CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Last year I wrote a piece for Next-Wave on the theme of Advent. We talked a lot about Advent themes last year as I completed my book, That You Might Believe: Praying Advent with the Gospel of John. I’m not sure yet if there are any synchroblogs planned for Advent this year, but I thought I would start taking up the topic a little eary so it doesn’t catch me off-guard like it so often does. Usually the season sneaks up on me before I know it, but this year I’m trying to think ahead. Unless you’re celebrating by the Celtic calendar, of course. In this vein, I thought I’d reprint last year’s Next-Wave article.

There’s a lot of talk this year about Advent. I might think it’s not so much more than usual, except that I keep finding people who are new to the observance of Advent. One of the primary reasons has to do, I believe, with the growing hunger in the evangelical (and post-evangelical) church to rediscover some or her lost habits and practices. Liturgical traditions have long carried on in many of these practices, but some of the traditions that have previously eschewed such “rigidity” are now discovering what has been to them a depth and wisdom unsuspected. In short, they are part of the rhythms and patterns that contribute to our spiritual formation. They are part, as Eugene Peterson put it so beautifully, of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Advent is one of these. My own experience of Advent is admittedly not a lengthy one, but I’ve been making an effort to allow it to become a deep one. In college as Christmas approached, I used to light Advent candles in my dorm room and sit and read in front of the electric fireplace I had scrounged from somewhere-or-other. It wasn’t a deep commitment to an Advent tradition so much as it was an expression of hunger — which is fitting to the season, actually. I have been much more intentional about engaging with the Advent season over the past few years, stepping into it together with my family as we explored.

Another tradition that is much more recent for us as a family is the praying together of the daily office. We began this fall using the Northumbria Community’s Celtic Daily Office, praying it together twice daily as a family. Overall it’s been a rich experience for us and has led to some irreplaceable family teaching-moments as we talk about the prayers and some of the theology inherent in them.

Perhaps it was only natural to merge these newly-rediscovered traditions with my longstanding love of John’s Gospel, but the result was a new book of Advent prayers That You Might Believe: Praying Advent with the Gospel of John, and an Advent-long synchroblog project to go with it. When I was asked if I had an excerpt for the December Next-Wave ‘zine, I wasn’t quite sure what to say… one favorite prayer? As the first week of Advent draws to a close, I think about our use of the prayers thus far. Maybe I have a favorite moment… like when my six-year-old daughter asked me if we could do the “night-time” office (compline) together at bedtime. We’d already done the morning and evening ones that day. She’s waiting for Christmas break so she’ll be home to “try” some of the mid-day prayers as well.

This first week of Advent we prayed morning and evening blessings from Luther’s Catechism, but I particularly like the opening prayer from the morning office this week:

This I call to mind,
     and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
     his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
     great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
     “therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
     to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
     for the salvation of the Lord.

A lot of the prayers are adapted from scriptures, like this one from Lamentations 3:21-26 (ESV). We recited the first part of the Nicene Creed together as an affirmation of faith. We prayed from Psalms, Hebrews, and Matthew as well, and as I finished the compline with my youngest daughter one evening, we prayed a Celtic together:

Spirit, give me of Thine abundance,
Father, give me of Thy wisdom,
Son, give me in my need,
Jesus beneath the shelter of Thy shield.

I lie down to-night,
With the Triune of my strength,
With the Father, with Jesus,
With the Spirit of might.

As I look ahead to the coming week, we will use a blessing from Romans 15:

As Isaiah foretold,
     “The root of Jesse will come,
          even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
     in him will the Gentiles hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

We’ll also be praying from Psalm 131, from Isaiah, and from Thomas A Kempis, and from St. Augustine. Perhaps I’ll pray with my daughters at bedtime,

In name of the Lord Jesus
And of the Spirit of healing balm,
In name of the Father of Israel,
     I lay me down to rest.

If there be evil threat or quirk,
Or covert act intent on me,
God free me and encompass me,
     And drive from me mine enemy.

In name of the Father precious,
And of the Spirit of healing balm,
In name of the Lord Jesus,
     I lay me down to rest.

Part of the reason we do this is to insert a deliberate pause — a countercultural pause — in the rhythms of our lives before Christmas. Now at the beginning of the year in the church calendar, we have to fight to create space for reflection, space in which to pause. Jamie Howison, priest at the local Anglican church to which we’ve loosely attached ourselves, warns strongly against filling the season with business that crashes headlong into Christmas. By engaging fully in the Advent season of waiting, watching, and preparing, we ready our hearts for the coming of our Messiah. Celebration is for Christmas, and there are twelve whole days set aside for feasting and celebrating… but for now we resist diving in too early. The anticipation is building, and for the coming week: Peace.

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Jonny Baker has some good thoughts on the gift of not fitting in, which is an interesting turn of phrase of itself. And as anyone who has this particular “gift” will know, it often feels more like a curse than a gift. This “not fitting in” describes more than simply those who are “different,” the non-conformists conspicuous for their external similarities. What makes these people not fit in is far more fundamental — it’s a way of thinking, an outlook. The thing that makes them not fit is that they look at things as everyone accepts them to be, and they not only ask why they are this way, but why everyone accepts them to be this way. In asking the question and beginning to imagine an answer, they begin to imagine an alternative, and to see a way to change. Sometimes they even begin living according to the alternative way, clashing in the process with the accepted way of things.

Jonny writes,

there are lots of artists, prophets, creatives, entrepreneurs, and change agents for whom this is true and it is why they are able to do what they do. cultures need people that don’t fit - it’s how things get moved on when they get stuck. i have been reminded of it on this trip to the US as i have met a number of people for whom that statement could be said both in okc and austin. and they are amazing gifted wonderful people. and guess what - the institutional church really doesn’t get it or them too well!

It all has that eerie ring of the truth about it, doesn’t it? Of course, I fit into this pattern myself. If I consider the many times when I’ve met with opposition of various kinds, it is more often than not a symptom of this difference. Of course, I’m not so special in this respect — there are many who are a part of this tribe, and their numbers are growing. They are beginning to reimagine the way things are, and the momentum toward change is growing. This is of course what is meant by the emergence of the church from the way that it was into the new thing it is becoming.

