prayer

Dallas Willard, Evangelical Salvation, and the Spirituality of Resistance

May 14, 2013 by Deacon Bill 2 Comments

“Isn’t the whole point of Christianity salvation? Not in terms of being “saved” from “eternal fire” but in terms of being saved from bondage, shame, fear, injustice, and all the other hells around us all the time… so that we can become new beings and find our true identities to “save” this world and all of humanity with it, with God leading the way. Not with platitudes but with actual restoration?” – Ryan Miller, re-quoted by Tony Jones

This tribute comes a bit late in terms of the speed and lifespan of internet news, but I hope Dallas Willard’s death just means that the best reflection on his work and the appreciation for his contribution and what kind of person he was has only begun.

Like no one else perhaps, as a philosopher-theologian of the human spirit, Willard rescues evangelical Christians from bad soteriology. This is partly because he is able to speak the language so well and then transform it by uncovering its lack of depth. He and a few others did this for me a while back, and I remain very grateful.

Willard says:

“Spiritual formation is not something that may, or may not, be added to the gift of eternal life . . . It is the path one must be on if his or hers is to be an eternal kind of life” (Renovation of the Heart, p. 59).

I understand this as one of the great shortcomings of certain Protestant theologies – namely, the dualism of justification and sanctification that reduces salvation – or worse, “the gospel” – to the former. As soon as salvation becomes something we simply get after death that must be “paid for,” I believe it loses its force.

But obviously we don’t see those like Willard going back to Medieval Catholicism either. No, they’re much more Eastern than that. In other words, the urgency of salvation for Willard and others is transformation – and for transformation’s sake. That is, not because of a self-interested preoccupation with avoiding punishment.[i]

For many though, I suspect this isn’t anything new, and some would even suggest it’s not enough – possibly because it still seems so focused on personal piety. It’s ahistorical. Salvation, whatever it is, should be more social, more political! And Willard should be more aware of the role of gender in his diagnosis of the nature of sin, etc.

This is probably all true…

Recently I was reading Dorothee Soelle’s book The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Chapter eleven opens with the following from Theodor Adorno:

“As far as possible, we ought to live as we believe we should live in a liberated world, in the form of our own existence, with all the unavoidable contradictions and conflicts that result from this. . . . Such endeavor is by necessity condemned to fail and to meet opposition, yet there is no option but to work through this opposition to the bitter end. The most important form that this will take today is resistance.”

Soelle goes on to talk about how, unlike the European Marxist workers’ movements, the American farmworkers movement was led by a man who prepared himself carefully for every action through fasting and prayer. Cesar Chavez, knowing poverty intimately, once fasted twenty-four days before a large and very dangerous strike. Those who knew Chavez described him as free and happy.

As least for now and in my context, I’ve come to agree with Soelle that the term “liberation” is to some degree inadequate, and could maybe be replaced with the word “resistance.” My conviction, following Soelle, is not just that we need mysticism and resistance. Rather, it’s that today, mysticism, or contemplative spirituality, is a very important form of resistance.

Specifically Soelle shows how mysticism serves to resist the ego, accumulation, and violence. She criticized the First World for its failure to learn resistance. Despite our “knowledge,” we are powerless. She speaks of how most of the great women and men of mystical movements for a time being indeed practiced the contemplative “way inwards,” but their aim was consistently the unity of the contemplative and the active life, of ora et labora (work and prayer).

The superordination of contemplating over acting was criticized and overcome by the likes of Eckhart and Teresa of Avila. “To know God means to know what has to be done,” Levinas said. The mystics only echo back, “and here’s how you know!”

I might differ with Willard in this regard: spiritual formation doesn’t have to be the starting point for transformation. As Soelle insists, “oneness with God, beginning in action, can also discover the mystical unity that undergirds resistance” (p. 201). Nonetheless, for those of us whose faiths weren’t born out of the fruit of resistance movements, we’d probably do well to still apply the spiritual wisdom of Dallas Willard.

[i] “God became human so that human beings could become like God.” – Athanasius. And as Bo pointed out on Sunday, we also learn in the process that God is not like us!

