Did You Know? 4.0

Is this relevant to the church? How?

Many Haitians' religious faith unshaken by earthquake (CNN)

"In parks and backyards, anywhere a group gathers, the prayers of the Haitians can be heard. Last week, the call-and-response chanting and clapping that accompany those prayers pierced the darkness of night and the pre-dawn hours -- sometimes as early as 4 a.m. The singing and praying was particularly intense in Champs de Mars plaza, where hundreds of people have taken refuge. But the scene was repeated throughout the city, with preachers on megaphones exhorting the faithful, who responded with lyrics like "O Lord, keep me close to you" and "Forgive me, Jesus."

Many preachers are telling followers not to lose faith, that God remains with them regardless of what's happened.

Most Haitians don't feel abandoned, Bailey said."People don't blame Jesus for all these things," she said. "They have faith. They believe that Jesus saved them and are thankful for that."

Read the full article.

Denzel Washington in "Book of Eli"

Denzel Washington is one of Hollywood's most successful and respected actors. But the two-time Academy Award winner (for 1989's Glory and 2001's Training Day) is also one of Hollywood's highest profile Christians.

The son of a Pentecostal preacher from Mount Vernon, New York, Washington, 55, has been an active member of West Angeles Church of God in Christ for nearly 30 years, reads his Bible every morning, and always chooses roles that he can "bend" in the direction of a positive message or a reflection of his deep personal faith.

Faith is everywhere in Washington's new post-apocalyptic film, The Book of Eli, which opens Friday and is being marketed with "B-ELI-EVE" and "D-ELI-VER US" billboards. In the movie, Washington plays a mysterious machete-wielding traveler named Eli, directed by God to protect the earth's last remaining copy of the Bible—that's right, the Bible—and to take it "out West" for safekeeping while villains seek to take it by force and use it as a "weapon" of control.

Read more at Christianity Today.

To Hell with Altruistic Capitalism! (Kester Brewin)

Kester Brewin writes passionately about what he called 'altruistic capitalism' and he starts out with a commentary on Jesus' conversation with the rich man:

"It’s one of those stories that jumps from the page at you. A man – a good guy by all accounts – comes to Jesus with the blunt question that others had probably been too scared to ask: how do I get eternal life? You can imagine the wry smile breaking across Jesus’ face. ‘It’s simple, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Just obey the commandments.’ The man is perhaps more relaxed, more confident now, and comes back at him: which ones? To which he gets the obvious reply: don’t kill people, don’t be unfaithful, don’t steal stuff, don’t lie… Yeah, yeah, yeah the man says, cutting Jesus off before he recites the entire list. ‘I’ve done all that…’

And then comes the hit. Jesus turns, fixes him with his gaze and speaks right to the heart of the matter: go and sell all you have, and give the money to the poor. The man turns away sadly and walks away, the camera holding a long shot as he walks off into the distance, slowly and thoughtfully. He is a rich man, gutted."

What I think Jesus meant by his answer was this: you are trying to view your salvation through the eyes of what you can buy and sell and profit from. What you can do. But you need an entirely different economy, a totally different way of ordering your house.

And I think this is utterly pertinent at the current time. When we have profits privatised and losses nationalised, bankers and celebrities raking obscene amounts of money into personal fortunes something is wrong with the world. Especially when they then present themselves as altruists by giving small portions of it away in grand gestures. Or when companies like Starbucks dress our consumption up as ethical action: buy this coffee and save a poor farmer.

And it is particularly pertinent in the aftermath of the horror of the earthquake in Haiti. We see the politicians on both sides of the atlantic with their bleeding-heart messages about the disaster…. when in reality the West has f*cked Haiti over time and time again – preventing proper development, forcing the poor into cities and sweatshops to create cheap clothing for the US, suffering coups supported by the CIA… and now told that they deserved this earthquake because they sold their souls to the devil when they bought themselves out of slavery from France.

Please, please give generously to help Haiti get back on its feet. But in a week or so when the story has gone from our screens, let’s not forget them, and let’s try to get the systemic issues sorted out. They need debt forgiven. They need minimum wage agreements. They need symmetric fair trade agreements. They need to be given a fair chance, especially by the US.

