DWebb on information overload

A gem on Noisetrade today: Free acoustic download of Derek Webb's new album (limited time offer).

Derek Webb is special to me. In college he guided me into a spirituality of humility with She Must and Shall Go Free (as well as leading me into the folk/acoustic realm). As a college drop-out, his House Show live CD led me into a rich theology of Gospel and Church, while his I See Things Upside Down led me through the necessary lament of having left the Christian community at Kenyon. For awhile I thought it was John Piper who had most influenced me in my understanding of "Reformed" Christianity, but I recently realized that Derek Webb was very much more. His five solas tattoo led to a framed copy on my desk.

Regardless of his weird latest albums (I have my beef with Stockholm Syndrome), he's a genius and prophet in his own right. The acoustic version of his new album captures what he does so well, combining great melodies with songwriting and critical acumen*, and it's good for an old folky fan like myself.

On the album he has a song called "I feel everything" which hints at the struggle for sanity in our age of stimulus and information. It is a quiet song of lament/confession, rather bleak in its outlook, but an honest introspection of the senselessness into which so much of our consumption leads us. In this age of information and entertainment obsession, it can feel hard to think and be. Consumism quickly reduces us into subjects incapable of doing anything but wanting (if even that). Webb captures the pain of that in his song.

Download the album on Noisetrade while it's still available. You can listen to the song here(I Feel Everything). But most importantly, step away from the barrage of information and simply be before God in solitude and silence.

"I feel everything" by Derek Webb

i am not sure i want this to take, what it's taking
but that just seems to be the choice, i am making
mother this is all i ever wanted
now how do i get back to where there isn't everything, only you

i cannot hear because i hear everything
i cannot see because i see everything
i cannot feel because i feel everything

it is not peace i find, it is not satisfaction
it's not the life i always dreamed or imagined
it is not wisdom, it is not strength, it is not control
it is a promise meant to quell my every fear, yet leave me cursed

i've nothing left, no life or death, no will that's free
i have no way now to explain, what's come over me
i'm just a body overwhelmed, and lying still
a casualty of knowing what i want and wanting what i know

* a word I learned yesterday playing the GRE Vocab test at www.memrise.com

Inductive study of the Message!?!

By: Augusto C.  at photo.net

"Beer is good and sex is better, but never should they go together". This was one of the refrains of our freshman orientation at the libertine liberal arts college I attended. Upperclassman (perhaps some with considerable hypocrisy) chanted the rhyme to remind us not to mix inebriation with lechery. I suppose there was some wisdom there [emphasize some, not wisdom].

Now fast forward ten years... This trimester I'm teaching a course on the book of Ephesians, as a means of looking at the teachings of the primitive Christian communities, and also as a sort of introduction to Christian ethics. I've taught similar courses twice, and have used the opportunity to present some basic tools of inductive Bible study (as popularized by Intervarsity: observation-interpretation-application).

All good and well, except that this year I chose to use the text of Eugene Peterson's the Message, instead of the ESV as I've previously done. I personally love the Message with all its quirks and Americanisms and poetic pastoral wisdom, and last trimester with these students, the Message was an effective means of bringing color to the narratives of Jesus' life and teaching. But this last week as we were digging into Ephesians 4:1-16 together, the Beer&Sex refrain was brought to mind: "The Message is good, and inductive Bible study is better, but never should they go together!"

What a mess. Where the ESV calls the Ephesians to be "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace", Peterson calls for "pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences". Ignoring the fact that the Message omits the Spirit (although, can we really ignore that?), how do I explain to these EFL students what "mending fences" means? Do we have to bring the whole Robert Frost poem in, and exegete that, in order to properly exegete Ephesians 4? Also, doesn't the whole concept of "good fences make good neighbors" contradict what we were reading in Ephesians 2 the other week about the wall of enmity being torn down? Maybe not.

My students got snagged around verse 14, too, where Peterson translates "No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up". It sounded like intolerance to my students, rather than the culmination of the gift-giving of Christ as in the original structure.

I still love the Message and find it useful. I also just came across the wikipedia article on the Message where Peterson is quoted as saying "I would never recommend it be used as saying, 'Hear the Word of God from The Message.'" So it's likely that Peterson would join me in affirming: "The Message is good, and inductive Bible study is better, but never should they go together!"

Oak & Apple: A Lo-Fi Hymnal

Here's a fine CD worth downloading, from Wilder Adkins

"But I can't judge anyone else for their cheese. I've deep-sea dived in the Gouda."
-Jack Black on judging people for their musical tastes

James Houston on Christian mysticism

by Edmondo Senatore at photo.net

I have at times been very critical of Christian "mysticism." I grew up in a tradition which very much emphasized personal experiences with God (focusing especially on "inner peace"), and at many important junctures in my life I have experienced moments which I readily describe as personal encounters with God. And yet I have at times become wary and even critical of such emphases, for numerous reasons, including: the individualistic subjectivity of such mysticism, the emotional manipulation sometimes present in churches aiming to acheive such spiritual experiences (especially in neopentecostal-influenced Latin American evangelicalism), the concreteness of Anabaptist concepts of discipleship (Nachfolge), and Latin American theology's emphasis on the here-and-now.

