musing...

after the first piece in GIMP, in which the dancers stand directly before you in their brokenness and beauty, lawrence carter-long begins the second piece with the stem of a joke, "so three cripples walk into a bar."

carter-long fails to complete the joke and so trusts the audience to make the connection* between three objects of the joke and the three individuals with disabilities in the crew. look at us, he slyly suggests, as we struggle through the violence, soak up the intimacy, shrivel in alienation and strive before your very eyes.

look at us, carter-long demands, in all of our brokenness, boldness and beauty.

look at us, he telegraphs with his distinctive gait, but don't forget that we've been watching you too.

and though our observations could be full of bitterness and our jokes could easily objectify three able bodied assholes, i think you are beautiful. i look at you in all of your beauty, i see the risks you take and i cannot help but be changed.

i suspect that christian homiletics** are the last thing on carter-long's mind when, objectified under the stranger's eye he refuses to reduce the object before him to anything less than beauty. but i think christian preachers*** can learn so much from his self-awareness, refusal of reciprocity and his proclamation of beauty.

lawrence, i echo your assertion that "this has changed me...it has been an honor and privilege to have the time to stop and really look at you."

* a connection i failed to make, by the way, until i read the globe's review
** a five dollar seminary word for preaching
*** of which i, in my off-work hours anyway, am one

blessed are the acehnese

check out this fascinating story about muslim refugees who were abandoned at sea by the rich and have been embraced by the desperately poor.

the poor acehnese hosts have put in more than all the others, for out of their poverty they have put in all they have to live on.

i suspect that the kingdom of God belongs to these acehnese.

ht: nytimes; lk. 6:20; jam. 2:5

An Open Invite to Cohort and Cavort* with Gordon Students

On Tuesday, April 21 from 7 to 9 pm several members of Boston's Emergent Cohort will be attending a debate at Gordon College (255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA; the debate is taking place in the Ken Olsen Science Center which is pictured on the left and located, um, somewhere on campus; if you're taking the rail you'll need to stop on the Beverly Depot, North Beverly or Montserrat station on the Newburyport/Rockport line and get a ride from someone like me). Sounds exiting, I know...but wait, there's more!

The question being considered at the debate is "whether the movement commonly designated 'emergent' church or 'emerging' church bears witness to the positive flourishing of Christianity in our time." This is a huge conversation taking place within evangelicalism (we always like to foster an internecine feud or two to keep us from the real work of mission:), so I'm excited to hear what the students say.

Since Emergent is more of a conversation than a proposition or ecclesial practice, after the debate a number of us are heading over to the Salem Beer Works (278 Derby Street, Salem, MA - easily accessible from the Salem stop on the Newburyport/Rockport Line) around 9:45 to discuss this topic at greater length.

I hope that a number of you are able to join us for the debate and/or the beers and pseudo cohort gathering after. If you're going to attend, please RSVP so that I can keep an eye out for you. If you have questions about this event, please shoot me an email at gentry13ATgmailDOTcom. If you are looking for a couple of home remedies for prostatitis, I can share a few of those as well.

Be Well,

Gentry

* Single seminarians, don't get the wrong idea.

Ordinary Resurrection

Although my blogging fast was successful, I had a mostly busy, ambiguous, unholy Lent. I entered the season with every intention to enter the desert in order to conduct a “fearless moral inventory” and I ended the season relieved that I wasn’t slated to preach the resurrection. I don’t know quite what to make of that.

Fortunately, early last week I received the proclamation I was so hesitant to offer.

Shortly after arriving at my satellite office (also known as the Beverly Public Library) I ran into Jandelle*, an enthusiastic, uber-intelligent young adult who had attended the Beverly Bootstraps Homework Helpers Club I helped sponsor years ago. Although Janelle has the intellect and intrinsic dignity of Michelle Obama, she hails from a challenging family background and a neighborhood that most would consider less than ideal. Her background, along with the fact that I had witnessed a brutish twenty-something bullying her in a parking lot a couple of years ago, left me worried that she would fail to fulfill her potential.

So it was with a little hesitancy that I asked Jandelle what college she was planning on attending next fall.

