Moving tour de veitch

Here is the link to the new blog
http://tourdeveitch.wordpress.com/

Christian Conservation?

I am in Mombassa, Kenya this week discussing theology, ecology, and community development.  It has been an amazing time of thinking about how our theology effects our interaction with others and the environment.  This is a topic that is not talked about in many churches and there are a number of poor theologies that either do not care or disregard the environment all together.  We have been grappling with the idea that our environment is connected to our spirituality.  And, that our theology reflects our treatment of the environment.

A passage that keeps coming up is Colossians 1.19-20.  It has been interesting how we forget that 'all things' means 'all things.'  God is reconciling everything, both humankind and nature.  This morning we were challenged to think about the Gospel as a message to the whole world.  The reconciliation of Christ brings people into right relationship with God as well as right relationship with nature.  The rural poor rely on 100% of the environment to live.  So, the issues facing the poor are environmental issues.  If we simply focus on souls and not the soil, we miss out the central message of the Gospel, which is the reconciliation of everything.  John 3.16, uses an interesting term.  It states that God loved the 'kosmos' (were we get the word cosmos from).  God loved everything, the whole of the cosmos.  It has been challenging and empowering to see the relationship we have to the environment and God's relationship with the same environment.

I had a good discussion with one of the presenters about N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope.  That book has been a great influence on understanding a right relationship with the world around us, and how that is reflected in our view of heaven.  Those who do care about the world today, tend to have far off, distant, raptured, views of heaven.  As Wright says, "Jesus is coming, go plant a tree!"

Reading Galatians with a Hebrew Bible scholar and a Rabbinics scholar

In my last class today we discussed Galatians and Romans.  This was an interesting discussion but before I share the insights some general background is in order.  The class is titled "From Sectarianism to Heresy in 2nd Temple Judaism," and we discuss texts that represent different "Jewish" groups self definition and its insider/outsider portrayals.  Needless to say there has been some great discussions and a lot of reading.

So, for todays class we had to read Galatians and Romans in Greek and secondary articles from Stowers, Gager, and Boyarin.  I had at least read reviews of these scholars general views on Paul and agreed with many of there points they made.  What was really interesting was hearing my professors, one a Hebrew Bible scholar and the other a Rabbinic scholar, talking about Paul.  Whether everyone in class knew it or not, we all generally agreed with the shift in thinking brought on by the New Perspective.  That is to say, we all read Paul as a person wrestling with Judaism in a Roman occupation context, in light of his understanding of Jesus.  However, the agreement did not go much further than that.

I was constantly reminded of the limits of our knowledge of life situation of "Jews" in the first century.  I use the quotes because the term is not easily defined nor does it represent a group with common understandings.  A problem that was overlooked by the "old perspective" and continues to be discussed by students of biblical studies.  Thus, when it comes to Paul, we come across ambiguous phrasing that is not a easily understood by simply reading.  The Christian-Judaism divide is nonexistent at this point.  If you read Galatians before reading Acts, you get a different picture of Paul.  Luke-Acts has already made a distinction between Jews and Christians that is not apart of Paul's writings.  I think I might go back and reread Paul's letters.  Once the semester is over and I have time to read.  Let me rephrase that, time to read what I would like to read.

Religion is not for the dumb and faint of heart!

I have had several conversations recently about worship music.  This is a subject I like to mock, complain about, and often I find it helpful in my pursuit of following Jesus.  On one occasion, I was discussing the  tendency of worship musicians to write love songs about Jesus.  This led to my mocking these people, substituting Jesus for the subject of the song.  I wasted more time with this than I should have but it proves the point that we relate to Jesus in overly simplified terms.

My mocking is not the best response but we should be able to engage Christ with more thought than simply stating our affection for him like teenagers "in love."  This is where worship music is symptom of other issues, mainly an inadequate way of expressing our faith in an educated manner.  Being a student at a seminary, I have heard the complaints of many students.  The most common issue is the feeling that what is taught is not practical knowledge that will help someone lead a church.  I usually respond that it is the students job to relate the material taught to the specific situation in which they find themselves.  What is taught is the methods and means of interpretation, not the interpretation.

It is our job as students/disciples to use these methods and creatively apply them to the act of following Jesus.  This is where worship music fails, when it only recreates teen pop, love songs about/to Jesus.  There is plenty of music out there that addresses the complex, thought provoking, beauty of humanity.  This is not specifically "Christian music."  We follow a thoughtful, complex God who expresses himself in a plurality of ways.  We can apply our own thoughtful complexity to worship, as well as to leading churches, interpreting our traditions and scriptures, and serving others.  I like how one of my professors states this idea,  "Religion is not for the dumb and faint of heart!"

Rocking in the Free World

 So, it has been dead here at my blog, but nothing revives a blog like talking about awesome stuff.  I recently purchased something awesome, namely a G&L ASAT Special.  What makes this so awesome you ask?  Well, several things.

One, I have in awe of G&L guitars for sometime.  They are the product of George Fullerton and Leo Fender, after Leo sold Fender in the 60's.  These guitars have the stamp of Leo Fender all over them, from looks to sound.  So, when I saw this guitar in the shop with a low price tag I had to give it a play.

