The Complex Christ | Signs of Emergence

The [Other] Lives of Others

I'll add my praise to the fantastic debut feature 'The Lives of Others'. It really is a remarkable film.

For those of you who haven't seen it, it follows the story of a Stasi Officer assigned to bug and follow the life of a writer under suspicion in 1980's East Germany. Through what he overhears about the lives of others, his own life is turned around. In short, literature and music are his salvation, his guides to self discovery.

It is incredible to think that all this was going on just a few years ago and not so many miles away. The French had their WW2 resistance, the Spanish their civil war, the Italians their own troubles. We in Britain have been spared any such strange goings on: governments listening in to your every move, networks of informants, phone taps and systemic distrust.... Or we had until recently.

I was fortunate enough to end up going to see the film with my sister, who happened to bring along a house-mate who actually grew up in East Berlin at precisely this time. Chatting afterwards - he absolutely loved the film - what was interesting was his suggestion about what the film had shied away from.

"The Stasi were petrified of two things, really: capitalism and the Catholic church. It was being a Christian that really made you a threat to the authorities."

He has first-hand experience: two brothers both locked up for years for trying to escape to the West. Both of them having their freedom mysteriously 'bought' after 9 months in jail by the West Germans, and taken in. He still has no idea who paid for these 'undesirables' to be taken off the FDR's hands, in exchange for some much-needed cash, but he thinks a group of West German Christians raised the money.

What is interesting then, is that the locus of irritation and salvation is shifted in the film. Art saves, not religion. Art is politically challenging, religion isn't. No mention is made of faith at all in the 163 minutes. This isn't the fault of the film-maker; he had a story and has told it brilliantly. But, as my sister's friend said yesterday, there are still some equally extraordinary stories of redemption and persecution to come out of that time. Who will tell them?

Technorati: Catholic | Religion | Stasi | The Lives of Others

Where Have All the Bees Gone?

From David Byrne's journal:

According to Einstein we’ve got a little over 4 years. Here’s a quote from him:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

And in today's NY Times it says that more than a ¼ of the honeybees in the U.S. have vanished. The article continues with a lot of head scratching as to why but sort of says “gee, we dunno.”

It's a fascinating thought. All our grand schemes and industries, and still this wonderfully fragile link of needing bees to pollinate... everything that we grow.

Technorati: Bees | David Byrne | Einstein | Environment | GM Crops

Parasitic, Aggressive Blogs?

Thanks to Ben for the link:

"Blogs,” [Oliver Kamm] wrote, “typically do not add to the available stock of commentary: they are purely parasitic on the stories and opinions that traditional media provide.” In The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland pointed out that the abusive, vitriolic nature of many blogs had turned the blogosphere into a “claustrophobic environment, appealing chiefly to a certain kind of aggressive, point-scoring male — and utterly off-putting to everyone else.”

I'd have to agree. Perhaps you find this one no different, but I find too many blogs way too low on content, and way too high on 'scoring' posts that just seem to be trying to attract stats.

Technorati: Aggression | Blogging | The Times | The Guardian

Why Does American Christianity Always Seem to Wait for the Real Thinking to be Done Elsewhere?

A few of us have been reading Marilynne Robinson's wonderful novel Gilead recently. I can't recommend it highly enough.

One episode jumped out at me last night. The trickster, the Prodigal perhaps, of the novel is debating faith with the protagonist, an old preacher, when he asks:

'Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?'

The preacher replies:

'Not really' I replied, which surprised me, since I have wondered that very thing any number of times.

They are referring, in part, to Barth's thinking, and the novel is set in the 50's. And I wondered if people thought there was any truth in that, or if still the case, or if things had changed? Is Pentecostalism America's unique gift to the church?

Technorati: American | Christianity | Gilead | Marilynne Robinson | Barth

Death-Wish | Don't Demonise Cho

The release of Cho's video all over the media is just another example of technology being used without proper restraint, not unlike the shooting itself. It's a horrific violation of those suffering.

In a previous post, and in the comments that followed, I was trying to probe a link between these killings and the spate of gun and knife attacks between black teenagers that have beset London. I wonder now, having seen Cho's video, whether the link is that they have a death-wish. Meaning they wanted to die?

