Monday, October 10th, 2005
Just spent the weekend teaching the “Reframe” course at Margate in Redcliffe. With 15 members of three missional communities, we explored the ins and outs of developing church in the 21st century. We worked through the concept of being the body of Christ carrying out the mission of Jesus - proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God.
We started Saturday morning looking at examples of world-changing creative innovators, using the Apple “Think Different” television commercial. See my post at Duncan’s TV Adland for the background. It got us thinking about what it was that made Jesus so distinctive. And what make his followers distinctive.
We talked about working as a missional community with a commitment at its core to being mutually accountable for living out the life God calls us to. Interestingly some people are resistant to the challenge of imitating Jesus. ‘There’s no way we can measure up to Jesus so why put the pressure on?” And the word ‘accountability’ is also scary. The Reformed theological response is to remind us that we are saved by grace alone, not by works. Though I would have thought that Paul the Apostle, along with Calvin, would have taught that we are saved for works. This is not just some preparation for life after death. Having Jesus as ’saviour’ is very much linked with having Jesus as ‘Lord’. After all, Jesus in his teaching talked about action and attitude than cognitive trust in his capacity to pay the price on the cross.
We missed out most of the material on postmodernism and post-Christendom. I figured that the groups I was working with had already worked out a new model of being that was responding to these paradigms. And there’s a limit to how much conceptual work you can do in a weekend without losing relevance to what’s happening the next day.
Tags: Emerging Church, Leadership, Mission, Postmodernity
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Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
Over at PostKiwi’s Generations in Conversation I’ve reflected on Don Carson and Brian McLaren and their varying interpretation of the word ‘post’, as in ‘post modern’. I argue that ‘post’ does indeed refer to coming after in terms of time or space. But ‘post’ does not necessarily mean discontinuity. In some cases trends are accentuated rather than left behind. I like the phrase, “This, and more”. It’s what I live by. I am never ultimately defined by any category. I am liberal, and more. I work in literary culture, and more. I am modern, and more. I am Christian, and more.
At PostKiwi I’ve put in themes and variations I used at a multi-media conference two years ago. They’re for post apocalyptic, post bellum, post charismatic, post christendom, post classical, post coital, post colonial, post communion, post diem, post diluvial, post doctoral, post echo, post embryonic, post entry, post Evangelical, and post existence.
Here’s Post Liberal to Post Mortem. What do you think? What would you add to these definitions?
Post Liberal
school of theology founded in the 1970s by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, affirmed the decisive significance and the integrity of the biblical narrative.
Post Literary
Communication no longer dominated by written text.
Post Lingual
Post-lingual hearing impairment is a hearing impairment where hearing loss develops due to disease or trauma after the acquisition of speech and language, usually after the age of six.
Postliminous
Postliminium
The return of a person to his/her own country and privileges - especially a person who has been away in exile. (liminal refers to threshold).
Postlude
(Music) a final or concluding piece or movement2 a voluntary played at the end of a Church service. (As in ‘after game’.)
Postmenopausal
of or occurring in the time following menopause.
Post Menstrual
of or occurring in the time following menstruation.
Post Meridian
after noon
in the afternoon or evening
Post Meridiem
ADVERB & ADJECTIVE:abbr. P.M. or p.m. or p.m. After noon. Used chiefly in the abbreviated form to specify the hour: 10:30 p.m.; a p.m. appointment.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin post mer diem : post, after + mer diem, accusative of mer di s, midday.
Post Millennialism
The doctrine that Jesus’s Second Coming will follow the millennium.
Post Mistress
After the Affair
Post-modernism
of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.
Post Mortem
1 occurring after death
2 analysis or study of a recently completed event
Tags: Brian McLaren, Don Carson, Emerging Church, postmodern, Postmodernity
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Monday, July 18th, 2005
Posted this morning on Victor Turner’s concept of ‘liminal space’ and its connection with Romans 8 - at [Praxis] , daily reflections on Scripture.
I first engaged with Victor Turner’s work on liminality while reading for a course on postmodernity and ritual at San Francisco Theological Seminary, back in 1999. I found Turner’s work liberating.
The concept of liminal space was developed in Turner’s book, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Emerging approaches to worship need to take seriously what Turner calls ‘liminal symbols’, symbols that have a common intellectual and emotional meaning for members of the group, qualiffied and enriched by the unique perspectives of each member of the community. These liminal symbols come to reflect the collective experience of the group.
Another aspect of liminality in shared worship is the slowing down of time - in which participants step outside the normal effectiveness-based tempo of life to re-engage with God in a mystical relational space.
In his book, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, Turner applies his thinking on liminality to the arts, exploring the ways in which community values are supported and challenged by cultural forms.
Turner introduces the concept of the ‘liminoid’ - idisonycratic, quirky forms generated by individuals or schools, competing with one another for recognition. These are often parts of social critiques, exposing injustices, inefficiencies, and immoralities of mainstream economic and political structures and organisations. Ironically the liminoid works best when it is treated like a commodity by the community, even as it challenges the values of that community.
Back in 1999 as I was reading this I explored the Bill Viola SFMOMA exhibition and The Matrix as examples of the liminoid - using familiar forms but challenging our perceptions of reality.
Victor Turner also introduces us to flow and communitas. Flow is the holistic sensation present when we act with total involvement, when action follows action according to an internal logic which seems to need no conscious intervention on our part. Communitas is that sense of flow experienced by a community.
It’s a good thing we’re not always consciously thinking about all this when planning or participating in worship! But I’m glad to have Turner’s insights available to me when developing environments for fresh experiences of the Divine.
Tags: alt worship, Postmodernity, Praxis, Reading, Victor Turner, Worship
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