I thought of my/our eldest child upon reading ahead on this one among Niebuhr’s theological sayings….
May 17  Humor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.  Reinhold Niebuhr
http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#may17
http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#apr8
April 8  “It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.�  Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
I’ve been reading this above quote a number of times and I think I’m beginning to understand better…. Looking this up further with a Google search or two to see what I can find to shed further light, here’s one interesting excerpt….
http://www.christianhubert.com/hypertext/postmodernism.html
Is there a postmodern period? (1973 - ?) For Frederic Jameson, postmodernism is “a periodizing hypothesis” at “a moment in which the very conception of historical periodization has come to seem most problematical indeed.” (p.3) “Analyzing postmodernism amounts to writing the history of no history. In an important sense, to write the history of postmodernism is to indulge in an anachronism.” (Hayles, Chaos Bound, p.281)”It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.” (Jameson, Postmodernism, introduction) Jameson limits the brief “American Century” to 1945-1973. According to him, the crises of 1973 (the oil crisis, the end of the international gold standard, for all intents and purposes the end of the great wave of “ wars of national liberation” and the beginning of the end of traditional communism) disclosed the existence, already in place, of a strange new landscape….
In Postmodernism, modernism assumes the role previously assigned to tradition, and postmodernism is associated with the present (previously called modernity). Because of the conflation of modernity and tradition, postmodernity can claim either to reject tradition or to renew it, without contradiction. Hardt and Negri question whether postmodern theorists are so intent on combating the remnants of a past form of domination that they fail to recognize the new form that is looming over them in the present. “What if the dominating powers that are the intended object of critique have mutated in such a way as to depotentialize any postmodern challenge?” “In this case, … the postmodernist and postcolonialist strategies that appear to be liberatory would not challenge but in fact coincide with and even unwittingly reinforce the new stategies of rule!” (Empire, p. 138)
Brian Goodwin describes postmodern science where one can excercize one’s judgement in choosing a set of scientific ideas as opposed to another. For him, to argue that a new paradigm will out-compete a previous one, is to engage in “the authoritarian mode of science that characterized modernity.” (How The Leopard Changed Its Spots, p. 34)
From the conceptualized flatness of high modernism to the literal superficiality of postmodernism.
(cf. surface / depth )
text and simulacrum
Not Future/Present/Past but Present/Past/Future [or Present-Future-Past]ÂÂ
As matrixminister recently/today/yesterday posted on biblical exegesis, here are pertinent excerpts from his blog posting relating to eschatology followed by further reflection in particular commentary by me:ÂÂ
The World of the Bible - Parts 2 - 4
Posted on Friday 30 March 2007
Not Future/Present/Past but Present/Past/Future
In most of our discussions, we talk about tomorrow, the future, first. We talk about where we are headed, our vision, our hopes, etc. Then we talk about today. We barely discuss or learn from the past. We look to the past as a final resort usually.Biblical personalities, are living in the present. It is like this, for the most part, they were poor. Today was important, not planning for tomorrow.� Today we look to the future and plan for it. They live in the present, which comes out of the past, and have little time to discuss the future. They asked for “daily bread,� we plan for retirement.
At Passover, a place is set for Elijah, and at one point, someone gets up and goes to the door to see if he is there. It is about the present welcoming the past.ÂÂ
March 31, 2007 | 12:10 am
Terry, I appreciate your attention to these [exegetical] points on the biblical mindset, or maybe more accurately, the mindset and sensibilities of people during Bible times in the context of the particular social environs of their day.
With regard to your point prior to the final one, I wonder how an eschatological perspective would relate and possibly be in dialogue with the material on this point. If one were to delve further along these lines toward biblical theology upon exegesis, yet another sequence might present itself when talking about the inbreaking kingdom of God that Jesus was about in the Gospel accounts, such as Present/Future/Past.
Reggie McNeal writes in the preface to his book, “The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church�, that [for those in Christ] “The present makes clearest sense in light of the future.� (e.g.?: Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Christ has died.) While “We humans write history by looking at the past.�, ….
“God creates history ahead of time. He never forecasts. God always backcasts. He began with the end in mind. The future is always incipient in the present… The empty tomb confirmed the invasion of the future into the present.� The future is always tugging at, if you will, the present tense, leaving the past behind, straining, pulling forward toward what is ahead, etc. (Philippians 3:13)
I can envision the “clueless� twelve disciples still not quite “getting it� and Jesus saying something like, “You’ve been with me, how long? And still you don’t understand? the kingdom is at hand!?! Among you in your very midst! Get with it!!� Eternity of life is [getting to know] here and now, in process, not just later in heaven (John 17:3). And yet, I can imagine their psyche being continually impacted by an increasing impartation of the kingdom mindset  waves upon waves of mercy and grace imbued upon and washing over and even through them, as they would experience Jesus’ love capturing them.
