Tobiaaaas and Naaaate - Part 3 - facebook pollination with the blogosphere

Tobias: hey nate, here are my thoughts. feel free to disagree. The more western society becomes dependant upon the logic of 19th century criticism, the more people will divorce themselves from the 'evangelical solutions' found within modern apologetics. Essentially, the church will be forced to accept a theory of blind faith in trying to reconcile the internal and historical ambiguities resulting in apparent theological inconsistencies.

What i've noticed nate is that the questions are getting tougher and every century the church is finding it hard to provide sufficient explanations not for the existence of God, but for the claim that Christianity provides that quintessential element to spiritual fullfilment. Prevarication and the unpopularity of Christianity in mwc is largely the result of the church providing insufficient evidence to provide valid answers (and even solutions) to lifes contradictions.

The post modern solution is to increase transparency; affirm the humanity of the church and admit its philisophical handicaps. But then, where does the church go from here? some explanation is needed to delieneate these apparent weakness and ambiguities. Remember, who are audience is.



Nate: As in Scripture - we are taught to respond to the activity of God, not generate it, apologize for it, encaspsulate it, etc... The only one who was, is and will be and can handle living in the past, present and future is the Trinity - we are incapable of that so we are called to live in the present only. Room for existentialism? There has to be? Should we acquiesce to it? Nope - don't have to. The Church is an embodied image that has its existence and being based upon a contingent Person - all we can do is be responsive (which doesn't mean uncreative or unimaginative) it just means that nothing is new under the sun of the cosmos - so is it our fault that we don't know everything. Our reality is not filled with a void of God but a super-saturation hyper-presence that invokes all of the ambiguity that we can handle. That ambiguity then becomes a "positive" ambiguity that provides us with the paradoxes that seem to rail against our existence but in actuality our existence

...as fallen created creatures (imago Dei) rails against the paradoxes because they exist in our perception as the reality of God's existence and therefore - we respond to them - we don't own them, we can't control them and we aren't responsible to explain them all - only to respond and participate in ambiguity.

Therefore the paradoxes that produce ambiguity are "positive" from God's point of view because they create a longing for something "more" beyond our circumstance and knowledge - something that only God can satisfy, but never completely. New Heaven, New Earth = uninihibited learning and exploration of truth without the "negative" effects of the fall. Paradoxes will will be the school of learning becuase fear will not exist and yet today paradoxes produce fear and a sense of not being in control. That is the human condition that perpetuates manipulation and sinful rebellion - not being in control. Therefore the postmodern condition has elevated the "positive" aspect of our finite limitations as humans but also has made it possible to be convicted in our hearts of the rage that we have against our fallen condition. We know that we can discover through the trajectory of paradoxes, but are unable to be leashed upon those paradoxes because of our innumerable frustrations with the...

(we are no longer able to be okay with paradoxes as a result of the Fall, but only in sin not as image bearers who still have undeniable imprints of God's image upon us, regenerate or unregenerate. Though the regenerates have a better advantage to reverse the Fall's effect in the here and now, though not exclusively. But after the new humanity begins, we will be okay with paradox as a result of our redeemed imago Dei. Paradox and ambiguity will not disappear but we will be able to desire it as source of education and discovery without walls. This gives new meaning then to the Lord's prayer in that we are called to bring the reality of Heaven to Earth and bring God's will to a broken planet, not just justice, mercy and righteousness but right learning, thinking and the discovery of the "other" as it pertains to Creation, ourselves, fellow humanity and the Trinity.)

limitations that Adam placed upon us through his sin and the inability to explore truth with hearts ablaze for it and a capacity to discover it at every turn. Our dormant discovery potential is what is railing against our present fallenness and the desire to know God, not fully, but in full capacity of our God given ability to know Him (which will never be exhausted but has the ability to be unhindered) is the desire of all mankind and yet we are inhibited and hate it because we are capable of so much more. Postmodernity says "there is more, never give up and never be fully satisfied and humble yourself under your limitations but don't give up on discovery and the exploration and necessary moving our your moorings." Modernity says, "here are the answers, don't ask unnecessary or flitting questions, accept the system, fit your part into the machine, there is a cause and there is an effect, it's that simple, why don't you just accept it and then go into the sleep or slumber of apathy,

play your role and then just die?"