Filed Under: latest, living, prayer

God in the Darkness

April 19, 2013 by Callid Keefe-Perry 6 Comments

It has been a crazy week to join the Homebrewed crew, and I didn’t feel like I could let it go by without at least somehow addressing some of the events of this week, especially those in Boston, a hometown of mine and the place to which I’ll be returning this summer…

Perhaps this will serve as some small measure of comfort or calm in and among all the noise…

What about you all? What is keeping you grounded and centered on God?

Filed Under: engaging, latest, living, news, prayer Tagged With: Boston

Day 9: My Soul Is Fried

February 26, 2013 by Bo Sanders 14 Comments

I was a young pastor, in my mid-20s, and ministry was going pretty well. I worked a lot of hours and put out a lot of energy, but I also saw a lot of fruit.

Then one day I lost my joy. I didn’t know where it had gone – but it was gone.

I read that one of the fist signs of depression is when you don’t enjoy doing the things that used to bring you joy.

I still did those things… I just didn’t get the same buzz from them. They didn’t have the same zest they once did, not did they replenish me when they were over.

I was in a rut.

I am by nature a big, loud, extroverted, animated guy. It is not natural for me to be in a funk. Regardless, I was in a deep funk.

My entire spirituality at that point consisted of:

reading the Bible and
hearing from God.

Both of those had stopped working for me.

I went away on a prayer retreat with two trusted friends. We drove to a cabin on lake in New Hampshire that some folks in my congregation owned. The cabin had already been shut up for the winter but they said we could go and use it. We just needed to take care to drain the water and shut down the fireplace when we were done.

It didn’t work. I tried to pray but it just didn’t happen.

After the weekend was over we were driving back to New York and I was growing bitter. The longer we drove in silence (one of my friends was sleeping in the back seat) the more it seemed like I was seething inside.

I sort of said to God “I came all the way out here to meet with you and get recharged and … nothing. You just leave me depleted?”

It must have been the use of that word ‘recharge’ that was providential because my imagination was sparked. Way back in High School automotive class I had learned about car batteries. Car batteries are replenished by what is called a ‘trickle charge’. It is a slow, steady current that gets the battery ready go as you drive.

When a battery loses its power, you can ‘jump’ it (with jumper cables) and infuse the battery with a huge surge of power. This works, but it is not good for the life of battery. Do it too often and you can fry the plates, making it impossible for the battery to receive a charge anymore – even from a jump.

I had fried my battery.

My life at that point was not set up for a slow steady trickle of power. I was set up to run the battery down to almost empty and then, through charismatic experience, get a jump and get pumped back up. I had done it once too often apparently.

I had confused how a battery works with how a gas tank functions.

It was as if God was saying to me “Slow down. Take a breath. Receive the goodness and gift of existence. Enjoy being alive. Trickle charge back to full strength”.

I needed to make some changes. The spirituality of a young man was not going to sustain me long-term. It was already failing me.I needed to grow into a healthier more sustainable spirituality.

I also found out that somewhere along the line I had shorted out some lights and gauges on my dashboard. I would have to rewire some of my internal monitors and reset the ways that my internal reality sent me messages of health and of warning.

____________

I like that Tony used a car analogy to frame this chapter (chpt. 9). I use them too. There is one problem, however, with my use of car analogies for soul stories. The soul is not a machine and spirituality can not be mechanized.

There is a reason that Jesus used farming analogies. It wasn’t just because he lived in an agrarian society. Jesus just as easily could have talked of Roman wagons or something. No, he talked of birds and flowers and fields for a reason.

It is no accident that Tony came back to health in the water. Ancient pools and worn rock are a good combination. Randy Woodley likes to remind me that many Native communities call water ‘first medicine’.

The car analogy works for me – as an analogy. It is a word picture or a metaphor. It helps to diagnose the problem … but it is not the solution.

The solution is deeper and wetter. It is slower and quieter.

“”The one who turn to the Lord shall be as a fountain filled with living water, and streams shall flow out of them” – John 7:38

I would love to hear how you recharge.

Filed Under: conversations, latest, prayer Tagged With: burnt, care, fried, ministry, prayer, recharge, soul, Tony Kriz, water

Fake Picture, Real Prayer and God’s Wrath

October 29, 2012 by Bo Sanders 54 Comments

So it has begun. Hurricane Sandy is only one day in to its battering of the East and the religious have weighed in. I will warn you – it’s not good.