No. But when a society devalues someone's life so systematically, then it can seem that dying - or killing - is the only way to find some sort of 'worth', however twisted that worth might be.

This is not, as he might think, death as sacrifice - giving oneself, but death as transaction - the highest price to pay to make people sit up and notice this troubled self that thinks itself invisible. And the tragedy of his tirade against Christians is that it is precisely these people who follow one who gave himself in death to bring us worth, did not pass on that grace to him.

We should not demonize him, but search ourselves and try to empathize. It's only out of empathy that this will be stopped from happening again. It takes courage, but, once again, it's about taking a visit to our own 'dirt pile', seeing what we've excluded, and bringing some redemption from it.

Technorati: Cho Seung-hui | Death Wish | Empathy | suicide

Watch out TSK - Your WiFi Crawls Could Land You in Jail

How ridiculous is this? Two people arrested and cautioned for 'stealing' wifi. I can't believe the Police actually wasted time on this to be honest.

Andrew Jones should watch out - his crawls for WiFI are legendary, and have even prompted him to call for software to help ;-)

Moral: don't be a dumb-ass. If you've got WiFi and you don't want people to steal it, activate some WEP.

Technorati: Andrew Jones | TSK | wifi | wireless

Doing No Favours | Non Violence [2]

What a terrible tragedy in Virginia. The families - and whole community - are in my thoughts and prayers as they try to find some way through this.

The soul-searching has already begun here. The UK press have been pointing out the all too frequent nature of these such attacks. Guns and stressful modern life do not mix well. As I've written before here, the same technology that allows us so much freedom, and unprecedented leisure, also has again reared its dark head. You simply can't kill over 30 people with only your bare hands. You need tools to do that.

My knowledge of the socio-political climate over the issue is limited to Michael Moore's output, plus some other partisan material, and I understand that comparisons are tricky to make between countries. Either way, a factor of nearly 35 times more gun-related homicides in the US than most of Europe has to be explained.

For me, I can't help but wonder each time such news breaks again: surely gun control has got to mean more than using both hands?

Technorati: Gun Control | Michael Moore | Virginia

Doing Themselves No Favours | Where is Non-Violent Resistance in Palestine Going to Come From?

We have been supporters of the Palestinian cause for a long time. It's a simple matter of justice: a people need a viable state, and protection from an under-the-radar occupation that is clearly illegal under UN law.

Poverty is extreme, unemployment sky-high, human rights violated on a day to day basis. Having been there, I can understand why people have turned to violence in pursuit of their cause. When Israel is funded to the tune of billions of dollars, and virtually given a carte-blanche to ignore UN resolutions, it can seem impossibly hopeless. And hopelessness causes human beings to fall, like trapped animals, into sub-human behaviour.

Even so, the kidnap of Alan Johnston, and the recent reports of his murder, leave me not only utter disgusted, but hugely frustrated at the plight of the Palestinians once again being blighted by the foolishness of one group or another. They are doing nobody any favours keeping captive - or worse - a man who has faithfully and truthfully reported their horrific situation.

One can only pray that the reports turn out to be unfounded and, beyond that, that a Palestinian movement of non-violent resistance will find it's MLK or Gandhi.

Technorati: Al Tawhid Al Jihad | Alan Johnston | Palestine | BBC

Voyaging by Atomic Ice-Breaker to the North Pole | Or is MegaChurch™ Not Like That?

The ever-brilliant Believer magazine - the highlight of my reading month - carries a wonderful dual essay by Scott and James Browning about their respective trips to the North and South Poles with their mother.

Scott Browning's piece on the North Pole trip is wonderful. He describes the utter non-place-ness of it. There are in fact many North Poles - astronomical, magnetic, geographic, instantaneous, and, over many years scores of brave explorers lost their lives battling through extreme hardships to try to get there. Scott travels with his mum in a Russian, nuclear-powered icebreaker, replete with strangely warm swimming pool. Because this journey, through a landscape absent of any geographic markers, to a place with none either, is so easy, the group are required to attend twice-daily lectures on the importance of their feat, and are constantly hyped up by notes around the ship reminding how amazing it is all going to be when they get there.

