upcoming (ill)usion

just fyi, most of july will be devoted to a short poetry/wordcraft series i am calling (ill)usion. it begins tomorrow and goes every tuesday and thursday through the end of july...

besides my seasonal and liturgical-calendar wordcraft, if you have missed previous wordcraft series, you can check them out now:

• shir-ha-chaundra
• do-you-ever-think-of-me
• visionquest
  

i'll have a few other brief items this month as well ('feast' wordcraft and another of the 'beyond' series) but july will mostly be wordcraft...enjoy!!

blessing muslims

we have had some 'blessing muslims' luncheons at the central maryland vineyard recently (the next on is - i think - on july 26th). in fact, VineyardUSA has begun an initiative being lead by great people like rick love and carl madearis called 'blessing muslims':

Christian-Muslim relations comprise one of the momentous challenges of the 21st century. The relationship between Christians and Muslims is supercharged by terrorism and exacerbated by the fact that western countries are perceived as "Christian" by many Muslims. Negative stereotypes of Muslims, and ignorance has caused the church to shrink back from Jesus' commands to love and to make disciples.

How then can the Vineyard be agents of peace and faithfully bear witness to Christ in such a polarized world? What does a Vineyard approach to blessing Muslims look like?

God has blessed the Vineyard with a unique impartation of power, a heart of compassion and a desire to bless people. We have a stewardship. We are blessed to be a blessing. Or more accurately, we are blessed to bless all nations (Gen 12:1-3; Ps 67). When I think of a Vineyard approach to blessing Muslims I can't help but picture Vineyardites laying hands on Muslims all over the world. Praying for healing, breaking demonic strongholds and blessing them in Jesus name. Muslims are highly receptive to prayer in Jesus name since Jesus was a great miracle worker in the Qu'ran.

A brief look at some of our core values shows how God has prepared the Vineyard for "such a time as this!" We are uniquely poised and prepared to bless Muslims:

• Our commitment to being a "reconciling community" means that we build bridges between Christians and Muslims. We seek to become peacemakers -- in our attitudes toward Muslims and in our relationships with Muslims. As one expression of this, a number of Vineyard pastors, burdened for the plight of the Palestinians are seeking ways to work towards peace and a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• Our commitment to "compassionate ministry" compels us to bless Muslims. Approximately 60% of the world's poor and 80% of the world's refugees our Muslim. As those who have received mercy, we cannot help but demonstrate the mercy of Christ to these needy neighbors - no strings attached.
• Our commitment to "culturally relevant witness" means that we promote creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative approaches to blessing Muslims. We are committed to demonstrating and declaring the beauty and power of Jesus in ways that make sense to Muslims.
• Our commitment to "kingdom theology and practice" moves us to bear witness to the kingdom among all peoples, including Muslims. Thus, we seek to manifest the kingdom in our words and deeds-through physical and emotional healing, doing justice, and exalting Jesus among the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.

here is a great blog post from carl madearis and his daughter's perspective from their time in lebanon:

• we're not missionaries

rick love has a few more writings along these lines:

• peacemaking and respectful witness
• blessing nations in the 21st century

at the vineyardusa national conference in may 2009, the last session was a conversation between rich nathan (an american christian of jewish heritage) and sami awad (a palestinian christian), it's really great:

• heroic leadership: vineyard, forgiveness and the turmoil of the middle east

lastly, also along these lines, check out the really intriguing interview conducted by my online acquaintance joel richardson with adnan oktar, a controversial though very influential muslim leader and intellectual who has written over three hundred books. oktar is very well known throughout turkey and the larger muslim world with literally millions of his books in circulation in numerous languages.

love is an orientation

i have been reading through andrew marin's book "love is an orientation" for an online book club based in boston.

i think andrew's book does exactly what it sets out to do: elevate the conversation. surprisingly well too, because he doesn't just talk in theory, but he goes out of his way to give you lessons learned from actual experience. it is some of the seemingly insignificant things (between referential terms like "homosexual" and "gay, lesbian, etc.") that can be the most critical and respectful and grace-filled.