The first thing that caught my attention was a fake picture of ‘the storm’ over NYC

I was introduced to this photo by a worker at our facility today (who listens religiously to the Howard Stern show) and I was immediately suspicious of both the sunshine in the foreground and the speed boat that looks oddly mis-sized.

I thought it humorous until that afternoon when I logged onto Facebook and notices that it had already been shared by hundreds of people. What really caught my attention, though, was a response in the form of a prayer.

My friend had stated in the captions to the photo: “This is an amazing shot of New York today with the Frankenstorm bearing down. Nature is so powerful, yet so beautiful.” I thought “someone should tell him that it’s a fake”. Before I could, someone else had offered this response:

Father, all the elements of nature obey your command. Calm the storms and hurricanes that threaten us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

I was stunned. There are so many elements of this ‘prayer’ that concern me. I was filled with questions. Perhaps the biggest one was : Is there a god who hears these kind of prayers?

This past Sunday at the Loft LA I had preached a sermon called ‘Why Pray?’ about this exact type of thing … so my attention was immediately piqued.

On a side note – I especially appreciated that just hours later this fake meme showed up in the twitter-verse.

I am deeply concerned about people who think that their prayers can command whole weather patterns. This concern is primarily at two levels.

The first is that I know so many of them.
The second is that a wooden reading of the Bible can lead one to think that this is acceptable and permissible.

This kind of stuff really pulls at me as an emerging evangelical-charismatic. I was prepared to let the whole thing go when this showed up on the wire:

[I had written multiple times about John Piper's stupid storm theology and simple Bible reading]

A Christian religious leader has already claimed that Hurricane Sandy is further proof that “God is systematically destroying America” as political judgment for the “homosexual agenda.” John McTernan previously made similar allusions about Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Isaac (2012), which he reiterated in his urgent call to prayer posted Sunday evening (via Gay Star News):

Just last August, Hurricane Isaac hit New Orleans seven years later, on the exact day of Hurricane Katrina. Both hit during the week of the homosexual event called Southern Decadence in New Orleans!

McTernan believes that it is noteworthy that Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years after the “Perfect Storm,” because 3 is a “significant number with God”:

Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.

It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem. Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!

Religious spokespeople have frequently tried to draw bizarre connections between natural disasters and the LGBT community. Last year, the American Family Association’s Buster Wilson similarly claimed that Hurricane Isaac was punishment for the Southern Decadence LGBT festival. Rick Joyner had the same to say about Hurricane Katrina, claiming that “[God]‘s not gonna put up with perversion anymore.” Pat Robertson has long believed that acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs, and “possibly a meteor.”

It’s likely that McTernan will not be the only religious figure to draw such allusions from this devastating storm.

One anti-gay (former lesbian) activist actually targeted the state of Vermont as a litmus test of who her god was mad at. I loved the first comment on the post:

Considering that Lower Manhattan is troublingly at risk, I say there’s a good chance it’s Jesus cleaning up Wall Street – a modern-day version of when He cleared the moneychangers out of the Temple…

As funny as that last comment may be, I am not amused – because it concedes the rules of the game to the antiquated notions of centuries past and abdicates the metaphysical realities of 21st century life to the … let’s just say – the conceptions of bygone eras.

The picture was a fake.
It triggered real prayers.
I respect those intentions.
I questions the ‘god’ who they were offered to.
I am flusted that in the midst of suffering, those who claim Christ offer blame and not compassion.
They justify that stance by saying ‘if you only did what we said was right’.
It signals a pattern of christian response to tragedy.

I am concerned that the fakeness of the pictures and posts we respond to correspond to our notion of reality and our conception of how the world works … and thus how our prayers are effective.

Thoughts? Responses?

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, emergent, engaging, latest, media, news, philosophy, politics, post-something, prayer, science, thinking Tagged With: bay, Bible, church, city, epic, Facebook, fake, Fake Picture, God, God's Wrath, hoax, hurricane, jesus, John Piper, Liberty, New York, NYC, Pat Robertson, Pennsylvania, photoshop, picture, prayer, preacher, Sandy, share, storm, viral

Rape, Republicans and God’s Will

October 25, 2012 by Bo Sanders 14 Comments

Yet again a Republican candidate has come out with an outlandish comment about rape that has drawn widespread criticism from those outside the ideological bubble.

