postmodernbible

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi abuse photos spark shock

I'm sorry but what the blazes (politer version than what is in my head!) is going on in Iraq. I thought we were replacing an inhumane regime. I am just getting so cyncial about the whole thing. Get a grip, George!

You know, I am just so annoyed with what is going on with that man - I mean he protests at being a good Methodist and then you read books like Bushwacked and you realise what a dirty, mean and dangerous politician he really is. But then, OK give him the benefit of the doubt, don't put him down he's in a difficult job. But then what he does about Israel - duh! excuse me Mr Bush but how is helping Sharon going to bring peace in Iraq? remember the spitting image sketches of Reagan taking his brain out at night - I think Bush must take it out in the morning!

And if his Israel u-turn, sidling up to the Christian Zionist Armagedolatrists (just made the up!), wasn't bad enough, now his army are pictured abusing prisoners of war. George, this is wrong. This is evil. This is what war does. This is not what Christianity is about. Of course you've all seeen this sad map...haven't you?

In a post from Stephen Sizers he pointed out the situation Mordecai Vanunu is in in Jerusalem. Apparently he has had to stop worshipping in the Cathedral because of Mosad agents prowling around and right-wingers outside. I think he meant Israeli but dropping American in there might work as well! This lunchtime had a chat with my friend Ian White who was talking to a friend at the Cathedral this morning and apparently they have to have security guards on the gates and have had to shut the Cathedral gates now because of the Israeli security presence. The other day I almost died laughing, or was it crying, when the Israeli justice Minister Tommy Lapid suggested that these were measures that any free, liberal democracy could use to defend itself. Yeah, Tommy? So why is Israel using these tactics then?

Free? Ask Mordecai! Ask the Palestinians! Ask the Arab Christian Church! Ask those on the other side of the Wall!
Liberal? Sharon? Interesting definition there, Tommy.
Democracy? OK point taken. I mean democracy is just so good isn't it. I mean look at America, look at how civilized that nation is. Look at how its soldiers act to maintain peace and liberate a land from oppression. Oops. Perhaps you better look the other way!

Angry. So angry. Come, Lord Jesus.

Pete

This blogging thing is great until you write a really great blog (well, I liked it!) and then your computer crashes and the blog is no more!

O well, I know what I said and I suppose in the end this stream of consciousness thing is really like my own public diary – its a journal with myself as much as anyone else since I don’t know who might be reading this and who might not.

Thanks for the comments coming in – didn’t know that Maggi Dawn had a blog but I do now and she’s on my list to look at. Looks like an interesting day in Sheffield in September – if it wasn’t the first day of our new term, I’d be there. Might be anyway...

One of the things I have noticed during my blogging initiation is the incredible amount of stuff out there on emerging church. This is really exciting and so encouraging. My own journey, or rather my family’s own journey over the last year has involved leaving an old style of church and moving to a more emerging form of church community – and next year we may be working towards planting a form of community church among the families living and working in the College area. We’re a bit rural and sometimes traipsing into Sheffield to church seems to wrong – what’s incarnational about going into the next city to find a church where you don’t die a death of a thousand hymns or its apparent alternative, the death of a thousand choruses?

Last winter I was part of a conference here at Cliff on Shapes of Future Church – Doug Gay spoke as well – very well – all about the Very Hungry Caterpillar (!!!) – anyway, my talk was a review of the actual shapes of church – exploring the move away from community/household based churches to the basilica model and beyond. My whole point was that we need to move back to some of the NT models rather than forward to the mega-church. Here’s the talk and a powerpoint presentation I did to go with it – some pics of some church architecture! Download the_shapes_of_future_church.doc, Download shapes_of_future_church_presentation.ppt

At Spring Harvest I was asked to do a seminar with Dave Pope from Saltmine on Outrageous Church – incredible feedback from a seminar I really enjoyed. People were asking us why we weren’t putting on a whole week of seminars. People really wanted to explore the issues and to express their own stories. The few I managed to sit down with spoke of the heartbreak involved in sticking with traditional models of church - it really was like sitting with...well...I don't know? Pregnancy, terminal illness, toothache? What was it like. Tears in people's eyes as they talked about church. Grieving. Bereavement.

Dave and I both spoke of our own experience and he shared some of his hopes for future church. I outlined some of the basics about emerging church and ended with Mike Riddell’s thing about building alternative highways rather than just demolishing the old and what might be the examples of emerging churches.

Anyway, one of the things that I really believe is that household church, small church, intimate church, is the norm rather than big, brash and bold church. I think Jesus was more like Michael Owen than David Beckham, more like a flute than a trumpet, more like the rolling hills of England than the peaks of the Alps. How poetic!

Something happened this week to convince me of this once again in a great way.

I am doing an Master of Education course at Sheff Uni. It’s a pretty frustrating course but with some great people on it. One of my course colleagues emailed me some stuff about what she was doing at her church...it was a great initiative – Empty Church () – exploring what it means to have a building which is there but not used much. They simply opened it up and invited people to come and spend some time in the building - lighting candles, praying, ambient music. Apparently the whole project went really well.

Anyway, we got talking during the coffee break on Wednesday and we began to explore our mutual interest in alt worship and emerging church. Apparently while in London recently she spent a few months going to Grace and has now sought to introduce elements of her own style of alt worship into her own church – she’s doing a Labyrinth in Sheffield Cathedral in a few weeks time for a Youth Lock-In (what a great idea!).