also, what i liked about andrew's style and perspective is that the book almost presents him as a "man of peace" bringing together two sides. i wondered to myself if he might co-write a book with one of his best friends who came out to him from the perspective of the GLBT community and drawing them towards elevating the spiritual conversation from their side towards the church.

finally, what i really appreciated and want to try and take away was andrew's greater faith in God. maybe this point also reflects the awakening aspect, but we have to be willing to let God do the God-things while we move to engage and love people where they are. that's what we are supposed to do. go to the faultlines of the gospel with respect to people and culture, etc., but we cannot make an earthquake/soulquake happen, although i can pray like mad it happens. but i have faith in Jesus that if i am on the faultline of the gospel engaging and loving with respect to people and culture, He just might bring the big quake, and i better be prepared for the big quake.


my acquaintance jason smith - the imminent vineyard pastor/church-planter out in nebraska - has some great notes and reactions to andrew's book here, here and here.

you can listen to andrew being interviewed by my friends at the praxis podcast

finally, here is part two of a two part interview with andrew in boystown in chicago:

The Slave Next Door - excerpt

here is a short excerpt from kevin bales new book the slave next door (with ron soodalter) on human trafficking and slavery in america today:

CHAPTER IX: THE FEDS

"It is important to look at the federal government’s actions – both positive and negative – in its relatively new war against human trafficking in America. Many federal officials have taken on the task of rooting out and prosecuting traffickers, as well as coordinating with service providers and victim advocates providing care for survivors. We’ll speak with representatives of some of the federal agencies whose job description has been expanded to include modern day slavery, and get a sense of how they feel the campaign is going. We’ll also examine some cases that seem to stand in direct contradiction to the anti-trafficking position taken by the government – cases in which administration politics and inaction have actually increased human trafficking on American soil - both here and abroad. One of the worst of these cases involves tax-payer money supporting slavery as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Bringing democracy to Iraq – on the backs of slaves First Kuwaiti General Trade and Contracting Co., a billion-dollar construction company, was hired to build the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad – after no American company would agree to the government’s terms. The project is worth $592 million to First Kuwaiti, and encompasses a 104-acre, 21-building complex, making it the largest U.S. embassy in the world. When completed, it will be six times larger than the United Nations, and the same size as Vatican City. From the beginning First Kuwaiti had difficulty in fulfilling the terms of its contract. Serious problems piled up: faulty wiring, fuel leaks, and poor construction. Some of the problems were determined to be “life safety issues.” And while the day-to-day fire fight was going on in Baghdad, a war of words was being waged between the State Department in Washington, who defended their contractors, and those on the ground in Iraq, who were suffering from substandard work, and delays.

Boondoggles, pork barrels, and shoddy work are scandalous, but it was another, uglier issue that brought First Kuwaiti to the world’s attention. Some of their contract workers had been trafficked to Iraq against their will, held by force, and paid little or nothing. First Kuwaiti – and by association, the U.S. Department of State – were using slave labor to build the embassy. Taxpayers were footing the bill. The idea of a U.S. subcontractor trafficking enslaved workers into the country where we are waging a war to introduce freedom and democracy, is unthinkable. And yet, in case after case, the construction company hired workers, normally through sub-contractors, from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Turkey, and the Philippines under false pretenses. Falsely promised work in Dubai, they were landed in a combat zone. Once in Iraq contractors confiscated the workers’ passports, forced them to live in squalid conditions, and to work long hours for little or no pay. And, says journalist David Phinney, “It was all happening smack in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone—right under the nose of the State Department….”"

babbling blasphemies

wordcraft for the feast of st. irenaeus of lyon:

buried in the babble of their blasphemies
they evoke Your Holy Name

how long can You tolerate
the dishonor they heap upon You, O God?
all around me they are
whispering their wanton wishes on wagging tongues
as if they were potent prayers

as empty as a proverb in the mouth of fools
are those who impugn Your Honor

my beloved BHU

significant happenings at the baltimore hebrew university; or should i now say the baltimore hebrew institute...

from the baltimore jewish times:

BHU, Towson Sign Merger Deal

Rochelle Eisenberg
Staff Reporter


A Memorandum of Understanding was signed recently that integrates Baltimore Hebrew University’s programs into Towson University, effective July 1, 2009.
A letter recently went out from Towson’s administration welcoming BHU students to the school.