The most recent incident was from Indiana Congressman Richard Murdoch during a debate this past week. This is the latest in what has become a consistent string of rhetoric for white conservative men – notably on the heels of Senate candidate Todd Akin’s introduction of ‘legitimate’ rape into our vernacular.

Apparently Akin, who is on the House Science Committee, thinks that a women’s body can sense if the conception was because of ‘legitimate’ rape and take of the matter on its own. Richard Murdoch took it a step further, beyond biology, and introduced theology into the mix. The resulting pregnancy would be ‘God’s will’.

Let me be clear: I get why some people hate abortion. I do. I get it. I was raised watching movies like ‘Silent Scream’ and listening to Carmen rap/sing about our nation’s demise and invitation of God’s wrath. I get it. That is not what I want to address here.

My concern is with the consistent and frequent rhetoric that is coming from the conservative right on the issue of rape.
There are 3 reasons that this hits so close to home for me:

My wife ran the rape crisis hotline and prevention education for the county where we lived in NY. For a decade this was a major part of our life and focus.
As a minister, I have sat with countless women and heard their stories. We have walked a really tough road of recovery and healing with many.
I have traded my narrow/shallow theological adolescence for a more critical-aware- sophisticated-and progressive one.

These three things come together is a very painful way for me when I hear these continuing statements from non-women candidates.

One starts to ask “What exactly is going on with these guys? What in the world are they thinking?”
If two is a trend and three is a pattern then this is a full-blown school of thought!

Are they just trying to fire-up their base? Are they trying to out religion each other? Are they so fixated on abortion that it blinds them to the absurdity of their other positions?

Or is it worse than that? Is it that there view of God is fundamentally determining this stuff? I’m afraid that this might be true. I think that these might be really good hearted christian men who have bought into a view of God that is so limited and narrow that it necessarily dictates utterances like we have been hearing.

I am suspicious that one’s view of God is like an operating system on a computer and that given enough time, this N. American conservative/fundamentalist program that gets downloaded just inherently comes with some unavoidable glitches and bugs that eventually result in stances like we have been seeing.

Thomas Jay Oord posted the following on Facebook:

Candidate Richard Mourdock’s statements about rape, pregnancy, and God’s intentions point out a major problem with most theologies. John Calvin summarized the problem well, “There can be no distinction between God’s will and God’s permission! Why say ‘permission’ unless it is because God so wills?” The Mourdock episode suggests that those who (rightfully) object to his statements implicitly support a view of divine power closer to process theology’s view, even though they may not realize it.

I’m not trying to pick a fight. I am not trying to be partisan. I am simply heartbroken about these hurtful things that have consistently come to the surface during this election cycle.

Maybe a new guideline should be put in place: as a candidate you are not allowed to talk about rape unless you have walked a mile in those shoes.

At a minimum, I would like to see the name of God disconnected from this subject in political arenas.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, news, politics, prayer, public policy, thinking Tagged With: abortion, conservative, debate, God, GOP, John Calvin, plan, politics, rape, religion, Republican, Richard Murdoch, Todd Akin, will

God of New Beginnings… a prayer

October 21, 2012 by Tripp Fuller 1 Comment

God of New Beginnings meet us here today and provoke something new again.
So often we pray “make us more patient” and yet at the first sign of a challenge our complaints begin
In our complaints begin again.

In other prayers we we mouth the words “God of love teach us to love more fully” yet when that love is intended for one too different or too wrong we add a stipulation – but “oh not quite yet.”
In our hesitation begin again.

How many times have we sang a song that proclaimed God’s grace over all our wrongs,
We are God’s beloved
from whom nothing can separate us
Or are we? It may sing well & it may preach,
but can God really love me as me?
Into those places were your grace has yet to bring peace
begin again.

Oh week after week we pray “Your kingdom come and your will be done” and it’s really a great idea
but we live on earth and know quite well
heaven is very rarely near.
There’s too much pain and injustice, slandering and justification, hard hearts and systems that ain’t working…
for us to put much energy in heaven’s relocation.
In our stale hopes & broken dreams begin again.

God of New Beginnings who is making all things new come into our world – come into each of our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies and begin again.
In this silence meet us at the dead end of our own soul, bring healing and empower us to begin again…

Filed Under: latest, prayer

Wild Goose or Mild Goose?