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Mike Todd caught this the other day as well… Seth Godin asks, What happens when we organize? Seth opens his post with the observation that “Most power occurs because one side is better organized than the other.” This is a good description of an imbalanced power structure such as happens in the church where a divide exists between clergy and laity (Seth gives other examples). These structures are being upset in the present changing environment where Internet tools and a shift in values toward egalitarian ideals drive collaboration and spontaneous organization around a goal rather than simply falling into a rigid power or authority structure. Books such as Seth Godin’s Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and Clay Shirkey’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations fill out the rest of the picture. The message is that the power structures are beginning to crumble under the realization that they really aren’t necessary, and their reaction to the changing milieu appears to be confusion — for the most part, there’s an instinctive desire to oppose this new disorganized organization, this “grassroots” movement that threatens to upset everything. Unfortunately for them, they are ill-equipped to meet this challenge; Ori Brafmann and Rod Beckstrom’s book The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations gives a good explanation of why this is so. Boiling it down to a single sentences though, one might latch onto the one which Seth Godin ended his post with, as I believe it to be highly accurate: “The system doesn’t know what to do with a movement.” They’re as ill-prepared for what’s coming at them as “Officer Opie” was.

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Rodney Olson’s list of ten things he’s done that I (we) probably haven’t, and it reminded me of Peter Gzowski.

I used to listen to CBC Radio’s Morningside with Gzowski every morning. He used to play an on-air game with people — he would line up two or three noted people, who would each give three “facts” about themselves. These would usually be odd things they had done, strange experiences, encounters with famous people, or some intersection of these characteristics. Each person would ask a few clarifying questions in an attempt to discover which of the three “facts” was, in fact, a lie.

Reading Rodney’s post, I thought it might be fun to try something similar. With that in mind, here is a list of five facts excerpted from my life so far:

1. I once sank thigh-deep in quicksand.
2. I once had Steve Archer make a disgusted face and wave at me during one of his concerts.
3. I once spent the night on the tundra in a tent.
4. I once hung out with Kansas City prophet Bob Jones for the day.
5. I once drove through a blizzard with no headlights while my friend held a flashlight out the window.

One of these facts isn’t — see if you can determine which. Go ahead and guess, or ask questions… I’ll answer up to three questions about each fact listed. If you think the additional details don’t line up, perhaps you’ve got me: name the lie and say what tipped you off. The winner gets… well, the respect and admiration of tens of people, at least. Or maybe they’ll be tagged to do this on their blog.

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This week my series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth sees the addition of a hymn from 1912 by Leila Morris. Leila was ac­tive in the Meth­od­ist church, camp meet­ings, and song writ­ing, au­thor­ing more than 1,000 Gos­pel songs. When her eyes be­gan to fail, her son built her a 28-foot black­board with extra-large staff lines, which she used to con­tin­ue com­pos­ing. “Sweeter as the Years Go By” is from the early years of her blindness. I recall the song from my youth, though mainly just the first verse from that time. Interestingly enough, a favorite recording of the song is one I wouldn’t discover until many years later, and can be found on the Blind Willie Johnson album of the same title, Sweeter as the Years Go By. Lest I digress more fully into the works of Blind Willie Johnson, we need to step along to the lyrics to the hymn at hand.

Sweeter as the Years go By

Of Jesus’ love that sought me, when I was lost in sin;
Of wondrous grace that brought me back to His fold again;
Of heights and depths of mercy, far deeper than the sea,
And higher than the heavens, my theme shall ever be.

Sweeter as the years go by, sweeter as the years go by,
Richer, fuller, deeper, Jesus’ love is sweeter,
Sweeter as the years go by.

He trod in old Judea life’s pathway long ago;
The people thronged about Him, His saving grace to know;
He healed the broken hearted, and caused the blind to see;
And still His great heart yearneth in love for even me.

Refrain

’Twas wondrous love which led Him for us to suffer loss,
To bear without a murmur the anguish of the cross;
With saints redeemed in glory, let us our voices raise,
Till Heav’n and earth re-echo with our Redeemer’s praise.

Refrain

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As you know, we always begin Saturday linkage mornings with bad jokes, the popularity of which never ceases to amaze me. So…

What plays music on your head? A head band.

What’s green and pecks on a tree? Woody Wood-pickle.

What’s orange and crawls across the floor? A wounded cheesie.

What happened to guy who farted in church? He sat in his own pew. (Blame Tony Jones for that one!)

How do you kill a blue elephant? With a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a red elephant? You choke it until it turns blue and shoot is with a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a yellow elephant? Kick it until it gets mad and turns red, choke it until it turns blue, shoot it with a blue elephant gun.

How do you kill a purple elephant? There is no such thing as a purple elephant!!

That last series from the comments in Frank Viola’s Friday jokes post, which has several more, including variations on:

What do you call a seagull flying over a bay at breakfast time? A bay-gull!

Alright, moving right along… we come to the usual linkage, random or otherwise.

1. The Art of Thank You Note Writing (via Steve McCoy)
2. 10 Things To Like About the ESV Study Bible
3. Len Hjalmarson on navigators versus map readers
4. A lot of people have displayed the graphic of the US Presidents’ faces to show the starkness of the first African-American President. Still, we’re not post-racial yet. But it is progress — as Maureen Dowd said, “The first 16 Presidents of this country could have owned Barack Obama.” This is a good reason to celebrate, and we understand Americans celebrating for this reason. Outside the USA though, there are other reasons to celebrate Obama’s victory… he was the presidential choice of most other nations. Americans may not fully grasp the significance from this perspective, so perhaps Jon Birch can help.
5. For The Want of Seventy Dollars
6. Outstanding RLP: To my daughter at fifteen — nobody who has a daughter should miss this one.
7. Can Dallas Willard teaching on the Sermon on the Mount cause a megachurch about-face?
8. Un-Missional Thinking?
9. Controversial new book: The Shaq
10. Characteristically-defined Church Names
11. Are you like Luther or Calvin in your blogging? Odd that a particular Calvinist blog and the Prince of Preachers that they try to emulate falls so much more in the Luther category than the Calvin one.
12. Interview with Stanley Hauerwas around his new book, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (via) He calls himself “a reluctant pacifist.”
13. Speaking of pacifists, a bunch of monks get into a brawl over relics and holy sites.
14. Interview with Bruxy Cavey on his book, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus
15. The Green Bible. No, no, it’s serious — and it has green letters instead of red.
16. Jesus as an Emergent Talker — a little on the chilling side.
17. Pastor Abandons His Church — I was inspired by this, for a while…
18. Unchurched or Unsaved? What Our Vocabulary Reveals About our Beliefs
19. Crossway Announcement of ESV Study Bible on Digital Platforms (via Steve McCoy)
20. Ed Stetzer: Simply missional vs. the Warehouse mentality — some great observations in here.
21. Donald Miller: From Reagan to Obama, a brief Political History
22. Cool. I love doodle-sketch art, whatever you call it. I wish I could draw well enough to document a trip to England as a series of sketches. Of course, I’d have to do the trip first…

Most popular post around here this week: The Liturgical Bob Dylan — and it wasn’t particularly close at all.

