Higher Ed

Online learning is becoming more and more an entrenched feature of higher education in America, for good or ill (I wonder if Europeans are getting into the act).

That's why, in a way, this isn't as much of a surprise. I guess. Though it's still giggle inducing.

Right now, most wicca/neopagan shenanigans in American are sponsored mostly by white people who spend too much time online. I wonder when real magic will be practiced by Americans who for now like to dress up in flowing robes. When the cutting begins I'll believe that American pagans are serious.

That's a Helluva Church Ya Got There

On the one hand, the Episcopal Church has officially abandoned Christianity. It will continue its rapid demographic implosion. One result of this decades long migration into the rougher and more obvious territories of heresy is that many who might have been attracted to the liturgical and spiritual life that used to mark the Anglican way will go instead directly toward Rome.


On the other hand Rome is fighting the same virus. Until the Roman church can discipline things like this and make them disappear with some real authority, many like me find the claims of Rome to be merely paper. This is a frickin' Jesuit dancing in sanctified space. If a bishop doesn't toss his blasphemous hiney out the door, then I find it hard to accept the real life, on the ground authority of the Catholic Church. Things like this cause the Catholic Church to appear to non-Catholics as just a bigger version of the Episcopal Church.

I don't want to play.

I am so wasting my time this summer.

R & R

It's summer, and I'm shutting down for a while. Ta ta.

The Culture of Higher Ed

For all those of you who are thinking about a job in higher education, be sure you know what you are getting into. For one thing, the job market is cratering because of the economy. Higher freezings are taking place everywhere, from tiny Christian colleges to the most prestigious public univesities. Who knows how long this will last?

But underneath the fickle fluctuations of the economy, a more entrenched problem is the culture of higher education. Not every place is bad. Not every college or university is a hive of petty bickering and backstabbing mob behavior. But a lot of it is, and it won't change until major restructurings of American higher education take place (which will only happen under crisis conditions). And this is true for many Christian colleges, although, again, some of them escape this insular, small-souled,destructive behavior.

Anabaptist Awesomeness

For all your Mennonite-ish needs.

Though the Anabaptist wing of Western Christendom is a tiny sliver of the pie, it has produced a steady, serious witness through the centuries. I don't understand why more Evangelicals don't mine this tradition, especially when they start talking about social justice, serving the poor, living missional, intentional lives, and so forth. Maybe they just aren't aware of the Anabaptist tradition with its ongoing cultural reflection, or maybe they just don't want to admit that others have been doing what they want to do long before they thought of it.

Anabaptist culture has also produced its own art, though it is, obviously, highly iconoclastic. But a plethora of Mennonite authors, for instance, exist, giving voice to the experience of being an alternative community. When I see people starting to use language like authentic, intentional, concerned for the poor, counter-cultural, and so forth, I measure them against the Anabaptists. That way I can see if they really mean what they say or if they're just blowing smoke out their, um, you know.

Sing Unto the Lord

Psalm 88, surely one of the darkest bits of writing in the entire Bible, begins with "A Song. A Psalm of the Korahites. To the leader: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite."

I suppose that scholars could track down some of these references, though the details pertaining to the use of this Pslam in temple worship have been long lost and it's no doubt impossible to reconstruct what a Maskil sounds like (though I'm pretty sure it didn't sound like this).

From the Temple Worship, to the Synagogue, to the chants of the early church, to hymns, polyphony, fugues, chorales, and so on, Christianity (building on its Jewish foundation) has embraced music as having almost sacramental efficacy in bringing God close (Bach has been called the fifth Evangelist).

Muslims embracing music, not so much.

Here's an interesting way to carry out evangelism among the Jihadists--plop down in the West Bank or in Iran and play some Bach cello suites. Sure, it will most likely drive them insane with rage (though just about anything seems to do this), but maybe a few of them might just begin to see how the Christian vision opens one up to the beauty of Creation and by implication the beauty of the Creator.

(thanks, Sarah)

Shacking Up

Christians, of course, aren't the only ones who can be titillated by mindless drivel. The DaVinci Code books and movies are perfect examples of how secular or anti-religious forces can also merrily crank out poorly written tripe, either to make a quick buck or to promote some dubious point of view that will not withstand the test of time.

But Christians shouldn't have any excuses for this.

I'm going to step on some toes here. Sorry.

The Shack, the recently popular "novel" that lots of people are reading is another perfect example of how people are willing to let the standards of craftsmanship slide in favor of secondary concerns. That is, the level of quality in this massively popular book is ignored in favor of its putative good effects on its readers. I have a feeling that people read and respond positively to this book for a variety of reasons, but good writing isn't one of them (not to mention the book's awful theology).