September 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 27 Comments

This past weekend I got to participate in one of best and most interesting experiences of my christian life – Wild Goose West. This was the festival’s first venture to the left coast and it did not disappoint! Billed as an intersection of ‘Art, Justice, Music and Spirituality’, the Goose brought its unique blend of expression and conversation over the Mississippi River and across the Rocky Mountains to County Fairground near Corvallis, Oregon. Folks from all over the western states migrated – and some dedicated veterans of Wild Goose East (held in NC) flew in. It was quite a mix of people.

I was delighted by this first Wild Goose West. I had a hundred great conversations, listened to amazing speakers and interesting musical acts, as well met dozens of new friends. I was also challenged in areas of artistic expression, racial reconciliation and both sexual and gender justice.

If I didn’t know better, I would say that this was the best spend of a Labor Day weekend in my adult life.

But alas I have a wrinkle that some others may not have had. I used to live in the Pacific North West and while I was there I both went to an evangelical school and ministered at an evangelical church. I have since migrated geographically south and theologically left. As a progressive-emergent type who continues to passionately hang onto my evangelical roots, I have plenty of friends who still live in the PNW and who are still solidly evangelical. And no-one will tell ya the behind the scenes scoop like good friends.

Apparently not everyone was as thrilled with the Wild Goose experience as I was! Here were the four complaints that I heard:

“I thought it would be wilder.”
“I thought this would be more progressive. This is just a bunch of evangelicals with dreadlocks or hipster glasses.”
“The LGBTQ emphasis seems to be presumed that we are all coming from the same perspective. There is no room for disagreement.”
“I thought this was an open conversation but I don’t hear any conservative voices”

Here are my four actual responses:

Wilder? Short of LSD and nudity I’m not sure what more you were looking for. This is about as wild as a christian festival can get and still be christian. I mean, this isn’t Burning Man! Did you camp here last night? (It turned out that they had not)

Evangelicals with dreadlocks or hipster glasses? Really? I’m not sure how widely you are circulating or how big your sample size is but I am bumped into people of every stripe, color, economic background, family configuration, age and persuasion. I’m not sure what you were expecting but there is a fairly progressive tinge here – sure there are lots of emerging evangelicals … but I don’t think your characterization is fair.
The LGBTQ emphasis is part of the stated justice platform. In order for this to be a safe place for everyone there has to be some assurance that those who have been injured by the church before – and many have – that they are not re-injured here. So no, it is not an ‘open ended’ conversation where we start with a blank slate and see what everyone thinks about the issue. It is an aspect of the justice concern to have a stated inclusion policy from which to launch the conversation. But I think that people are allowed to disagree.

Having a conversation does not imply that every perspective will be represented in every exchange. It is not the host’s responsibility the make sure that every position of the spectrum is present. Here is how I look at it: the established church is like the city. It is institutionalized and has all the media (like Christian radio). The city is like a stream with a definite current – it predominately flows one way. So we come out of the city to camp together in the country for a weekend. We are not responsible to bring the city with us and make sure that it gets a fair shake in all conversations. That city have the privilege of being the establishment and the benefits that come with that. The city can fend for itself. We came out of the city to engage justice, art and spirituality.

As I was flying home I got thinking “How could we make the Goose wilder?” I came up with three suggestions. The first two go together, the third is just for fun:

1. Move from the printed schedule being celebrity centered to question centered.

So instead of it saying “Richard Rohr: contemplative practice”, Rohr would be given a question to answer “Does prayer get us there in the 21st century ?”

2. Move from solo presentations to conversations.

I don’t want to hear Richard Rohr. I want hear Richard Rohr in conversation with Nadia-Bolz Weber. So the schedule would say “Does Prayer do anything in the 21st century? : Richard Rohr and Nadia Boltz-Weber.”

All of these marquee speakers has a schtick. We could still provide a time for the likes of Brian McLaren, Rachel Held Evans and Bruce Reyes-Chow to do their amazing (and polished) one hour presentations on the main stage if we wanted. But every other venue would be a conversation built around a question.