We’ll wrap up the linkage this week with one that should stand out — Rick Meigs brought Elizabeth Chapin’s blog to my attention via email this week. Her post, “Would Missional by Any Other Name Sound So Sweet?” is a good overview of some of the voices defining missional, along with some good thoughts of her own. I’ve added her to my feed reader as well since she looks like a very promising voice in this conversation.

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A little while back I decided that I would like to feature a few guest-bloggers from time to time, and that I should share some of the books in my review pile around so that a few others might be able to produce some short reviews and reactions, lightening my book review load in the process. Like the other day, today’s post is a book review guest post, combining both ideas. This one is by Dianna, a friend and journeymate. We’ve known her and her husband for more than 20 years now, and we not only share a CLB, but also our current journey in a home-based small group church.

First a bit of background about me and then some thoughts about Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians by Brian Sanders. I’m a friend of Brother Maynard’s. (He’s a good guy in person too!) And with only a little bit of arm twisting I agreed to review one of the books from his stack of books. It wasn’t a hard decision, I enjoy reading and I got to rummage through the pile and choose the one I wanted. There were a number that caught my eye but Life After Church was the one that intrigued me and pulled me in.

You see, I am a leaver. An unresolved, but committed leaver. The unresolved part comes from the fact that I wouldn’t say the word “leaver” is one that describes my church experience. I attended for many years the small northern Pentecostal (PAOC) Church that introduced me to Jesus until I moved to the city I now live in and the non denominational church I attended for 17 years. It was there I made my vows to my husband of close to 18 years, it was there that we had our three children dedicated, it was there that I was on pastoral staff for 5 years and it was there that I volunteered in countless ways. “Loyalty” more closely resembles who I am in regard to my church commitment.

And yet here I am. I left.

Shortly before our family left I felt God give me a nudge and in essence the conversation went like this…

God: You’ve been having an affair.
Me: What do you mean? I’m not. I’ve never been unfaithful to my husband. What an earth (or heaven) are you talking about?
God: You’ve been unfaithful to me.
Me: How? (knowing it to be true, but unsure of what act of unfaithfulness he’s calling me on)
God: You have loved the church more than you’ve loved me. You are so busy serving the church; you don’t realize when you’ve stopped serving me. You are so keen to do what you perceive the leaders want that you have no idea what I want.

It was true. Fall to the ground in repentance true. And although some people could stay and work out a new relationship with the church that didn’t violate the sanctity of the relationship between them and their Father, I couldn’t. I needed to get away. Readjust my heart and ears and actions to my Father and then rebuild a relationship with Church.

That’s where Brian Sanders book comes in. I’ve had several books throughout my leaving trek that have helped me put words to what has rumbled around in my spirit. Now Brian’s book joins the ranks.

The title, Life After Church, drew me in but his content kept me reading. In part, because he’s written in a manner that doesn’t overwhelm the reader with a cold dissection of church with the ensuing technical jargon and in part because he adds his own story into the mix. I have the sense of this being flesh and bones reality. And most importantly, I kept reading because this is a book not about leaving church altogether but about wanting more for the Church. It’s about Life After Church As We Know It.

Sanders argues that if you’ve left the church, don’t abandon being the church, as many leavers leave it altogether. On the other hand, if you’re staying in your church, in spite of seeing where it needs to change, then be the change you wish to see. Either way, he says, fully participate in the kingdom of God. The book is helpful for both the stayers and the leavers, as there is value in both.

The book is about the stuff of God’s kingdom. After reading it, I felt gently cuffed upside the head with the reminder that I’m an alien, I belong to a different kingdom. In my obedience to leave the greenhouse that my old church had become for me, and my desire to be out in the field where the harvest is, I lose sight at times of the fact that while I am definitely “in” this world, I am not “of” it. I have gloriously been adopted into my Father’s family and the love He’s shown me, He is eager for me to share. Not the, “you need Jesus or you’re going to hell” kind of sharing but rather the “binding up the brokenhearted” kind of sharing. God has given me wonderful places to sow his love; I want to do that with authenticity, grace and sensitivity.

So if you’re someone who has a yearning in their soul for the Church to better reflect the heart of God, whether you’re a leaver or someone who’s called to be the change from within, this is a great read for you. You’ll feel your struggle acknowledged; your spirit encouraged. I feel like Brian Sanders doesn’t dismiss the concerns we have, but urges us to be involved in being the Church that we so long for. I really like that. We’re a part of the solution. And I really love that the solution isn’t for us. It’s for all of those the Father longs for and loves.

Thanks for the cuff upside the head Brian, I needed it.

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I remember well the days of my youth when the Christmas catalogues would arrive from Sears, Eaton’s, and The Bay. Pouring over those catalogues and circling our most-desired items was a cherished tradition during the run-up to Christmas, when visions of cars and trucks and G.I. Joe and helicopters and spaceships and chocolate and “Christmas oranges” would dance through our heads before a background of tinsel and baubles and bubble-lights hung from a sparkly tree. And in case anyone’s wondering, the 1904 catalogue was a bit before my time ;^) …the ones I recall were much glossier than this.

Times have changed though. I’m now more entranced by catalogues from Lee Valley or Christian Book Distributors or Amazon, and I’m more likely to view them online rather than stretched out on the floor with a pen in hand to circle the items of greatest desire. In fact, Eaton’s no longer exists and The Bay stopped printing their catalogue years ago. Our kids have modest wants, including many practical ones, and have made a few of them known. Their eyes don’t glaze over when the toy catalogue arrives in the mail, but this year they are pouring over catalogues of a different nature.

This year the kids in our home church / missional community want to raise funds to purchase animals from the World Vision catalogue. Their Christmas campaign is a great way to teach compassion, empathy and awareness among our kids, and is a practical way to help other children and families around the world respond to their challenges. The gifts make a lasting difference in those lives as well as an impression on our kids, who are pretty gung-ho for this project. Our eight kids range from age 3-10 and are planning to put on a dinner with entertainment and to sell crafts as well as accept donations and look for chores from which they can earn money for their cause. We have set up an online donation page at World Vision and listed a few of the items they are considering — after discussing it among themselves, they are leaning toward food items and animals used to produce food and generate income. They shied away from purchasing rabbits, as cute as they were, when we suggested that they were used for food. With kids, there’s some kind of animal scale that ranges from “cute” on one end to “food” on the other. Piglets, I learned, are also too close to the “cute” end of the scale. So far, they’ve raised about $25 and gotten the craft supplies donated, so it’s not a bad start for them.

