poverty in Africa is complicated

In a talk I had with one of my lecturers a few years ago he told me about a friend he had in the Socialist part in the Netherlands who had a list of the 4000 poor people in Amsterdam. He had to tell this European that Africa is much more complicated, we cannot make lists of our poor people.

Although I appreciate this blog post from the Jesus Manifesto, where the ratio homeless people:guest rooms in Christian houses are discussed, reading it again reminder me about how much more complicated the African situation is. Poverty in Africa cannot be listed.

Note: I believe that the church in Africa has as part of it’s task to remind the broad ecumenical church about the complexities of the world.

Christendom is dead… long live Christendom

For decades now the cry that Christendom is coming to an end has been sounding. I built part of my dissertation last year on this argument, blogged about it, read about it, thougth about it. I consider the beginning and end of Christendom probably the two most important events in the history of church. But the more the prophets call out that Christendom is over, Christendom is dead, the harder the cry is sounding: “long live Christendom”. And in South Africa, at least, maybe Christendom is not so dead.

When the ruling party use the church as part of it’s campaign, claim that they will rule till the second coming, consider themselves to be sanctioned by God, then maybe Christendom is not dead. When Angus Buchan gets 150000 men together and predicts (and calls for) the return of the opening prayer to parliment, then maybe Christendom is not so dead (at least not among Afrikaners who is his main supporters). When schools continue to get reverends and pastors to “open” the public schools with prayer and preaching, then maybe Christendom is not so dead. When we hear the cries of national revival and repentance: “South Africa must turn to God”, welcomed by many, then maybe Christendom is not so much dead. When I walk around the University of Pretoria campus earlier today, and overhear the numerous fundamentalist conversations running as I pass people, then maybe Christendom is not so much dead.

OK, so maybe the truth is that we have a big divide in South African culture. A very strong Christendom culture, and a total secular culture developing side by side at the same time. But the “long live Christendom” cry is just loud enough that post-Christendom theology cannot simply be a socialogical phenomenon, where changes in society naturally causes re-theologizing. Rather, post-Christendom theology in South Africa might need to be exactly the voice that critiques Christendom, and calls the church to move beyond this cry of “long live Christendom”, into the narrow road of following a carpenter from Nazareth, where the war terminology used by Christians no longer count, where we never win the war on culture, which always end in becoming the stewerd of culture, but create pockets of Christ following communities within this world.

Post-Christendom theology in South Africa need not in survivalist mode, where we frantically try to help the church survive because it’s time has passed. Rather, post-Christendom theologogizing is a prophetic voice, calling for an end to the call “long live Christendom”, not because the church is closing shop, but because the health of the church is at stake, our obediance to the cause of the preacher from Nazareth is at stake when his words is used to empower the Christian empire.

a story on belief and reality

I’m reading The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello which Cori and Kevin gave us for our wedding. The following story de Mello wrote explains a lot of my own struggle with religion, faith and church. But it’s a story, so you decide what it mean for you:

Nasruddin is Dead

Nasruddin was in a philosophical frame of mind: “Life and death-who can say what they are?” His wife, who was busy in the kitchen, overheard him and said, “You men are all alike-quite unpractical. Anyone can tell that when a man’s extremities are rigid and cold, he is dead.”

Nasruddin was impressed by his wife’s practical wisdom. Once when he was out in the winter snow, he felt his hands and feet go numb. “I must be dead,” he thought. Then came a further thought: “What am I doing walking around it I am dead? I should be lying down like a normal corpse.” Which is just what he did.

An hour later, a group of travelers, finding him by the roadside, begad to argue whether he was alive or dead. Nasruddin yearned to cry out, “You fools, can’t you see my extremities are cold and rigid?” But he knew better than to say that, for corpses do not talk.

The travelers finally concluded he was dead, and hoisted the corpse onto their shoulders with a view to carrying it to the cemetery for burial. They hadn’t gone far when they came to a forking of the ways. A fresh dispute arose among them as to which road led to the cemetery. Nasruddin put up with this for as long as he could. Then he sat up and said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but the road that leads to the cemetery is the one to your left. I know that corpses do not speak, but I have broken the rule this once and I assure you it will not happen again.”

When reality clashes with a rigidly held belief, reality is generally the loser.