We did this with our Homebrewed Christianity Podcast each of the two nights and it was incredible! As much as I love listening to Rachel Held Evans’ talk (and she could still do her solo thing) It was so interesting to hear her in conversation with J. Daniel Kirk the evangelical biblical scholar on the question “What does it mean for something to be ‘biblical’ ? ”

The night before we had Melissa Marley Bonnichsen (a Lutheran) in conversation with Eliacin Rosario-Cruz (an Episcopalian) on the question “How does liturgy, sacrament communal practice get us our of the rhythm of Hallmark holidays and the consumer calendar.

We also Brian McLaren, author of Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World in dialogue with Philip Clayton – provost at the new Claremont Lincoln University – the first inter-religious university in the world.

I loved Bruce Reyes-Chow’s session built around the question “Are we still talking about Race?” But I would have loved it more if he was in conversation with Randy Woodley or Richard Twiss.

3. Have the Hymns & Beer Tent every day (instead of just one) and don’t have anything else going at the same time.

At some point each day (one in the afternoon, one evening) folks will only have three options sing at The Tent, take a nap, or have a side conversation with a friend.

I loved Wild Goose West. I can’t wait for next year. Those who organized and planned the gathering did an incredible job and I could not be more impressed. I know that normally a 96% approval rating would be enough … but those four comments really got me thinking and so I just wanted throw this out there in case anyone wanted to make the Goose a little wilder.

Let me know your thoughts on my suggestions or offer some of your own!

-Bo Sanders

Filed Under: cigars, conversations, engaging, latest, living, prayer, thinking Tagged With: art, beer, Bible, book, books, Brian McLaren, Bruce Reyes Chow, church, conservative, Culture, evangelical, God, history, hymns, J. Daniel Kirk, jesus, justice, LBGTQ, Liberal, music, Nadia Bolz Weber, Philip Clayton, progressive, rachel held evans, Randy Woodley, Richard Rohr, Richard Twiss, WIld Goose

Who Believes in Miracles? Prayer and the Practice of God’s Presence

July 11, 2012 by Bo Sanders 30 Comments

I know at least three people who believe in miracles: Marjorie Suchocki, Bruce Epperly and I do. I have written several times about holding onto the miraculous (as well as dealing with demons and skirting ‘Satan’) - both as Bible reading Christians and as ministers in the 21st century – even after we have excused ourselves from the super-natural worldview of centuries past. Bruce Epperly (who’s final session at EVTC will be released soon) looks to Marjorei Suchoki for some helpful language about prayer and the nature of God’s power. (Suchoki is perhaps most famous for many books including one on prayer: In God’s Presence and eschatology: The End of Evil).

What follows is a summary of a section from Epperly’s book Process for the Perplexed p. 58-60. I found it so helpful and so encouraging that I wanted to put it up here (reformatted as a blog of course). All the words are Epperly’s or Suchocki’s except those in italics.

Suchocki describes the intimacy of God and world necessary to the faithful practice of prayer.

If God’s power works through presence, and if God’s presence is an ‘omnipresence’, then one could say both that there is no center to the universe and that everything in the universe is center to all else … we can say that all things are center, for if all things are in the presence of God, then it is God who centers them. The earth, then, is indeed privileged and we do have a privileged history, for all are presenced and centered in God. Prayer in such a universe makes eminent sense – for God is always present.

From this perspective, God is, as a mystic once said, “the circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”

This allows us to affirm the wisdom of my mother’s kitchen magnet motto, “prayer changes things”. Suchocki understands prayer as “our oppeness, to the God who pervades the Universe and therefore ourselves, and therefore that prayer is also God’s openess to us. In such a case, prayer is not only for our sakes but also for God’s sake.” In a relational universe, prayer is essential to God’s work in our world and “the effectiveness of God’s work with the world.”

Prayer is intimately connected with God’s vision for each moment of our lives. God’s initial aim, or vision for our lives moment by moment, is grounded in God’s awareness of our joys, sorrows, needs, and loves.

God knows us better than we know ourselves and seeks to provide possibilities that join our lives with the lives of others in a way that bring beaty and healing to the world. God inspires us to prayer for others as weel as to act on their behalf. Surely this is an insightful way to interpret Romans 8:26-28

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And gone who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

God moves within our lives, inviting us to reflect God’s vision of Shalom and healing in our relationship with others, whether a child diagnosed with cancer, the survivors of the Haiti earthquake, or a friend who is in the process of discerning her future vocation.