And, of course, when Scott does, he feels utterly lost. "Failing to believe in the North Pole while at the North Pole is to go from being someplace special to pretty much nowhere at all." Between all time-zones and none, time and place collapse. In the eternal sunshine, it is like a sugar-white nirvana...

And it got me thinking back to Alan Jamieson's work in A Churchless Faith. About moving from the 'Cruiseliner' faith to the small yacht. The destination is not the key. It's the journey that counts.

If you sail toward heaven in a MegaChurch, will you really be satisfied when you get there? I don't know.

Technorati: Jamieson | North Pole | Megachurch | The Believer

RSS - Is Your Content Purified to the Point of Sterility?

In a piece on the myth of 'Internet Neutrality' The Guardian quoted Professors Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsoson, who, way back in 1997, wrote that,

"With the customised access and search capabilities, individuals can arrange to read only news and analysis that align with their preferences. Individuals empowered to screen out material that does not conform to their existing preferences may form virtual cliques, insulate themselves from opposing points of view, and reinforce their biases."

From their paper "Global Village or CyberBalkans: Modeling and Measuring the Integration of Electronic Communities"

This made me ponder: is my RSS selection doing anything to really challenge my preferences? Or, as Jung might put it, is my content 'purified to the point of sterility?'

Join me in a challenge: add a feed that you disagree with, that prods you, that is uncomfortable. And read it.

Here's mine: Richard Dawkins' Official site.
Any others?

Technorati: Dawkins | RSS | The Guardian | Van Alstyne

Happy Easter!

Be gone cobwebs,
dust, don’t gather.
Air, don’t still
and stones don’t settle.

All that creeps and steals,
skulks, sneaks and slithers,
retreat!

There is life here, reignited,
burning, heat and light.

No word can be said,
but the stone still cries out,
and retreats in holy fear.

Air rushes in terror to escape,
but is inhaled again,
in, out, in, out.
A leaden chest rises, and falls;
black blood melts red and circulates.
An eye is opened, a muscle twitches;

a word is about to be said.
Creation, three days in revolution,
waits in cold dread for its hearing…

But receives only forgiveness as
the sun rises.

Technorati: Resurrection | Reflection | Easter

Christian (dis)Unity Stinks...

From The Independent:

A fierce inter-denominational dispute over precedence at what Orthodox Christians believe is the Easter miracle of Holy Fire is holding up desperately needed repairs to the 122-year-old lavatory block at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the focal point of Christianity.

Some 'dirt work' desperately needed, me thinks...

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] It's Not the Winning That Matters, It's... | The End of Strategy [5]

Just got back this afternoon from darkest Wales, where there was no internet, no mobile coverage, and virtually no radio reception either. Just a wonderful beach, and an old clap-board cottage. Great medicine.

Nice to come back to some good debate though. I just wanted to write a final post in the series (may be) to respond to some comments and clarify a few things.

Firstly, of course Jonny is right: 'no strategy' is a strategy of some sort. But we also mustn't be bound by these apparent linguistic traps. They are not as binding as our tongues would have us believe...

I had to choose a word, and strategy is the one I picked. What I meant by it was the competitive spirit, the desire to have a 'winning formula'. As I've said, I think this is something that Paul never quite exorcises, and this has then infected the Evangelical church, which has always seemed to me to exalt Paul's letters above all else. This has perhaps had two effects:

1. Evangelicalism has always been competitive. It wants to win. It hates losing. And thus white men have grasped hold of it and led it with more and more programmes.
2. Many, many people have been very turned off this. The Paul that is preached seems so different from the Jesus they thought they were following. It is perhaps not too much to say that people leave Evangelicalism for the emerging movement to get away from Paul and get back to Christ.

In Peter, on the other hand, we see an emphasis on love. And it is this that I would want to see hallmark the emerging movement:

1. An emphasis on quality of relationships, not quantities and numbers
2. An emphasis on distributed leadership that always shuns power and seeks to collaborate
3. A move away from credentials.
4. An emphasis on taking part, not winning.

Strategy is always about the self. It is about celebrity. And I would want to suggest that no Emerging Church project should ever need a publicist, ever need a media event.