Well, you interpret the story. I’ll keep on telling it for some time I think, because it so beautifully sums up my feelings on so many things I find in the way people approach religion, faith and church.

preaching the crucified Jesus

I haven’t really blogged on Easter this year, as I usually do (2007, 2008), but I’ll be preaching on the Easter events again this Sunday, since I know that most of the kids sitting in that service wouldn’t have been to church over Easter weekend. But my preparation is a struggle! I know the kids in this service: They know nearly nothing of the Bible. Many haven’t been to church for a number of years now. And they are very prone to fundamentalism. Their fundamentalism worries me. But broader than the fact that I need to preach to these kids, I also need to find a way of talking about the cross; for myself. This has obviously not started today, but I’ve been theologizing about the cross probably for at least 9 years now, since the first time I led a small group of 13 year olds at a camp.

In the American conversation I notice a lot of talk about atonement. I found the fact that I don’t share this love of talk about atonement a bit strange, untill I realized that the Afrikaans translation of this word wasn’t one I ever heard much in church. Rather, we talked about salvation. But similar issues seem to be at stake.

If I’d ask the question “Why was Jesus crucified?” to a group of informed church members in our church, I’d probably get something in the line of the following: “God intended it” and “For our sins“. But my change in talking about the crucifixion isn’t that much a critique against these answers, but rather a reading of the Bible which calls for something else. I try and find the answer to the question “Why was Jesus crucified?” in the gospels, especially the synoptics, and I use historical and social scientific research as a lense in reading this.

Piet Meiring always talk about chapted 13 of Transforming Mission as vintage Bosch. If you want to know what Bosch thought, read chapter 13, he says. There Bosch the theologian moves to the background, and Bosch the preacher emerge, so to speak. I was just reading the part on salvation in Transforming Mission, and here Bosch does something similar than in chapter 13. His argument in both these parts is that we need to understand salvation and mission within the comprehensive christological framework – “his incarnation, earthly life, death, resurrection, and parousia” (p399). He explains the need for doing this with saying that

• the Greek patristic tradition was orientated to the incarnation (I’ll have to read on the Orthodox church again to be able to point to the implication of this)
• Western mission was oriented towards the end of Jesus’ life, his death on the cross. That tend to get us into a purely early Pauline understanding of salvation which focus on an apocalyptic event in the future
• a Third model focused on the eartly life and ministry of Jesus, it was an ethical interpretation of salvation. According the Bosch this made Christ redundant in the end.

I think there is value in this comprehensive approach Bosch propose. However I’m thinking more and more that we should reorder this comprehensive narrative.

I love the historical Jesus writers. I really do. I’ve been reading parts of Nolan and Crossan again over the past two days. Bosch also liked the historical Jesus research, as can be seen in his approach to Transforming Mission. In writing Transforming Mission, he started out with the historical research on Jesus and the early church, and then moved onto three paradigms of mission found in the early church, this he found in Matthew, Luke and Paul. The historical Jesus research  help us in understanding Jesus, the person who lived and walked and talked in Galilea and Judea roundabout 27-33 AD. Who was crucified. Historical research has difficulty talking about the resurrection, not because of unbelieve, but the sources really makes it difficult (please make sure you really understand this point before critiquing). Historical research can however help us in understanding what the early church believed about this event.

The reordering I propose is to start where the early disciples started, and work in the same order that the story developed for the early church theologians.

1. Jesus lives, walks and preaches in Galilea and Judea. 
2. He gets crucified
3. The disciples experience him as alive and develops a theology of the resurrection
4. Parousia (Christ’s second coming)
5. A high Christology develops which lead to thoughts on the incarnation

So I simply moved the incarnation towards the end of the story. I think a fairly good case can be made that of these 5 elements, that was the one that became important to the early church last. My reason for doing this, is that when putting it first, we tend to answer the quesion “Why was Jesus crucified?” from the intentionality of God, while reality is that Jesus was crucified because the Jews [UPDATE: meaning, certain Jewish leaders, certain members of the Sanhedrin.  Thanx to Hugo's comment] were really reallymad at him, and probably some Romans weren’t that fond of him either. This is reality: Some people really didn’t like Jesus, they didn’t like what he said or did, he was a threat, so they killed him. And at least some of what he said would have given enough reason to label him a terrorist, whether rightly so or not, so they could give him the death of a terrorist, and not of a religious heretic, which was being stoned, as with Stephen.