Inductive thesis: The New Humanity in the New Heaven and Earth needs to be okay with eternal internal contradictions, tension and paradox - it is the eternal perpetual state of perfection to always be learning truth. Truth is a Person - the discovery of any person is an inexhaustable well of discovery that our hearts really long to keep discovering. If you ever finished discovering your wife - you would cease to long for her in some aspect or maybe in total. The new humanity will be in the constant flux of discovery through paradox, experience, teaching and interaction with the Logos and His Community of which we've been invited into. We are therefore called to that which produces longing; but confusion was introduced in the Fall and truth became juxtaposed to its opposite - deception. No longer does the world long for truth as a discovery but they mourn the inability to do so rightly and therefore embrace deception from the sinful desire to be in control. (certitude vs. assurance)

Addendum: Mundus vult decipi - the world wants to be deceived (Walter Kaufmann). It's a much easier life as in a baby who sees a rattle in front of their face. Then when the rattle is taken from their face - the rattle no longer exists, until it is brought into the scope of their vision again. You see, the reality of the rattle is only cognizant from their perspective. This smacks of the complaints of postmodernism more than postmodernism accounts for. Modernism say that the problem is that p.m.'s claim truth is relative. P.m.'s claim that modernists believe that truth is only relative if it affects them or they can see it or believe from a verified source of authority. P.m. says that there are truths and levels of reality out there that we aren't aware of and as a result we are situated in a relative cicumstance that doesn't allow us to access all that can be known and therefore we are incredibly limited and small in the broad scope of reality and we need the "other" more than ever before. God hasn't given you everything you need to have to understand reality but He has given you all that is needed to be introduced to the Person of Truth wherein reality lies, but it then loses its focii on propositions and becomes an adventerous discovery of who Truth is as a person and then and only then can propositions be formulated. But any formulation of proposistions about Truth are subject to the continual pattern of Truth's forward momentum of discovery - therefore creating a lifestyle for us of a hermeneutical spiral - reconfiguring our belief system based upon being introduced to a new element that effects all of my known reality. Modernity claims that we know enough and we have the tools to know enough and there doesn't need to be much more said about it or there doesn't need to be any more major changes - only remodeling the existing structure as is needed. (This is anti-Biblical and doesn't follow the flow of redemptive history as it has progressed and continues to do so.)

Modernity is the baby with the rattle who believes in presuppositionalism but not in the limitless possibilities that exist beyond them and the presuppostions they've been offered. The reality to them is that the rattle only exists because it came into the view of their perspective. Once it is gone, it is irrelevent. P.M. says that there is a reality that exists beyond my perspective that I cannot contain explain or ignore and it has an effect upon my perspective that I cannot control, whether larger or great. It has an effect that I am unable to account for - therefore I need the "other" and I cannot fully account for reality from my perspective.

This is seen in the example of the blind men who are situated around the body of an elephant and are called upon to describe the elephant as an elephant. All of them will have a different perspective and diagnosis of truth on their own, but together they can describe most of what that elephant is like. The Fall created a rift in those relationships so that each blind man argues with the "other" blind man about the reality of his elephant and what it actually looks like as well as with the Creator of the elephant. The reversal of that is to bring each blind man back into fellowship with each other and with the Creator of the elephant - the ministry of reconciliation so that they can describe the elephant, though incompletely and not altogether coherent, they are able to do so much more together than on their own along with the aiding and direction of the illusive yet hyper-present Creator of the elephant. It would be impossible for the Creator of the elephant to give an exhaustive explanation and inutitive tacit knowledge of the elephant to the blind men, becuase then they would be equal in their existence, ability and power as it corresponded to the Creator of the elephant. The longer they spend with each other and the elephant the better descriptors they can come up with.

There is also the aspect of the understanding of my reality being on a continuum of discovery interconnected with my ability to be more aware and more mature in dealing with my awareness (maturity/life experience/ experiential tacit knowledge).

So is truth relative or is your cirumstance relative to truth (as whole)?

Who then is the real relativist, the one who recognizes that there is a reality beyond their perspective and seeks to honor that reality instead of just their own available perspective or is it the one who only acquiesces to that which has entered their perspective and can be contained within their field of vision. Reality to the second person is only that which is then centered upon their field of vision and their ability to describe what should be believed based upon their field of vision.

The question then is, are we responsible for that which is not available to our perspective? - the p.m. bellows YES because it requires us to depend upon the "other" and produces a lifestyle that has to exist in the place of need and dependence upon the "other" and can never exist in isolation.