I also have a feeling that only the already favorably disposed are the ones who get the most out of the book. Serious readers are merely repelled. As they ought to be.

Blowing a Fuse

You know, I think it is significant that the people who are promoting a retrogressive Christianity are all well fed, fairly educated, apparently all white, products of a relatively civilized social order.

Jesus is wild, and I'm wild, and I'm a barbarian, and my church is a tribe, and Western Christianity sucks (and so does the Eastern Church, by implication), and doing systematic theology is effeminate, so I'm going to watch Braveheart for the eighteenth time on a plasma screen in the safety of my suburban home.

The message comes through loud and clear. Church history, except for some dim, unspecified few decades or so at the beginning, sold out; and any product that came from that Dark Age (oh, roughly from 125 A.D. to, say, when I published my book) is so utterly contaminated by something or other that it [the historical Church, Patristic, Medieval, Reformational, etc.] must absolutely be abandoned and reinvented from scratch. Because they all got it wrong, I mean every last one of them, and my book will help us rediscover the passionateauthenticwildheart of Jesus. Cause folks like Luther and Aquinas and Wesley and Spurgeon and Augustine absolutely ruined the Church and don't know what the hell they're talking about when they tell us about prayer, and God, and the Bible.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Tonton Macoutes for Christ

What new mayhem is this? How long will this one last? Is this really new or has the author merely managed to repackage this older fad?

Jesus is really a wild man, summoning the wild man within each of us (except for chicks, I guess). Christian the Barbarian. Civilization bad, the wild dude buried within is good. Got it.

The Assyrian Christ
Jesus of the Jungle
Caveman Christ
Jesus the freedom fighter
Christ, ninja assassin of the Darkness
Jesus--the Threatening

conversely, on the human side (and these are good things, remember)--

Being a po-mo gangsta for God
Becoming the the Holy Monster
Dennis the Menace Christian
ADD, A.D.
Finding the Outlaw Within
Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam? Jesus Wants Me for a Laser Beam.
Masculinate/ Masculinator
He-Man--Finding Your Ultra Cartoon Within, the Cartoon God Wants You to Be

Here's a freebie for all you who want to put in the work: go to a really savage passage in the Old Testament, something like "Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger--the club in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him" (10.5,6). Extrapolate from that and build a dubious but easily digested theology based on some pretentious nonsense about masculinity. Find other passages scattered throughout the Bible echoing this one. Write simplistic paragraphs on the theme of becoming an Assyrian for Christ, releasing all those dark, angry forces within for kingdom purposes, and make a bundle. (Be sure you cut me a check for a discovery fee.)

Wait a year or two and then write another one. Repeat as needed or until you choke on your own
self-disgust from perpetuating such frauds.

Churchness

Emergent, emerging church
Remergent church
postmergent church
bi-mergent

Emergent-cy Church

Polymergent Church
synvergent church

Valent church
counter-valent church
processing church
flex church
flexi-church

interstitial church

The nomadic ecclesia
We are a polynomadic community

We are a multivalent missional fellowship.

Inverted church
Tradition busters
Post-Babel community

Logos Patio
Spirit Kiosk
St. James Infirmery

I own the copyrights to all these ultracool names. Well, not the last one. If you use one without paying me a royalty, I'll sue.

A Prediction

The next big thing will be the Convergent Church.

As "Emergent" and "Emerging" get tamed (the routinizing of charisma), folks will be looking for the next cool movement, and what sounds cooler than "the Convergent Chruch"?

Which might also last about ten years, max, before people get bored with it and move on to the next change, since change is what the church is all about, apparently.

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning. I'm doing what all sane people do. I'm watching cartoons.

Blowin' in the Wind

As Mainline Protestants, progressive Catholics, and the occasional individual Orthodox liberal (yes, they do exist) continue to promote Change as their reason for remaining connected to their residual Christianity, they will be joined eventually by their Evangelical imitators.

"Progressive" Christians have developed their own rhetorical signatures, sounding something like this. Indeed, one way of plotting the trajectory of this nominal religiosity is to show how it becomes increasingly difficult to parody. One is reduced to quoting their own words.

As Evangelicals pick up on this sort of language, or develop it independently and in ignorance of their Mainline predecessors, they too will end up with a similar refusal to countenance the harder sayings of the Bible, either interpreting them away or ignoring them entirely at every level. As the rhetoric goes, so goes doctrine.