The merger still has to be officially approved by the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and the Maryland Higher Education Commission. According to Marina Cooper, assistant to the president for communications at Towson, Towson hopes to complete the process sometime next month. At that time, she said the president will officially comment on the matter.

“The deans and provost are working diligently on the transition,” said Ms. Cooper.

Under the merger, BHU will continue to offer a master’s degree in Jewish studies, a master’s in Jewish communal service and a master’s in Jewish education. The programs will be offered under a new entity called the Baltimore Hebrew Institute (BHI) at Towson University. They will fall under Towson’s graduate offerings at its College of Liberal Arts and College of Education.

“This is a real historical accomplishment,” said Erika Pardes Schon, BHU’s interim president who will become the new director of the BHI and its community liaison. “We are setting a new precedent. It is a bold move to give up independence but still preserve our identity within a large university.”

According to Ms. Schon, all of BHU’s existing master’s degree programs will transfer intact, and the school’s professors will continue to teach graduate students. She said seven BHU faculty members will continue at the BHI.
Current BHU students who are pursuing doctoral degrees will be grandfathered into Towson’s program. At the same time, Towson will have to apply for separate approval with the Maryland Higher Education Commission if it chooses to include a doctoral program in Jewish studies into its mission. Because of this, BHU is not recruiting doctoral students at this time.

Currently, BHU has 70 students in its masters’ and doctoral degree programs.

“This provides an opportunity for programmatic expansion,” said Ms. Schon. “It gives us the ability to draw and attract students from Towson, and provides us with a very strong base to build our graduate program.”

As part of the integration, BHU’s Joseph Meyerhoff Library will move its extensive and prestigious collection to Towson, where it will be housed in a designated space on the second floor of Towson’s Albert S. Cook Library. The Meyerhoff Library has more than 80,000 volumes and includes a rare book collection, as well as books acquired from the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Organization after the Holocaust.

In recognition of the importance of making its collection accessible to area patrons who are unable to drive, Ms. Schon said BHU is in the process of working out details with the Pikesville branch of the Baltimore County Public Library to provide interlibrary loans between the two institutions.

The school also plans to offer its continuing adult learning and Hebrew language options at central locations around the Baltimore metropolitan area. The first such effort is an introduction to Biblical Hebrew, which will begin later this month and be held at Stevenson’s Chizuk Amuno Congregation. BHU will continue to look for new venues to hold future programs.
On May 20, BHU will celebrate its 90th anniversary at a fund-raising gala, honoring the legacy of the late Dr. Louis L. Kaplan, who served as the school’ss president for 40 years. The event will be held at BHU, 5800 Park Heights Ave., and will raise money for future scholarship funds. The next day, the school will hold its last graduation as an independent entity.

Leonard Fein, founder of Moment magazine and the group MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger will be the commencement speaker. Both events are open to the community. Marc B. Terrill, president of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, will receive an honorary doctor of human letters.

