7/31/2006













I'm fascinated by this photo of Bonhoeffer on guitar. There's not much said about it as far as I know. Thereagain if I read German there might be something I don't know about. From what I gather his instrument was piano. He's got to be playing some classical orchestral piece I imagine. But really, so little is said about his playing any stringed instruments. How does he know how? Maybe he's just sitting and plunking around on a student's guitar.

Why I have not yet blogged the Bonhoeffer chapters

Though I know that excuses are not "solution-oriented" I'm going to give you some insight into what is taking so long on blogging these next few Bonhoeffer chapters. 1932, the subject of the next chapter, is a crucial year in Bonhoeffer's development and for Hitler's Reich. Bethge dedicates the whole chapter to important months in this year. It's almost like "The Reich did this---Bonhoeffer did this." We are made keenly aware that Bonhoeffer was wide awake and active as a leader to countermand the German Christian seizure of the Evangelical church.

But here's the deal: As I said before I'm reading Clifford Green's Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality at the same time. Green calls this period (1932) Bonhoeffer's transition "From the Phraseological to the Real". He follows that chapter (four) with "Creation and Christology 1932-33" (chapter five). This is 141 pages of not-lite reading! While Bethge only briefly refers to the Christology lectures, Green brings me into what I really want---full encounter.

I should say that I am really up to Finkenwalde in my Bethge reading. So the truth is I've gotten lazy, mixed-up, and distracted over the last few months. Also John Franke has just released Barth for Armchair Theologians on WJK press as a guilty and fun(!) rabbit-trail for me.

I set my face like flint to finishing Bethge's Bio by December 31st on the centennial of Bonhoeffer's birth. We'll see what happens. If you're along for the ride you might learn more about my personal reading habits than about Bonhoeffer by then. Bear with me. At the end I will post easy links to all chapter submissions.

7/30/2006

















You don't want to hear your 4 yr. old say suddenly:
"I think you're going to be mad at me. I just had an accident.
On you."
I admit it was disconcerting. But a memory nonetheless. Thank God for soap and water and clean clothes. (I thank God for my lovely wife who regularly does laundry! She washes all those clothes that my kids learn to potty train in!)

















"Take my picture too daddy!"

7/27/2006

Steve Earle - Jerusalem
Steve Earle--I Feel Alright Promo Video
Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears (live)
The One Book Meme

1. One book that changed your life:

Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

John 'Lofty' Wiseman, SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea

4. One book that made you laugh:

Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

5. One book that made you cry:

Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century

6. One book that you wish had been written:
God's Agency Across Time: The Carefully Written Record of How Each Believing Community Used the Bible from Genesis to Revelation

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Mark Nation, John Howard Yoder

10. Now tag five people:
Jon Trott
Jen Rice
Glenn Kaiser
Curt
Carol

America you don't speak for me!

Maybe in Bizzaro world we all gave Israel the greenlight to continue the carnage. I'm too angry for words but I'm sure I'm not as angry as some. I pity my government. I pity Israel. They are bringing the whole world down. God help us all.

homeless blogger

I've never lived completely apart from a homeless person. I think I've related before how I grew up. It's wrong for me to not talk about it more often. I've always lived either in homes for homeless people or in direct proximity to their daily activities. Living in community is, for me, living in and with poverty. I consider it a distinct privilege. If that sounds crazy ask me about it. Surfing around this morning I came upon a blog by Kevin Barbieux, a homeless man living in Nashville Tennessee. His blogs have been up for years and he's received some national attention for them, notably in Salon.com
I consider it particularly unfortunate that I am not as involved with the homeless as I was at one time. I sit in this little office cubicle and stare at a computer. I see them panhandling up and down my street outside my window. Sometimes I stop to talk but not as often as I'd like. I miss the daily interaction of working in the homeless shelter. I miss the stories and conversation. I miss being part of so many lives over a given period of time. Forgive my little sentimental rant. There's little that is sentimental about being homeless. I recently argued perfusely with a friend here who grew up very sheltered but is now enamored by the thought of hitch-hiking and squatting, and attending the hobo gathering. I must have sounded like a mother hen when I described getting caught on an express freight train or caught in the freezing rain without shelter or having nowhere to take a piss for hours.

7/24/2006

What a Country!

