How to read the Bible

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fathers

I haven’t posted much lately, mostly because I haven’t got anything to say and the book project is taking up a lot of my mental energy. I just haven’t had anything interesting to say.

I was re-reading Robertson Davies‘ Deptford Trilogy to immerse myself in great writing. I probably read it once every couple of years. There was a part of the Manticore that inspired me. Dunstan Ramsay is speaking with David Staunton about Staunton’s father Boy and Ramsey says something to the effect that every man has many fathers in his life, and what may be more important than his biological fathers are the ones he chooses for himself.

So the next couple of entries are going to be about fathers, specifically the fathers I’ve been blessed to have.

52 books #8: The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture – Shane Hipps

The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture – Shane Hipps

Around the end of 07 I decided I wanted to read 52 books this year. I read a lot, so that’s not really a step down in quantity for me, but I wanted to step up in quality. So I got on my email and facebook lists and asked everyone for book recommendations. I’ve got a great list and this one from Dale Dirksen is the first of those. Dale was a professor of mine and Teddi’s and is a friend of Bridgepointe. It would be safe to say that worship is his area of expertise so I was looking forward to reading this.

First of all, Brian Mclaren wrote the forward. Just to make things clear, I like Brian Mclaren. I thought Generous Orthodoxy was brilliant. But I’m beginning to tire of of his recommendation being the ultimate stamp of approval for anything emerg… whatever. I don’t think it’s his fault, it just that he recommends and does forwards for so many books I don’t know if I can trust him. As an aside two guys whose recommendation is completely irrelevent to me because they attach themselves to too many books: Tony Campolo and John Ortberg. Publishers take note.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. This is a good and helpful book. It’s basically a walk through Marshall McLuhan specifically for the contemporary church. McLuhan is one of the most quoted and least understood thinkers of the twentieth century. As we have, and continue to pass through an age where communication and media are changed incredibly quickly by the blistering pace of advancing technology, the church has struggled with media and electronic culture. We struggled with the planet being round and the earth revolving around the sun, it’s no shock that that the television age makes us sweat. Like so many other things, the church has tended to fall into two ways of relating to electronic culture: Blind acceptance or stubborn resistance. as most of us realize, neither of these are very helpful.

Hipps uses McLuhan’s work as a platform for rational discussion and engagement with new media as they appear in church life. Very basically, any new media’s impact can be divided into four categories: The media can enhance something, the media can reverse into or degrade into something unintended, the media can retrieve something held in the past, the media can make something obsolete. We can apply this to something to something like the digital projector.

1. The projector enhances the human eye and makes us able to view written song lyrics and announcements. It can enhance the communal experience the communal experience by lifting heads from individual hymnbooks onto a shared screen.

2.The projector reverses or can become a television screen, rendering the gathered an uninvolved observing mob.

3. The projector, through its use of images, can retrieve the stain glass that was commonplace for non written communication in our churches.

4. The projector makes obsolete the overhead (thank God) and the hymnbook, as well as possibly the bulletin and the service program or service books.

Now there could be any variety of opinion on the value of or problems caused by bringing in a projector, but at least we have a common language with which to discuss it. The truth is, the good news we share is affected drastically by the ways in which we share that good news. To ignore this reality by behaving either as technophiles or as Luddites is dangerous and irresponsible.

Hipp’s strength is that this book is about how to discuss these things, rather than what to think about them. He seems to acknowledge that there may not be a single right answer for all congregations in all places and Hidden Power is better for it. I would have left out the last chapter as it has been written better in other places but, all in all, a good book. Thanks, Dale.

Listening to: Peter Elkas, Nathan Carroll

52 books #7: A Short History of Nearly Everything-Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

When I was in elementary school I loved science. It was my favourite subject and if you asked me then what I was going to be when I grew up, I would have said “detective”, but my second choice would have been doctor. I didn’t realize at that point that I was way more interested in the stories than the science.