“The entire transition could not have been done without the support of the Associated,” said Ms. Schon.

fasting from the forbidden fruit

so i have been ruminating on my thoughts last month regarding 'feasting on the forbidden fruit'

i have to admit to a fondness for rabbi david fohrman's perspective: citing maimonides' guide for the perplexed, fohrman states that "the tree did not give us moral awareness when we had none before. Rather, it transformed this awareness from one kind into another." After eating from the Tree, humanity's innate sense of moral awareness was transformed from concepts of true and false to concepts of good and evil. Genesis describes the tree as desirable (3:6), and our concepts of good and evil, unlike our concepts of true and false, also have an implicit measure of desire."

dave schmelzer, senior pastor of the boston vineyard, had someting to say along the same lines:

• "Moments in the Times’ coverage of Iran’s post-election crisis have touched on this: the Islamic Revolution promises to legislate good and prohibit evil, which has made for a rocky relationship with democracy. Can a nation actually vote good in and evil out? Or does that need to come from on high, hence the need for a supreme leader (whom some in the opposition are now doing their best to characterize as evil). At the risk of gross cultural insensitivity, I wonder if this dilemma is central to the unsettling faith the Bible pitches. “Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart,” for instance, or Jesus’ fundamental clash with the Pharisees, whose entire focus is legislating the good and forbidding the bad. The progression of the Bible’s argument increasingly seems to argue for a kind of relational truth trumping a focus on good/evil and it increasingly warns of dire consequences for ignoring this switch in perspective. This, for instance, is Jesus’ warning to his followers: “In fact, the hour is coming when those who kill you will think they are offering a service to God.” Those who see God primarily as an arbiter of good and evil, to paraphrase John 16:2, will kill God’s actual disciples. That should give us all pause."

...what if some faculty we have/had is distorted, or our frame-of-reference is now off-kilter and the issues we love to categorize as "good" and "evil" are not best categorized from that perspective? in fact, it just may be limiting and unloving to arrange our knowledge this way.


ok...to finish out this thought, i give the mic to ken wilson of the ann arbor vineyard:

• "The Spirit will show the world how wrong it is concerning judgment: that the accuser, the condemner, the snake who convinced us it is ours to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that we can be like God, knowing good and evil with certainty and clarity and confidence, enough to render our rulings, is himself accused, condemned and ruled to be wrong, "that the Prince of this world is already condemned." This is the judgment: that the accuser is condemned already as are we when we sit in his seat of judgment."

Lectio: Psalm 18

check out pat loughery's comments on his lectio response to Psalm 18:


Lectio divina this morning from Psalm 18.

Two items speak to me in this psalm:

The Lord is my rock (v1)
In the crazy transitions I go through, the fast pace of life even when I'm trying to squash all busyness like spiders, the one solid anchor I have is Christ. Christ the unmovable, the unchanging, the steady. I set my feet firmly on him.
Images of the hermit caves on the Skelligs in southern Ireland come to mind. Those rocks are not only the home for those ancient hermits - the home at the edge of the world, overlooking the edge of the world - but their home is the Lord. Not just reminds them of, or is as solid as, but is. Can i plant myself, my house, my job, my time in the same way?

so that my ankles to not give way(v36)
Six months after i broke my right ankle, it is still not at full strength. I step oddly and it turns, and I'm afraid of re-breaking it. I am cautious when hiking, running, doing exercise. I'm always conscious that something might go wrong. But if the Sacred Trinity provides a broad path for me, for my life and the choices and actions therein, can I trust the path and not focus on the risk of re-breaking what I've already broken?
Lord, help.

an eye for an eye

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Gandhi

hosting RE:FORM 2009

The Central Maryland Vineyard will be acting as the hosts for this year's RE:FORM conference at the Cedar Ridge Community Church just outside of Baltimore, MD on September 16-18.

Check out this month's edition of Charisma magazine to read a feature news story about the conference. This year's format will be more equipping and engaging than in year's past and will feature some great practitioners who are equally adept at imparting vision and inspiring you to take action in your church. The three crises of the RE:FORM conference this year will be:

• Environmental Decline
• Human Injustice
• Spiritual Confusion

Registration is now available at our new RE:FORM website, as is hotel and accommodations information. We'll be putting up more info as it is available. Be sure to sign up now to get the early bird special and pass this along to your network.