Just some musings above on my part elicited upon reflection on your blog post.
BTW - No excuses for absence accepted… 
only grateful appreciation by one blessed in your mentorship for your return to minister through the matrix
continuing in a see of netropolitan voices here in the virtual oasis of this time and space continuum instantiation….  http://rex.espiritu.net
It was over twelve years ago when I began to entertain the idea of committing myself to attending a Promise Keepers conference in one of about a half dozen venues where thousands of men would be gathering to praise and worship God together and consider what it means to seek the Lord in becoming a man of integrity. In many ways, my journey of the Christian life as I have been experiencing it has been marked by particular events in which I sensed anew the Lord calling me to begin again in making a commitment to Christ. I can remember going to a number of Billy Graham crusades, “altar callsâ€?, and other worship services at which I felt led to come forward and commit or recommit myself to God anew in Jesus. Whether outwardly manifested physically or quietly displayed in stillness, there was an inward reality that was happening to me in those holy moments of God’s grace upon my life in Christ.ÂÂ
The Scripture passage comes to mind that says that all the promises of God find their “Yes!â€? in Jesus Christ. Today, I want to say, “Yes!â€? once again to the “Yes!â€? of God in my life and in our life together. The Lord God, Who is faithful, is a promise keeping God. God is the ultimate Promise Keeper upon Whose grace we can rely and trust in for our salvation and sanctification as we would seek to become more and more like Jesus, continually being and becoming conformed to the very image of Christ.ÂÂ
The truth of this Word being proclaimed in my life was lived out once again this past week as I accompanied some of our young people to a Confirmation Retreat at Camp Pyoca. There in the environment of a Presbyterian Church (USA) camp and conference center, I remembered my own personal commitment made long ago at another PCUSA camp as one teenager among others in Christ who confirmed their baptism in the Lord and commenced the next part of their faith journey to go deeper in their walk as a member of the body of Christ.ÂÂ
It was such a joy for me to engage with our youth for Christ that it reawakened in me a yearning to recapture, or better yet be captured and captivated once again by God’s grace in my own life’s journey of faith in Jesus. It was really quite beautiful and sweet and energizing and exhaustingly wonderful all at the same time to witness the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of other brothers and sisters coming alive in Christ. It gave me such hope for the future being sown in the young life being birthed in each of the youth I was privileged to take there that I am encouraged to keep on keeping on with the promises God has led me in through my own walk by faith.ÂÂ
As such, I want to thank the parents of each of our commencement and commitment class participants for giving me the honor and blessing of leading these children of God and for entrusting them to the Lord in our life together in this place. [And thanks, too, to each and every one of the confirmands.] I also want to invite the fathers and sons in our congregation as fellow brothers in Christ to join with me in attending this year’s Promise Keepers men’s conference in Cincinnati, Ohio this coming August 17-18 for a Friday evening and Saturday of glorifying God and enjoying God’s powerful presence together with other men seeking to serve God with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. I yearn and long for us to come back to our first love of Jesus as men of God called to begin once again in the commencement of our commitment to the Lord and one another in Christ.ÂÂ
Registrations can be made online at www.PromiseKeepers.org or by calling the toll-free number by phone at 1-866-PROMISE.ÂÂ
Let’s take our lives to the limit where the adventure of significance begins. May the flood of God’s energizing love and grace be made manifest in and through us as we recommit our lives to the Lord of life together in this time and place. To God be the glory.ÂÂ
In Christ,
Pastor Rex
In a posting dated January 22, 2007 from The Outbox of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, Mindy Beard writes about…ÂÂ
Matt Vande Bunte of the Religion News Service published a convicting article last week calling the church to take a long, hard look at our latest financial situation. Tithing is on the decline for the fourth straight year, down 18 percent from 1968. An annual study of church giving “theorizes U.S. Christians could evangelize the world, stop daily deaths of 29,000 children younger than 5 worldwide, provide elementary education across the globe and tackle domestic poverty - and have $150 billion left over annually — if church members tithed a full 10 precent of their income.” Instead the study concluded that the average American spends almost four times as much on entertainment than church giving. The leader of the study points to poor vision and lack of good church leadership as reasons for the problem. The article was a reminder of the responsibility we have as Christians to give faithfully, and how detrimental it has been to the world when we have failed to do so.