Their goals are fairly modest, but we hope to see them not only met, but exceeded. If they do really well, they still have visions of alpacas and dairy cows dancing in their heads. Anyone wanting to throw a few dollars their way can do so either by using our donation page at World Vision (tax receipts are issued for donations over $15) or through PayPal using the “soup link” at the end of this post. By doing so, it’s not only our kids you make happy. And let me just say that I’m proud of them for latching onto this initiative so well.

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Our friend Karla is a part of our small band of ragtag missional outcasts, having come out of the same CLB as we did. We met them there when they hosted a small group that we led some 10 or so years back. A little while ago, I loaned her a book from my review pile, telling her that since I hadn’t read it yet, if she was going to read it before me, she’d have to give me a quick review. In fact, I had a strong suspicion she’d enjoy it, being the Ann Lamott fan that she is. A few days later, she informed me that she didn’t want to ever return the book and was going to start writing notes in it. It’s a “thing”… you see, I’m fairly particular about my books. You know, not bending the covers or dog-earring the pages, marking them up, or using them as drink coasters — normal book-care stuff — so she was taking a shot at me since she evidently has some inexplicably different views on the use and treatment of books. Ownership of the book may remain in dispute, but I’m hoping that possession isn’t necessarily “9/10 of the law.” Either way, fortunately, her review of Sara Miles’ Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion follows.

I love to hear and read stories of transformation. I think it is because of the obvious change and difference I can see revealed right in front of me — but perhaps it is because through reading and hearing the stories of the transformation of others, I too have hope in being transformed. And so with that mindset, how could I not have drooled with anticipation as a copy of take this bread was placed in my hands to read and review. Just read the first paragraph of the prologue, and you’ll understand why…

One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans — except that up until that moment I’d led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.

Take This Bread is the autobiographical story of Sara Miles, who, as a homosexual, middle aged, left-winged journalist encountered Christ in the bread and the wine at an Episcopalian church in San Francisco. Miles was the daughter of two atheist parents whose grandparents had been evangelical missionaries. She was a mother and a long-term partner — but that day at the alter she became a follower of Jesus. What follows is Miles’ account of how encountering the person of Jesus transformed her heart and as a result spurred her on to passionately pursue establishing St. Gregory’s Food Pantry — what was to become one of the largest food pantries serving the city of San Francisco.

Miles chronicles her journey with a vulnerable authenticity. She invites the reader along to experience the liturgical richness she encounters at St. Gregory’s, to smell and taste the food she picks up and offers each week at the food pantry, to hear the voices of many nations cajoling and arguing about who will be first to receive their share. It is an offering I was quickly willing to accept and became more nourished for partaking in.

Intertwined within the story of the establishment of the food pantry is Miles’ personal journey to understand how faith can co-exist with an unbelieving partner, the U.S. war in Iraq, church politics, and disappointment. Within her story, Miles focuses on her belief that conversion is a process — ever changing and evolving — rather than a one-time event. At several points in the book, she steps back to remind the reader that another layer of her conversion had been added to her, and it’s at these times that I was able to stop and recognize the layers that are still being added to my messy and jagged conversion as well.

Conversion isn’t, after all, a moment: It’s a process, and it keeps happening, with cycles of acceptance and resistance, epiphany and doubt…. I began to understand why so many people chose to be “born-again” and follow strict rules that would tell them what to do, once and for all. It was tempting to rely on a formula — “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and saviour,” for example — that became itself a form of idolatry and kept you from experiencing God in your flesh, in the complicated flesh of others. It was tempting to proclaim yourself “saved” and go back to sleep. (p.97)

Above all, Take This Bread reminds readers that it is the simplicity and concreteness of the tasting of the bread and the wine which draws us to Christ. The book beautifully and vividly looks at the elements of the Eucharist in such a way that makes the reader hunger for their next opportunity to take communion. The significance of the consumption of the bread and the wine came alive for me in a new way.

I’d highly recommend take this bread to anyone who desires a greater understanding of the Eucharist, and who values personal stories of others to enrich their own. My copy of the book is dog-eared, underlined, written in and bent. It is the kind of book that envelopes such richness in only a sentence or two, that you feel you must occasionally stop so as not to lose the value of what you have just read. Miles writes in a style reminiscent of my beloved Anne Lamott (Lamott herself calls Take This Bread “the most amazing book”). It is filled with humour, some crude language, and brazen honesty — all of which fit perfectly within context of someone freshly converted and not yet privy to the “rules and regulations” to which some churches conform their converts.

I’ll conclude with a prayer Miles includes in the book which she wrote for the volunteers to sing at the food pantry each week:

O God of abundance, you feed us everyday.
Rise in us now, make us into your bread,
That we may share your gifts with a hungry world,
And join in love with all people, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. (p.163)

A review copy of this book was provided through The Ooze Select Blogger program.

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Today is Remembrance Day, and for the occasion, I’ve resurrected the oldest draft post in my arsenal… from back in 2004. I began with an idea jotted down and then thought it would be better left until the whole Iraq thing cooled down… but of course you know how that’s gone. Opening the post up for the first time in (literally) years, I see I hadn’t written as much as I thought I had, but the gist of an idea is there, and it’s percolated for some time now.

I’ve written Remembrance-Day-themed posts each year on this day in the past (see the sidebar on my blog for past posts), but my favorite is still the post from 2005 about our visit to a veteran on Remembrance Day and the followup post, which says, in part: “we didn’t know, couldn’t know at the time that we were spending his last Remembrance Day with him.” I also said in that post, “although I abhor warmongering, I do retain a deep respect for soldiering,” and I want to frame what I say here with that thought. Here I want to reflect on war, pacifism, and the pursuit of justice through military means.

Over the past 20-25 years, I have become more and more settled as a “moderate pacifist.” If anyone else uses that term with a particular meaning, I’m not aware — in my mind I pulled the phrase out of the air and need to explain what I mean. Essentially, I’m a pacifist, but I’ll allow exceptions, and that’s where the problem begins, because inevitably the concept of Just War Theory has to come up, and in general I would agree with how this is described… but the question seems to become less and less clear all the time. In 1993, the US Catholic Conference stated, “Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations.” Based on this definition, it seems clear to me that there are wars going on today which are not just, and wars which should be going on which are not.