Main session speakers include:

• Mark Foreman (a simple man who is learning to follow Jesus wholly. He is the husband of Jan and father of Jon and Tim of the band Switchfoot. He is the lead pastor of North Coast Calvary Chapel—a “church without walls”—which has built its reputation by erasing the barriers of the church. Mark is a surfer and songwriter, and also serves as an associate professor at Bethel Seminary San Diego. He recently released his first book Wholly Jesus: His surprising approach to wholeness and why it matters today.)
• Leroy Barber (President of Mission Year, a national urban initiative introducing 18-29 year olds to missional and communal living in city centers for one year. Rev. Barber is the Pastor of a church plant, Community Fellowships Church. He was chosen as a contributor to UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity and Why It Matters and recently released his first book New Neighbor.)
• Tri Robinson (founding pastor of the Vineyard Boise Church in Boise, ID and Let’s Tend the Garden ministry and is one of the leading experts on creation care among evangelical churches. With a strong teaching background that includes a Masters degree in administrative education, he is a sought-after conference speaker and passionate about transferring his working insights and experience on church leadership to a wide spectrum of churches. Tri and his wife Nancy live in Sweet, ID, where they manage a nearly sustainable ranch.)
• Rob Morris (co-founder and the president of Love146. Prior to establishing Love146, Rob worked with Mercy Ships International directing training schools at the International Operations Center. Rob travels internationally to speak and teach on issues of justice, compassion and human rights. Learn more about what his organization does at www.love146.com.).

beyond adherence...deep advocacy

i hear a lot of political-chatter (go figure i work in the political capital of the US - no, not new york city or los angeles...washington dc!) especially in church meetings, and based on what i hear, i have been wondering lately, are we witnessing a movement toward a post-political church?

...in terms of church moving beyond adherence to a particular party's line into the deeper issues of Jesus-centered-type advocacy per the Sermon on the Mount, et al?

[definition: adherence - the quality of adhering; steady devotion, support, allegiance, or attachment: adherence to a party; rigid adherence to rules.]

is this a movement in the "right" (meaning correct) direction?

..the thing is, it's not that the church isn't political, it is (look at scripture; Jesus using political imagery for His Father is His parables; and He takes on political imagery for Himself - "My kingdom is not of his world..."; the early church as well as the prolific-Paul drape Jesus in all kinds of first century subversive political imagery)...the question that shane claiborne and chris haw get spot-on in their book is: how are we political?

this is a great question and there are really good American historical examples of it going wrong from both the Conservative and Liberal side:

• abdicating our prophetic role: the Church-led Civial Rights movement and leaders being co-opted by the Democratic party. when this happened, you can actually see almost no movement toward more civil rights. interesting that it lost all its momentum after leaving churches and jumpng into an American political party (think Jesse Jackson/Rainbow Coalition, and notice i am not saying they didn't vote Democrat before, what i am saying is the movement toward civil rights and wrestling against the power of racism left the church and sought habitation in one political party by-and-large, and stalled there with little evidence of prgress until this past election of Barak Obama as president...i realize i am over-simplifying here and at the next bullet-point, but my emphasis is the church abdicated its prophetic role here, and abdicated it's wisdom role in the next point)
• abdicating our wisdom role: The same sort of pattern can be witnessed for the Church being the wise and moral compass of society and leaders being co-opted in the Reagan-era Republican party. (think Moral Majority, et al) Again, witness that when this co-option happened, the church by-and-large compromised the very position of wise, good leadership in the society that it claimed.

there are so many people in the Church today whom i know that the issues that are indeed important to them do not fit into the categories created by the political partisan politics of our day, or maybe they never did, maybe it was illusion and disintegration:

• pro-life?? someone who is against abortion yet also pro-capital punishment
• pro-green? someone who is concerned about their environmental footprint yet also hooked on the over-consumer-driven economy

yet hope springs eternal; we may disagree about "just war theory", "global warming", "universal healthcare" and such things, but in a very good way, perhaps the church is moving beyond adherence with the neat little, limited political categories that the world gives us. i just pray that this movement will take us into a deeper advocacy

[definition: advocacy - the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; intercession; active espousal: He was known for his advocacy of states' rights.]