As I read and reread emerging literature relating to the emergent church movement, I feel at times as if I were standing on the edge of an enticingly tempting precipice that seems to be luring me into ever increasingly realizing the consideration of jumping off the cliff of a tall multiple story building scraping the sky like Peter in one of the episodes of “Heroes” on NBC TV. I can see the paradigm shift[ing] over the horizon into an other vast “[N]Ever”/”[N]Ether”-Land of vistas yet to be fully viewed, experienced, engulfed by and immersed in. Here are some modified excerpts that may help me imbibe and process this material more and more toward further progress as we move forward in faith, forging onward through the journey ahead of us.
…the center of the [emerging/emergent theological] movement is about [missional] ecclesiology not epistemology. …the emerging [missional] church movement …is a definite threat to [what has been the] traditional [praxis of] evangelical ecclesiology. [And yet,] Jamie Smith, in his “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernity?”, argues… that postmodernity is compatible, at times, with classical Augustinian epistemology. …emerging thinkers embrace a proper confidence and a chastened epistemology. …they are wary of propositions and they believe in faith, or trusting in God who is Truth, but not in our constructed statements about God and the faith. They stiff arm criticism when they announce, rather boldly at times, that only God is Absolute Truth and that nothing – emphasize that: nothing – we know can be grasped absolutely. They speak of orthodoxy as a way of believing in the right way, or of the preeminence – or at least egalitarianism – of orthopraxy vs. orthodoxy. They think the gospel is lived and seen and embodied, that the gospel can’t simply be known noetically but must be experienced, and they sometimes say truth is relational rather than rational.ÂÂThe central element of this missional praxis is that the emerging movement is not attractional in its model of the church but is instead missional: that is, it does not invite people to church but instead wanders into the world as the church. It asks its community “How can we help you?â€? instead of knocking on doors to increase membership. In other words, it becomes a community with open windows and open doors and sees Sunday morning as the opportunity to prepare for a week of service to the community, asking not how many are attending the services but what redemptive traits are we seeing in our community. It wants to embody a life that is other-oriented rather than self-oriented, that is community-directed rather than church-oriented.ÂÂ
–�What is the Emerging Church?� (p. 7, 9-11, 13, 21) by Scot McKnight, delivered during a conference in October 26-27, 2006 at Westminster Theological Seminary
Thought this excerpted quote a notable perspective to share for further reflection on church leadership toward becoming a missional community….ÂÂ
Today most Presbyterian elders would be genuinely shocked at the suggestion that they too are spiritual leaders. The idea that their primary task is to seek God’s will and lead the church to do it is foreign to them. They defer to the pastor, who is expected to be spiritual enough for everybody. We must make the training of lay people for spiritual leadership and discernment of God’s will in community a priority. Until this neglected art is revived, churches will continue to flounder and even the most gifted Presbyterian pastors will be frustrated. –The Rev. Joan S. Gray, Moderator of the 217th General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA)
For the larger posting of this article, see/visit the leadership site at rev.espiritu.netÂÂ
Last week, on Monday, January 22, the daily online devotional of The Company of Pastors and The Order of Elders in the Presbyterian Church (USA) had the following quotation from Henri Nouwen’s Making All Things New for meditation and theological reflection. In this piece, he writes:
One of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. We experience our days as filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep…. The strange thing, however, is that it is very hard not to be busy. Being busy has become a status symbol.1
If being busy has indeed become a status symbol, I wonder why at times, when I keep finding myself saying it. The casual conversation at the supermarket or when you meet someone at Wal-Mart can go something like this: “Hi! How are you?� “Oh, fine. Really busy these days.� “Busy enough keeping busy, huh?!?� And so goes the next sort of repartee one might encounter on any given day at the store. Busy, busy, busy. Even on my personal web site at rexespiritu.net
I have a brief bit on this:ÂÂ
Come on by and say, “Hello!”ÂÂ
 |
In the context of today’s culture in which it seems our society is ever all the more marked by busy-ness, and as one who is being continually challenged in my pastoral vocation to be pastorally accessible, I invite you to come by and visit my blog site and/or web site, chat for a bit over a warm cup, a bite to eat, and/or a brief virtual byte over the net. Of course, if you are actually physically in the area, please feel free to stop by the church office and say, “Hello!” in person yourself! I am one who enjoys taking interest in how God is working in others’ lives, drawing people into a deeper experience of the Lord’s power and presence for God’s glory and our good. So, come on by and say, “Hello!” (”You’ve got mail!”) My aim/msn/yahoo instant messenger/messaging screenname is: rexespiritu |
It appears as though being busy is just the way it is these days. But something in me seems to want to throw up at the idea of resigning myself to some godforsaken state of trans-conscious nirvana in which the business of busy-ness, if you will, winds up robbing me of the life that God intends for us in Christ. As another quote attributed to the same work of Henri Nouwen goes for today, on Wednesday, January 31:ÂÂ