So Christianity Today's David P. Gushee has an article titled "What's Right About Patriotism" on the CT Weblog. He mentions that as Christians we cannot lose a proper love for our country in the face of the seeming lack of patriotism in America right now. He says that the Christian Right are part of the small number who are too nationalistic. He writes:
"It is deeply uncomfortable from a theological perspective that in many parts of our nation, the only place in which one can experience any substantive evocation of patriotism is the local Christian congregation. Other kinds of public celebrations of national loyalty have generally collapsed."
I have a question for Mr. Gushee: "Have you been to a baseball game recently? Do you watch sports at all?" The sight of 40,000 fans with their hands over their hearts singing "God Bless America" and (at White Sox Cellular Field) fighter jets screaming in time over head are only a small but very moving semblance of mass patriotism. Do you watch TV or listen to the radio? I don't know how you think "national loyalty has generally collapsed." Whether we wave flags or not the fact is we cannot help but be loyal to our nation. We participate in a physical and mental infrastructure that are loyal to the State. It does not need my flag waving to remain itself. I think it thrives on mass inaction and is postmodern enough to accept a mass defection from overt patriotism. Today I got an envelope from the American Bible Society asking for support. On the envelope were the words "One Nation, Under God, Indivisible; With Liberty and Justice For All. Free Gift Enclosed." When I opened the envelop, the first words of the letter read, "My dear Friend in Christ, What would you most likely want in your backpack if you were fighting in Iraq?" The free gift enclosed was an American flag.

Two Christian organizations on the same day are enough to arouse my attention. Let's talk patriotism. First let me say that I was born an American citizen and do not hold dual citizenship anywhere else. I have been able to visit India, Haiti, Canada, Mexico, China, Israel, and Palestine for short periods. Upon returning home to America, to one degree or another I always felt right at home. I was a missions major for a time in college and seriously pursued the idea of living great lengths of time in another country in service of the Kingdom. The most significant hurdle that finally forced me to drop my major in that college was the distinct feeling that we were being trained to infiltrate the foreign population with a culture love for Jesus that secretly also loved America. I felt that my academic adviser never really escaped his racist upbringing and really had no love for particular people so much as for their souls. I remember him walking in the morning the US got word of the genocide in Rwanda and exclaiming, "Don't be bothered by this little skirmish. These particular African tribes have been fighting for years. There's nothing anyone can do." This type of supposedly apolitical sympathy enables the kind of apathy and intransigence that lead to war globally. At the time that I heard these words I had no idea what was going on. His comments were so flippant and brief that I thought nothing of it. In the weeks to follow I got mad. I wish I could say I confronted him, but I didn't.

Whether it's David P. Gushee of Christianity Today, the American Bible Society, or my old mission's adviser reminding me of my Americanness, the constant theme seems to be that I need guidance to be political. The other idea is that politics never stands in the way of being Christian. We have nothing to fear from the State especially when it is Democratic. Finally, being in the world but not of it involves political allegiance. I'll take all of these points on at the same time. The real problem with CT, the ABS, and my adviser is that they are not political enough! They don't read the Bible politically. They assume that their audience passively subsists on just enough rhetoric to take the edge off their conscience. And so we need guidance. As though the audience we're asking, "Please remind me to be patriotic. Remind me to vote. Remind me that there is really nothing I can do to stop genocide except to feel badly and rush in to minister to the population later." [As an aside note: Isn't it interesting that church membership booms during atrocities? Does Evangelicalism serve best only as a balm after the damage is done?]

I hear the argument a lot lately that I should feel privileged to hold opinions like these. That I am protected by America's bombs, her Reserve troops, her big companies, her foreign interests. Some kid born in 1988 from a small town in middle America is getting blown up by an IED so that I don't have to worry about patriotism. But I do care. I did not ask that kid to go fight for me. I make so little money every year that since the war began I haven't had to pay the federal government for one shell spent on this mistaken war. I care about the half million children who died of sanctions in Iraq before this war. I care about the thousands who've died since. I care that as a nation we have lost all conscience or concern for what Eisenhower called "the military industrial complex." And I believe all this because I am an American. If I were truly unpatriotic I would care nothing about the way things are going. I love this country enough to say our current path is dead wrong and that it predates this Presidential administration. We would do right to surrender our permanent seat in the UN on the grounds that our true motives are not for the world's interests but our own selfish interests. Only a foreign policy of repentance can save us now. We are intent on setting a precedent for war the world over and letting all our allies do the same. Israel's actions in Lebanon are the case in point.