as ken wilson of the ann arbor vineyard announced: we need to put the culture wars to rest!

i would posit that we need to be Kingdom of God-oriented politically-speaking. as an example (not that we are the poster-children for this, but we did find ourselves in what was a political battle at the time) our little church got involved in advocating for changes in our state laws concerning human trafficking. here is our hopeful post-political testimony before the maryland senate judiciary committee.

what if our problem lies with getting away from "first things"? i think dave schmelzer of the greater boston vineyard gets at what i am trying to circle towrds in a post he did back in May, particularly his comments on idolatry and centered-set thinking: putting second things first

"As my upcoming article in Cutting Edge (mentioned in last week's post called Love Is an Orientation) will mention, I had a memorable encounter with a pastor who was leading our statewide fight against gay marriage a couple years back. I asked him, in effect, if the main message he wanted to communicate to the secular world about the gospel was "gay people need to repent." Whatever the merits he saw to that point, did he regard that as the main message of the Bible and therefore what secular people most needed to hear?

We never arrived at an actual answer to that, but he didn't disavow that either. "First things first," was the spirit of his reply. To which my response was, "First thing first!?" Even to this pastor, surely that would be a secondary point, however important a point he might regard it as being. As a pastor who teaches the New Testament, surely he'd concede that the primary message, the most important--and by a long shot--message he'd want to convey would have something to do with, well, Jesus.

But we parted ways over that. It seems to me that this pastor made the key mistake this blog is doing its best to combat, the mistake of turning secondary things into primary things. I think this is a big big deal. And it's very easy to do.

At the risk of needless provocation, I think some of our conversation here last week about the "religious dimensions of the torture debate" did that. Hot-button issues--gay marriage and Guantanamo, to name two--tend to draw many a commenter we don't otherwise see who are eager to interject strong, often hostile opinions into our conversation.

When that happens, usually a regular commenter or I will try to redirect. "Here's, I think, the conversation we're actually trying to have here." But, in these hot-button conversations, attempts to redirect will either be ignored entirely or will be shouted down. "How DARE you say that my perspective on this hot-button issue isn't the most important point that could possibly be made on the most important issue of our DAY?"

In this case, the redirect went along these lines: "The reason for running this post actually wasn't to debate the merits of the Bush-era (or Obama-era) position on torture, except perhaps in passing. It was actually to talk about how alienating the perception of Christian's support of torture proves to be to secular people. What do you make of that and how can we do better?"

Even after that redirect was disregarded (by some :) ), we actually had a notable case in point. An (albeit somewhat surly) older atheist commented that, yes, this in fact did strongly alienate him from Christian faith. I acknowledged his point and mentioned that, hey, here was a case in point of what we were talking about. And, a bit later, one commenter heatedly rebuked my acknowledgment of this person's point and heatedly talked about the atheist commenter's faulty logic.

Which, ironically, was the point as I understood it to Steven's provocative original post:. When we do things like that, we put a massive wedge between us and the world around us, and for what? Not for the gospel, which never came up in that conversation. But for...our position on the Bush doctrine regarding torture? Are we crazy?

Again, I think this is where centered-set thinking helps us. (For an explanation of that term, check out the multimedia tab above.) To be helpful in a secular setting, we're contesting that our only option is centered-set, to point ourselves and others towards Jesus, so that Jesus can validate himself. When things go wrong for us is often when we make secondary things primary--hot-button issues that become more important to us than Jesus himself. Or when we can't distinguish between the two. I'm sympathetic both that this is easy for any of us to do and also that this way of thinking can be very challenging for those of us happily raised in very religious settings to see much value in.

Now this does not address how those of us who do want to live a centered-set life should in fact address important social questions like those that become hot-button issues. Clearly important issues are in fact important, and I'd love your thoughts here on how to hold these two things in balance.

But I am saying that, to my mind, putting second things first is what the Bible calls "idolatry." We're only supposed to put first what is first, and that would be God."