Immediately she smiled and said: “I’ve already received acceptance letters from UMass Amherest, BU, BC and St. Mary’s, but my first choice is Columbia and I should be hearing back from them within the week.”

Somehow I avoided tears as I congratulated Jandelle and wished her good luck. Then, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.

When Jesus proclaims a blessing on the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of God, I believe him. For that reason among others I consider it a privilege to empower, and be empowered by, people throughout my workday.

However, in the darker moments, working in social services feels an awful lot like servicing poverty and one is tempted to wonder if all of the hours, dollars and prayers contributed is going to do a damn bit of good.

For that reason, I treasure moments of ordinary resurrection like these. Jandelle’s story serves as a powerful reminder that God is always in the business of bringing life out of death and if I had been slated to proclaim the resurrection yesterday morning her story would have been my text.

* Not her real name.

musings is going dark

for the next forty days. have a blessed lent.

emergency water landing - 600 miles per hour


blank faces, calm as hindu cows.

musing...

this morning the nytimes is reporting that robert allen stanford, the alleged perpetrator of yet another financial fraud, has been served papers by the f.b.i.

during these difficult times in which an overwhelming amount of financial fraud is being uncovered, i suspect that much of the fraud and dross within the church is going to be revealed as well.

i fear that when the foundations of the church is laid bare we will find that:

1. the church is just as addicted to easy credit as consumers.
2. the church's commitment to "staffing for growth" has led us to underutilize the latent gifts of the laity.
3. the church has replicated far too many services for the silliest of ideological reasons.
4. the church's narcissistic spending patterns has rendered it largely incapable of assisting and empowering the poor.
5. the church has used a frenzy of activity to avoid the desert of prayer.

i share these suspicions not to accuse, for, God knows, i am the guiltiest of all. rather, during the upcoming season of lent i hope that the body of Christ, God's church, is inspired by the Holy Spirit to confess our sin, embrace obedience to Christ's mission and be surprised by new life.

musing...

if pithiness is next to godliness
i'm going to need an assload of indulgences

fun with metaphors

on march 7th the gathering gang is leading a breakout session on the topic of worship at the brian mclaren/everything must change conference that the episcopal diocese is hosting.

as i've been preparing for this discussion, i've started thinking about the liturgy at the gathering as a "mashup." i'm a bit of a technological idiot, but as far as i can tell a mashup is an artistic piece that is a creative combination of two or more divergent video or audio sources.

for example a cursory search on youtube yielded this mashup of office space and the trailer for xmen 3 and that brilliant mashup of christian bale's latest profane tirade.*

at the gathering, we often offer up a new mashup every week. last week's mashup might be pentecostal worship whipped with a evangelical "big idea" sermon, while next week's mashup might be classic hymns of the reformation intertwined with lectio divina and a zwinglian framed communion. sometimes these mashups are inspiring and provocative and sometimes the juxtapositions are cumbersome and distracting. however, since we are a diverse community each member has to trust that the elements that do not connect with them speak directly to someone else in the congregation, while another element which does speak to them might not connect with the other at all.

i'm not going to lie, sometimes i wish our worship had the cohesion of a catholic mass or the plodding regularity of a presbyterian order. but i love our quirky community and believe that the mashup is the best fit for our diverse congregation.

one side note: while reading the most recent modern reformation david wells states that "emergents" have rejected the niche marketed vacuity of the megachurch and have instead embraced "casual blending of different belief systems in their churchly experimenting-a bit of Catholicism here, a bit of Greek Orthodoxy there, a hip rendition somewhere else-has also come about because of a rejection of traditional ideas of authority and because the self is exercising its autonomy to shape its spiritual context the way in which it wants."

i think that his former assertion is right on, but i don't believe that the tendency of the participants in the emergent conversation to drink deeply from multiple streams of christian tradition and to weave the strands of that tradition** into their worship is, necessarily, a rejection of "traditional ideas of authority" or a narcissistic pastiche. rather, i think that many of the participants in the emergent conversation are trying to respect and practice their received tradition of the christian faith while also exploring and utilizing the untold riches of resources that have been discovered by christians throughout the centuries. although i'm a evangelical protestant by birth i think it would be foolish for me to ignore the valuable practice of lectio or lenten fasting just because my immediate forbears did not embrace these practices. i'm proud of my christian church/church of christ tradition, but my forefathers and foremothers are many, and i don't think i am dishonoring alexander campbell - neal windham for that matter! - or rejecting their "authority," by listening to the words and being shaped by the practices of st. francis of assisi, martin luther king jr. or henri nouwen.

second side note: feel free to share mashups that you love. i've just started to explore this art form and would love to receive your recommendations.