Malcolm's comment really resonated with me. The institutional church wants to be able to strategise this new movement. It needs to. It needs the money. And ever since Constantine's patronage, it been enmeshed in finance. Abjectly poor people funding the building of ever-more elaborate cathedrals for power-hungry bishops... Same old.

This is not what we see in the incarnation. What we see there is the viral, powerless, bottom-up Christianity that I tried to describe in the book. And it begins today on Good Friday, with the crucifixion of the Temple-bound, profiteering God, the end-game of the Babel-onian plot of human power against divine love... But love will not be played with. She appears to wither, and then spring again, eternal.

The powerful will play with our faith. But Easter reminds us that God slipped their trap to shower love for free. No rules. That's grace.

Peace.

Technorati: Christ | Constantine | Politics | Power | Strategy | Good Friday | Evangelical | Paul | Via Crucis

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] Constantine and 'Power Church' | The End of Strategy [4]

I've been attempting to argue over this series of posts that Jesus' passion, in contrast to Judas' scheming to catalyze Jesus into revolution, and Paul's strategizing to get to Rome, critiques the power-plays that we try to make as Christians.

Through Game Theory we have been duped into thinking our best strategy is to not trust one another. But beyond that Christ's death on the cross - a deliberate 'loss' - subverts the very idea of strategy at all.

At Golgotha, God declares the end of strategy.
God will not play our power games.
God is.
God loves.
There is no win or lose.

All too quickly the early church - mostly under the influence of Paul, I would argue - lost this message and began to make itself into a 'strategic organization'. We don't really know the effect of Paul's journey to Rome, what we do know is that in 313CE Emperor Constantine declared himself a Christian. Why? Because he believed that the Christian God had given him victory in battle. Where did he get such a theology? Surely not from Christ. Constantine was a brilliant soldier, and an astute military strategist. Is is possible that there is a thread that leads from Paul's strategy to evangelize Rome to Constantine's conversion?

I'm clearly speculating. But what concerns me about Constantine is that from there on we see Christianity moving from a religion of the poor and the oppressed, to a religion held up by the rich and powerful as one which supports them.

This is a long way from the cross, and it seems a long way from us too. But I believe that if the church allows itself to be tied up in strategies, to 'winning' people for Christ, it will end be moving towards power-politics, towards support for wars, and away from genuine concern for 'the other'.

To give oneself for 'the other' is to lose. It is to be engaged in transformative relationships, rather than tactical change. It is to love. To know grace. And grace and love have no strategy.

Thanks if you've got this far. Month old babies don't make for clarity of thought, so apologies if it could all have been clearer ;-)
Peace over the Easter Weekend.

Technorati: Christ | Constantine | Politics | Power | Strategy | Via Crucis

Bill Dahl

"One of the top 5 books I have read in 2007. You MUST read this book now. Trust me, this book will rearrange your soul! A tremendous contribution."

Bill Dahl, editor of The Porpoise Diving Life

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] Game Theory: Jesus Loses | The End of Strategy [3]

In the previous two posts I've looked at the figures of Paul and Judas and proposed that both of them, in their separate ways, were 'strategists'. They wanted things done, wanted to give Jesus an amazing opportunity. And they had ideas about how to do that. Judas and his catalyzing a revolution; Paul and his appeal to Caesar. Jesus can begin to fight, and Paul can declare Christ's message in Rome: the centre of power.

But Jesus appears to confound all strategies. His incarnation is without fanfare. He tries to stop people talking about healings, he slips away for days at a time, and refuses even to defend himself against trumped up charges.

In the recent Adam Curtis documentary, 'The Trap', Curtis suggests that much of the distrust we see in modern life is rooted in the Game Theories that became popular in the Cold War. In a popular Game Theory problem, 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' it turns out that our best strategy is not to trust one another. If we want to win, we need to be selfish.

It struck me during that documentary that what Christ is doing when he stays silent at his trial is refusing to even enter the game that the strategists plotting against him have set up. It is as if he deliberately loses, because by losing he is totally subverting the very idea of the game.

And this is where Paul and Judas go terribly wrong. Presented with amazing opportunities to 'do something for Jesus', they fall into strategy, they throw their chips in and enter the game. Why didn't Paul imitate Christ and keep his mouth shut? Because his strategy was always to get taken to Rome, and to take part in a 'power play' with Caesar.