When I got into junior high and high school science became less interesting. You had to memorize stuff and there where all these numbers and formulas, and it was more like math than anything else. I managed to get all the science credits I needed to graduate (thanks to the generous inclusion of oceanography and conservation) and declared I would never take another math or science course again. Thus far in my life, that has been my easiest commitment to keep.

I’m still fascinated by the natural world and how it works, and I love to bring my completely uneducated brain to the wellspring of scientific information and Bryson’s book is a perfect read. His bias, I believe, turns to the stories as well, and this book unfolds as the story of our planet and how it came to be floating (or more accurately, falling) in this part of the universe made up in this particular way inhabited by this particular gathering of plants and animals over which homo sapiens happen to be dominant. It is also the story of the strange batch of persons who dedicated their lives to discover bits and pieces of this story and trying to make sense of them.

So, what do we know about the history of the universe and our planet and ourselves. Well, it appears the most accurate answer is not much. We don’t know nearly as much as some would claim we do, and even what we do know is often educated guesswork. And often, what we know at one point in time with the greatest of certainty, turns out, upon further review to be completely wrong. And the interpretations of the data that is discovered seem influenced as much by the personalities and situations of the discoverers as a thirteen year old girl is by her peers. If the sum of what there is to know about the universe and our place in it fills the Grand Canyon, what we know is a grain of sand.

But that’s okay. Though  we’re often put in opposing corners, the pastor and the scientist have much in common. We are trying to discover the nature of life and how it works. We want to influence the way the world around us is seen. Sometimes we just interpret the data differently.

The way I interpret the data, I believe that everything was created by a powerful creative force.  I believe the story of Jesus and the Bible make sense of my life and the world with which I engage. In this I may be a silly and naive person who ignores the overwhelming lack of verifiable evidence that there is a God who is in any way involved with the planet we live on.

Whatever

I’ve always liked the stories better anyway.

“If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here… To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course. We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only begun to grasp.” (p. 478)

how you know you’ve spent to much time in revelation

So we’ve been looking at revelation since September.

At work a common combination of items with taxes adds up to 6.67

One day this number came up on the till, and I announced to the customer and my co-workers “all together… 6.67. Ah, six six seven, the neighbour of the beast”

no one laughed

52 books #6: Walking the Bible – Bruce Feiler

Walking the Bible – Bruce Feiler

I found this book in a church library and picked it up. It became my before bed reading. I realized not too long ago that I couldn’t read books that involved me too much before bed because I wouldn’t sleep, so I now try to pick books that are meek and mild; good enough to keep me interested, not so good that I prefer reading them to sleep, or that I keep myself awake thinking about them. So according to my own not-so-scientific criteria, Walking the Bible is a perfect before bed book.

Please don’t think that I’m damning Feiler with faint praise. It’s tough to write a good bedtime book. I imagine it’s a bit like writing the perfect pop song; no one calls you a genius for doing it, but very few people can.

Feiler sets out to do exactly what the title says and he does, walking with his sidekick archaeologist Avner to the sites (as best as they can tell) that are in the stories of the Pentatuech (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Dueteronomy). This journey takes him through present- day Turkey, Egypt, across the Sinai penisula into Israel, and on into Jordon. This journey takes him not only deeper into th Biblical narrative, but also deeper into his own relationships with God, geography, ethnicity, and religion. Through this journey he finds himself at home in the desert and in Israel, feeling a connection to place that he had never known in in his youth in the American south or as an adult in cosmopolitan New York. The best parts of the book are when he finds other people (an American Greek Orthodox monk, an Austrian lapsed Catholic, an Irish farmer, an evangelical theology professor and others) who have also come to the conclusion that, no matter where they happen to reside, they are at home in the desert. And in a manner beyond words, they are more themselves there than anywhere else.

I understand a little bit of that. I was born and raised on Prince Edward Island. A place that believes itself so central that all other places are “away”. I’ve lived in western Canada for seven years now. I was married here, both my children were born here, my vocational call is here, but this is not now, and probably will never be, home. When I think of home I think of the collision of grey skies with deep blue water of the Northumberland Strait and the Hillsborough River and the green and red fields. Sitting with friends on the patio overlooking Charlottetown harbour having a beverage or three in the long summer evenings. I am more myself there than anywhere else, and even though I don’t live there, having that place as a fulcrum point allows me to reach out elsewhere.

