outside is better

Making Manifest: An experiment in creative writing

Yesterday I recieved my preview copy of Making Manifest. The workbook is a 28 day journey through the process of creative writing. My friend Dave Harrity developed and wrote it. I am really excited to be part of a small group of creatives working through it before the book launches at Easter.

Dave is a poet and teacher who runs Antler, a multiple offering experiment in developing creation as a spiritual discipline. I have gone to several workshops by Dave and they were always wonderful.

Seedbed, the publishing arm of Asbury Seminary, put out this workbook. Making Manifest is the perfect example of the types of resources Seedbed best shares. I am looking forward to what the rest of my beta comrades come up with.

So keep your eyes peeled on my various networks as I talk about and go through this 28 day season of reflecting and writing.

@revchadbrooks (twitter and instagram)
Facebook.com/revchadbrooks

Book Review: Called;?! Following a Future Filled with the Possible

Called:?! is the first offering from @jdwalt, the previous vice president of community life and dean of the chapel at Asbury Seminary. JD currently the Associate Vice President for Advancement and Special Counsel to the President. He also happened to be my boss for five years and is a dear friend...so this review might be a little biased :) The book is part of the resourcing website Seedbed and can be purchased here.

JD wrote a great little book focused on understanding the biblical pattern of calling in regards to all people answering and engaging God at a personal level, whether it is vocational or in another area. Taking on the idea of the called life opens up the Christian to any possibility within creation.

The book takes the reader on a 21 day journey to reflect what it means to be called. Each short reflection opens with an extended scripture reading. Woven through the short devotional challenge are poems, songs and quotations from the pages of Church History. Walt is able to trace the idea of calling across scripture, and assisting the reader in understanding this is something God desires to do. The ability to do this is the opposite side from prooftexting, but the evidence of years of prayerful and careful reading and personal interpretation.

Day 16 sums up the purpose of the book well. The author chose to bold this phrase;

The reality of being called by God should be a normal occurence among God's people.

JD spends 70 pages telling this story over and over. Each day the reader is led to a new place of reflection. For those who might turn to this book to find answers to questions, you will be disapointed. What you will find is a book that encourages you to ask even more questions...but then builds in the learned knowledge that God hears and answers.

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Check out the short trailer on vimeo.

Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Bible

Part of the hotly contested landscape of Western Christianity today is the Bible. How do we use this, read this and make the claims about it that our parents and grandparents did?

The widening definition of “evangelical” means different people that consider themselves theologically conservative are reading the scriptures in different ways. In “The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book” author and teacher Timothy Beal offers his own personal thoughts about using the Bible told from the story of his own faith journey.

I appreciated his writing because he tells a story of someone who struggled and wrestled with how culture has read and used the Bible over time, and focused on the last thirty or so years. Always interpreted in context, the Scripture means specific things to specific cultures. 

To quote Beal;

“The Bible creates community by providing space for community to happen. It offers storied worlds and theological vocabulary around which people can come together in conversation about abiding questions. It calls for creative, collaborative participation...In its many voices, perspectives, and contradictions, it both embraces the diversity of voices among us and provides a context in which we can affirm unity within that diversity-not by agreeing about what it means but by joining in the creative, meaning-making process of interpretation that it hosts.”

Beal gives great information about the power of the publishing world and how scripture sometimes gets a modification in order to function better in the marketplace. Beal also looks at the affect publishing has had in the last 500 years regarding how people read the Bible.

Ultimately, Beal writes about what it means to believe the book and believe it deeply while understanding the human involvement in its process. He does this without discounting commitment to the word of God. While we wrestle with questions over authorship, redaction and narrative it is easy to simply give up on keeping the Holy in Bible. Beal carefully explains how our views function in sacred time and action.

If you are interested in scripture and how it is read, I recommend this book.

Book Review: Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns

Months ago a friend (Matt O'Reilly) asked me if I had read T. David Gordon's book Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns.. I bought it and threw it on the shelf intending to read it this summer. I did and I am glad that I read it. It has a really interesting thesis and I think it really asks some good questions about worship.