I recently came across a chapter in a book at the library titled "Reflections on mysticism: How valid is evangelical anti-mysticism?" The book is in homage to Klaus Bockmühl (who --judging by our library's collection-- was a fairly conservative, pastoral German theologian of the 20th century). Houston describes him saying that "while in temperment he was more anti-mystical, he had a strong conviction of Biblical mysticism" (p. 163).

Houston begins the chapter by outlining some common Protestant objections to mysticism: it is associated with visions and raptures, it implies direct encounter with God in a non-mediated way, it is seen as a expression of Roman Catholic piety or interpreted as Neoplatonism, it is rejected by the Enlightenment, it is suspected for its tendency towards individualism and radicalism, and it creates an elite in the Church. He mentions that F. Heiler juxtaposes mysticism (receptive) with profetism (resolute), and that A. Nygren equates mysticism with egocentrism as opposed to theocentric faith seen in the Bible and the Reformation.

Houston then proceeds to explain how Christian mysticism differs from Platonism. He mentions its concept of God (non-existent in Platonism), the notion of grace (God initiates, not man’s self-realization), the idea that virtue is a gift, and not a means of purification, the communal orientation (fellowship and not withdrawal), and the absence of dualism (not just an elite are called to a “higher” contemplative life). However there are correlative parts which explain the influence of Platonism on early Christian, mainly the importance of the invisible reality and the immortality of the soul.

Houston continues by expounding upon the qualities of Christian mysticism, noting that mysticism must be present in Christianity if we are to speak of Christian “wholeness”. It is part of being human: “the self is essentially more than a mere self; transcendence belongs to its nature” (p. 165, citing L. Dupré).

• Christian mysticism is conservative in nature; the religious experience is shaped by the dogma. “The Christian mystic does not experience unidentified reality which he then can conveniently label God, but rather he is aware of the mediation of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, of the reality and the love of God Himself” (p. 173). Faithful Christian mystics do not enunciate new dogmas or use their experiences to establish or confirm Biblical truths. 
• Christian mysticism leads to the embodiment of Christian living, rather than to narcissism. “To experience God directly in one’s life, as the theophanies of the Old and New Testament depict, is also to be transformed by God [… Christian mystics] are not such morbid, pathological, sentimental or weak creatures. Strength, courage, definiteness, wisdom, realism, truth, love are their fundamental characteristics” (p. 175). 
• Christian mysticism is not a special faculty, but rather the integration of what we are called to be. “‘The Christian mystic’, then, is simply […a person] who is ‘living by the Gospel’. He or she has an integrity of heart and mind, for the things of God” (p. 176).

Houston concludes the chapter with the suggestion that such mysticism could not have originated in the Greco-Roman world, but only from the Judeo-Christian concept of “the presence of Yahweh with His covenant people, and of Jesus Christ in the Church. True mysticism is simply expressing personally the presence of God in our midst. […]If it is Christian mysticism when we allow God’s self-giving and self-revealing life to penetrate into the innermost centre of our human persons, and in turn to enable us to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’, then clearly we should seek it with all our heart, soul, and might” (p. 177).

I consider the article a helpful defense of the validity of "Christian mysticism", which at the same time provides helpful paramters to protect against the non-Christian distortions of such experiences.

"Mysticism, then, is not sanctity. The heart of godliness is love, divine love, that is both received and shared. So progress in loving and being loved reflects more progress in humility, self-giving, simplicity, and godly contentment than the more dramatic gifts we tend to associate with the mystical life. It is more the heroism of the commonplace than the sensationalism of the extraordinary" (p. 166).
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Houston, J. M. (1991). Reflections on mysticism: How valid is evangelical anti-mysticism?. In M. Bockmühl & H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Gott lieben und seine Gebote halten: In memoriam Klaus Bockmühl (pp. 163-181). Giessen: Brunnen.

Creative juices

Not blogging at all of late, because my creative juices are more oriented towards art these days:

It's very much an experimental medium, and my art critic doesn't usually let them last for more than five seconds, but he does seem to enjoy them.

Ordinarily executing mundane tasks

Photo by: Matej Lancic 

Another day of faithfully and ordinarily executing mundane tasks! Who knows how decisive they might be?

"I once heard interviews with survivors from World War II. The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day. One sat in a foxhole; once or twice, a German tank drove by and he shot at it. Others played cards and frittered away the time. A few got involved in furious firefights. Mostly, they day passed like any other. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. It didn’t feel decisive at the time because none had the big picture. Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks." - Philip Yancey

(Sparked by Darrow Miller's LifeWork)