Anyway, the Super Bowl happened in between the last paragraph and this one, so… Giants, hey. Who’d have guessed.

52 books #5: The Living Church – John Stott

The Living Church – John Stott

I hope to grow up to be John Stott. Not that I could approach his level of scholarship or wisdom, but I hope that when I move into my ninth decade on the planet (should I make it that long or the Lord tarry, although I’m nowhere near as sure about my eschatology as I used to be, but that’s a whole other post), my mind will still be engaged with what is going on around me and that I will still be doing my small part in accomplishing the mission of God. I had the privilege of meeting Eddie Gibbs this past fall and was deeply inspired to grow into that kind of man of God. It wasn’t that long ago that I was working at a truck stop in Saskatchewan and I said to my new wife that I didn’t want to turn into an angry, cranky, old person.

“You should probably start now, eh.”

Stott declares early in the book that the marks of a church that is living and vital are learning, caring, worshipping, and evangelizing. He then goes on to discuss these in greater detail. Stott’s bias is that these marks are born into a church that is deeply engaged in listening to God through the Bible, and his bias is that strong biblical preaching is essential for this listening to take place. As a pastor and someone who invested his undergrad in Biblical Studies, this is my bias as well. I don’t believe that this biblical preaching must be tied to to the sermon act as we conventionally understand it, but the importance of the Bible cannot be understated.

I’m one of a group of Christians who could be called “emerging” and while that word seems to mean less and less all the time and the conversation has become sort of boring for me (at what point do we stop being the emerging church, and just start being the church?), I’m part of the generation for whom Stott is writing this book. He asks us to maintain our zeal for reform and change and transformation in the image of Christ rather than to cultural norms, while at the same time maintaining our connection to the roots and fellowship in the community of the saints as we seek to bring the good news to a new and old world. In the conclusion he makes and appeal for a new generation of Timothys:

“Some Christians fight the good fight of faith. They are great warriors for truth. But they do not pursue goodness, let alone gentleness.

“Others are good and gentle, but have no comparable concern to fight for truth.

“Yet others neglect both doctrine and ethics, and concentrate on their quest for religious experience.

“Why must we always polarize? All three of these are God’s purpose for us. Oh, for balanced Christians!” (p. 149-150)

I pray that for me it would be so.

52 books #4

360 – Degree Leadership – Michael Quicke

This book lost momentum for me in the late going. Quicke is a preaching professor and practitioner and cares deeply about the art; and the strength of the book is his persuasive argument for preaching as an integral part of congregational leadership. The problem is that he cares much more about preaching than he does about leadership. It’s not a bad book; it just loses it’s thrust in the second half. I will read 360 – Degree Preaching, which I think is closer to his passion and will probably be a more helpful book.

52 books #3

The War Room – Warren Kinsella

Well I finished The War Room. It was an entertaining read: very informative on the inner view of the world of politics. It would be easy to be callous and cynical about the political process, but what prevented that for me was Kinsella’s personality. I believe that he cares deeply about people and the society we’re creating, and that caring has led him to politics. This doesn’t change the fact that he enjoys a good scrap and the political field is one of the few areas where it’s still kosher to engage in them, but the book was unexpectedly inspirational. The War Room is, at its heart, a book about influencing people; helping them to agree with your position and to reject that of your opponent. Wins and losses are measured in votes and polls. The church is also about influencing people, although our wins and losses are measured in obedience and faithfulness, and we’re not battling ideas, but pointing to a person and a way of being that is good news.

It’s weird, the thing that had the deepest and most complete impact on the way I think and feel about evangelism wasn’t a sermon or a Bible study or an evangelism course, but a short story by a professing atheist. A few years back I was touring a one act play I had written and we ended up taking a break at a mall in Fredericton, N.B. I headed straight to the Chapters and found a collection of short stories called Speaking With the Angels. Nick Hornby put the book together with contributions from people like Roddy Doyle, Helen Fielding, Irvine Welsh, and others to raise money for a school for autistic children his son attends in London. Anyway, Hornby included his own story called NippleJesus.