The modernist claims that if there is a different perspective than their own, it exists to either be disagreed with, destroyed, as an antagonist to help me build my protaginism (strengthen my condition based upon on the challenge but weakness of yours) or as a perspective that I might have to obey, aquiesce to or completely shift towards while losing most or all of what distinguished my prior perspective and afforded me my differentiation from the "other".

P.M. says, Keep your differentiation, but bring it to the table of dialogue and discovery and let it contribute to the whole of reality that is beyond us all in our perspectives, positions, and situated circumstances. This is one of the most pertinent forms of reconciliation that our world needs to discover as it pertains to the Kingdom of God. With this we can invest in a kingdom that we participate in but is beyond our own selves instead of building our own kingdom securely in order to distinguish ourselves as better and more in touch with Reality than the "other." None of us has that advantage.

Who then is in danger of being the real relativist and which form of relativity is the most dangerous - honoring it, ignoring it, fighting against it, becoming apathetic towards it, etc...?

God is sovereign and controls the flow of history as well as what is unfolding now as it hasn't ever before. Can we trust Him to do that among us and allow Truth to be what it is on its own terms?

Future considerations:

1. Why did Adam, Eve and Lucifer choose to deceive themselves when there wasn't any brokenness as a propensity to deal with? They just chose to disobey out of a perfect and unbroken relatedness to God.

Nate and Tobias or Nate vs. Tobias - crackilatin' on fasheezy bookmeezy

Nate: emphasis on "the" ? (the eschaton)


Tobias: I say 'the' in defiance of the spiritual or preterist view marking modern eschatalogy. My conviction is still bent on that one cataclysmic event marking the consumation of time and history. In essence, i still believe in a future apocalypse and the literal return of Christ second comming (not rapture).


Nate: I;m with you baby. The Day of the Lord as it is developed in the prophets is something that I've been hitting since the beginning of the year but it has so many dimensions to it. Desolation and reward, etc.... very interesting stuff. This isn't the stuff that is easy to discuss with people.


Tobias: You're right, its not easy to discuss. But as a friend and great prophet once said, "we have to learn to embrace the ambiguities." - Nathan Smith...: )

miss you bro



Nate: Check this out - Kierkegaard wrote about paradoxes (ambiguity) and said, "The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo."

This is an excerpt from the book, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope and the chapter is called, Orthoparadoxy in place of orthodoxy/orthopraxis. Excellent stuff!

The Trinity is the best example of orthoparadoxy!

My way of existing conveys my final answer. - Levinas or as Jacques Ellul put it, "The movement of faith is unceasing because no explanation it offers is ever finished." That's from the prophets as it relates to eschatological fulfillment.

"It would seem very strange that Christianity should have come into the world just to receive an explanation" - Kierkegaard



Tobias: ....

Tobias vs. Nate or Tobias and Nate...more forthcoming

Tobias: "He's so dope - better than the pope, better than soap on a rope, better than a Republican hope (ful)...."

Dude, i'm a start callin you "pastor run dmc". You're one hilarious brother. we miss you man. I hear through the grapevine you're a pastor now. Never would have pictured it, but you definetly have the gift to gab : )

love and respect chief

Nate: Tobi, hit me wit your digitees before I get real figitee and call up some killer midget please - like that one cheesee maneez?

Tobias: Platinum brother : )

Nate: bro, I hope you didn't miss the locution in your perlocution - I want your PHONE NUMBER so that I can find out how ya'll are doing. I just had George, Drena and Mark here overnight. Was good to see them. He said that you and him had time together. I sang your praises with him and he told me you guys were off to Portugal maybe. Blessings bro!

Tobias: hey nathan, since you like to rhyme, i thought i'd send my digits so we both can shine, on the telephone. sINCE thats where we belong. Speaking the-a-logicly in a diffrent tong! dangggggg! that boi snapped (:

Nate: let me excuse myself so I can go put that on the shelf, I rock hard but that's too much wealth - you gotta stop ma man before your cheddar becomes that rockafella - and you forget alllllllll us small people. Holla...

Tobias: I'll have to do an exegesis on that last rhyme, you sorta blew my mind. so until next time, continue to shine, like a penny or a dime, because my women is fine, and she says 'hey nate, dont playa hate'

peace : )

love you bro

Nate: ...

competition vs. composing

Competition vs. Forming others (composing)

outlets for our training vs. competition with peers. If we focus on developing ourselves


People want you to be yourself and not what they expect you to be

We are named by those who are not of us; we do not name ourselves.