Gordan writes from the perspective of a media ecologist, and looks at the cultural anthropology behind how music motivates us in worship and the theological concerns that this brings up. He also writes from the lens of a Pastor, and much of his questioning comes from a practical sense of worship leadership.

The overlying theme of the book, as understood from the title, is why people today have a hard time singing traditional Christian hymns. They seem "foreign and inaccessible." (pg 11). It isn't a question of enjoyment, but the actual physical ability to sing these songs.

My undergraduate work was in sociology. One of my favorite topics of conversation revolves around the relationship between worship and culture. The first couple chapters of this book really got my guns loaded...

But after the basic introduction and explanations, I was seriously disappointed in rest of the content. When I first started grad school, a teacher carefully pointed out the necessary idea of presuppositions in academic work. The danger of presuppositions happens when one allows them to become foundational theological items and the writer assumes every reader holds the same convictions and background. In my own academic work, especially in Revelation, I quickly state what I bring into the conversation.

Gordon allows his presuppositions to drive the entire book. His thoughts regarding the use of contemporary expressions of worship borders on derogatory. He spends significant time discounting the greater sense of what is considered popular culture, not just regarding music, but many different aspects. I get the feeling that T. David Gordon is a bit of a curmudgeon.

The failure here isn't that I feel personally insulted, but I am amazed at how Gordon almost insists that proper Christian worship across the entire sphere of geography and time conform to a very narrow view of Western Protestant hymns (in non fancy language-white baptist/presbyterian songs). Worship is a unifying event, breaking the human forms and barriers of time and place.There also is an underlying theme that contemporary worship is "low-brow" or doesn't hold the cultural weight of traditional hymns.

How I might worship might not be theologically appropriate for an African-American 60 years ago or for a Swede living 30 years in the future. Worship looks different across the globe. Worship is a contextual activity. The values of our own time give meaning to how we glorify God. The ecology of music interacts with our senses in time. Gordon argues the idea that anything contemporary isn't really worth his time (pg 113), but I wonder how are we able to be a church situated in the midst of a world if we are not able to engage in it? 

There is more that I can mention, but I really don't feel the need. I have read other reviews that describe the book as sloppy theology and I agree. What is sad, is Gordon had a great idea...one that could have been really good and helpful for those leading worship. Ultimately, he promised to show why people technically had a hard time singing hymns but broke from his thesis and instead attempted very weakly to theologically explain why we should worship traditionally. Yes-we should be thinking theologically about the role of contextual expressions of music in worship, but not with this tone.

I would recommend reading the book as a springboard into thinking about the role of culture and worship (in some places IT IS GREAT), but don't expect the rest of the content to be of much worth.

 

Book Review: The Gospel of John-When Love Comes to Town

The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town (Resonate Series) is the first volume in the Resonate series from IVP.  It belongs also to the “Likewise..Go and Do.” family that The Story of God, the Story of Us (my review) is part of. More information is available on the IVpress.com site.

Paul Louis Metzger wrote this volume and also serves as the Executive Editor for the Resonate series.  While they can be considered commentaries, this is a loose definition because a larger goal is in place.  The independent works are an “exegesis of scripture and culture”.  Resonate responds to a growing secular culture and the integration of new Christians into formation and current Biblical culture.  Exposure to the biblical material serves as a guiding principle in the series. You can catch a great video explaining the series here, on IVPress.com

That said, the gospel of John functions as a great choice for the opening of the series.  A highly theological gospel, it plays great with the approach of this new commentary series.  Metzger paints with a broad brush stroke covering key themes of John. If you hunt for a verse-by-verse rendering of the text, you will be disappointed.  Instead, you have the work of someone who has read and studied JOHN, not in bits and pieces, but as a literary whole.

This emphasis on the whole of John makes the book real unique.  It meets the goal of explaining the Biblical text to a curious, but unChristian world.  I applaud what is a desperately needed vision.