OK, but if this is why Jesus was crucified, where do we go from here? Well, we can say quite a lot about what Jesus said and did, the resurrection must have at least had a first meaning that what he said didn’t end with his death. That crucifying Jesus couldn’t kill what he started! But obviously his resurrection also gave rise to thoughts on his divinity, which I think there is also good evidence for that his disciples didn’t consider him divine before the resurrection, and it even took a while afterwards for the idea to sink in.

Only now could thoughts on the Parousia and incarnation develop. Now we could go full circle, or work backwords, and sya that if Jesus was God, and God was crucified, and a few obvious links with Jewish sacrificial rites can be made, and Jesus was God incarnate, then God’s intention with becoming incarnate in Jesus was to be crucified. That wouldn’t even be theologically incorrect! But that definitely is not the only interpretation! And I’m sure that wasn’t the first interpretation made in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem; maybe it was in the house of Marcus’ mother, who later wrote a gospel with no incarnation as part of the narrative. 

So, how do I preach it? I think historically a good case can be made that Jesus expected his own death. He knew about the rizing tensions, and that the leaders wanted to kill him. But did Jesus have to die? Yes, because the message he brought was so at odds with the rulers of the world, that they couldn’t exist side by side. Either he had to kill his message, or be killed because of the message. But the resurrection tell the story of hope, what Jesus brought cannot be killed! If I now turn the narrative into it’s usual order, I’d say that this is so at odds with what God is bringing to the world, that it would even go so far as to try and kill it, but it cannot be killed! The world cannot stop what God is bringing about in it.

Maybe I’ll have some more thoughts on how to preach this before Sunday. If you’ve actually read all the way down to this point, thank you! Let me know, and please critique and add on.

living in community

I haven’t blogged much on my experience of living in community this year. After getting married me and my wife moved in with 5 other people. I remember reading a blogpost, which I can’t find now, by the end of last year where someonw just wrote that “living in community is hard”… I knew I was going to write it at some point, and because of much conversations and much reading before making this move, was expecting this experience. But still, when it comes… well, it’s hard.

Tonight I know, living in community is hard. People get hurt in community. Those with whom you live see you at your weakest times, they see you when you are really really tired. Living in community mean that sometimes hard words get said. That is community. Living in community mean that putting my best foot out all the time is impossible. Living in community takes commitment. A commitment to work on relationships, especially those that are hard to work at.

But, community is also sometimes the place where healing happen. When people love even when they know who you are when you’re at your weakest, the healing happen. When people care, knowing that they won’t quickly “fix you”, then true relationship happen. 

Is it worth it? Absolutely. This is my home, these people are sometimes really hard to live with, but mostly, they make my life full. Living in community is hard, but that’s what we are called to do.

Religulous: Bill, a Seeker?

Yes, I watched Religulous. No, I’m not going to write a lot. No, I don’t think it was at all helpful.

Bill Maher, the comedian, plays the role of seeker and intellectual? Maybe of an intellectual seeker? Asking intelligent questions to people from the monotheistic religions?

• His mother and sister
• A number of Truckers from the Truckers chapel who meet in the back of a trailer. I really liked these guys, no the answers wasn’t theologically sound, but the Jesus narrative changed their lives, and they seem to know something about love (which even Bill admits).
• Dr Francis Collins, Head of Human Genome Project, to whom he talk about the origin of Biblical texts, especially the synoptic gospels, not about intelligent design, genetics, or anything related to the science-theology conversation which it Collins’ field of expertise.
• Dr Jeremiah Cummings, The Amazing World Outreach. I’ve never heard of the guy, but he seems to be come sort of tele-evangelist, definitely into prosperity gospel.
• A Franciscan monk who gets ridiculed for proposing that we might wanna read the Bible a bit differently on homosexuality.
• Pastor John Wescott of Exchange Ministries. A gay ministry somewhere.
• Dr Dean Hamer, author or The Gay Gene. But only for a few seconds, and only to say: “yes, there is a gay gene”. You can read on his theories, and that is what they remained.
• Steve Burg, an ex-Jew. Talks about miracles a lot, and Burg is criticized for seeing the miraculous in the ordinary.
• Ray Suarez, a journalist and author.
• Mark Pryor, a US Senator.
• Ken Ham, from the Creation Museum.
• Father George Coyne from the Vatican Observatory. One of the only academic theologians interviewed. Coyne gives Maher a very intro on Biblical interpretation, but still Maherridicules those who read the Bible, but doesn’t stick with literalism. Maher use him to prove the young earth creationists to be wrong.
• Father Reginald Foster. The other academic theologian interviewed. Maher uses him to prove the Catholics wrong.
• Tourists at the Holy Land Experience in Florida.
• Two former Mormons.
• Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda. You’ll find him at allaboutcult, enough said. 