Jackie boy

“If you’re ever stuck in some thick undergrowth, in your underwear, don’t stop and think of what other words have ‘under’ in them, because that’s probably the first sign of jungle madness.”

—Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

Africa Emerging

This is an excerpt from a Brian McClaren website that I found. It explains so much of what I saw when I was there. There are going to be just as many disillusioned Christians over there as there are over here. What will be the next phase of mission? What will it look like? Will it be moored in the foundations of the traditional Church that preaches salvation by faith alone and wants to get bigger buildings built...read on as he begins with a question about the Church...




"Is that gospel a message of evacuation – how God will airlift some of us out of this world and its problems, how God wants us to huddle in a holy warehouse between now and then, enjoying blessings and the joys of a church subculture? Or is that gospel a call to incarnation and transformation, to live out the message of God’s kingdom so we, like salt and light, like yeast in bread or seeds in soil, bring new possibilities to our world?"



Benny Hinn posters everywhere. “We like Benny Hinn,” a Ugandan member of parliament told me. “He gives our people hope. They feel that they are locked in poverty, but Benny tells them that God can bless them.” What if their hopes are raised at the crusade and then nothing changes? I ask. “Then they are disillusioned,” he adds, implying that their post-crusade disillusionment is no worse than their pre-crusade despair. I see his point, but still wonder

A Ugandan man tells us that the ever-present local Benny wannabe’s promise healing from HIV if only the infected will give the “man of God” their car or home or property. When they “sow their seed” and the promised healing or prosperity doesn’t come, a backlog of disillusioned people accumulates. Sometimes they become angry, so the prosperity preachers have to spend some of their own prosperity on armed guards. TIA.

In Nairobi, our group visited two slums, the famous Kibera (featured in “The Constant Gardener”), and a smaller but equally poor “second hand slum” nearby. A small Pentecostal church of about 60 people, City Harvest, led by Pastor Charles, does more in these slums than many “prosperity churches” of multiple thousands, incarnating the gospel in the form of an HIV clinic and support groups in the slums for those living with AIDS. One afternoon, our group of about 20 gathered in a tiny, dark, corrugated tin hut, one dead light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the only illumination coming in through the open door and from the half-circles where tin meets tin. We listened to stories of women living with HIV, single and abandoned mothers bearing burdens none of us can imagine, and we could hardly talk, eyes brimming and throats choked up not simply by sadness, but also by beauty: at least one church is here, we thought. At least one pastor and those he has trained care and walk among these people in this black muck and desperate need, and that is beautiful beyond words.

Two nights later, I was with a group of about a dozen young Kenyans at the opposite end of the spectrum: lawyers, doctors, business owners, engineers, teachers, workers with NGO’s. I could have been with any group of young adults in Stockholm, London, Santiago, Seattle, or Boston. Too often, the conventional church was no longer working for these educated young Africans. It focused on getting souls saved, building bigger buildings, and attracting bigger crowds, but its gospel ignored the systemic injustice, corruption, poverty, violence, and suffering in which these young adults had come of age. One young woman told me, “I work at an NGO that is staffed by young Kenyans like myself. All of us grew up in the church, but not one of my colleagues identifies himself as a Christian. They call themselves agnostics or atheists. But it is the god of the personal prosperity gospel that they have rejected. Their desire to make a difference shows that they really have faith in a God that nobody talks about – the God who cares about justice, poverty, oppression, and suffering.”
..
Back in Uganda, a young woman talks with me. She too has been to college, and she too loves God but is seeking for an understanding of the gospel and church that makes more sense in today’s Africa. “Do you really have hope that the church can change?” she asks. “Yes,” I tell her, and recount stories of churches that are living out a transformational, incarnational, integral gospel around the world. She doesn’t smile. She’s seen too many religious promises and too much religious hype and experienced too much disillusionment. She’ll wait and see if anything comes of our conference


Something will come. I could feel it as we sang and danced together with joy before God. The resilience of Africans is a sign of resurrection, a joy that moves the feet and a faith that can move mountains. The air vibrates with it, hums with it, like the cloud of dragonflies that hover around us as we walk together on red African soil.