Metzger divides John up into 6 main sections, with 41 sub-themes.  Each sub-theme is given at least one appropriate narrative found from pop culture. Many of these references are drawn from movies and music.  One of the best examples of this relates John 14 to the Clint Eastwood film Gran Torino.  The Gospel of John (book) follows many of the elements that we see as spiritual in current pop culture. 

The author also works around John 18:1-27 (Gimme Shelter) using the analogy of the Rolling Stones failed attempt to replicate Woodstock at the Altamont Motor Speedway.  I am a huge Rolling Stones fan, so this was a plus.  I also have thought about Altamont many times during my background as a sociologist. Metzger isn’t just name dropping these references, but has clearly spent time in his comparisons. The audience quickly engages because of the places of author/reader connection.

Appealing at this depth to secular situations might be a turn off for some readers.  However, I want to point you back to one of the original goals of exegeting both "scripture AND culture" (pg. 13).  Metzger applies this point to the book but also to the pastoral teaching vocation.  Isn’t this what we do everyday?

My only complaint lies in the strength of the book.  Reading the book is almost like watching an episode of The Family Guy.  You can be paying a tremendous amount of attention, but unless you have a working knowledge of pop culture, many things can be lost on you.  In reading The Gospel of John, you quickly realize the depth of appropriation that Metzger has taken with the actual biblical book of John.

Books like this are needed as teachers and pastors seek to translate the Biblical message to a culture grappling with faith.  In times such as ours, the message isn’t about convincing, but placing the timeless Gospel story into a narrative framework that is contemporary.  Paul Metzger doesn’t change the message of Jesus, but he places it at a place where it can change us.

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I also would like to thank Adrianna Wright at IVP.

Book Review: The Story of God, the Story of Us

One of the tasks of the pastor is taking the Bible, an ancient document, and interpreting it to an audience that is drastically different from those who first received it.  The job of navigating the text across thousands of years is hard, and in a postmodern society, it has an even different set of rules.

Sean Gladding is a British export to the United States, and in his book The Story of God, the Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible, he tackles the Scriptures in a way that is both oddly familiar and foreign.  For a book that is quickly moving from Genesis to Revelation, it is absent of dogma, systematics and propositions. Sean narrate us through the whole text by utilizing a dramatic oral re-telling of scripture.  Written by a skillful storyteller, the book comes off as honest and heartfelt, and never gets into the realm of being "corny".

Sean paints the story of scripture in three large movements.  Each each movement situates itself in a contextual environment that allows the reader to understand the original message and situation of scripture. Here are the three environments/storytellers;

1. The Jewish community in Babylon during the exile.
This section covers the entire Old Testament and is told from the perspective of the elder recounting the Story on the Sabbath.  A few other participants make it interesting, namely a younger musician and a brother/sister combo. 

2. An Early Christian house church.
This 1st century ekklesia gathers and through an apologetic conversation the New Testament is woven into a continual dialogue.  The key figures are the woman who hosts the group and a businessman who has just moved to the area.  He is interested in faith and it is the context of his questions that the discussion of almost all the New Testament is framed.

3. Another ekklesia years later. 
We find out that the businessman from the previous section now hosts a church.  Two young women come into the gathering because the executions earlier in the day of a Christian.  They have found their way to the church because of the character of the Christians who are being executed.  The businessman then proceeds to read from the Revelation of John to both answer these women's questions and to encourage this church in resisting the world.

My Thoughts
All three of these movements show the tension that takes place when people are confronted with the idea of Salvation and Gods movement in our world.  Throughout the book the people of God are involved in an active hearing, either voicing their displeasure or pushing towards a better understanding.  These are people who are wrestling with the idea that The Story (as Gladding refers to it) is what truly shapes their lives, and not the world they currently dwell in. The Story is not for a passive people.

Sean wrote this book to be used in the life of a community, and wrote in process with his wife Rebecca and the various places that they taught The Story.  One of the other remarkable things about the book is that it offers plenty of study notes, scripture readings and an annotated bibliography at the back.  As much as it reads at a conversational level, those who question the fictional narrative have scholastic references at the back to chase.  I think this is a good example for other writers that want to communicate in this medium. 

