegemony....and....use ...of...strreee...t...talk!)

So hey, big up Tripp and Chad (must get us deconsied soon) for continued interstellar blue snowball goodness (just listen a bit) and peace to Emmaus Way. Go buy the book - the angels of amazon are winging mine to me as I type (click book above for link).

Shalom

Liberation Theology comes to Engage

In Engage we don’t just want to take action, we want that action to arise out of our spirituality. See previous post on this.

To do this I suggest we experiment with the method of Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology has its critics (and some of those criticisms are valid), but one of its real pluses is the way it has transformed the way we read the Bible.

Before the innovation of Lib Theol people approached the Bible first and sought to draw insights from it. Then Liberation Theology came along and started with our experience. This experience led to theological reflection, which itself led to action. This action created a new experience upon which to reflect theologically and so the cycle goes on.

Here’s my proposal:
1. We choose a topic of contemporary relevance:
This could be guantanamo, the sex trade, debt, the global financial crisis, the emerging church, being honest with yourself – anything that floats your boat.

2. We ask someone (Schof!) to blog about it - giving us a brief but not superficial overview of the issues.

3. We meet up in late October and bring with us any biblical texts or other aspect of Christian tradition that resonates with the issue we are thinking about.

4. We explore these texts and traditions. Some will be more useful than others.

5. We seek to end with some action points.

The hope is that the action we take arises out of our experience and theological reflection.

So, three questions for you: Is this something you would like to be involved in? Is it a good idea – can it be tweaked? What issue would you like to tackle?

A Kick in the Testaments

Laughing is pretty hard when you’ve just been kicked in the testaments! – Or after someone put the boot into your prize assets! But, in time, (and it may take a while), you eventually begin to see the funny side! That is exactly what happens in Amazon’s reviews of the Holy Bible – people well and truly put the boot into a Christian’s prize asset, but though there are a few painful moments, in the recognition of a few fair points made, in the end, you’ve got to admit – some of their comments are quite funny. Here are a few of my favourites:

“There aren’t enough good fights”

“Three stars, because the paper was too thin”

“One of the most disjointed novels I’ve read in a long while”

“Almost preachy in tone”

“Who wrote this thing, Michael Moore?”

“Definitely not his best work”

“Obviously the infallbile KJV stands alone as a paragon of exactitude, percisION, undeniability, brevity, bombastictness and hysterectomy.”

“The first half is better. In fact, you can totally disregard the second part entirely. It was an unnecessary addition. The author accomplishes everything needed by the end of the first part.”

“For those of you who don’t know, this is God’s second novel after the Old Testament. It’s a marked improvement, in my opinion. He got rid of a lot of his previous angst and scorn, and has really begun to show some of the maturity present in his later works. He’s become a much more loving and kind God, and, noticeably, he doesn’t throw nearly as many tantrums as he did in the first book.”

“There were too many perspectives and the story didn’t really even have a cohesive plot. This is the most overrated book I’ve read since The Da Vinci Code!”

“’Revelation’ was pretty weird, sort of like watching “Fantasia” while doing mushrooms, only a lot scarier.”

“Some magic was great like the feeding of one hundred from only ten or eleven fish but apart from that nothing special. Read most but not all of it as after Noer, it was kind of boring. That guy lived for years!! Update: Finished. Good ending.”