Textual research visualization tool

(Preface: One of the principal tenets of blogging is "post often," which I have certainly not been doing much of this month, for a number of reasons. One is I'm insanely busy at life in general, and unfortunately none of the things I've been doing have been relevant for posting here. I've also picked up posting more often on my "old faithful" website: Honnold.org. I've been going a decent bit of tweeting and also played around with Google's new social networking tool, Buzz - see my thoughts on that here. So hopefully some interesting material in the vein of theology and peacebuilding will be showing up again here in the near future.)

My friend and fellow CJP'er, Krista Johnson (who recently got a job at Mennonite Central Committee/MCC as their Peace Program coordinator) showed me an awesome online tool called Wordle. The tool generates word clouds based on textual information that you give it in a number of ways, which includes handing it a URL for a website. Well, I did this for the current front-page of this blog, and came up with the following neat picture:

I wish I would have known about this tool when I was doing my project for Arts-Based Research class last fall!  Thanks, Krista!

Just a pilgrim in search of that city

The subtitle for Barry Harvey's, Another City, states that the book is “an ecclesiological primer for a Post-Christian World.” Perhaps a better subtitle would have run something like “a mini theological-historical-philosophical education.” This book's diminutive size betrays a great density and scope of material. The book is essentially a crash course on postmodernism, a millenium-spanning church history survey, a critique of the Enlightenment and Western societies since, and a recapitulation of how the Church can be faithfully be Church in today's world. All this in an introduction and five chapters, and 165 pages!

The purpose of this book, Harvey makes clear near the end of the introduction, in that is is intended “to help the church speak again in a self-consciously authoritative way and thus let it reclaim itself as a distinct people who enact a different story in the midst of the world, not for its own benefits, but for the sake of the world.” (pp. 19-20) The thesis underlying his purpose for the book is hinted at in the title, “Another City,” the Latin equivalent of which, altera civitas, he uses throughout the book. The Church is this altera civitas, or at least it should be, argues Harvey. In the introduction, Harvey spends some time describing the postmodern world we find ourselves in, using lyrics from a Toni Morrison song about “the city” and using this image to represent the postmodern world, or “the world” of Scripture, which Jesus spent some time talking and warning about in the Gospels.

Read on after the break for my survey and conclusions from this jam-packed book on radical ecclesiology!

Why can't we be friends?

In this lengthy, all-text post, I will reflect on two experiences this week that ignited no small amount of spiritual and intellectual energy in me.  If you're up to the challenge of hanging with me, read on after the break for an exploration of interfaith dialogue, psycho-social theology, and discipleship...

Reflecting on a Flexible Providence

For the Seminary's School for Leadership Training (SLT) this year, pastor and professor, Dr. Gregory A. Boyd came and delivered a series of lectures on the topic of Christianity in America – largely based on his book, The Myth of a Christian Nation – and a workshop on Open Theism (Open View). In this post, I will focus on the latter, first with some of my personal background in respect to Dr. Boyd and Open Theism, then focusing on the lecture material itself.  Read on after the break for more!

Review: "Children of Hurin" by J.R.R. Tolkien

As a sophomore in high school, I was assigned to read The Hobbit by my English teacher. I've been thanking him ever since. A year later, I picked up a huge single-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and read it, as I recall, in about a month. Loved them all.  So when the movies adaptations started rolling out in 2001, I was overjoyed, and had in fact been following their development as much as two years before their release. One of my fondest movie nerd memories came in 2003, with the release of LOTR: The Return of the King in theaters. With a pack of friends, we attended "Trilogy Tuesday" at a theater in greater Des Moines that was showing all three movies in succession. We spent nearly 12 hours in a movie theater packed with fellow nerds. It smelled funny.

Last month, my wife went on a ladies-only trip to NYC, so my daughter and I set about watching a movie-a-night from the LOTR trilogy. With that enjoyable experience fresh in my mind, I picked up from the library the latest book to be published from the Middle-Earth universe, The Children of Hurin, of course by J.R.R. Tolkien, but also extensively edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien.  There was some hesitation on my part going into reading it, as I had unsuccessfully attempted to read The Silmarillion in high school after completing the LOTR trilogy. Happily, this book captured me in much the same way that The Hobbit and LOTR had before.

