The rhythm and rule of Christian life

Photo by Ferran Jordà (CC lic.)

A bittersweet season of university life is drawing near: Graduation. Last year was the first time I felt this sting at EMU, as I watched my friends in the class of 2010 graduate from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding with their MA's in Conflict Transformation, a two-year program which we'd started together in 2008. This year, many of my friends in the Seminary are graduating with their Mdiv's, a three-year program. Meanwhile, I'll be hanging around for another full year to complete my work for both degrees.

One of my fellow seminarians, Adam, was conducting a short-answer survey for his senior capstone project on the "rhythm and rule" of Christian life, a cute seminary phrase for "spiritual disciplines" or the virtuous, worshipful habits that shape our faith.  "Rhythm and rule" always makes me think of drum circles, which seems like a decent metaphor. A drum circle group that's really keyed into the rhythm is transcendant while an arhythmic circle sounds like a car crash. What do we want our lives to sound like?

Anyway, my answers to Adam's questions seemed like good material to adapt and post here, so read on for a bit of my reflections on the spiritual disciplines that have developed for this busy grad student...

An old Brethren take on Love winning

Pastor Rob Bell
(photo by feyip, CC lic.)

Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, has caused quite a stir in the U.S. Christian blogo/tweetosphere for the past few weeks, the stink getting so bad that even mainstream media has taken note and sales for the book have already been wildly successful (as of this moment it's #5 on all of Amazon). When the uproar over whether or not Bell is now preaching age-old heresy of universalism started, I immediately thought of an old Brethren teaching of "universal restoration," which sometimes got labeled (usually pejoratively) "universalism."

Last summer when I was working on my Brethren studies, I read quite a bit out of The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack. Mack was the first Brethren leader in central Germany in the early 18th century. He had a Reformed upbringing and was later influenced by Radical Pietism and a warm engagement with the Anabaptist-Mennonites around them. The movement that started out of that eventually resulted in the stream that I now stand in 300 years later, the Church of the Brethren.

Mack's belief in "universal restoration" held that hell is real, but punishment would not continue for all time, ultimately all are restored to God's love, but there was a sense of levels and those who went through hell "would never attain the high state of bliss possible to those who chose to follow Christ in life" (4).

This notion of levels of bliss helped hedge against laziness, I suppose, but Mack still cautioned: "(I)t is much better to practice this simple truth that one should try to become worthy in the time of grace to escape the wrath of God and the torments of hell, rather than deliberate how or when it would be possible to escape from it again... Even though this is true, it should not be preached as a gospel to the godless" (98-9, emphasis mine).  It's worth noting that recent sociological research done by Brethren scholar, Carl Bowman, has shown this early Brethren belief to have been almost completely abandoned. Anecdotally, though, there are a few young [thx, Paula!] Brethren who probably think this is worth taking seriously...

Restorative or transformative theology?

Howard Zehr

For the past few years I've had the joy of assisting Howard Zehr in the administration of his restorative justice blog. As I mentioned in my very first post back in October 2009, the name of this blog - Restorative Theology - takes its cue from the field that Howard helped shape over 30 years ago, a field in which I've studied and done a small amount of work. So in addition to simply helping administer, I also look at Howard's blog as a conversation partner to this one.

Howard's posts tend to be be reflective inquiries into the state of restorative justice as it's presently understood and practiced. Perhaps the primary concern in his work at this stage of his career is helping practitioners in various arenas keep true to what he sees as the values and principles of restorative justice. He's just put up an interesting post with the following query:

Restorative or transformative justice?

Read on for some of the ways in which I think a theological conversation shifts the concerns underlying such a question. I'll also make a case for restorative, transformative, and theopolitical Christian practices...

Extensions to the Body of Christ?

On this dreary, rainy evening in the Valley, I had the pleasure of consulting with a local Mennonite congregation, facilitating a dialogue on their use of technology (after they fed me which was great). Major topics of discussion centered around the church website and social media, technology in worship services, and what to do with the diminishing use of the church library. It's a congregation that already has a lot going for it in those areas and the knowledge for where to go seemed to already reside in the group, so hopefully my facilitation helped corral that and point it in positive directions.

As I was driving away from the church after the meeting, a thought struck me from Shane Hipps' book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. He talks about all technologies being extensions of our human bodies. So a hammer is an extension of our hands. Rollerblades and cars are extensions of our feet. A camera is an extension of our eye. Microphones, websites, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, are all extensions of our mouths. The reading of stories, textbooks, news articles, or essays all supplement the intellect housed in our brains, and the knowledge we acquire can then work itself out through other parts of the body. And in general, any form of communication involves the use of our rational and imaginative capacities. So all these things involve a body or bodies.

I like this embodied way of thinking about technology because it offers interesting ways to talk about my favorite metaphor for the church: the Body of Christ. Christians are all members of that body and if we're being faithful we're helping the body be healthy. So in our use of technologies - extensions of our various members/body parts - how can we use it in such a way that maintains faithfulness and edifies the body of Christ? That's an important thing to keep in mind when congregations start talking about the myriad technologies, because there are so many details involved with using just even one, that you can quickly get dragged down into the weeds and lose sight of that overall purpose: worshiping and glorifying God.

So as we extend the body of Christ through our use of technology, let's do so wisely and discern with the Holy Spirit in our midst, so the wielders don't end up being the wielded.

No villain, no hero... Just faith

Periodically, stories arise from the Anabaptist traditions that shock and sometimes offend sensibilities of the broader society. Perhaps most prominent in recent American memory is the 2006 Amish school shooting at Nickel Mines, Pa., and that community's response of near-immediate loving outreach to the shooter's family. Another story that exhibits costly Christian grace comes from a Mennonite family from Chewala, Wa., whose five children were killed in a car accident five years ago. But the story doesn't end there as this piece from the local TV station details...

Grace in Grief: The Schrock Family, Five Years Later - KXLY.com

Joshua (hilariously abridged)

After last night's intense post about militarism I'm happy to offer something a bit more lighthearted this evening. A fellow Brethren from Bethany Theological Seminary has put together this wonderfully funny abridged account of the book of Joshua in a series he calls "Scribble Theology." Check it out:

Military porn, military infidelity

Scrolling through my Facebook news feed tonight produced two links that worked together to create quite a series of knots in my Christian pacifist guts...

First, a handful of my family members and friends, all of whom I respect and love, serve in various branches of the United States military. Most, if not all of them would call themselves Christian. One of these men, with whom I've discussed Bonhoeffer and Christian pacifism, posted on his Facebook wall the video which follows the break. I caution against watching the video, which I would classify as "military porn." I reluctantly did so and became very sad at first and then furious at the end, when I heard the quote: "We've all been taught 'Thou shall not kill.' Now hear this: Fuck that shit." Wow. At least they're honest.