* this clip is inappropriate for children and those who are easily offended. consider yourself warned.
** talk about your mixed metaphors.

in context

is a sailboat. stupid head!

read and reviewed: creating a world without poverty by muhammad yunus
submitted by: anita

I thought that I was a dreamer and an optimist, but compared to Muhammad Yunus I would almost be considered a cynic. In Creating a World Without Poverty, not only does he envision eliminating poverty in his native country of Bangladesh, he envisions "putting poverty into museums" throughout the world so that future generations of children could go and marvel at the way large parts of the world used to live.

He acknowledges that he is a dreamer. Yet he has in fact reduced Bangladesh's poverty level from 73% in 1973 to 40% in 2005. The poverty level continues to decrease by 1 percent each year and so in the not too distant future, his dream of eliminating poverty in his country could become a reality.

How is he doing it? It's pretty simple. He has dared to think outside of the box. He has refused to buy into the capitalistic, maximizing profit model that the developed countries have lived by. Instead, he introduces the concept of social businesses. These are businesses that are created not to be PMBs (profit maximizing businesses) but businesses that have as their goal a social benefit to the world's poor. People who invest in the businesses get their investment back, eventually, but they do not receive any profit. Instead any profit that the business makes is re-invested into the business or else it goes to the shareholders who are the poor. As an added benefit, the investors in these businesses can then invest in another social business and keep perpetuating the benefits. It is much better than a hand-out, for both the investors and the recipients.

How can a model like this work? Yunus has shown that it works well. He started out by offering loans to poor people who had no collateral and who would be poor risks by most bank's standards. He found that these poor borrowers had a far better rate of loan repayment than more well-off borrowers. He also found that the poor were extremely resourceful and hard-working when it came to using their loaned money. As a result many of them were able to create viable businesses, pay back their loans and better the standard of living for themselves and their families.

For example, some poor women would take out a loan and become telephone ladies. They would purchase a cell phone and then sell minutes to people in their village. This provided benefit to them and also to others around them. And connecting a poor village with the world helps to remove them from isolation which further increases the likelihood that they will escape poverty.

It is a hopeful book. Yet it also is pleading with the world to adopt this same model of social businesses in order to save our planet as well as eliminate poverty. As has become obvious to many, the world can no longer afford to maximize profit and ignore the effect that this idea has had on the world's resources and on the use of the these resources by the privileged few.

I found it an inspiring book, with lots of practical insight. Putting its ideas into practice should be given serious thought by the developed nations. Success will only be hindered by a stubborn clinging to the current model of business that has benefited only a small portion of the world's population. Yunus believes that investors and people in general, are capable of and even attracted to making a choice that does not result in financial gain, but instead contributes to a world where those at the bottom of the socioeconomic structure are benefited and given a way of escape.

on "emergent"

lately i have had a number of people ask me what "emergent" is. actually, they usually ask me what the "emergent church" is and question what the "movement" is all about.

i'm not a philosopher and i'm not all that qualified to hold court on such issues, but for what (little) it is worth, emergent is a conversation.

in our cohort anyway, the conversation usually centers upon theology, ecclesiology and missiology. when our crew meets at danny's diner we bitch occasionally about dissonance we feel with our church traditions or the anemic expressions of christian "culture" (see: fireproof), but generally everyone around the table is there because they are in awe of Jesus Christ and, individually and collectively, are committed to finding a way to persevere upon this journey in order that they might be, as Jesus promised, saved/reconciled/redeemed/resurrected/made new.