Have you noticed what’s missing? No theologian connected to any university whatsoever. No senior leaders of any mainline Protestant church. Well, no minister of any mainline Protestant church at all actually. There is absolutely no interaction with critical and academic theological scholarship. Is this what they call intellectual? And even though he use the input of two Catholic academics, which I liked, he didn’t interact with their work, and still concludes that religion must die by the end of the documentary.

Maybe just a few last thoughts. Maher refers to three myths which supposedly is the origin of the Jesus story. Only problem is, he need to lie to make his point. I read some thoughts on the Horus myth a few days ago, so I’ll skip that one.

What about the Krishna myth? Bill states that Krishna was:

• Born of a virgin
• Carpenter
• Baptized in a river

All three of these is false. According to the Krishna myth Krishna was:

• The 8th child of Vasudeva and Devaki. Born in a prison where both was kept.
• A prince, the son of a statesman.
• Well, Hindu’s seem to have no idea where Maher got onto the Baptism idea: see here and here.

Point is: With no serious engagement of critical theology, and serious mistakes in Mahers arguments, why should this be taken as a serious intellectual threat to Christianity?

Although I have sympathy with Maher’sconcern with violence cause by fundamentalism, and have done my fair share in trying to point out that fundamentalism is dangerous, Maher’s approach isn’t helping peace along. Making a mockery out of fundamentalism while making obvious mistakes in your argument just have a way of further polarizing the Fundamentalists and New Atheists. Much has been said about the correlation between these two groups, following the twitter feeds on religulous again affirms this, it’s the exact same rhetoric, the kind of totalizing “all religion is bad”, “religion is responsible for all wars”, “religion will cause the end of mankind”, that you find with religious fundamentalists. Does Maher ever notice that his rhetoric equates to something very similar than that which he is opposing? Just on the other extreme of the spectrum.

In the end, I wonder whether it’s Bill the intellectual seeker speaking, of Bill the comedian. Seems more like the latter to me. But I fear that Maher’s comedy won’t be helping us to solve religious violence.

So here’s my advice to Bill Maher:

1. If you wanna be an intellectual, go talk to the experts in the fields you are studying. If you wanna present yourself as academic, open yourself up to academic debate.
2. If you wanna make something public, check the facts! If a simple google search can point to the flaws in your argument (talking about your seemingly wise comments on Krishna, Horus and Mithra), chances are, that the DVD won’t make a lasting impact.
3. If you wanna be a comedian, try and help the world along. Comedians can have a very important influence on the world, but if it means ridiculing the masses and polarizing the world into two extremes, your probably not helping.

Anyone saw the film? What was your thoughts?

quotes from “The end of Christendom and the future of Christianity”

I love the Christian Mission and Modern Culture series from the 90′s. Little A6 books of about 60 pages (some much longer) written by authors such as David Bosch, Leslie Newbigin and Alan Roxburgh. Pity they are so expensive! I just started reading The end of Christendom and the future of Christianity while walking through the streets of Hatfield this afternoon, doing shopping for my wife. Some quotes from the first few pages worth mentioning:

Opening paragraph to the preface to the Series:

Both Christian mission and modern culture, widely regarged as antagonists, are in crisis. the emergence of the modern mission movement in the early nineteenth century cannot be understood apart from the rise of technocratic society. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, both modern culture and Christian mission face an uncertain future.

Opening paragraph in the forward:

The title of this book is intended to suggest the overall hypothesis that I want to develop in it. Briefly put, it is my belief that the Christian movement can have a very significant future – a responsible future that will be both faithful to the original vision of this movement and of immense servide to our beleaguered world. But to have that future, we Christians must stop trying to have the kind of future that nearly sixteen centuries of official Christianity in the Western world have conditioned us to covet.

Nothing new for most of us, and although these books is a few years old, they are still worth reading for everyone believing that something seriously need to change for the church in the West.