As Suchocki affirms, “prayer is God’s invitation to us to be willing partners integrate dance that brings a world into being that reflects something of God’s character.” Accordingly, our prayers make a difference in terms of the intensity and effectiveness of God’s healing and reconciling work in the world.

While the intensity and form of divine guidance and activity in the present moment our lives shaped–and either enhanced or limited–by our past history, decisions, values, and the quality of spiritual devotion, our attentiveness to God in the present opens us to new costs bursts of spiritual energy.

Further, in an interdependent universe our prayers are an example of what quantum physicists describe as non-local causation: they create a positive field of energy around those for whom we pray, enabling them to be more open to God in a ruling God to be more creative and effective in shaping their life situation.

Process encourages people to be realistic, yet hopeful, in prayer for extraordinary life changes. Indeed, spiritual realism embraces both the concrete and the possible, regular causality and naturalistic leaps of energy. As Suchocki notes, “prayer creates a channel in the world through which God can unleash God’s will towards well-being.” Because each moment is unique, “miraculous” releases of energy that change ourselves can occur; but there are no guarantees, except God’s loving presence, in every life situation.

We see the occurrence of events described as “miraculous” not as violations of the laws of nature, but of intensification’s of God’s healing energy as a result of the interplay of God’s visionary power and energy, our prayers, and the conditions of those for whom you pray.

Romans 8:28 can be translated this way “ in all things God works for good for those who love God” as a representative of the holistic, relational, non-coercive, and multifactorial nature of divine activity.

I find this greatly encouraging and inspiring. We get to do this wonderful thing of partnering in prayer while no longer being required to subscribe to an antiquated metaphysic or pre-modern worldview.

Let us pray.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, living, prayer, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, church, demons, Epperly, God, healing, jesus, miracles, power, prayer, Process, Romans 8, sickness, Suchocki

Worried about Worship

March 29, 2012 by Bo Sanders 27 Comments

In the past several week I have read three interesting blog posts about worship.

The first was from theologian James K.A. Smith with An Open Letter to Praise Bands
The second was from Tony Jones guest posting at PoMoMusings on the next 100 years
The third was from Tara Burke over at Relevant Magazine on A Not-so-joyful Noise

James has three suggestions for worship bands including the band leaders not praying so much between songs. Tony thinks that public prayers should be eschewed all together – especially the written prayers of the pastor. Tara, as a musician herself, is trying to find the balance when the band hits an off note and keeping her focus on the actually worship and not on the stage performance.

The reason that I have taken special notice of this conversation is because I am in a bit of a transition. My whole life I have been in churches that utilize contemporary rock-n-roll style worship or contemporary praise for the music at the weekend public services. I was very comfortable lifting my hands, jumping up and down, and singing at the top of my lungs with my head thrown back and my eyes closed. I now serve in a congregation that sings hymns with a big choir and an even bigger pipe organ.

WELL – recently a group of us have been commissioned to launch an emergent gathering this fall in West LA. It is coming together so well and everyone seems to be on the same page … in every area except one: music. You can tell that this is the one area where some fear and trepidation is present. “What will our music be like? What kind of style will we use?” Since the music we traditionally have in the sunday service is so different than what we listen to in our cars … where does that leave us?

Luckily we have gifted musicians who love the Lord and I’m sure that they will navigate this just fine – plus they love Gungor so I am optimistic.

However, after reading these well written and thoughtful blogs I had three thoughts in my head:

How bad is it that both James and Tara have to mention the center-of-attention behavior of the band? It dawns on me, before I stick up for ‘worship teams’ in general – maybe I have not seen how bad it is out there and that I myself would be put-off (or horrified) at the spectacle they are referencing.
Is this situation inflamed by an epistemology employed by evangelical and charismatic churches? I don’t know how else to say it but …. if you think that you are singing to God (vs. about God) and the God is actually listening to you and evaluating what is going on, then are you more critical of both the sour-notes and distracting ‘self’ behavior or overly elaborate performances?
If the band is there to facilitate my /our worship and connecting with God, then keeping the songs simple and somewhat familiar is a better way to facilitate a group to be in unison and not distracted. We are able to ‘enter in’ to a ‘spirit of worship’. But then people circle back and are critical that the songs are simple, repeat too much, and grow stale with constant use.

