Atypical Spirituality

The Flight of the Conchords is hosting a “lib-dub” video competition at http://www.flightlipdub.com/

Noah and I, spent last Tuesday together and quickly ran out of things to do. He had never heard of the Flight of the Conchords, or their famous “Hiphopopotamus” song. I told him we could make a rap video and submit it into their lip-dub competition — he was all in. Noah is 12 years old and attempted to memorize the words to this tongue-twisty song in less than 30 minutes. As you can tell from the video, the lip dubbing is not 100% accurate. BUT, who cares he did an awesome job and the results are funny.

OF course, we cannot enter the video in the contest because he is under 18 years old, go figure.

So this semester has been a great time of personal growth for me, not due in small part to a class I’ve been taking on John Wesley’s theology. I’ve learned a great deal and come to expect more from faith. Wesley’s emphasis on spiritual growth and his emphasis on grace, as well as the place of holiness, has caused me to view faith differently than I did a few months ago.

But at that end of the semester, I wanted an additional perspective; for Wesley’s faith demands much and promises much. I wanted something different to add some balance; so I grabbed Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. I found it to be an interesting read; Mike speaks of the power of a life not lived according to spiritual stereotypes and popular (mis)conceptions.

And somehow, while pondering, these two views came together in my mind to form an odd sort of synthesis… I had thought that these thinkers would prove to be at odds with each other. Wesley with his paradigmatic understanding of God’s operation, set against Mike with his distinct lack of rules and qualifications. Wesley’s demand for holiness seemed to fly in the face of Mike’s emphasis on brokenness, and Mike’s longing for humility could be seen as contrary to Wesley’s expectation of perfection.

But as I continued to ponder these ideas, I came to see that they do not necessarily contradict each other. To be sure, the social context and presentation of these ideas varied greatly. They have much in common, though; both fought against the established religious status quo. They both emphasized spiritual growth, as well as the importance of grace.

As it should be, grace is central to both thinkers’ understanding of God, as well as human depravity. After all, grace isn’t a big deal unless someone needs it. They both would agree that love is the primary evidence of holiness; and both would agree that the “messiness” of the Christian life is simply part of the game. The difference between the two would seem to be that Wesley expects the believer to move beyond the messiness, and Mike expects the messiness to always be present.

And even here, they may not be as separate as one would think. Wesley believed that the sin nature remained in a Christian, just that the sin nature no longer had power in his or her life. However, the battle to fight with temptation would always remain. A believer does not have to succumb to it. It also seems that Wesley expected some form of spiritual dark times to be present.

Mike presented spiritual growth as a jagged line of peaks and valleys with a net positive result; and just as Wesley expected holiness, Mike expects dark times to be prepared for and and embraced. The spiritual journey cannot all be positive times and a straight line of growth shooting for the stars.

And on this tiny point, I think I would agree with Wesley more; not for his beliefs necessarily, but for his emphasis. He would have a believer expect perfection, and press through rough times with that end in sight. My concern with Mike’s point of view is that while spirituality is (and should be, to a degree) messy, I get the idea that “mess” is included in his ultimate understanding of the Christian life. (Hence the title of the book…) And even this I would agree with, if what is meant by “mess” could be clarified. God loves us and our mess just as we are, and yet desires to deliver us from our messiness; sometimes by throwing a divine mess into our human one. Our human shortcomings and failures are obliterated before a mysterious God who, in his love, hurls his topsy turvy Kingdom into our world and our hearts.

Messy Spirituality contained this sentiment, but I think Wesley presented the argument with more force and clarity; and so, it is harder to mistake his meaning. I do not think that Wesley would disagree with Mike, except for the use of the word “mess.” Wesley did not say that the mess did not exist; instead, he believed in a God that was capable and desirous of saving us from sin. If God is able to do it, we can expect that he will; and if he wants to do it, we can expect that he will do it now. Therefore, we should expect to be free from sin.

Wesley had no patience with those who said that people were free from habitual sin only; he pointed out that the word “habitually” is not in the Bible. Children of God do not sin; it is a defining characteristic of the state of being one of God’s children. Can we not take God’s Word at face value?

Part of Wesley’s animosity toward those who would shortchange the power of grace was based off of his high regard for the Scriptures and the commands contained therein. If one cheapens the commands, then God’s promises are also cheapened. We expect much of God, and God promises to deliver; is it so much that God expects things of us as well?

This is why I love Wesleyan theology. His thinking asks for cooperation and promises perfection; Mike’s demands humilty and promises love, which Wesley would agree with wholeheartedly. These are not exclusive views; rather, they are concurrent. I think part of the trouble lies with the simple fact that we do not expect perfection, or we do not believe that God desires to perfect us. And so, we do not become perfect. Wesley’s thinking attacks this belief; I was not impressed that Mike’s did.

On the whole, though, this issue of growth and perfection was the only area that presented differing views to me, serious or otherwise. These theologs would agree on much, and their contributions to spirituality should be appreciated.

Thoughts? Gold star if you read this far and didn’t skip anything…

On this year’s road and bridge list, Oklahoma is 49th. Nearly 1/4 of our bridges are “structurally deficient.” Isn’t that comforting. The I-244 ramp at 1st St is one of those. It has approximately 72,000 passengers per day.

