Another impossibility: Christian Celebrities
October 27, 2009
Peter Rollins talk about the leader who reject leadership. This is Christian leadership. The leader who always gives the decision back, never willing to be the leader.
We cannot get around celebrities, if with celebrities we mean those known by many. People are not connected in a random network (see explanation of random and scale-free networks in the beginning on this well-known article by Dwight Friesen), where everyone is connected to a similar amount of people. This becomes even less so when one a one-way connection is needed (such as with twitter, where you can follow someone without them following you, and different from facebook, where both need to confirm before they are friends).
Celebrities require such a one-way connection. And we will always have some people that are more well-known than others. But the world in which we live has created a culture where celebrity is being fed with meaning. Now the popularity of this person gives them authority. Authority to make truth-claims which then need to be followed simply because of the celebrity which said this (see how we quote celebrities sometimes). Authority to be above the system, to be untouchable (some of this came to the surface during the recent Polanski/Hollywood affair).
The Christian is part of a tradition in which texts such as these are important:
What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
Paul the Apostle, 1 Corintians 1:12-13
Also texts such as these:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good– except God alone.
Jesus in the Gospel according to Mark, 10:17-18
The Christian celebrity, meaning the one who is known by more people within the system of human relations, always rejects the celebrity status that come with the connection, the status which provides authority or privilege in any way on the basis of being a celebrity. It is impossible to be a celebrity, in my second definition of celebrity, and in line with the teachings of Jesus as they are reported in the gospels.
so I’m naive
July 21, 2009
There is this old blessing, which supposedly goes back to saint Francis (but then again, so does a lot of sayings), which I often use when preaching. It’s my favourite. I only have the text in Afrikaans, but the last part goes something like this:
and may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a differance in this world, so that you will be able to do the things that others believe to be impossible
I remember reading this post at The Jesus Manifesto a few months ago that was a reminder that contrary to modern liberal thoughts, the way of Jesus is not the utmost thoughts in ethical and social thinking, as if common reason would bring us to the same place that the teachings of Jesus brought us. Reality is that sometimes I simply feel like I’m naive to actually think that the way of Jesus will change the world, sometimes the grand scemes of poitically correct capitalist welfare programs look much more effective. Seems like large companies investing millions into Africa has a better plan than me trying to get myself to a place where I’ll actually house the stranger, sell my stuff, and give to the poor.
But that’s the journey that the teaching of that prophet from Nazareth is getting me onto. I’m getting more and more aware that it’s probably naive. But then again, I must be naive to still believe that God’s kingdom is actually coming, and that I can be part of bringing that into existance…
homes for the homeless
July 21, 2009
Today I heard about a single mother and her only child, who spend more than half her small salary on housing for herself and her child. And I did nothing.
Today I heard about a child for whom there is no place in the childrens home, looking for a room for the night.
Everyday I see those without homes all around me.
Tonight one room in our house is empty. Tonight 3 matrasses in our house don’t have anyone sleeping on them. But yet, I struggle to open up the place I live to the homeless.
Whether I should I don’t know. But there is still much that need to be worked on in this persons spirituality and wisdom before I know what to do when I hear this news.
they’re rebels, and they’re everywhere!
July 9, 2009
I love the time I live in! And I love the people I get the opportunity to connect with! Not just the high-profile type, but mainly the little rebels. Not necessarily those who shout their rebel voices out on blogs and T-shirts, but those who slowly but surely create a world that is different from the one they inherited. And it’s happening. They’re all around us. People who are changing the world. Many of them on the non-written side of history, not the heroes or the big leaders. But those who are shaping a new way of living.
Some of them are academics, some of them not.
Some of them are extroverted, some of them introverted.
Some of them are loving and kind, some of them are harsh and critical, some of them are all of the above at once.
Some of them you’ll find in institutions, some of them prefer to do it the cowboy way.
Some of them are religious, some of them are not.
Some use words to label themselves, some will never give a name to what they are.
Some know that they are rebels, and recreating the world they live in, and some don’t even realise it, but change are happening when they are around.
Most won’t call themselves rebels, but I see the status quo of the world, I know they are rebels.
Will they change the world? To me, eschatology mean that I believe that the world can change, no matter what the odds! And I’m willing to believe that at least some of the people I know are changing the world right now.
demilitarizing the kingdom of God
July 2, 2009
A few needed thoughts on the kingdom of God by Gerd Theissen in The Religion of the Earliest Churches:
This myth (the kingdom of God) is simply consistent Jewish monotheism: God will finally be the one and only God, alongside whom there will no longer be any other powers to limit his rule …
In Judaism this includes the rule of the one and only God. Now Jesus combines this talk of the kingly rule of God, i.e. a political metaphor, with a second, family, metaphor: the image of God as father…
It is striking that Jesus always speaks only of the kingdom of God, of God’s basileia as an objective entity, but never of God as ‘king’, of basileus as a personal role. This produces a void for him which he fills with the metaphor of father: in God’s kingly rue God comes to power not as ‘king’ but as ‘father’. As familia dei, the ‘family of God’, his sons and daughters have a privileged relationship to him and take part in his rule. Therefore in the Our Father the central message of Jesus is summed up as ‘Our Father, your kingdom come… ‘ In every respect this message is this a revitalization of the Jewish sign world in the light of two basic metaphors which come into the centre. However, for Jesus this ‘myth’ of the coming kingly rule of the Father takes a form which is characterized by two special features. In both cases the mythical world is extended or transformed in a unique way: by a historicizing, poeticizing and ‘demilitarizing’ of myth.