As I say in the post on what looks like being a great conference, Oscar Wilde had it right when he said that the worst slave owners were the ones who were kind to their slaves. Why? Because they prolonged the horrors of an abusive system. And yes, that, on the grand scale, is what altruistic capitalism looks like.

Martin Luther Rap

An old video, but still enjoyable...

What Would Jesus Say to those who Fire-Bombed the Churches?

View more presentations from Alwyn Lau.

4 Models of the Emerging Church

Read the full article here:

1. Deconstructionist Model: Probably the most well known group of emerging churches these churches are truly postmodern in just about every sense of the word. These are Christians influenced mainly by deconstruction, a philosophical approach invented on the continent. In their holy readings of philosophical discourse Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault and Caputo would be there. Much of the focus is on adopting postmodernity, and contextualizing the Gospel accordingly. Peter Rollins’ Ikon in Ireland would be a good example of one such group. I think Tony Jones and Brian McLaren would also fall under this category. I would say they are accommodating to postmodern culture, against modernism, and often against the institutional church making them lean towards a sort of non-denominationalism.

2. Pre-modern/Augustinian Model: This model would be the second most influential within the EC, and can be in (friendly) opposition to the first group. Instead of understanding postmodernism in terms of Nietzschean philosophy as group one would do, this model leans more towards a Renaissance styled post-modernism (similar to what is represented in Toulmin’s Cosmopolis). Whether this group is truly early modern or whether it reaches back further to the pre-modern era I am not quite clear on, but St. Augustine and St. Thomas are key figures for this group. This is the where the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank, James K. Smith and others would fall. We see some catholics here, as well as other theologians that tend towards placing a higher emphasis on tradition within the overall framework of the Christian faith, rather than simply contextualization. This group would be see history as having shown us a better way, and if we reach back far enough we may be able to find wisdom that will help us in our quest of faith today. They would be more favorable towards institutional church, and have a pretty clear understanding of what kind of church we ought to become, but would also be seen as nostalgic and trying to uphold an institution that has often oppressed and violated those we are called to help.

3. Emerging Peace Church Model (Or Open Anabaptism): This model of the emerging church stresses the non-conformist tendencies of Jesus, and thus the church should follow in his footsteps through non-violence, love of enemy and caring for the poor. This one may be closest to a kind of new monasticism that has so often been written about in recent times. While there are people from the various peace churches involved in this type of church, there are also people from a variety of traditions who are seeking to contextualize the Gospel within our culture. This group does not accept any one style of culture as being good, thus their non-conformist attitude is directed at modernity and postmodernity alike. They see Jesus (and his incarnation) as their primary model for engaging culture. They are influenced by Wittgenstein, Barth, Bonhoeffer, John H. Yoder, McClendon and Nancey Murphy to name a few. In this group you will find people like Jarrod McKenna and the Peace Tree, Shane Claiborne, some Mennonites, Rob Bell’s Mars Hill, Submergent, Jesus Radical and convergent Friends, to name a few. This group is counter any kind of Christendom styled church and thus would be sometimes for and sometimes against institutionalization, and would see contextualization as important only up to the point that it remains ultimately an extension of Jesus’ ministry and message.

4. Foundationalist Model: This model of the emerging church is more conservative in their reading of Scripture and modern approaches to ecclesiology (standard preacher-centered teaching, music for worship, etc) while seeking to be innovative in their approaches to evangelism. This may come in the form of people meeting in pubs, having tatoos, cussing from the pulpit, playing loud rock music for worship and adding a layer of “alternative-ness” to their overall church service. These churches can be found within larger church communities, or can be on their own, sometimes as a large (possibly mega) church. They follow standard Evangelicalism in that they aren’t attach to traditions, and come out politically and theologically conservative, while maintaining a more accomodational stance toward culture in the name of evangelism, they will ultimately look similar to older church communities theologically. This is where I think theologians like Millard J. Erickson or D.A. Carson have a lot of influence. And where practitioners such as Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus and many “emerging services” within mega-church congregations like Willow Creek might be found.

Church Attacked

In the wake of today's fire-bomb attack on the Metro Tabernacle church, there is a great urgency to pray.

We must pray that the government take adequate measures to protect non-Islamic religious communties and sanctuaries. We must pray that violence (on any scale) by curbed and stopped. We must pray that the Church looks to God at this time of crisis.