Jesus wants us to move from the “many things� to the “one necessary thing.� It is important for us to realize that Jesus in no way wants us to leave our many-faceted world. Rather, he wants us to live in it, firmly rooted in the center of all things. Jesus does not speak about a change in activities, a change in contacts, or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart. This change of heart makes everything different, even while everything appears to be the same.2
As I found myself preaching last Sunday, I was realizing anew myself that this is a process which involves a paradigm shift not just in our doing, but more importantly in our very being. The Word proclaims through us the good news of the Gospel that says to the world around us, “Look and see!!! I AM making all things new!â€? And indeed many among us are experiencing the truth of this Word authored by the Holy Spirit of God being written anew in our life together at this special time and place called First Presbyterian Church in New Castle, Indiana.ÂÂ
Dear ones, let us not be too busy to taste and see it – That the Lord is good indeed and that God’s love continues to endure among us.ÂÂ
In Christ,
Pastor Rex
1 http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#jan22
2 http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#jan31
I caught sight of an interview article on Christianity Today and am mulling it over further in pastoral reflection toward a more missional understanding in my own spiritual formation and theology. A particularly relevant excerpt from this piece is listed below for this posting. It is reminding me of some other possibly related material I’ve seen (from the intercessory prayer movement, by David Bryant) on the Supremacy of Christ. On his web site DavidBryantDirect.com, is the following quote:
Only a God-given reawakening to Christ and the full extent of His supremacy can resuscitate the Church’s hope and passion, and re-engage her effectively in the worldwide advance of His Kingdom. –David Bryant
http://proclaimhope.gospelcom.net/
Here’s the pertinent excerpt from Tim Stafford’s interview with N.T. Wright:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/january/22.38.html
Mere Mission
N.T. Wright talks about how to present the gospel in a postmodern world.
Interview by Tim Stafford | posted 1/05/2007 04:00PM
Your book “Simply Christian” speaks to people outside the faith, in what must be a conscious imitation of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity….
How do you see the church’s mission in this context?
For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving the lot of human beings and the world, rescuing the poor from their misery.
The longer that I’ve gone on as a New Testament scholar and wrestled with what the early Christians were actually talking about, the more it’s been borne in on me that that distinction is one that we modern Westerners bring to the text rather than finding in the text. Because the great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and Resurrection transform the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. That draws together what we traditionally called evangelism, bringing people to the point where they come to know God in Christ for themselves, with working for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That has always been at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, and how we’ve managed for years to say the Lord’s Prayer without realizing that Jesus really meant it is very curious. Our Western culture since the 18th century has made a virtue of separating out religion from real life, or faith from politics.When I lecture about this, people will pop up and say, “Surely Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world.” And the answer is no, what Jesus said in John 18 is, “My kingdom is not from this world.” That’s ek tou kosmoutoutou. It’s quite clear in the text that Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t start with this world. It isn’t a worldly kingdom, but it is for this world. It’s from somewhere else, but it’s for this world.
The key to mission is always worship. You can only be reflecting the love of God into the world if you are worshiping the true God who creates the world out of overflowing self-giving love. The more you look at that God and celebrate that love, the more you have to be reflecting that overflowing self-giving love into the world.
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.
N.T. Wright is a world-renowned New Testament scholarâ€â€author of “Jesus and the Victory of God, The Resurrection of the Son of God”â€â€and bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is also a keen observer of culture. ct senior writer Tim Stafford caught up with Wright as he drove from meetings at Windsor Castle to his diocese in Durham. They talked about communicating the gospel in a post-Christian society.
Well another birthday/Christmas/Eve weekend gone by… We had the lighting of the fourth Advent candle for worship on Sunday morning with choral cantata, a service for children and their families in the late afternoon, and the traditional Christmas Eve lessons and carols evening candlelight service that same night. Just catching up a bit of my breath with the busy-ness of the season. Posted the annual family newsletter, News from the Espiritu’s with this year’s byline, “Blessed To Be Raising Blessings”. Pondering the following quotes I’d missed over the past couple of weeks or so, listed below…. Christmas blessings to you and yours in these days following…………ÂÂ
December 15  “All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.” â€â€Ã‚ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#dec15
December 16  “Hurry means that we gather impressions but have no experiences, that we collect acquaintances but make no friends, that we attend meetings but experience no encounter. We must recover eternity if we are to find time, and eternity is what Jesus came to restore. For without it, there can be no charity.” â€â€Ã‚ D. T. Niles, The Preacher’s Calling to be a Servant
http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#dec16