I do have my own version of just war, which is that war must always seek justice. True justice is never concerned with who deserves it, so by extension, nobody, no matter how reprehensible, deserves injustice. Too often, people may use the phrase “just war” to promote “justified war.” Whether or not they use the phrase, most war today might be categorized as “justified war” — that is to say, some argument has been used to justify the waging of that war, regardless of whether the offered justification is valid. There is a difference between “justified war” and “Just War.” In my mind, not only must Just War always seek justice, it must also seek true justice without dispensing injustice in the process.

Yes, this latter statement is what specifically tells me that the “war on terror” is not a Just War.

I wasn’t always a pacifist, but I’ve become convinced that it most accurately represents the biblical position and the attitude of Jesus. My moderation in this position is borne of an attempt to resolve the tension that scripture apparently exhibits in this matter and to make specific allowance for the fact that sometimes a degree of violence is necessary to establish justice. I don’t believe that hard-and-fast rules are necessarily possible, and this would probably miss the point. When I ask myself if Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s participation in a plot to assassinate Hitler was appropriate, I am stumped for a while, but eventually land on the position that yes, it was appropriate as a means of seeking justice — or an end to injustice. I don’t think it was an easy question for him at the time, either. The assassination of a lower-ranked official may very well not pass the same test.

In all things, a reasonable response is sought — not a quick jump to the “take him out” response. Is restraint never possible?

Bringing it down to the more personal level, the same considerations hold. I don’t have an issue with guns for collectors, for sport, or for utility purposes in the bush — I do have an issue with guns for “protection,” as once that step is made, there’s not much restraint in the heat of the moment before jumping straight to the “take him out” response. Now, those who promote such things will say, “Wait, you mean to tell me that if some blah blah blah blah your wife and kids, you wouldn’t blah blah blah blah?” The implication is that I must not be a “real” man. I have to say that when push comes to shove, I really don’t know what I’d do, and neither does anyone else in the hypothetical sense. I tend to think that if the threat were real, there’s not much I wouldn’t stop at to ensure their safety — but that’s a practical, human response and not a theological one. It is imperative that these things be kept separate. The reality is that I hope I simply never face the situation.

Today is Remembrance Day, and I honour and remember those who have died for their country. I don’t want to cheapen their sacrifice by saying simply that it was for my freedom — Canada was never really under that kind of direct attack (1812 notwithstanding). In many respects though, those who died in uniform sacrificed for an even higher cause — for justice. And those who sacrifice not for their own justice, or justice in their homeland, have sacrificed for the greatest cause of all: justice for others.

This post is in many respects difficult to write for fear of offending someone. I do have a nephew in Iraq, and having stated my position that the US position in the conflict is not just, I have to ask about his part. In the end, facing another difficult position, I have to say that soldiers in Iraq are serving the will of their country as they are sworn. In this, they must maintain their own personal position of seeking justice without dispensing injustice, and this, I believe, is possible. In the case of my nephew, I know that his moral compass will keep him on such a course. Yes, you can support the troops without supporting the war.

In my mind, I might sum up to say seek peace in all things and at all times, seek justice first. Do not dispense injustice, ever, even in the pursuit of justice. And remember always, the sacrifice of those who for the sake of these principles have laid down their lives. When it comes right down to it, soldiers ultimately die for the cause of the pacifist, the same thing that all of us want: peace. May we have it in our time.

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Back in the day, I was a college freshman with
Mike Gilmour at the same institution where he’s now a New Testament professor. I didn’t know at the time that he was a Bob Dylan fan, but he’s since written a book about the biblical themes in Dylan’s music, so I guess one could say he’s well-versed in the topic. I imagine books like his Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan & Scripture (CBD Link) represent an awakening to the spiritual themes ushered forth from places long-considered by the church to be simply “unspiritual.” This is a good thing, but let’s come back to it.

I woke up this morning to an interview on the local CBC morning show where Terry McLeod interviewed the man who currently owns the house where Neil Young grew up. Last Sunday evening, Bob Dylan stopped by to see it, and the fellow gave Bob a tour of the house, followed by directions to the community center where Neil used to play with his band. Dylan was in town for a concert last weekend, though I wasn’t able to attend. Instead, last night at Saint Ben’s the liturgy was fully populated by Bob Dylan tunes, courtesy of Mike Koop. The event has been planned for a while, and I’ve been looking forward to it since Mike mentioned the idea to me back in September. The liturgy itself was the normal one we use for ordinary time, but the music was all Dylan except for the usual gathering and “Holy Lord” prior to communion. Here’s the rundown:

Contemplative

Lay Down Your Weary Tune from the 1985 album Biograph. The song was written on a trip to California with Joan Baez, her sister Mimi Farrina, and Richard Farrina. It’s first live performance was with Joan Baez struggling to sing harmony. It was recorded as a demo for “Times They Are A-Changin,” Dylan’s 1964 release, but was cut from the album. He performed it both nights at his famous Carnegie Hall concert in 1963, from which the audio here is taken. This filled the space at the beginning of the meeting prior to the formal start of the liturgy, and marks a transition from the business and cares of the week into a preparedness for the liturgy as it progresses to the table. The final verse:

I gazed down in the river’s mirror
And watched its winding strum.
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself ‘neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.

Setting of the Table

Father Of Night, from the 1970 album New Morning. For anyone who might imagine that Bob Dylan put out three “Christian” and a whole bunch of “secular” albums, songs like this one show a rather overt spirituality to the man, one which actually weaves through all of his work. In the liturgy, this was used as the preparation for the table, during which the table is set and baskets of food are brought from the back of the sanctuary and placed at the base of the table — these are donations of fresh fruit and produce to Agape Table, a “soup kitchen” that is run out in the same building where St. Ben’s meets. From here we pick up the standard liturgy in preparation for communion. Since the song isn’t terribly long, I quote the full set of lyrics:

Father of night, Father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and Father of rain.

Father of day, Father of night,
Father of black, Father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, Father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.

Father of grain, Father of wheat,
Father of cold and Father of heat,
Father of air and Father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, Father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.

