It is not that the church’s theological absolutes are no longer trusted, but that the old modes in which those absolutes have been articulated are increasingly suspect and dysfunctional. That is because our old modes are increasingly regarded as patriarchal, hieararchic, authoritarian, and monologic.
Walter Brueggeman asks how this affects our way of preaching in “Preaching as Reimagination.”
Arlin Rothauge’s “Sizing Up a Congregation” (pdf) is a great overview of the dynamics found in different sized churches.
It addresses the Family Church (0-50), The Pastoral Church (50-150), The Program Church (150-350), and The Corporation Church (350-500+). From the perspective of the pastor, the issues are different in each of those. The smallest one calls the pastor to be innovative and finding things to do, but at the same time be available. The Family church is all about being reactive, there is not a lot of room for innovation, the pastor often seems to have favorites (those that have initiative to be in contact). When we move into the program church, the root of complaints towards the pastor is that he is not available for all groups, and does not participate in all programs. The issues in the largest church group are seldom about the pastor, more about lack of space for various tasks (lets build something together).
Rothauge does not address what we might call mega churches or multisite variations.
The United Methodist Church or, more specifically, its U.S. component, often continues to be entangled in U.S. political and economic ideologies and desires. … we must clearly grasp that the so-called “American Way of Life” requires critique. Capitalism and consumerism are not practices taken straight from the gospel.
Elaine A Robinson has an interesting article about the need to restructure UMC in an Age of Empire (PDF). Asking questions about the unbalanced relationship between north and south.
PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) is one of the most comprehensive and well respected divorce-prevention/marriage enhancing programs in the world. PREP is a skills and principles-building curriculum designed to help partners say what they need to say, get to the heart of problems, and increase their connection with each other.
On their website are various resources about marriage, cohabitation, and divorces. It has a bend towards traditional understanding of the family, but valuable nonetheless.
Prep, Inc – Articles. – Of special interest is Marriage in the 90s: A Nationwide Random Phone Survey (PDF).
ELCA’s understanding of Global Mission in the 21st Century is explained in the paper “Global Mission in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision of Evangelical Faithfulness in God’s Mission.”
The focus on ELCA’s Global Mission is the word accompaniment that is explained here.
While on the phone, I asked her what she thought of those groups. Her answer might surprise you: “Everyone knows,” she said, “That short term missions benefit the people who come, not the people here.”
Is that true? If so, then thousands of people are raising millions of dollars each year to do something not for others, but for themselves. Are we fooling ourselves by pretending these trips help people when they are really just an excuse to see a foreign country? If our good works are not doing good, why do them?
via catapult magazine The cost of short-term missions. The original article is to be found on pdf at www.ajshonduras.org/joannsarticle.pdf.
In the International Bulletin of Missionary Research one can find all kinds of facts and figures about global Christianity.
Hans Kung focuses in his studies on Paradigm Shifts in Christianity. Here is a pdf that showw how Kung sees the historical process of Christianity through the ages.
Lark News is a parody site with news from the world of Christianity.
Theology is not unrelated to socio-political realities of existence; and that historically it has been used to maintain the social and political advantages of the status quo.
The second symptom of the illness of man’s faith stems from relationship among fellow human beings: The Politics of Marginalization; more forcefully, Ang Politika ng Pagkamanhid. The Rich Man did not mind Lazarus, covered with wounds and praying for mere crumbs that fall from his table. There was a great chasm between them, even,though Lazarus was just at the Rich Man’s door. Because the Rich Man was already comfortable, his world no longer accounted for Lazarus. Farther and farther, every single day, araw-araw, until every single day reached forever at death, and the chasm became permanently unbridgeable. Man responds to a similar situation every single day; a tap on the car window for every street children begging for coins; an absent nodding of the head for a lola on the umpteenth retelling of the story of her life; bribing for one’s convenience. In a sense, this politics of marginalization is necessary to the economics of affluence. Once man starts serving mammon, one can no longer be present to the people around him.
The New Orleans Levee is a critical parody that was introduced to a group of Seminary students in December 2006, when we took a course about disaster response in New Orleans.
Another visit during my stay in Detroit was to a mosque in Dearborn and a visit to an American Arab museum. The fact that not all Arabs are Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs is obvious but very often forgotten. The website www.discoverislam.com offers some helpful information about the faith. In the context of the US, a fatwa from July 2005 is very important:
Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden – and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not “martyrs.”
The Qur’an, Islam’s revealed text, states: “Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.” (Qur’an, 5:32)
Prophet Muhammad said there is no excuse for committing unjust acts: “Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well, and that if they do wrong you will do wrong to them. Instead, accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong (even) if they do evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
via Fatwa against Terror (PDF).
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that is:
We work to address inequity throughout our region through a process of recognition, reconciliation and renewal. We strive to build relationships that create social justice and build sustainable inclusive communities.
via Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.
We focused especially on interfaith issues and how the conversation has changed over relatively short time. A resource to look at in the context of interfaith is Interfaith Heroes.
“What they don’t know — what even most conservative Christians who voted for Bush don’t know — is that ‘Christian nation’ means something else entirely to these Dominionist leaders. This movement is no more about following the example of Christ than Bush’s Clean Water Act is about clean water.”
via Christian Evangelicals Plot to Remake America In Their Own Image.
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that:
It is the mission of Triangle Foundation to promote equality and to secure freedom from violence, intimidation and discrimination for LGBT persons throughout Michigan.
We visited a community center in Detroit that had no markings on the outside do to intimidation towards LGBTQ. We heard about Ruth Ellis Center and their work with homeless LGBTQ teenagers and young adults.
There we were introduced to the “Heterosexual Questionnaire” that is a very helpful tool to address issues about sexuality. The questionnaire is found in various forms. Examples are 1, 2, 3 and 4.
More about Triangle Foundation can be found at www.tri.org.
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that:
COTS exists to alleviate homelessness by providing an array of services that enable people to achieve self-sufficiency and obtain quality affordable housing. COTS also exists to advocate for long-term solutions to the problems of homelessness.
More about COTS in Detroit can be found at www.cotsdetroit.org.
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that:
The mission of Gamaliel Foundation is to assist local community leaders to create, maintain and expand independent, grassroots, and powerful faith-based community organizations so that ordinary people can impact the political, social, economic, and environmental decisions that affect their lives; to provide these organizations with leadership training programs, consultation, research and analysis on social justice issues; to be a network for mutual learning environments and working coalitions.
More about Gamaliel can be found at www.gamaliel.org.
The ordination of women dramatically reoriented everyone’s ordinary and probably outworn assumptions about authority. If the move to ordain women signaled an undue idealism on the part of proponents, the women who joined the ranks of the clergy shouldered the task of negotiating authority within congregations. The experience of these women demonstrated that ordination did not confer upon these women the authority of office, or character that could elicit from congregants the same kind of understanding or response that they gave to a male holding the position.
Maria Erling addresses the meaning of ordination in an age of mission in an interesting article that can be found on ELCA’s website (PDF): “Ordination from the Perspective of Mission.“