Yes Mr. Gushee I care about America. But I am not proud of my nation's interests. I hold my citizenship like Paul held his Roman citizenship. He used it wisely but then spoke constantly of the Kyrios Christ as opposed to the Kyrios Caesar. His readers knew what he was talking about. NT Wright does an excellent exposition of Phillipians 3 by way of explanation in his article "Paul's Gospel and Caesar's Empire". The Judaizers were wanting to offer haven and safety from the Roman cult in circumcision. Paul admonished against any safety from the State in circumcision. Our citizenship is in heaven but until then we have no safe haven here. Neither in Judaism nor in Rome. Yes we can expect persecution for worshiping Kyrios Christ. For wearing our citizenship as a loose garment. But we envision a Kingdom with different ways of being human. Kyrios Christ is out for a new humanity. In worship, in the eucharist, in fasting and prayer, we the called out Body of Christ remember our true allegiance. I do not rely on America's version of freedom or peace. Peace for America is an illusive security based on fear. For all of our wars we feel more insecure not less. I don't need my government to tell me I am safe.

Even so I cannot be independent of my country. I drink her water. I breathe her air. I use her electricity. I speak her language. I listen to her music. I even speak the language of dissent that she fosters. For all practical purposes I could be mistaken for a Democratic American. In the same way I could be mistaken for a Nice Guy and not a Christian. What does a Christian dress like? What sort of music does he listen to? As a teenager you could know by my t-shirts and my music that I was a Christian. Today you can't. But spend a week with me, watch my every move, and you'll find that I have pricked conscience. I do this faith-thing in that I care a lot about naming Sin. I care about Formation. I care about aligning my every move with God's. Someone recently reminded me of the Amish response to the question "Are you a Christian." It is "Ask my family."

I am a social animal. I care a lot about human interaction. That makes me political. God made me that way. If getting angry makes me a good American and if America wants men of conscience than I'm a proud American. But I know too that sometimes America threatens my faith. She is now threatening the Body of Christ worldwide with her warfare and her foreign selfishness. Christians in Lebanon are dying because my President and his choice of Ambassador to the UN refuse to call Israel's actions excessive. Kyrios Christ calls me to speak and act against those actions. As He guides me I do. Does that sound other-worldly and strange? So be it.

More David P. Gushee to Read:

The Middle East's Death Wish—and Ours
We say "everyone wants peace," but we also want to see our enemies destroyed.

Dialogue:
Another Point of View: Evangelical Blindness on Lebanon
The academic dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary is angry at evangelical Christians, Israel, Hezbollah, the U.S., and the international community.
by Martin Accad

We Risk Not Just Suffering, But Annihilation
An open letter to Dr. Martin Accad.
by David P. Gushee

7/21/2006

Response to US response to Israel/Lebanon conflict

The White House continues to do all it can to "win friends and influence people" in the Middle East.

Jon Trott coined a little winsome tribute.

Here's my response on BlueChristian.blogspot.com:

My prayer this year is that I can set every other truth I say I believe to one side for the One truth that we humans are somehow made in God's image. All humans. Heaven will be a shock to our system in that we will encounter all these "castoffs" that we never knew about but who are near to God's heart.

Our US culture is all about setting a price on human worth. But that price is so low. We assign value based on buying power. This very imaginative construct is failing. We see it all around us. What should make us Christians different is that we take God's values seriously. But that will involve being transformed non-conformists who live and imagine life by different values.

Here is a portion of a liturgy from the Ekklesia project gathering this year:

"We confess that we are double-minded. We seek to have both our way and yours. We believe those two paths to be the same, but we are deceived. How great is the destruction caused by those who presume to know the way. How great is the darkness within those who trust in their own righteousness and fail to submit to yours."

7/20/2006

ISRAEL MUST STOP BOMBING LEBANON NOW!
This is crazy! Bombing civilians is not an answer to kidnapping soldiers.
Why won't the UN speak out on this? Why won't the American people speak out?
Why instead are we talking about possible Hezbollah attacks on America?
Not In My Name is a group of American Jews who want all this to stop.

7/18/2006

I just created a LibraryThing list and started with my Barth and Bonhoeffer books. This'll take some time. I'm looking for something for music too.