During Communion

Of this song, Dylan said, “That was an inspired song that came to me. It wasn’t really too difficult. I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else, and I just stuck it out.” Evidently, it may have been partly inspired by a few lines from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

As the liturgy for the approach to the table concludes, the musicians are served communion first; they then sit and begin to sing as the congregation gathers around the table at the front in successive circles until everyone has been served. As this is taking place, most people sing quietly or meditate on what is being sung by the musicians. There is normally time for two songs as everyone is served, with verses often being repeated. The first of these is Every Grain Of Sand from The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3: Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991. Normally the first of the two songs is more contemplative, as most of the congregation are still approaching the table, and this song fits that bill, and is deeply spiritual… just three of the verses:

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

Following this song, we move into “http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/i-shall-be-released” title=”I Shall Be Released”>I Shall Be Released, which has appeared on a number of albums, the earliest being Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 in 1967. According to Robert Shelton’s biography No Direction Home: The Life And Music Of Bob Dylan, after Dylan’s motorcycle accident in 1966, when he was seriously injured at the age of 25, he retreated from the spotlight after suffering a great disappointment at the reception to his European and American tour dates — he’d been booed offstage and called a traitor; attendance dropped at some of his concerts. Dylan withdrew not only to recuperate, but to spend time with his family and in self-reflection. Shelton suggests the song represents Dylan’s search for personal salvation.

As people return to their seats from having taken communion, they typically engage with the song currently being sung, and begin to sing as well, so that as people finish at the table, the volume of the singing tends to rise — sometimes it reaches a crescendo with everyone singing aloud. Last night as we finished with “I Shall Be Released,” all the instruments except the percussion dropped out and the congregation sang out strongly, with an impromptu echo from the back of the room by one of the musicians who wasn’t scheduled for the evening. As we reached the final words of the final chorus, I would say we had a moment of genuine transcendence. Listen to the hope and longing rolled into one:

I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

Into the Rest of Life

At the close of the liturgy, we tend to sing our way out with a concluding thought set to music. Last night it was Pressing On, from Saved.

Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord.

This is a song which for me speaks of perseverance born of hope, and is therefore a fitting follow-on to “I Shall Be Released.” One of the things which we must take away from a gathering is a sense of hope and endurance, and this song voices a renewed resolve to persevere in the calling of the Lord. A fitting way to end the evening.

I’ve never done the U2charist, though I doubt (no offense to U2) that it would really resonate with me nearly as much as this did. All in all, I would say that the “Dylan Liturgy” was a successful event, and hope to see it return with some of Dylan’s other works, perhaps something fitting in with Lent or even “In the Garden” during Easter, or even the final week of Lent. Someone suggested that if Mike could do a Dylan Liturgy, then they could do a Van Morrison Liturgy. One can only hope! As we do away with the false dichotomy between sacred and secular, we begin to discover more art — like music — that speaks of the artist’s desire and spiritual longing. As such, these translate easily (if they need any at all) to give voice to our own spiritual longings, common waypoints on our journeys. Van Morrisson, Bob Dylan, and U2 are only three examples… of course there are many others (offer suggestions in the comments). I say “discover,” but of course, some have known this for quite some time, or all along.

Update: The news of Dylan visiting Neil Young’s old haunts made news on Rolling Stone as well as in the local media.

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Today we enter into the series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth another hymn by Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, whose story I told a few weeks ago when another of her hymns was featured.

Heaven has occupied a central focus in the future hope of many Christians, and this week’s hymn, “When We All Get to Heaven,” gives voice to a lot of these hopes. I recall heaven being the focal point of spiritual hope for the future — particularly through the 70s, but many will know this feeling even today. My notion of this has been adjusted or reinforced through reading N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (CBD Link). As N.T. Wright has said, “Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world.” (I’ve blogged on this theme previously as well.) Despite the fact of heaven not being the end of the line, it still seems appropriate to anticipate it as a significant milestone in the journey-story of the people of God.

When We All Get to Heaven

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus,
Sing His mercy and His grace.
In the mansions bright and blessèd
He’ll prepare for us a place.

When we all get to Heaven,
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout the victory!

While we walk the pilgrim pathway,
Clouds will overspread the sky;
But when traveling days are over,
Not a shadow, not a sigh.

Refrain

Let us then be true and faithful,
Trusting, serving every day;
Just one glimpse of Him in glory
Will the toils of life repay.

Refrain

Onward to the prize before us!
Soon His beauty we’ll behold;
Soon the pearly gates will open;
We shall tread the streets of gold.

Refrain

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Saturday, time to put your feet up and browse the blogosphere. First, the standard not-so-funny joke lineup:

One snowman says to the other: “Funny, I smell carrots too.”

There are 2 cowboys in the kitchen: which one is the real cowboy? The one on the range.

Where do you find a one legged dog? Right where you left it.

What’s pink and fluffy? Pink fluff.

What’s blue and fluffy? Pink fluff holding it’s breath.

When the dyslexic magician proudly held up the “spade of aces,” the audience was generally unimpressed. He won them over though, when he pulled a hat out of a rabbit.

Had enough yet?

So I do most of my blog reading on my laptop with my feet up in the evenings. As followers of my Twitter feed will know, the cooling fan on my HP Pavilion died a week ago and I’ve had a heck of a time tracking one down at a reasonable price. Still don’t have one in transit yet mostly due to shipping issues. If anyone happens to live across the street from an authorized HP repair depot, let me know…

As for Twitter, I’m still getting the hang of it and attempting to figure out the Twitter-quette involved in following or not following people who follow you, and vice-versa. I see some Twitterers are following people by the thousands, but I just couldn’t deal with that level of traffic. So if I’m breaching some type of Twitter-quette, give me a bit of time to catch up.

So finally on Friday evening I resurrected an ailing old IBM ThinkPad and got it running again with a fresh Linux Mandriva 2009 install. It clunks along a bit slower, but I can put my feet up and read in the evenings again. The upshot is that I’m about a week behind in my reading and the following list of links may reflect it.

Around here, the post that got the most traffic this week (other than a couple of older ones that always score highly) was “A Pathetic Prophetic Response to Obama Victory?” — go figure. The worldview I tackle in that post, says Brad Hightower, “is dangerous, uncivil, judgmental, unchristian, and sinful.” Still, could it be that politics are a spiritual discipline?

Last week, our friendly neighbourhood UPS girl showed up on our doorstep. Our door happened to be wide open at the time, so skipping the whole doorbell-ringing thing as I stepped up to the door to meet her, she said, “I have a package for Brother Maynard.” “Okay,” I said, taking delivery from her of a copy of The Voice New Testament (CBD Link). I’m enjoying my first experiences with it — more to follow. The UPS girl told me next that her brother’s nickname had been Maynard. I figured that was kinda weird. As for The Voice, it’s got a number of interesting folks involved in the project, including Brian McLaren, who talks about it in a short video clip.