Sean has also made a video series available at The Work of the People. You can see a trailer here and I will be reviewing the entire series next week.

As pastors and Christian leaders enter the apostolic realm of dechurched America, tools like this will be needed.  The Facebook page for the book has some examples of how The Story of God, the Story of Us and its ideas have been used by faith communities already.

Where Sean and his book come into key importance is in conversations about the scriptures and their proper use.  For those who are trying to function in the different arenas from a traditional church, a 21st century hermeneutic is needed.  This book is a great primer to just that. I highly recommend this book.

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Book Review: A Many Colored Kingdom

This summer for class I was required to read A Many Colored Kingdom, A: Multicultural Dynamics for Spiritual Formation. Honestly, it was the type of class where you shouldn't expect a high level of academic reading, so we can say that this book took me by surprise.  It wasn't the intensity that I was expecting, but the vast amount of theological topics that were part of the discussion.

A Many Colored Kingdom is written by three people who are part of the ethnic minority in the American Church, by marriage and birth, and have navigated this inside of the academy.  Instead of bemoaning injustice and hurdles, the authors instead show the complex theological matrix that exists in non-majority cultures. 

If anything, I think this book is a great study in social theology. The authors have a wonderful anthropological stance that teaches that humans are both "the best and the worst" of creation through the fall.  We exist in this state where we still have evidence of what we were, but are incapable (at times) of naturally exercising the goodness that we still have.  Overcoming the curse of Babel means a return to the one culture that existed in the Garden.  This isn't a call towards a homogenized view of the kingdom, but a "preparing" of God drawing all nations to himself in the Eschaton.

The piece that excited me the most was written by S. Steve Kang in chapter 4.  It involved a sociological engagment with Parker Palmer and a "sociocultural constructed nature of knowledge."  Inside of our multiple communities, the Church is involved in (re)enculturing people to the Kingdom of God.  Our communities of faith are involved in formative practices (means of grace to us Wesleyans) that turn us from citizens of this world and into citizens of the kingdom.  Learning faith happens not in isolation, but within the community of faith.  Palmer contends that through this, people begin to see a new truth...that is bound up inside the community. 

Where this gets interesting is when it gets to Paulo Freire, and his belief that humans have in them inherit power to see problems in current social situations and to then truly transform them, despite any odds.  This sociocultural look at church shows a process of

1. (re)enculturing through kingdom values.
2. Natural values are know found through a kingdom of God ethos lived in community.
3. With this new reality, communities have the ability to enact a gospel ethic of the Kingdom of God in their own area, providing a vital transformation.

Unlike other attempts to systematize this, Kang does not discount the Gospel act of justification and sanctification, but places it in primary importance.

A Many Colored Kingdom would serve well in a basic theology class, any class on multi-culturalism or a contemporary sociology of Christianity.  I think it was a worthwhile read, and the format worked wonderfully.

5 tools for Seminarians: Part 4

One of the first things I really wanted to do when I came to Asbury was to find the bible that would make the journey with me.  Since I spent several years in Christian retail, I thought this would be easy...but it wasn't.  It took a couple of years to find what I was looking for, and I went through several moves. This is a short list of what I was looking for, and I recommend.

1.  A translation that is both easy to read devotionally, as well as fits the Academic needs of your school.
For me, this meant the NRSV.  I could have also used the NASB (for academics) or the ESV (for the devotional reading side), but I think the NRSV fits both categories great.  Unless your school is adamantly against it, the NRSV is the standard English text inside the academy.  Most articles and books will use it for any English readings.

2.  It had to stand up to abuse.
I am rough on things...shoes, pants, guitar pedals and books.  Something has to be able to take abuse for me to use it every day.  I had used thinline leather bibles before, but I didn't think that they would last not just for seminary, but for years afterwards.  I wanted this to be a resource as well as a document of my seminary journey. 