The ASAT series, is G&L's take on Telecasters.  The shape is the same as the Tele (Leo was able to hold onto the patented body style when he sold Fender).  But G&L did not just recreate a classic.  The threw in some new touches, as well.

In the semi-hollow versions the body has two tuned chambers.  This gives it a distinct tone, compared with other semi-hollows with a single chamber.  This is combined with G&L's own pickup design and the result is a fat tone that simply rocks.  G&L took the traditional single coil pickup, the Alnico single coil, and designed a higher output pickup.  This gives the pickup a warmer and darker tone with less noise than the Alnico's.  This gives the guitar the versatility of the classic Tele country twang from the bridge pickup with the bigger full tone of a humbucker like pickup at the neck.  The result is a great sounding guitar reminiscent of the '72-'74 Tele's.

Check out G&L's website here.

Jugen Habermas interview

I was reading  an interview with Jugen Habermas titled, "A Postsecular World Society."  There where several points that stood out to me and resonate with some of my current readings.  Here are some quotes, and I will post the link to the full interview at the bottom.

The debate over the sociological thesis of secularization has led to a revision above all in respect to prognostic statements. On the one hand, the system of religion has become more differentiated and has limited itself to pastoral care, that is, it has largely lost other functions. On the other hand, there is no global connection between societal modernization and religion’s increasing loss of significance, a connection that would be so close that we could count on the disappearance of religion. In the still undecided dispute as to whether the religious USA or the largely secularized Western Europe is the exception to a general developmental trend, José Casanova for example has developed interesting new hypotheses. In any case, globally we have to count on the continuing vitality of world religions.  

It is also in connection with this widespread push toward reflection that we have to view the progressive disintegration of traditional, popular piety. Two specifically modern forms of religious consciousness emerged from this: on the one hand, a fundamentalism that either 

withdraws from the modern world or turns aggressively toward it; on the other, a reflective faith that relates itself to other religions and respects the fallible insights of the institutionalized sciences as well as human rights. This faith is still anchored in the life of a congregation and should not be confused with the new, deinstitutionalized forms of a fickle religiosity that has withdrawn entirely into the subjective. 

Religions do not survive without the cultic activities of a congregation. That is their “unique distinguishing feature” [„Alleinstellungsmerkmal“]. In modernity, they are the only configuration of spirit [Gestalt des Geistes] that still has access to the world of experience of ritual in the strict sense. Philosophy can only recognize religion as a different and yet contemporary configuration of spirit if it takes this archaic element seriously, without devaluing it a fortiori. After all, ritual has been a source of societal solidarity for which the enlightened morality of equal respect for all does not provide a real, motivational equivalent—nor do Aristotelian virtue ethics and the ethics 

of the good. This of course in no way precludes the possibility that this source, protected in the meantime by religious communities, and often used toward politically questionable ends, will run dry one day. 

I like the implied connections of religions loss of "other functions" with faith grounded in relation to others and ritual nature of religion.  I think there is a lot to learn from viewing religions in the postsecular setting.  Habermas touches on many of the issues contemporary Christianity is dealing with and offers insights into the future of religion in the public sphere.

Here is the link to the PDF

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/A-Postsecular-World-Society-TIF.pdf

From Solution to Plight

It has been a while since my last post, but today we get into one of the early works that set the point of departure for interpretations of Paul.  E.P. Sanders published Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977, and then Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People in 1983.  These works constitute Sanders view of Paul and his relationship to Judaism.  Paul and Palestinian Judaism begins with a detailed look at the state of Pauline scholarship and its traditional view.

Sanders argues that the traditional view has seen Paul as arguing from ‘plight to solution.’  According to Sanders, and in agreement with Stendahl, Paul had need for salvation before his Damascus road experience.  Paul had no trouble living according to the Torah.  Paul’s later understanding of God sending Jesus as Savior of the world leads Paul to look for a reason for God’s sending Christ.  Sanders argues counter to the traditional perspective, seeing Paul’s thought as leading from ‘solution to plight.’

After working through Jewish literature and laying out the groundwork of Palestinian Judaism, Sanders turns to Paul’s religious understanding.  Sanders argues that Paul has a different religious understanding than what one finds in the Jewish literature.  Although, Paul still holds many views in common with Judaism, Paul alters ‘justification’.  Zetterholm notes the differences, stating

“‘Justification’ in Jewish thinking means that the individual who lives according to the Torah retains his or her status as a member of the covenant with God.  But with Paul ‘justification’ simply means being saved through Christ, which in turn means that the believer surrenders to the supremacy of Christ.  ‘Justification’…is only related to the issue of how to become a member of the religion, not how to remain in the system” (106).

Thus, for Sanders the relation of Paul to Judaism is not along the lines of the Torah being evil, or represents self-righteousness but that Judaism is simply not Christianity.  In Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, Sanders more fully develops this understanding of Paul.  Sanders leaves the opposition of Christianity and Judaism but develops the difference around God’s choice to save through faith in Jesus, rather than through the Torah.

Paul and Palestinian Judaism and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People are both worth reading, although they are not easy reads.  I found the Paul: A Very Short Introduction, by Sanders as well, to be a helpful introduction to his main points.  I suggest reading the short introduction if you want Sanders line of argument without wading through Jewish literature and scholarly polemics in great length.