1. Top billing for the week easily goes to J.R. Woodward’s A Primer on Today’s Missional Church, an exceptionally thorough set of links and brief notes on what’s up in missional-land. And I’d say that even if he hadn’t linked me in his summary.
2. Speaking of things in missional-land, Ed Stetzer is mixin’ it up with Al, who drops the name of this site in a video that helps explain who Al is. Sort of.
3. Another Al: Alan Roxburgh is vlogging.
4. Frank Viola’s top six blogs (Thanks, Frank) Just to be sure I don’t get my head swelled too much, I didn’t make this top ten list, though a few of my friends did.
5. Happy 90th Birthday, Billy Graham!
6. Farewell, Michael Chrichton
7. I plan to contribute to a a project at St. Ben’s to develop a Book of Hours for the community. It’ll go through the full year and feature writing, photography, music, and any other kind of art that can be fit into a handsome volume. Have to say I think this is one of the coolest projects out there, but I still haven’t figured out which season or hour to tackle, either with something I would write new or something I’ve already written. Ideas, anyone?
8. Doug Pagitt is running for office — Good luck, Doug!
9. It’s getting to that time of year again: Christine Sine has A New Advent Meditation online.
10. How about an XR-3 build-it-yourself hybrid car Way cool, despite its odd looks.
11. World Press Photo Award Interviews
12. Alcoholics at the Table: is wine at the communion table a genuine problem for recovering alcoholics? One commenter says yes, but I wonder if that’s universal for all recovering alcoholics?
13. I enjoyed Scot McKnight’s post on the Bible Collector. I confess to having more translations and editions on my shelf than I consult daily. Or weekly. Or…. Anyway, Scot’s recommending Visual History of the English Bible, A: The Tumultuous Tale of the World\’s Bestselling Book
14. I think I disagree with Wired, who says blogs are passe. I don’t use Flickr, and Twitter and Facebook just don’t replace the blogs. The fact that there are so many for-profit blogs (I wouldn’t call them “professional” in the proper sense of the word) does not negate the fact that there remain many informal and/or personal ones.
15. Unveiling the New Apostolic Reformation — speaking of post-charismatic and those who should be.
16. I was almost ready to break down and say that Starbucks might not be evil… I’ve been there twice in the past week, which is more than I have in the past three months. But still…. So that was almost off-topic, except as a segue to a brilliant video: What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church? A Parable. “Javaleuia!” Scary.

Okay, that’s it for this week… stay tuned here and on Twitter for more failed profundity.

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So today I got spammed by Logos software to tell me that their product line now includes a version of Logos Bible software for Mac OS. () I have several responses to this.

1. I’ve refrained from buying products that would otherwise have interested me from companies I might otherwise support simply because the product came to my attention through spam. In some cases, I’ve take the information from the spam and searched for a competing product.

2. I know that a lot of people use the Logos software, but I’ve never really given it a serious look because it was always too rich for my blood (current range $150-1380). I realize that the copyrighted works included require royalties be paid, which drives the cost up. I’m not suggesting that the value isn’t there to some degree, but it just always felt steep since if I bothered at all, I’d be into it at some scholarly level, well past the price range for the intro levels.

3. When I finished college 20 years ago, I planned to purchase Bible software of some form, but given the cost, I never did. Back in the ’90s, I was looking more closely at BibleWorks, but by the time I was almost ready to spend the money, I began finding more and more resources on the Internet, even close to ten years ago. Basically, I waited long enough that it generally seemed irrelevant — not something you should purchase. Now I run Linux and look more to free and open source software: there are a few credible packages out there where the framework and the public domain texts at no cost, with only the copyrighted texts incurring a fee.

4. I have always collected books and study tools, slowly building my library over the past 20 years. Many of the tools that are included in the software are sitting on my shelf. At times it takes a bit longer to look up what I’m after, but if it’s more than a passing reference, I find in most cases I still prefer the hard copies to reading onscreen.

That’s basically the summary of my approach to Bible software over the past 20 years, during which more resources have become available at lower (or no) cost, with the most common ones being available online — “online” having become a near-ubiquitous state over the same timeframe. So my question is, with the Logos software now coming out for the Mac, will anyone actually care?

Do you use Bible software, and if so, which one? Do you use or prefer online study tools? Which ones, and why?

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Earlier today, my wife mused aloud, wondering what those “prophetic types” are saying about Barack Obama being elected in the USA. I thought Grace choking on her scone in response to an appalling snippet of conversation concerning the rise to power of Barack Obama, “almost exactly like the Left Behind books.” No wonder she choked on her scone. I mentioned this “end times” idea to my wife as a suggestion of what these prophetic types might be saying. She made a mental note to ask a friend who tends to get told these things by people who thinks she cares. At least, that’s how my wife put it. So a few hours ago, Frank Viola tweeted a link that brought this whole question up again. Now by the way, Frank’s blog post today not only offered his view on the recent presidential election, he also named who he considers the top six Christian bloggers around, including yours truly. I’m not sure if I’m actually that good or if Frank’s a little deranged, but I figure it’s best not to press to far, just in case I don’t like the answer.

Back to the link, which was to Dutch Sheets’ website, which is presently displaying an image of the text of his response to the presidential election. (For those who may not catch it, this is something that anyone who builds websites will cringe at utterly: one image, 800×330px, just text.) Based on the response-tweets that followed, the words were pronounced generally hard to read — not just because of the white text casting a shadow on a purple background, but because of the content as well. Preceding one bullet-point list is the question, “What are some of the judgments we can expect on our nation from this election?” You can see where this is going — he attacks people “who aligned themselves with pro-abortion forces” and promises judgment: he’s confident that Obama was not God’s will. Under the heading, “How Did This Happen?” he writes:

But still yet, since God is usually willing to work through a remnant, I thought we had enough prayer. Obviously, God decided otherwise. There comes a time when he will not forgive or bless the majority based on the prayers or actions of only a few. America rejected God and asked for a king; I believe we now have our Saul (see 1 Samuel 8:5-7)–a man who does not have God’s heart for America but his own. Like Israel in scripture, our nation believes it can turn from God and still be blessed. In His mercy and justice He will show us otherwise.

Wow. I guess God really is a Republican, and Obama’s election is, as he puts it, “a tragedy.” As for Sarah Palin, he writes, “I believe she is an Esther, a Deborah, with a huge mantle from God for reformation. God has a great destiny for her related to this nation if she chooses to continue down this path.”