Anyway, in discussion we came across this hugely simple point – all of alt worship tends to operate on the small scale rather than the large scale. I know this is an exaggeration but you know what I mean. She pointed out the gospel nature of this truth – that’s how it is with the gospel - small, insignificant and true. The whole point of alt worship was not to make a huge church, to build a massive network or a megachurch but for individuals to take the message and spread like yeast through the country and the world. A little yeast spread throughout the dough will make it rise – how much of this is happening across the nation – how much will the yeast of insignificant alt worship enterprises allow the dough to rise – to bring renewal and justice to the land. Like mustard seeds spread across the nation, quietly, insignificantly bringing in change and renewal, the breath of God.

John 20 talks of Jesus breathing on the disciples, renewing them, recreating them, bringing new life, making them new adams, introducing a new way, THE way to be human. It was a soft gentle breath not a howling gale.

Small, insignificant, gracious, breath.

We’re advertising a job here at the College, by the way. If you’re interested or you know someone who might be, here are the details...we’re looking for a Practical Theologian -preferably someone who knows some stuff about Doctrine but also about media, arts and contemporary theology, multifaith and postmodernity. Feel free to pass on the details to anyone...

Download Advert.doc, Download practical_theology_tutor_js.doc, Download practical_theology_tutor_ps.doc

Better go this is a long blog and could get longer! Bye.

Be small, be insignificant, be gracious, be the breath of God bringing recreation to all things.

Pete

Adbusters Culturejammers

Adbusters Culturejammers Isn't this site wonderful. I take it everyone in the world has read Naomi Klein and No Logo.

However, what I really find poignant is the opening screen. If Yaseed and Rantisi, why not Bush and Sharon - In a world without war, everyone is a legitimate target.

Exactly what is terrorism? Why are the Palesitinian people not terrorised by 50 years of oppression in refugee camps, by constant economic oppression, by occupation of their land. And all of it in the name of Yahweh! Is this not blasphemy?

Soap-box Pete!

Bourne Identity and David Beckam Asleep

I stopped up late the other night and watched the Bourne Identity on Sky. OK, so it is really just a James Bond kind of thing. I personally think that Matt Damon looks too innocent and schoolboy-like to be your average James Bond kind of thug. But perhaps I have been watching xXx too much! Vin Diesel makes a better bad guy.

Cos of course in the end that is what Damon is.

Sorry if you haven't seen it.

But it struck me how much the whole film plays on the whole image theme. Damon is a pretty innocent looking kind of person - you even feel sorry for him - being plucked out of the water and having minor surgery by some foreign trawlerman who takes out this grubby toolbox and starts cutting him open. Who would not feel afraid. Next you see him on the streets of Zurich, homeless, memory-less, lost. But suddenly, when two cops try and challenge him, he lashes out with extreme violence - hospitalizing both...with minutes he is terrorizing the US Consulate and through the film you realise that actually behind the placid, innocent exterior lies a violent, programmed killing machine. Damon is an assassin. That is such a powerful image. Behind the innocence lies the training and the ability to do so much damage - and what he does to some people is just awful - note the violence of the final Paris scene where he uses one of his victims to break his fall. And then, in the last scene he turns up in Greece at his friend's new scooter hire company - now he is dressed in an collarless white linen shirt and jeans - the typical holidaymaker. However, he remains the killer. He has not dealt with the issues about Treadstone which the Professor tries to tackle moments before his death in the middle of the film - do you get the headaches...is it getting to you...and then he dies. The issues about what treadstone has done are not dealt with. Bourne/Damon tries to suppress them and ignore them by a violent orgy of destruction. In the end I was left wondering whether actually they were ever dealt with.

The postmodern love affair with the image...David Beckham's image is being shown in the Portrait Gallery - 1hour and seven minute video installation. Image is all - but what lies behind the image? Who is David Beckham? What does he think? What has his life trained him for? Another professional machine - a marketing tool, a media star, a commodity. He's a great footballer and my team (yes, I admit it, I support Man United) miss him! But the front means that you never get behind what is going on in the person. Image and superficiality always mask the real person.

Postmodernity wants us to take on the image and allows us to present multiple images...but who is the real Bourne or the real Beckham or the real Pete Phillips, or the real Jesus Christ? And what does that say about the hype about the Passion - another orgy of violence. I know it was true and I know that it represents one reading of the text. As an evangelical I want to support the film. But what of the imageless resurrection? We have no images of that. We do not know how it happened. It is the mystery. We have images of the resurrected Christ - not least through the stories of resurrection appearances...but does The Passion prove postmodernity needs image to relate to reality? Could Passion 2: The Resurrection have as great an effect?

And then, yesterday, a lightening bolt landing near the house blew the sky box! No images for three days! Help!

Must go...

Pete

Hi

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my blog. Why have I decided to blog? Well, I was at Spring Harvest last week and, well, this is how I told my friend what happened...

"Just returned from Harvesting some springs. Great time there. I have decided to start blogging some reflections on postmodernism and the bible. A few people were pestering me about doing one, but the clincher was a encounter I had after a late night debate I did with Elaine Storkey on the God of the Old Testament. I said a few things about story telling and characterisation and questioned whether the story tellers really had a good enough grasp on the God they were characterising! Did not go down well with a few guests! But this one guy came up to me afterwards - lights all lit up, dreamy look on his face..."Do you really mean I can be an evangelical and still read the texts in that way? Is the Bible really that open...!" Major conversation followed on the whole concept of post-evangelicalism and so on. I can't believe there are people out there who are losing faith because they have been taught to swallow fundamentalism to be a fully fledged Christian. Action called for..."

So here is my blog. Of course, it is inspired by jonnybaker and fellow postmodern Christian bloggers.

I suppose it will evolve - I tend to try and get to see movies and exhibitions and want to send some stuff out on those. I could do a full illustrated family history and the such like...but let's take it as it comes...gradually get to know me and see what I have to share...if you find it helpful...great! If not, then sorry.

Thanks to those who inspire me! Including my friends from Cliff and Spring Harvest. This could be an exciting journey!

Pete