Ad Fontes

In speaking with a friend who I find I have a lot in common with, we both discovered that there is a search that takes place in our hearts. It can be likened unto the early explorers who discovered the New World by following the flow of water. They came by ocean and some settled on the coast, they went up river and some settled by the river, they went further up to the waterfalls, and some settled there, they went even further up and discovered roaring rapids and some settled there. Some found streams and brooks and there they settled while others found lakes and settled there and still others found hidden tributaries and settled near there. All of us know that without water and its source, we cannot live and therefore cannot live far from it. I have seen that my passion leads me past the depth of the great lakes, the powerfully majestic and awe-inspiring waterfalls, past the serene and peaceful streams, past the expansive coastline, over the thunderous and frothing rapids. I want to go past and beyond the wide and surging undertow of the river. I want the source - the fount, the spring from whence this all flows. Where will that take me? - I just know that I cannot settle in the river valley, on the coastline, within the spray of falling water, or by the joyful brook edge. These are all wonderful places - many should desire these places - I know that I don't.

Pascal once wrote - "Finally, let them recognize that there are two kind of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him."


There was once a princess who grew up in a kingdom that had been ravished by decades of famines, war and plague. One night, as the princess slept she had a dream. In this dream she was walking through the market that lay by the sea, when a young beggar caught her eye. As she turned to face him the young beggar looked up, but before their eyes could meet the dream ended and the princess awoke. As the dream faded a haunting voice arose in her mind that informed her that if she were ever to meet this young man, he would shower her with riches beyond her wildest dreams.
This dream etched itself so deeply on the princess that she carried the vision deep in her heart, until one day, years later, as she walked through the market, her gaze caught hold of the same man who had visited her in her dreams all those years ago. Without pausing she ran up to him and proceeded to relay the whole vision. Never once did he look up, but when the princess had finished her story he reached into an old sack and pulled out a package. Without saying a word, he offered it to the princess and asked her to leave.
Once the princess reached her dilapidated castle she ripped open the package and, sure enough, there was a great wealth of pure gold and precious diamonds. That night she placed the package in a safe place and went to bed. But her mind was in turmoil and the long night was spent in sleepless contemplation. Early the next morning she arose, retrieved the treasures and went down to the water's edge. Once there she summoned up all her strength and threw the riches deep into the sea. After watching the package sink out of sight, she turned and without looking back went searching for the young beggar.
Finally she found him sitting in the shade of an old doorway. The princess approached, held out her hand and placed it under his chin. Then she drew his face towards hers and whispered, "Young man, speak of the wealth you possess which allows you to give away such worldly treasure without a moment's thought."



Peter Rollins in "How (Not) to Speak of God" believes that...

"The desire for transormation was itself (in the story) the means of transformation: the seeking after spiritual wealth was itself the evidence of this wealth's presence."

"Because God...can never be made utterly present, desire is never satisfied in God."

"...if we desire a new car, the desire is fulfilled in its possession: what was previously absent has been made present and thus has satisfied the void which desire had formed...God is never made present in this way: God's presence is always hyper-presence...this is analagous to the idea of a ship sunken...while the ship contains the water and the water contains the ship, the ship only contains a fraction of the water while the water contains the whole of the ship. Our saturation by God does not merely fill us but also testifies to an ocean we cannot contain...desire for God is born in God."

"In love we desire our beloved, indeed the presence of our beloved is that which sparks the desire. This is because the presence of the one we love testifies to the fact that what we know of them is only a fragment of what is still to be discovered...Augustine said, "For certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known...seeking God is not some provisional activity which precedes the goal of finding, but is itself evidence of having already found."

"Rather than desire being fulfilled in the presence of God, religious desire is born there...consequently a genuine seeking after God is evidence of having found...to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for a meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence."

"A true seeking after God results fromn experience of God which one falls in love with for no reason other than finding God irresistably lovable. In this way the lovers of God are the ones who are most passionately in search of God."



While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

-Matthew

If I don't desire what I choose, I am religious
If I desire what I don't choose, I am spiritual
If I desire what I choose, I am visceral, I am me, I am alive...
I desire

I do not create my desire
I do not create my identity
I do not create the void
I do not create

I am to respond to that which is in me
I am to know that which is in me
I am to follow desire but not obey it
It will lead me to Him

If I don't live in the moment, I live in the past,
If I don't live in the past, I live into the future
If I don't live into the future, where am I living.
I want to be alive past anticipation and reflection.

Jesus knows the future
Jesus knows the past
Jesus is with me now
Jesus is...