In my time selling Bibles, I actually began to like hardback books for their sturdiness.  It takes them awhile to get broken in, but once they are I have found them to be really well made.

3. Room for notes.
You can tell from my first tip that I really taking notes and writing in things.  I wanted a Bible that would give me ample space to write in.  At first, I thought the "blank bible" idea would work (I blogged on mine here), but I found it to cumbersome since it was 4 volumes.  It also started falling apart quickly, since it was in my backpack and the actual Bible pages were pretty thin.

Having the space for notes really allows you to track things during lectures, sermons and other times.  As much as I value my Bible software, there is something about having the text in front of you at times, especially in worship.  I also think it is a little easier to find structural relationships and make notes when you have plenty of space.

What I ultimately found was The NRSV Notetaker's Bible.

I was sent it as a book review and ended up keeping it with me ever since then.  My initial impressions are here, but I am really thinking about doing a second review after a couple of years of use.

The reason I include this as a tool is that a good Bible will really allow you to journal your education.  I have a few Bibles that have been with me for seasons, and I now look at them as mementos of that part of time.  My seminary Bible has been a huge tool in my studies, but it has also been a tool of the heart.

Book Review: Pilgrimage of a Soul by Phileena Heuertz

In the current expressions of progressive American Christianity two themes have surfaced as primary influences.  One being Social Justice, and has found wide acceptance to pretty much everyone except Glenn Beck.  The other, while popular, isn’t mentioned enough but is sometimes tied with justice issues.  Rethinking contemplative Christianity, with its various monastic strains, has crept into the language of many younger Christians.  True, Dallas Willard and Richard Foster have been writing about this for years...and the mainline hasn’t forgotten about the idea either, but the average quasi-baptist probably didn’t hear about centering prayer in vacation bible school.

What Phileena Heuertz does in Pilgrimage of a Soul: Contemplative Spirituality for the Active Life is write a story about how these two passions in her life contrasted at times and ultimately came together to enrich each other.  Phileena serves as the International Executive Director in charge of Community Accompaniment with Word Made Flesh.  Some of you might recognize her name due to my recent review of her husband Chris’s book a few weeks back.  The interesting part of reading books written by spouses in succession is understanding how both of them are two separate beings with different skills, passions and function.  This goes alongside one of the the key themes in “Pilgrimage of a Soul”.

This book is about a journey.  It doesn’t serve as a handbook for contemplative faith, but instead tells the story of a sabbatical that Phileena took several years back and how it affected her forever.  During this time, Phileena and her husband took a month long pilgrimage trek to El Camino de Santiago.  They also spent an extended stay at Duke University directly afterwards.  During this time Phileena went through what St. John of the Cross called the “Dark Night of the Soul”.  The story of pilgrimage and sabbatical takes us through a deep personal journey.

Several key themes are woven throughout the book.

1.  Issues of Women and their place in the Church.  This isn’t just a conversation about women in ministry, but how the feminine is dealt with inside Christianity.  Understanding how women are able to into their own potential inside a world that unknowingly (and sometimes knowingly) forces strict boundaries around womanhood.  Our author takes us through her own process of finding “voice, perspective and influences-at the risk of upsetting the status quo and being criticized and rejected” (pg 42).  Pilgrimage served as an awakening.

Having been created in the image of God, the feminine nature of God reproduced in me was stirring.  What it means to be fully me, fully woman, wanted to be born and celebrated--making no apologies for my gender, but instead embracing my nature and offering it as a gift to my community and to the world  But this yearning of life was just a seed.  It would require a gestation and incubation period. Darkness was necessary. (pg 93)

2.  This book is also about the soul.  How do we relate to God in such a busy life?  How are we able to withdraw from a foreign world and regal in the holy?  Christianity is a formation journey, as well as a transforming us.  This whole issue of surrender is part of our process with God.  Throughout her pilgrimage the author talks about losing control and being fine with it.