Both political parties are to blame for this problem. Democrats were in control of the State House and Senate for years and didn’t give enough money for maintenance. Republicans took control of the House 4 years ago and went straight to tax cuts instead of investing in the state (The state is projecting to dip into the “rainy day fund” for this fiscal year. That would not be necessary if we didn’t cut taxes for the then-booming oil and gas industry.)

We may see some federal money for public works projects, like bridges, if Obama’s stimulus package passes Congress (of course it will). I hope we do see those funds. I also hope that the nation continues to invest more in infrastructure.

Conservative talking heads are criticizing the Obama plan already. They say it causes us to borrow too much. They say it will cause the collapse of the dollar.

Where were these “budget hawks” when our Commander-in-Chief decided one armed conflict wasn’t enough? Why didn’t they call for a tax increase (or spending cuts) to pay for the wars? Did you know this is the first time our nation has gone to war without increasing taxes? Our dollar has declined significantly as we’ve borrowed this war.

Here is the message I’m getting. Maybe I’m seeing it all wrong…
It is a-okay to borrow $1 trillion plus to invade a sovereign nation that poses no threat to our security.
It is wasteful (pork, if you will) to spend slightly less than $1 trillion on infrastructure projects which have potential to benefit all of us.

I agree with Conservatives that government wastes too much money. I don’t like our government borrowing money, especially from countries with whom we have mediocre relationships at best. I don’t want taxes to be too high, but I do want them to be high enough to fund our spending. If taxes are too high, cut spending, but don’t tell me that all the waste is on infrastructure and social programs (I know social programs are notoriously inefficient, but maybe we can fix them instead of killing them). Don’t tell me those things are waste but having a military budget that is more than the rest of the world, combined, isn’t waste. And we don’t even have a million man army, like North Korea or China.

I guess I got off the topic of bridges.

I have a question to ask.  Is it rude to walk around inside of stores with your headphones on?  I have a job that involves running errands in stores purchasing supplies needed for the youth ministry.   Lately I have been listening to my iPod and this has really helped to make this duty less boring, and now with an iPhone it has been even more enjoyable because I don’t have to do anything if I were to get a phone call.

With all this said…I have been getting a lot of looks from people while walking around.   Of course I don’t listen to music while checking out or dealing with people.  And that leads me to my question…is it rude to walk around with headphones on?

this pic is curtasy of a scrabble game between randall, carolyn, liz and myself.  thought it was funny.

also, i just uploaded the SN Christmas EP.  hope you enjoy.  you can download it from the SNCC Website.

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at one of my favorite blogs, Internet Monk. He’s assembled representatives of six different elements of the Church (they call themselves “The Liturgical Gangstas”) and has posed various questions to them. They respond to the questions in a long panel discussion type format.

Here’s the current discussion question:

Here’s this week’s question: Three words are coming up frequently in discussions about the church:

Sacramental: Think Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican. God gives sacraments. The church distributes them as the center of Christian experience and the church’s mission.

Attractional: Think the Evangelical MegaChurch. Kickin’ band. Lots of technology to fill the pews with an “audience” to hear the Gospel.

Missional: Equipping believers to go away from the “Building,” into the culture to participate in the mission of God as they find it in their culture: mercy ministries, justice and peacemaking, working with the poor, just being present in the world as servants and witnesses.

These are three good words. All of you would use them in some way. (Well….Baptists can’t spell sacramental, but still…)

What is the way to go to be the church Jesus is building: Sacramental, Attractional or Missional? And in what mixture? For what reasons?

The Gangsta’s responses are very revealing about their own faith history, as are the comments that follow. Anyway, it seems that Saturday Night is constantly trying to find the right mixture between these three approaches to doing church.

Just to let you know the players: Internet Monk is an ex-Calvinist who, in the last couple years, has become very receptive to the Emergent Church movement. Alan Creech is one of the early leaders of the Emergent Church movement and is now a Catholic. I have kept up with these two guys for about five years now. The others represent Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Lutheran persuasions.  I can’t really say that “emergent” is represented here in a big way; but their discussion is instructive anyway.

Jessica:  No.  I think it’s finished.  If you add anything to that you’ll destroy its simplicity.

hehehehe

and in case you didn’t “get” the poem, well, it’s suppose to be a joke, duh.

G Love & Special Sauce - Valentines Day 2009 Cain’s
Robin Williams - Feb 21st Brady
Keller Williams (Solo Looping Party) - Feb 25th 2009 Cain’s
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Feb 28th 2009 Brady
Yonder Mountain String Band - Mar 1st 2009 Cain’s
Andrew Bird - Mar 17th 2009 Cain’s
Billy Joel & Elton John Mar 17th 2009 BOK Center

Talk of the Nation, December 15, 2008 · Religious leaders often cite scripture as the basis for their opposition to gay marriage. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the Albert Mohler Program, believes a strict reading of the text forbids gay marriage. But Lisa Miller, religion editor at Newsweek, contends the Bible’s models of marriage are flawed, and its lessons about love actually argue for gay marriage.

Listen Now!

I listened to this episode of Talk of the Nation today and thought it was interesting and should be passed on to the people you love. So here it is, people I love.

UPDATE: here is a link that works.