Just a note, when Theissen refer to Jewish thoughts, he specifically do not refer to Pharasaic thought.
Second note. Maybe this demilitarization of the kingdom of God need to be kept in mind when modern metaphors for the kingdom of God is looked for.
one Afrikaner’s Amahoro calling
June 27, 2009
Chris asked me today what Amahoro meant to me. My answer probably surprised the room: Amahoro called me back to the white Afrikaner people. Amahoro called me back to the Dutch Reformed Church, the white one. Linking with everyone from Africa was a great experience, and I look forward to joining the family next year in Nairobi, but for me the calling of Amahoro was not primarily to the worst suffering in Africa, but to a small tribe of people who are known for the efficiency with which we could oppress.
I probably need to explain.
This probably started when I seriously began digging into the missiology of David Bosch, and seeking for an approach to the emerging field of public theology which would take the work of Bosch into account. Up to now this haven’t really happened in the public theology conversation. Part of my discussion of Bosch was understanding his ecclesiology, specifically the way he used the alternative community concept of the Anabaptists, combined it with his own Reformed theology.
Bosch talked about the church as God’s experimental garden. The church is not only the community that is sent out to change the world, but also the place where we show the world what God’s dream would look like. For Bosch in the Apartheid years this would have meant showing an Apartheid government that black and white can live together, that the world isn’t going to come to an end when black and white share a meal.
What exactly all this mean to me I don’t know. But I do know that I pray for my people, and yes, I call the Afrikaners my people. I pray, and hear the voice of God calling this, that these people can in the years to come journey out of our heritage, and become part of Africa, of this continent with it’s struggles, with it’s African theologians and our beautiful way of talking about God amidst suffering. It’s like the way Bosch understood the reign of God, it’s here, but it’s still coming. The Afrikaner is part of Africa, but we are also still becoming part of Africa.
In different ways we responded to Amahoro. For me it wasn’t walking away from this church that still refuse to embrace Belhar, but embracing this church. Not embracing it as it is, but this deep feeling that I cannot go without them. I need to see these people transition. I cannot run and call them from afar, tell them how wonderful it is here on the other side, where we are wholly part of Africa. I need to walk with them. The world need us to make this journey, to show that yes, whatever you might remember about this group of people, through God even we can make this journey.
Nic said it at one stage at Amahoro. We pitch our tents out far, and then come back to the church and journey with them. Amahoro stretch the road to when my tent is pitched even further, but it also sent me back, I’ve seen something of the road, now I must go on the journey with others.
This is most probably not the last time I’ll blog on this. I just know that these words it not what’s going on in my head, but I need to start to try and formulate this truckload of thoughts that’s still racing.
Transforming Mission – Chapter 2
March 27, 2009
The second round of conversation on Transforming Mission happened yesterday, and I’m getting more and more impressed (or maybe uncomfortable) with level of conversation happening. Not because it’s intellectually the most challenging conversation imaginable, although it’s definitely inttlectually challenging, not because you have around the table the most knowledge on the theology of David Bosch, or even on Missiology… but because a group of people are being deadly honest about their own journey’s of being Christian in South Africa today, are working with an brilliant and challenging text (Transforming Mission, as well the the books of the Bible being discussed), and are applying it to their own lives first and foremost, before anything else.
Chapter 2 was under discussion, on the Matthean sub-paradigm of early Christian mission. Matthew is known as the discipleship book, known for the sermon on the mount, and the Great Commision. All of this was discussed. I made some comments on Matthew 28 two days ago, and wrote about Bosch’s interpretation of this passage in my dissertation last year:
“In this article Bosch expounds his exegesis of The Gospel According to Matthew, especially chapter 28:18-20, to counter an interpretation which says that this text talks about leading non-Christians to a first commitment to Christ (make disciples), which only then must be followed by a stage of “perfecting” (teaching them to observe) (Bosch 1984:19). As Bosch explains, the teaching is not something which follows making disciples, but qualifies the main verb “make disciples” (Bosch 1984:24). The content of the teaching Bosch summarizes using two words: justice and love (Bosch 1984:26). “In summary then: Jesus has commanded the fulfilling of the Law which is the practice of justice-love. To love the other person means to have compassion for him or her to see that justice is done. Love of neighbour and enemy manifests itself in justice” (Bosch 1984:27). He endorses the words of Waldron Scott who wrote: “One must understand discipleship in order to make disciples, and discipleship is not fully biblical apart from a commitment to social justice…. To be a disciple is to be committed to the King and his Kingdom of just relationships” (Scott in Bosch 1984:28). Of the narrow evangelistic interpretation against which Bosch is writing in this article he then says: “They falsely teach that if individuals have a personal experience of Christ in traditional pietistic terms they will automatically become involved in the changing of society” (Bosch 1984:29).”
From Chapter 4 of David Bosch as Public Theologian
In conclusion: The way we live was of absolute importance to Bosch. We don’t evangelize people into heaven, and then disciple them into a way of life. We live the way of Jesus, the way of love, and make disciples, others who join us in living this way of love.
Others who blogged on chapter 2 of Transforming Mission:
Feel free to blog your own thoughts on this chapter, and send me the link. Even if you’re not joining us in conversation.