NippleJesus is about a regular guy, mildly red-necked, perhaps (is it possible for the British to be rednecks?) who quits his job at as a bouncer and takes a job as a security guard in an art gallery. His first detail is to guard a piece that has been placed in a closed room that is marked as containing potentially offensive material. He walks into this room to find a huge mosaic depicting the crucified Jesus which, while beautiful, is made up completely of pictures clipped from pornographic magazines depicting female breasts.

“You know those pictures that are made up completely from dots? Well thats how this Jesus picture was done, except all the dots are nipples. And thats what the pictures called – NippleJesus.” (p. 100)

After first hating the picture, the guard meets the artist and her family and begins to feel an appreciation for the picture. He defends it to his wife. He argues with the people and the politicians who call it obscene. He gets personally involved with NippleJesus and begins to feels attached to it. He tries to explain how this happened:

“If I’d just read about NippleJesus in the paper, or seen it on the news, I’d have thought it was wrong, no question. Sick. Stupid. Waste of taxpayers money. (And you always say that even if you’ve got no idea if taxpayers pay for it or not, whatever it is, don’t you.) And I’d never have thought of it again, probably. But it’s more complicated when you actually stand beside it all day. And I still don’t know what I think of it, really, but what’s so great about the nutter and the kinky vicar and all the other people who came to have a look that first morning is that they make up your mind for you about whose side you’re on. I’m not on theirs, that’s for sure, and the longer I spend with these wankers the more I hate them. It’s so simple, really. The nice ones like the picture, and they get it, and they have a look at how it’s done, but that’s not why their staring; the horrible ones come in, gaze for hour at the tits, moan to each other (or, if they’re really mad, to themselves)… You don’t need to work out what you think. You just need to have a look at what the other people think. And if you don’t like the look of them, then think the opposite.” (p. 108 – 109)

It sounds a little like this “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12) Rather than information or policies or positions, people are basing their decisions on whether or not they want to be like person x or person y. As we present what we we believe to be a better way to live and a better kingdom to pledge allegiance to, are we people worthy of emulation, or are we making people’s minds up for them? I think that if people get to know Jesus, they want to be like him. The ability of those around us to know Jesus depends heavily upon our knowing and imitating Jesus.

It’s that simple and it’s that difficult.

52 books #2

A Community Called Atonement - Scot McKnight

I once got an email from the author after I commented on his blog. He wanted to know if I was the Daniel Taylor who wrote The Myth of Certainty. I’m not. Sorry to disappoint both of you. I’m also not the opera singer nor the artist. (As an aside, I occasionally wonder what it would be like to get all of us on a conference call for a CBC show like Outfront. stay tuned) Anyway, Dr. McKnight and I had a pleasant email chat. I also waited on him back in the day when he came to my college to deliver a series of lectures. Not only a good scholar and writer, but also a polite and kind person.

A Community called Atonement is about just that; atonement. Atonement is close to the heart of what Christianity is about; the “at- one” ness of God and humanity, humans with each other. Pretty much all Christians agree that something was accomplished in the coming, life, death and resurrection of Jesus that began a new way of relating reconciling to God and to each other. What Christians don’t agree on is what exactly this was.

McKnight attempts to sift through the various theories of atonement, not to discover the best working one, but to discover how they work and how we might better use them to communicate the good news to each other and to the world. I appreciate that he says that the work accomplished by Jesus is bigger than any of our theories.

The church has a role to play in atonement as well. We have a message that shapes our ministry and a ministry that shapes our message. The book is worth the price tag just for this no-brainer

” The gospel we preach shapes the kind of churches we create, the kind of church we have shapes the gospel we preach” (p.5)

As a church planter this is a convicting and challenging word. How are the decisions we are making in our community manipulating the message of reconciliation we have for the world? How can we be people who carry atonement with us?

Next book up: 360 degree Leadership by Michael Quicke