On the cross the religious leaders taunted Jesus - if he's so powerful, why doesn't he save himself? This was the final temptation Jesus faced, the same one the devil ended with in the desert: take part in the power play. Jesus emptied himself of all that power, emptied himself of strategies, because he had to be emptied of the Self - the Self that pretends that it is powerful and influential. The Self that pushes the ego forward, rather than looking to the Other.

It is the same temptation that we face today. And my concern is that the movement known as the 'Emerging Church' is going to be tempted to be 'strategic' - to enter power-plays. And I think this would be a very wrong route. Which is where I'll end in the next post.

Technorati: Game Theory | Strategy | The Trap | Via Crucis

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] Judas Catalyzes a Revolution | The End of Strategy [2]

In the previous post I looked at the parallels between Paul and Jesus' approach to and arrest and trial in Jerusalem, and noted that the key difference between them was that while Jesus remained almost silent, Paul never shut up.

I'm proposing that one of the reasons behind this is that in Paul we see a zealot, a keen enthusiast, driven to succeed in all he does. In short, he wants to win.

I think this rings true throughout all of his letters. Paul never quite manages to put to bed his competitive and strategic spirit, and it's this role as strategist that I think sets him apart from Christ.

In the book (Signs of Emergence or The Complex Christ, depending on which side of the pond you are on) I propose that Judas' 'betrayal' was perhaps in fact his well-meaning attempt to catalyze Jesus into action - to force his military hand and set in motion the revolution that would overthrow the Roman occupation. In other words, he, like Paul was a strategist.

With both of these figures, Paul and Judas, we see men of action. The other disciples likely thought the same about Jesus, and expected him to be a military figure, but did nothing about it. Judas refused to sit back and wait. Similarly, we don't hear much about daring missionary journeys being made by other Apostles. Paul comes in later and immediately gets to the centre of the action, takes on a core role in the church and starts heading out on this amazing trips.

But they are both in contrast to the figure of Jesus, who appears to repeatedly confound all the strategists who gather round him. It's this that makes me wonder whether Christ's passion is in some way 'the end of strategy'. And it's to that that I want to turn in the next post.

Technorati: Judas | Strategy | Via Crucis

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] Toward Jerusalem: Jesus and Paul | The End of Strategy [1]

[I'm pleased to be part of the Via Crucis 2007 grid-blog... This is a series of 4 posts in 4 days pre-posted, as I'm going to be in the wilds of a Welsh beach that technology forgot.]

I have been teaching an introductory course on Christianity to Year 7 (11/12 years old) over the past few months, and recently we covered Jesus' death and resurrection, and then the spread of Christianity.

While doing so the parallels between Paul and Jesus struck me for the first time.

In Acts 21 we see that 'through the Spirit the disciples urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem'. Paul goes anyway, just as Jesus headed there, knowing there was danger. Both Jesus and Paul are arrested on blasphemy charges following disturbances at the Temple, and both are harassed by a large, whipped up crowd. Both are hauled before Roman and Jewish hearings.

But here the parallels end, and it is in the differences that follow that I was really struck. Jesus remains virtually silent before his accusers. He simply refuses to defend himself. Others make claims about him; he simply says that that is what they are claiming.

But Paul simply cannot shut up. He preaches to the crowds, to the hearings and very much makes 'a defense' as Acts 22 tells us. Not only that, but he repeated hammers home messages about his credentials. "I am a Jew... I was thoroughly trained in the law... I am a born Roman citizen... I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee" (Acts 22/23) It seems that Paul is desperate to be all things to all people. He is seemingly in a temper - he insults the High Priest (Acts 23:4-5) without even knowing who he was.

Eventually, Paul is taken to another hearing in Caesarea, and it is then that he exercises his right to 'appeal to Caesar'. He must be sent to Rome.

In these events, Paul and Jesus turn out to be very different characters. And what I think distinguishes them from one another is this:
Paul was a strategist. And Jesus was not.

It's to the implications of that that I want to turn to in the next post.

Technorati: Acts | Jesus | Paul