   

3.  Traversing the active life of justice with the still life of contemplation.  I hinted at this earlier.  How do these two intersect?  One of the valuable lessons in the book is seeing how someone else had to learn to “shut down”.  As the female body passes through a cycles, the author starts to understand that think about the rhythmic nature of life.  Our human restlessness shows our state of withdrawal from God.  It is only until we rest in God alone that this will cease.

Pilgrimage of a Soul is a personal book.  It is a book about one person interacting with the Creator of the universe.  While the praxis side of contemplative spirituality is in the book, if you are expecting a paint by numbers by a famous “justice’er”, it’s not going to happen.  In the end, Phileena shows us that this is a long and arduous process.  It is worth it, but it takes a willingness to rethink just about everything and allow Christ into the very inner workings of the heart and mind. 

This book would be a great read to anyone who is simply “to busy” in ministry to settle down. Formation isn't something that stops when people enter a ministerial vocation, but instead becomes one of the key parts of the vocation.  Service and Retreat are connected.  This book comes out Friday, and I recommend it to anyone that wishes they could retreat more often.

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Book Review: The Gospel You've Never Heard

The Gospel You’ve Never Heard: What a Protestant Bible written by Jews says about God’s work through Christ.


This book, written by mathematician David I Rudel addresses many of the questions that folks drawn to religion but uncomfortable with the current Evangelical situation find themselves with.  His style of writing is akin to mine, in that he enjoys asking questions as much as he does answering them. 

The book is structured around the idea that when we read the Bible, we find a very different version of salvation than we hear coming out of the average conservative pulpit.  Rudel presents this book as part of a personal journey of faith and scripture reading.  Defining salvation is a key theme, especially in relation to judgment and hell.  He writes the book in an attempt to rationalize a literal faith that is neither conservative or liberal, placing a high level of importance upon the words of Christ and the New Testament interpreters.

As much as this should be resonating within me, it doesn’t at all.  I find Mr Rudel’s book frustrating on multiple examples.

1.  There are editorial and grammatical mistakes.  This is made evident on his site (more on that later) and in the front of the book noting that I hold a revision that should be correcting previous mistakes.  The main frustration with this was with simple things.  When Mr. Rudel is explaining his belief around “eternal” life (αἰώνιος ) his scripture reference is wrong (referring to John 17:13 instead of John 17:3).  There were a few other instances of these things happening in the book.

2.  I find the typesetting and the print to be distracting and confusing.  This book is physically hard to read.  Changing typefaces and fonts throughout kept me on my toes.  While this style works great for notes (I do it sometimes) and possibly blog posts, it doesn’t translate well to book form.  It is normal to use a serif font for scripture, but to combine bolding, italics, and different fonts on the same page just looks bad.

3.  At times, I don’t think this book is good theology.  Yes- his attempt to rethink the term heresy and heterodox is good.  It recognizes how institutional oppression and the more empirical developments of theology have contributed at times to Church History and the development of doctrine.  However, part of our faith is the belief that the “right” things have been passed down through time.  Mr. Rudel has enough knowledge to get around Greek and Hebrew terms and other academic forms of theological work,  But I think that some of his conclusions are sloppy and are not up to the form they should be for a published book.

Upon further investigation, it seems that this book is a just a few steps away from self-publishing.  There isn’t a problem with this, and in some situations it is a great idea.  But I think that this book could have benefited from an editor.  The content of the book is good, albeit the issues raised above.  There is to much content in the work.  At times, I found myself seriously agreeing with the questions raised, but I was consistently disappointed in how answers were given and rational proof was made.  It seems as though the work could be held as a great example not of “post”, but instead of “hyper-modernity”. 

I do respect Mr. Rudel and his mathematic vocation, especially how it has lead to a very thorough survey of the New Testament, but I think the mystery of sacred text has been taken out.  I agree with many things he is trying to say, but other issues keep raising their head. It just seems amateur.  This could be a good book, but it would take several volumes and some contribution from someone trained in theology to translate some of the content.  I think in the enthusiasm to share what are great discoveries and a journey that many of us have been on, the gun was jumped.

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