My first reaction was that this is the reason I’m a post-charismatic. Past that, I don’t quite know where to begin… but how about with the observation that the entire thing hinges on the proper performance of the church to pray enough or do enough good that the “right” president will be elected and that judgment will be averted. Meanwhile, the church labours without knowing if it will be enough, if it will be acceptable to God. It sounds like God is quite the taskmaster in this particular cosmological view. I wonder sometimes if people like this are never happy unless they’re proclaiming judgment and noting all that’s wrong in the world. It’s more important for them to pray against something than for something… they’ll sometimes pray against demons more readily than they’ll pray for the blessing of others. My advice? Don’t be too quick to try and interpret events like this, one way or another. There will be plenty of time to reflect, understand, and discern. And really don’t go off rushing to find someone else to interpret them for you.

But when I read Sheets’ response, I had to think back to Saul, and David’s attitude toward him. Saul, despite his shortcomings, was God’s anointed, and David loved and respected him as such. I like to quip that it’s good to vote because it buys you the right to complain later. The fact of the matter is that once elected, a leader becomes God’s man for the term ahead. Like it or lump it, as they say. Is that point not made in Romans 13, after all? Get some more from the iMonk.

And there you have it. As far as I can tell, this is not a harbinger of the end times, nor a labeling of “Ichabod” with promises of pestilence and judgment, nor is it the dawn of the Antichrist himself. Sure, it’s a change, but really, It’s just the election of an African-American Democrat to the country’s highest office, that’s all. I figure God will be no more for or against the USA than he was last month… and you can make of that what you will.

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Scot McKnight’s wife Kris refers to his latest book, The Blue Parakeet, as “one of his readable ones.” The book is, in fact, one of his most readable, which is most fortunate given the importance of the subject matter. Although Scot McKnight is something of an avid birder, the book’s title is really only a metaphor, not a literal description of the subject at hand. For that, the books subtitle, “Rethinking How You Read the Bible” sums it up. And if you notice that the image of the book cover glows just a little, it’s no accident — the book deserves a glowing review.

The introductory chapters naturally explain the metaphor from which the book takes its title, as well as outline the author’s own past approach to the Bible. As well, he gives us an overview of three of the most common approaches to the Bible: reading to retrieve, “those days, those ways”, and reading through tradition. In fact, most people use a combination of these approaches, but McKnight also contends that most people are not aware of how exactly they read the Bible. He provides a questionnaire in an appendix to assist people in thinking through their own approach. The second approach, “those days, those ways,” is where McKnight spends most of his time in the book, describing how to translate “those ways for those days” into “these ways for our day.” He sums up this theme (p.27-28) like this:

God spoke in Moses’ days in Moses’ ways, and
God spoke in Job’s days in Job’s ways, and
God spoke in David’s days in David’s ways, and
God spoke in Solomon’s days in Solomon’s ways, and
God spoke in Jeremiah’s days in Jeremiah’s ways, and
God spoke in Jesus’ days in Jesus’ ways, and
God spoke in Paul’s days in Paul’s ways, and
God spoke in Peter’s days in Peter’s ways, and
God spoke in John’s days in John’s ways, and
and we are called to carry on that pattern in our world today.

McKnight writes, “The biblical way is the ongoing adoption of the past and adaptation to new conditions and to do this in a way that is consistent with and faithful to the Bible.” (p.29) The method he advocates melds the “return and retreive” method, which “return[s] to the times of the Bible in order to retrieve biblical ideas and practices for today” (p.25-26) and the “reading with tradition” method, which goes back in time to the Bible in order to come forward in time to the present.

The introduction concluded, the first three parts of the book are separated into story, listening, and discerning, or “What is the Bible?”, “What Do I Do with the Bible?”, and “How Do I Benefit from the Bible?” These represent three key concepts in biblical interpretation as McKnight describes it.

Part one discusses some attempted shortcuts in Bible reading, one of which sees (for example) the Apostle Paul as a Maestro who organizes and arranges everything necessary to understand the Bible’s message, such that his writings become the grid for all of theology. (This observation and its description will resonate with many post-Evangelicals.) Also in this section, McKnight introduces the memorably-named “wiki-story” to describe the story in the Bible as part of a larger overarching story that is shared and continues to be written.

Part two deals with “listening,” where we approach the Bible not simply as a historical document or prescriptive guidebook, but as God’s written communication with us. This, McKnight suggests, is a relational approach to the Bible. He also observes that the Bible is filled with examples of people who did and didn’t listen. “Good reading”, he writes (p.103), “is an act of love and therefore an act of listening.” From here, he steps into a chapter on “Missional Listening,” also called “The Boring Chapter.” I would protest that I did not find the chapter boring at all, but then I didn’t see the original unedited draft! Of course, if the point of studying the Bible in the first place is to learn how then we should live, it stands to reason that some missional impact will emit from our deep listening to the text.

The third part deals with discerning, where application can be found. As I understand it, the discussion of A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible is not intended to be understood as a good example of biblical application. Instead, McKnight steps through a number of thorny issues to illustrate how the approach to the Bible that he describes employs discernment at this last step in order to move the interpretation through to a present-day application which is not necessarily a literal following but which nevertheless remains true to the Biblical text.

The fourth part of the book is in fact a hidden gem, for here McKnight tackles the issue of women in leadership as a “test-case” of how to go back to the text, take what is written, understand its context, and then bring it forward to become words for our day. Given the constraint of space in the book, this is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject, yet it deals with most of the major points of contention surrounding the issue. As such, it is both a summary primer on the subject of women in ministry and an example of how we can approach the Bible and bring its words into our present setting.

The book concludes with five appendices supporting the material found at earlier points in the book. Overall, I found it to be an enjoyably easy read, but one which still managed to treat each point as thoroughly as necessary. Without reservation, I would recommend the book to any Christian grappling with how to take what at times can seems to be archaic language and ideas and faithfully bring them forward and apply them to everyday life in the present day.

In a time when many segments of the church are re-examining themselves, their practices, and their theology, McKnight’s contribution to a renewed approach to the Bible will prove a most helpful contribution to this practice of reexamination — particularly for those attempting to challenge so many of their past assumptions without running off the rails. In many ways, The Blue Parakeet is a treatise of wisdom for its time, and not only this time, but each new era that attempts to consider the cultural gulf between the world of the Bible and the world beyond the window. The Blue Parakeet deserves a place beside Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s classic, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (CBD Link).

(Quotations and page numbers in this review are taken from the Advance Reader Copy and may vary in the final published edition.)