i'd encourage you to question sweeping generalizations about the "emerging church" or the "emerging movement." last time i checked, emergent isn't looking to plant any churches, pen any creeds or establish the clear leadership structure* and steady income stream that movements generally require. since emergent is a conversation, i think most of its detractors are simply protective of their authority structures and/or they need a new whipping girl to take the place of open theism, the mega-church, carman, contemporary worship, third-wave charismaticism and whatever other developments have threatened (that also hard to define thing we call) american eeevangelicalism over the past bundle of years.

if you would rather hear it from the horses' mouth, here you go:

"Emergent Village is a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ." - emergentvillage.com

"As a follower of God in the way of Jesus, I've been involved in a profoundly interesting and enjoyable conversation over the last ten years or so. It's a conversation about what it means to be 'a new kind of Christian' - not an angry and reactionary fundamentalist, not a stuffy traditionalist, not a blase minimalist, not a wishy-washy liberal, not a New Agey religious hipster, not a crusading religious imperialist, and not an overly enthused Bible-waving fanatic--but something fresh and authentic and challenging and adventurous. Around the world, millions of people have gotten involved in this conversation, and more are getting involved each day. (One reason we keep calling it a conversation is that we can't find a short way of describing it yet," Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, pg. 3.

* what little leadership structure we had was deconstructed when tony jones stepped down as emergent's national coordinator in the fall of 2009.

Impending Emergence

Hey There,

Our friends at The Boston Faith and Justice Network and The Crossing are hosting a few killer events in in February and March. Take a look at what's on tap:

What: The Gratitude Economy Event featuring Shane Claiborne
When: Saturday, February 21st from 4-9:30 pm
Where: Park Street Church
How (Much): $0
Visit: The Boston Faith and Justice Network at http://www.bostonfaithjustice.org/.

What: The Everything Must Change tour featuring Brian McLaren
When: Saturday, March 7th from 9:30 am-3:00 pm
Where: George Sherman Union, Boston University, 775 Commonwealth Ave
How (Much): $15 for adults, $9 for students, $10 for a box lunch
Visit: This site to register: http://www.diomass.org/event/diocesan/brian-mclaren-one-americas-25-most-influential-evangelicals-keynote-spring-learning-e. Seating is limited.

What: The Crossing Presents Phyllis Tickle
When: Thursday, March 26th from 2-7:30 pm
Where: Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 138 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
How (Much): $25
Visit: This site to register: https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=697167. Seating is limited.

We hope to see you at one or some of these events. If you have any questions about these events, feel free to email me at gentry13ATgmail.com.

an open invite to friends near and far

Hey All,

Just a reminder that the cohort is meeting this Tuesday night at Danny's Diner (300 Beacon Street, Somerville, MA) from 7-9 pm.

When I was a student at Soybean Bible College my favorite professor and spiritual director always taught me to "study and experience abroad, but always find a way back home." In light of this advice, I have always been open to diverse theological conversations and new forms of Christian mission, but I have also tried to stay consciously rooted in the Christian Church, Church of Christ tradition of my youth.

This month I would like for us to discuss the beliefs and practices of our faith tradition that we value and aim to sustain. The Emergent conversation is often concerned with letting go of the past so that we can lean into God's future. While those discussions are necessary and valuable I think it is also important for us to discuss the beliefs and practices that have shaped us in the past and shape us still. At this meeting we'll also review the Peter Rollins event and talk about the upcoming events sponsored by the Crossing Community.

I hope to see you there!

gentry

gentry13ATgmail.com

ht: dr. james

the cardinals' winter warmer



ht: aubucade

musing...

as much fun as it is to ridicule governor blagojevich, his allegedly unethical activity raises a troubling question or two in my mind.

what if blagojevich's current position mirrors jose canseco's in 2005 when juiced was first published and he was a universal object of ridicule and scorn? are we going to find out in the coming months that blagojevich is more the norm than the exception? perhaps pundits are right in suggesting that he is only guilty of "doing politics on tape."

as we continue to track through the nuclear winter of recession and there is far less capital to grease the wheels of the government machine are we going to see an increasing number of politicians revealing the corrupt schemes of their "friends" in order to ensure that there is enough slop in the trough? in massachusetts we've already seen the speaker of the house bounced due to alleged ethics violations, a state senator fell in december after taking bribes on tape from the fbi and a city counselor from roxbury is about to fall. once you start indicting mass politicians where are you going to stop?

