Journeys In Between

Sydney Anglicans Going Missional?

Mission demands downsizing Sunday. This was the message of Total Church author Steve Timmis to Sydney Anglicans recently at Moore College.

You can read the full article at your.sydneyanglicans.net.

Now the curious thing here is Timmis was apparently quite keen to distance himself from the emerging church movement ("He says it just a historical accident that that Crowded House began around the same time that the emerging church was coming to prominence"). And yet, this message is the same message I've been pushing and modelling myself ("Less expectations need be loaded onto a single hour each Sunday") as a missional approach to doing church. And of course I'm not alone there. Really, just an accident?

Sounds to me that Timmis' is possibly playing word games or maybe just operating out of a narrower definition of emerging church than I do. My definition includes Reformergent types within a broader, global understanding of the movement. His definition sounds possibly reliant on the Don Carson definition which, if taken seriously, would limit your vision to a narrower, Emergent Village centric understanding of the movement that would exclude even myself. How much of this difference is just semantic? There is certainly a degree of overlap.

Anyway, maybe if we can work past the semantics to true understanding there may be some common ground opening up here in Sydney. I have been encouraged by the conversations I have been having with more missionally open Anglicans here in Sydney. I still have some areas of serious disagreement with the Archbishop, particularly his media silence over gay hate groups like the "God Hates Fags" crowd, but I conceed that is something we may just have to agree to disagree on and if the Jensens are allowing missional talk at Moore College then that sounds encouraging. 

I would like to think that one day those committed to mission in Sydney could work closer together. I think the big stumbling block is going to be penal substitution model of the atonement though. Moore College seems to teach this as the only valid model and Mathias media doggedly hangs on to the "Two Ways to Live" gospel and it various clones. But there are many outsiders like myself who consider penal substitution only one of many models that may be drawn on, and not always the most appropriate one. Can we work together for the gospel given such disagreements over how narrowly we define the gospel? I suspect there's a lot of ground to cover first, even for those equally committed to mission. I hope there are those who are willing to take the journey.

Personality and Psi

Been doing some more research on the connection between personality type, tendency towards mysticism and involvement in new religious movements and found an interesting article entitled, "Personality and motivations to believe, misbelieve and disbelieve in paranormal phenomena". Here are some pertinent extracts:

Paranormal beliefs and experiences are associated with certain personality factors, including absorption, fantasy proneness, and the Myers-Briggs intuition and feeling personality dimensions. Skepticism appears to be associated with materialistic, rational, pragmatic personality types. Attitude toward psi may also be influenced by motivations to have control and efficacy, to have a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Pagan Quakers?

Being ever keen to get people thinking about the differences between religious syncretism, cultural imperialism and critical contextualization, I thought I'd drw attention to this article by Matthew Streib who asks, Are the Quakers Going Pagan? He writes:

The liberal end of the Society of Friends has long had members who denied God's existence or Jesus' divinity. Now hundreds of pagans call Quakerism home.

In the last decade, this dual faith has sprung up around the country, including Quaker-pagan gatherings, seminars, an extensive presence on the Internet, and even explicitly Quaker-pagan congregations. There may be only several hundred Quaker pagans, but among American Quakers, their presence can be distinctly felt.

And a blog you might want to check out is Quaker Pagan Reflections. There are some questions here over the accuracy of the Quaker Pagan figures reported and the subtitle so I'd suggest we don't take it all at face value.

So, comments?

Being ever keen to get people thinking about the differences between religious syncretism, cultural imperialism and critical contextualization, I thought I'd drw attention to this article by Matthew Streib who asks, Are the Quakers Going Pagan? He writes:

The liberal end of the Society of Friends has long had members who denied God's existence or Jesus' divinity. Now hundreds of pagans call Quakerism home.

In the last decade, this dual faith has sprung up around the country, including Quaker-pagan gatherings, seminars, an extensive presence on the Internet, and even explicitly Quaker-pagan congregations. There may be only several hundred Quaker pagans, but among American Quakers, their presence can be distinctly felt.

And a blog you might want to check out is Quaker Pagan Reflections. There are some questions here over the accuracy of the Quaker Pagan figures reported and the subtitle so I'd suggest we don't take it all at face value.

So, comments?

Penis snatch witchcraft panic hits Congo

I wonder what Freud would say about this latest religious news. Journalists have reported that "Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft." I can see the US rumours now, "Watch dem Wiccans, they're doing voodou on yer whatsit." I am sure some would argue that many celebrity witches are aiming for the opposite effect. I could go so so far with this but it would get me in trouble. For more read Penis snatch witchcraft panic hits Congo.

Hillsong: Illuminati?

I had to laugh at this. My tracking system informed me that someone had come across my blog today through searching for "Hillsong Illuminati". And what do you know, when I checked Google I came up first for Hillsong Illuminati. Google has identified me as the all seeing eye. Beware!

The Violence of Evangelism

Check out this article, "The Violence of Evangelism" by Andy Crouch. The blurb goes, "Why, exactly, does the word evangelism evoke such violent metaphors?"  Very cool, tongue in cheek commentary on Bible bashing fears and rhetoric.

The Visual Word

Jeremiah Gumm discusses Christian symbolism from a Lutheran perspective in The Visual Word and asks what does the architecture of your church tell you about its theology?

Christian art on Flikr

Christian art lovers may want to check out the "Christian art of Today" file on Flickr which has 3279 entries on Christian Art.

Needless to say I haven't viewed them all yet but I did like this one featuring the cross of Christ and the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove.

Christian Kitsch

I haven't posted too much Christian kitsch in recent months as I'm trying to back off a bit but I just couldn't go past this one.

Coat hanger (jesus welcomes you)

"This coat hanger can hang two items, a coat or jacket from the fingers and a hat or a light jacket from the nine inch nail."

Amos Yong: Hospitality & The Other

I found out from John Morehead that Amos Yong has a new book out called, "Hospitality & The Other".

For those not familiar with him, Amos is a Pentecostal theologian who's done a lot of work on developing a theology of other religions with particular reference to the workings of the Spirit beyond the church. He is not emergent but very much engages with some of the same issues, like post-modernity and pluralism and how we converse with people more contextually.

Like John, I have found Amos' previous works stimulating (even if a little hard going at times) and I look forward to seeing what he has to say here.

The summary from the back cover states:

"Building on careful biblical scholarship and insights into the practices of Jesus and the early church, launched on the day of Pentecost, Amos Yong shows that the religious 'other' is not a mere object for conversion but a neighbor to whom hospitality must be both extended and received. Contemporary practice, he shows, needs to catch up with the revolutionary biblical notion of extending hospitality beyond every boundary of faith, nation, and ethnicity."

Keep an eye out for it.