The Children of Hurin takes place in Middle-Earth, but in the "First Age" or the "Elder Days," thousands of years before the events found in the most popular storyline.  The protagonist of the book is Turin, the son of a king (Hurin). Threatened by darkening days in his childhood, Turin is sent away and raised by Elves and becomes nearly indistinguishable from them in appearance and ability. Cursed by the Dark Lord, Morgoth (predecessor to Sauron from LOTR), Turin is haunted all his days, despite the great success and valor he attains.

This story is much more of a straight-forward narrative than is LOTR, but is still set within, and instrumental to the massive world that Tolkien dreamed up in Middle-Earth. Despite Tolkien himself never being much of a fan of allegory, his readers have often touted the allegorical merits of LOTR. This nature of this story offers much less in the way of allegorical connections, which is perhaps to the author's intent. This book is also not a "happy ending" book, as are The Hobbit and LOTR. So readers who can't live without happy endings shouldn't take this one up. But it has elves, swords with names, dragons, and quests, so what more could a fantasy-fiction reader want?

The book read quickly, and I was actually surprised when I got to the end that it was finished, wanting more. What added to my delight in this book are the appendices at the end, which is common to Tolkien's stories. In the first appendix, Tolkien's son, Christopher, explains the historical context of the development of this story, which started and stopped over much of his father's life. Hearing the story behind the stories of Middle-Earth was enjoyable. Family genealogies and a glossary were also provided, all of which I read. Oh, and to my nerdly delight, there was a fold-out map of the area in which the story take place, designed so that you can unfold it while reading the book and refer to it as you read along! (You need it, if you want to keep your bearings.)

From cover to cover, I soaked this book up like a sponge. It gave me my first narrative taste of the First Age of Middle-Earth, offering me a deeper sense of the history and trajectory of the world. The moments in the book which registered some connection to future events that I was already familiar with were exciting. It also deepened my appreciation for the genius of J.R.R. Tolkien in the creation of this massive world with its long history and intricately-woven narratives of the Children of Iluvatar, the Elves and Men.

Sara Wenger Shenk: A leadership biography

When I came to Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2008 to begin graduate studies, I did so specifically to be dual-enrolled in both the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) and the Seminary (EMS), working toward a degree in each program. When the time came to plan my seminary classes for the first semester, I sat down with Sara Wenger Shenk, the associate dean of the Seminary, to do so. As I look back on that experience from a year and half ago, I seem to recall that my first impression of Sara was fairly neutral. She struck me as quiet and reflective, perhaps even a bit intimidating to someone new to the university community, such as myself.

But over the course of my time here at EMU, I have come to see a tremendously deep well of wisdom, insight, and zeal for her work and community from Sara, not to mention a profound awareness and expression of her Christian faith that has made an equally profound impression on my own faith. In the crowd of wonderful professors, mentors, leaders, advisors – both academic and spiritual – and friends that I am exposed to here, Sara stands out. It is the intention of this paper to describe the kind of leader that Sara is. I will do this by way of relating my own experiences of her leadership in her various roles, along with elements of her own reflections on her formational journey that has brought her to this point. In addition, I have interviewed two other people in the Seminary context and will incorporate their reflections into this paper, providing a multi-dimensional view of Sara Wenger Shenk's expression of leadership.

Read on after the break for my reflections on Sara and her leadership...

Book critique: "The Hidden Lives of Congregations" by Israel Galindo

In this enlightening and well-written book, Israel Galindo takes his understanding and experiences with American congregational life, seen through the multi-dimensional lens of Bowen family systems theory, and presents pastors and church leaders with a theoretical and practical resource for navigating these complicated organizations. Perhaps the most helpful piece of wisdom in this book is his challenge to popular Western understandings of the organizational nature of congregations, continually making the case that “congregations are living organisms that follow universal principles of systemic relationships.” (p. 1) It is from this perspective of congregations as living organisms with relational emotional processes that all subsequent content flows.

Read on after the break for my in-depth summary and critique of this book...