It seems to me that there is a lot being assumed when we talk about worship music. We all sort of know that worship is an all-week whole-life expression – we just sort of take a short cut in our language and talk about church music as worship.

I would love to hear your thoughts. This space has become a wonderful place to compare notes, exchange resources and learn new things. I just have two requests:

A) Don’t give us a lesson about what worship meant in a different language or in the 4th or 11th century. That is not what any of us need. I want to engage this subject how the popular use is actually engaging this topic (like we did with ‘religion’)

B) Let us know if you don’t like songs like “Shout to the Lord” in general before you are critical of praise music categorically. I mean, if its not your style anyway … then it would just be good to know that so we can know how to read your perspective.

Filed Under: church history, emergent, engaging, latest, prayer, songs, thinking, worship Tagged With: book, books, church, future, James K.A. Smith, PoMo, praise, Relevant Magazine, songs, Tony Jones, Worship

Is it tough to blame John Piper for his tornado theology?

March 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 54 Comments

I grew up in the Midwest and tornado season was terrifying. I have never been in one but when the conditions are right the air is ominous.

I was on my lunch break today and I went to the Weather Channel website to read a fascinating set of articles about the conditions that contributed to last week’s deadly swath of destruction. I got a Tweet so I clicked over to Twitter to see what was going on. I scrolled down the stream and noticed that John Piper was getting a lot of pushback. After reading his blog on how God used the tornadoes to kill people … I am left with some questions:

I have challenged Piper’s tornado theology (and suggested a better way to read the Bible) before and been told “You are mis-reading him. If you gave him the benefit of the doubt, you would see that he is really concerned about God’s glory.”

But in today’s post, he is saying exactly what I have been interpreting him as saying! Why do reformed folks think we are not getting his real message? Look, I get it – and I just don’t like it. Its not that I am misunderstanding him. I am understanding him and disagreeing. This is not semantics or rhetoric. We actually disagree on substance here.

It’s tough to be hard on somebody if they are consistent. But after reading Piper’s newest blog, I am a little bit turned around. He says:

Therefore, God’s will for America under his mighty hand, is that every Christian, every Jew, every Muslim, every person of every religion or non-religion, turn from sin and come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus rules the wind. The tornadoes were his.

He follows that up by saying “But before Jesus took any life in rural America, he gave his own on the rugged cross. Come to me, he says, to America.”

As I read Piper: Jesus sends tornadoes to punish the wicked. He also sends them to the righteous because they are righteous (to show this according to the blog). So here is my question: we are supposed to turn to Jesus because of the tornadoes, a turn to righteousness from wickedness … but then God causes tornadoes on the righteous too?

I am as turned around as a chickadee in a wind tunnel! It seems to me that this is playing both sides of the chess board. The formula goes like this: Weather happens. You blame God. If you are wicked, it is a warning to you to turn from your wickedness that the weather may cease. If you are righteous, the weather was to demonstrate it as such and afford you the possibility of honoring God in the midst of the storm. Am I getting this right?

I said it was tough to blame Piper for holding this view. Tough, but not too tough. It seems consistent … until you stop to consider it for more than 1 second. I get a lot of heat in my circles for advocating for a New Kind of Christianity. I question Piper’s reading of the Bible on tornadoes and before I know it I am called to defend the Creeds as a litmus test to prove my orthodoxy (small o).

SO I will just go out on limb and say it. I find Piper’s tornado theology the stupidest thing I have ever heard – completely ignorant of any advances in meteorology let alone metaphysics – and the type of Christianity that makes the world a worse place in the 21st century. I have no need to disparage those who believed these thing in the 2nd century when the earth was flat and suspended in a 3 tiered universe but I’ll be damned if I am going to hold to this kind of pseudo pre-modern interpretation of the text and the world.

It is not just embarrassing, it is hurtful to lag this far behind and place this kind of condemnation on people who are really hurting and whose community is in ruin.

Our prayers are with the people in these towns – and I am sorry that Christian minister say those kinds of things at times like this. Lord have mercy on us – we need it.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, engaging, latest, news, prayer, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, John Piper, reformed, tornadoes, weather

Claremont School of Theology