enough politics for now.

musing...

for the past four weeks we have been listening to abram's story at the gathering. last night, as we rambled down highway 51, i couldn't help but but admire abram's responsiveness. although abram had significant faults and flaws, when God spoke abram responded and when God visited abram was quick to welcome.

as much as i hate to admit it, i am not seared by the experience of God as Abram was and i rarely receive the revelation of God as a call to action.

over the past several years, i've devoured books like spirit and flesh, salvation on sand mountain, the family and even body piercing saved my life that enable me to reflect upon my own faith tradition from a critical distance.

if i'm going to continue on this road of pastoral ministry i need to find my way - or be led - back to the place where the revelation of God can cut me open, reorder my understanding, recreate my heart and so ready me to walk together with God's community towards the good, the beautiful and the true.

happy haiku friday

loving and killing
legacy double-dealing
i have the cancer

happy haiku friday

with velocity
of thermal viscosity
open mouth, insert foot

musing...

reason 2,342,656 i love living in massachusetts: incredible, non-commercial radio. almost every day i listen to wbur, boston's npr news station that produces such fan favorites as car talk and tom ashbrook's on point, wers an eclectic, indie-music giant out of emerson college, wumb an influential folk music station, that regularly features john hiatt, out of umass boston and wgbh, a classical music/npr news format station that is a perfect refuge from wbur during fundraisers. now, if we can only get a non-commercial sports talk station that is hosted by michael lewis, thomas boswell, chris collinsworth, bill simmons, chuck klosterman, ken rosenthal, rob neyer, bill james and joe morgan we'll be all set!

i read phyllis tickle's the great emergence a little over a month ago and i enjoyed it. i wish i would have reviewed it immediately after reading so that her assertions were fresh on my mind. tickle's central premise is that every 500 years or so - think pope gregory the great, the great schism, the great reformation and brian mclaren - the church undergoes a major seismic shift. she goes to great lengths to show that the last shift was inspired not only by luther's theological complaints but by the printing press, the rise of the nation state and the renaissance/enlightenment/late middle ages. tickle believes that we are currently undergoing a major shift she calls the great emergence on account of the rise of globalization, the internet revolution and the forthcoming decriminalization of marijuana.

anyway, in regards to western christianity tickle asserts that the playing field has long looked like a quadrant that included the roman catholics, the social justice christians, the fundamentalists/evangelicals and the pentecostal/charismatics. as christians have been more and more exposed to the valuable elements of other quadrants and have even incorporated practices that were characteristic of other quadrants into their worship and mission, tickle suggests that there has been a "gathering center" of believers who are leaving their old denominational designations and exclusivistic theological systems behind in order to plumb the diverse depths of the traditions and join with others on the redemptive, kingdom mission of Christ.

where am i going with? right. tickle notes that in each quadrant there are 10-15% of believers who will refuse to move towards the center and will become quadrant fundamentalists of sorts. she also notes that there currently are and will continue to be "hyphenated" groups such as preby-mergent that hold on firm to their quadrant with one hand and reach as far towards the gathering center as they can with the other hand.

as for me, i would love to be numbered among the hyphenateds by maintaining my roots in the stone-campbell movement while continuing to be an active participant in the great emergence. since i am already a part of the latter, i've been thinking about the elements of my tradition that will help me keep a firm hold on the former. thus, my great question is: what elements of the stone-campbell tradition are worth holding onto?

so far, i've decided that the weekly practice of the eucharist, believers baptism, a dedication to world mission, an openness to utilizing contemporary mediums in order to communicate the message and shared leadership are stone-campbellish elements that i would like to hold onto. if you are a part of "the movement" or have simply had a movement and would like to comment on either tickle's book or the idea of living a hyphenated christian life, feel free.

one more thing: kellie mentioned yesterday that she does not think it is the government's responsibility to provide vouchers, and thus PAY, for americans with rabbit eared sets to make the jump to digital broadcasting. i can't agree with her more. since when did the ability to watch stupid schlock like american idol become an inalienable right!? now they want to delay the conversion because people haven't listened to two years of endless commercials about the shift or don't care enough about the transition to pony up the $200. come on!!!