7/14/2006

"A little exercise for young theologians" by Helmut Thielicke

A little exercise for young theologians by Helmut Thielicke
Introduction by Martin E. Marty
Eerdmans, 1962, 1998.
Translated by Charles L. Taylor

As Michael and I were packing up for the festival this year we were down in our Wilson multi-function room and stumbled upon this tiny book by Helmut Thielicke. I don't know where it came from. Michael hadn't remembered placing it in the crate where he found it. I was aware of Helmut Thielicke, the German theologian and contemporary of Karl Barth, but I hadn't read much by him. The edge of the little book is sadly mildewed but the inside is well loved by the previous anonymous reader. At only forty-one pages, something this size is usually called an article not a book. Upon engaging these little pages seriously I got hooked. Lights flashed and bells rung. In simple, modest language Thielicke observes the sickness that strikes every student of theology. It is an explanation, a warning, and a bridge between lay folk, pastors, and anyone who uses theological language. His analogies are humorous but dead on.

7/12/2006

Here is this year's family picture.

My beloved prof's website

Well, I'm going to take a risk and tell you who that beloved prof is who was so ambivalent about Bonhoeffer. I do this because I still appreciate his work for the Kingdom of God. Dale Brueggeman served as theology professor at Central Bible College where I attended. He began work for the Division of Foreign Missions for the Assemblies of God in 1994 and is now involved in Eurasia Education Services. Maybe he will have forgotten all of the aforementioned conversations and me in particular. Nevertheless his mission work goes on and I'm grateful for it. I also recall in that same semester that I took Philosophy, Theology 1 and 2 at the same time. So as one prof discussed whether God existed another took it on faith. As Dale assured us of God's judgment, my soteriology prof leaned on God's desire that all be saved. Talk about a ride! I remember hearing from Dale one morning that hell was God's intention and from Vernon later the same day that it was not God's desire. When I interjected in Vernon's class a point from Dale's, Vernon grabbed my desk spun me in front of the class and began erratically pointing a finger in my face to make his point. There were wounds licked and tears shed in my dark corner of the library that evening. But I got better. Vernon apologized later. Lesson from all this: don't play a Westminster doctorate and a Fuller doctorate off each other on the judgment of God. At least not in the middle of the lesson in front of the class.

Bonhoeffer Ethics website

There is so much new attention to Dietrich Bonhoeffer these days that I almost fear a Bonhoeffer fatigue will result with this new generation of scholarship. When I began reading him in the late eighties and early nineties I didn't know anyone with much interest. I remember a conversation with my theology professor over lunch. I asked "What do you think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book on the Psalms?" His reply was "Dietrich Bonhoeffer? I guess the best thing I've got to say about him is that his approach to the Bible offered him comfort in prison." While I valued this professor's thoughts very much at the time, I got the feeling Bonhoeffer was too liberal for his Westminster training. They measured everything by a reformed epistemology canon. Only years later did I learn the full extent of how strict that canon was. This same professor made the comment that "if your theology is wrong you will burn in hell!" Well, that's a tangent.

Richard Gillingham of Sub Ratione Dei has a Dietrich Bonhoeffer Resource site with up-to-date links that give some great background on Bonhoeffer. This site is not yet high on Google's list for the search term "Dietrich Bonhoeffer" but it should be.

7/11/2006

Why Johnny Cash is so important to me. . .

I must be the only guy I know with hundreds of songs spanning the life of just one artist. A guy who has been dead now for years. I have a collection not of albums but of label sets. Granted I'm not the greatest Johnny Cash fan, but I've read the books by the real fans. I have four books by or on Cash. When I saw the latest American recording (number five) I stood amazed. I said to myself that I had enough. I thought I'd heard enough of this old voice to last me my life. Of course I listen to those songs again and again. American V has remade me into a wondrous believer in song crafting once again. But American V wasn't enough. I'd been eying this album Personal File released on Columbia/Legacy. I wanted it but wasn't sure I really needed more Cash on voice and guitar. Upon listening through both albums back to back I have to say that these songs instill in me a fresh love for storytelling and memory. Johnny Cash is more than a voice, more than a legendary performer, more than a personality. He is a bard. He is a collector and popularizer of old tales, magical memories, melancholy feelings, and faith hard as granite. When I listen to John I find a connection with the Spirit of the ages. He had a lust for life and story-song until his dying day. That impossible vigor mesmerizes me. I hope to be infected with a little bit of that spirit. My mind was widened by it years ago but I hope to be infected with the story-telling way he embodied. I want to tell stories with my life energy. That is my prayer.