I will be contributing to the Church and Postmodern Culture Series Site

Join the conversation.  I’ll be engaging James K. A. Smith’s recent book, “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Focault to Church.”  Specifically, I’ll be contributing a mini-essay titled “The Panopticon of Ecclesial Whiteness: Taking Foucault to a Church Divided.”

Here’s a snippet:

Ignoring white-ness as norm and its disciplinary power within the church frustrates Christians seeking racial-ethnic reconciliation or harmony. Granted, much work has been done in the area, and much of it is to be commended, but it is clear that white-ness remains in the church even as race-ism and the assertion of white privilege operates more subtly.  However, Foucault illumines for us that ignoring race as a disciplinary power blinds us to the realities that continue to hinder the church from moving beyond our racial impasse.  We can look at our discursive practices in our respective churches and see how we, consciously and unconsciously, give credence to the universal code of beauty that is presumed to be white.

I hope to see some of my blogfriends there engaging the text.  Pax. 

 

 

 

The Secret Message of Jesus (Chapter 1)

Troubling Questions About Jesus

Indeed.  The key question offered by McLaren in this chapter, in my opinion, is this:

What if Jesus' secret message reveals a secret plan? What if he didn't come to start a new religion-but rather came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world? p.4 

A revolution? a new world?  I'm feelin' this.  After reading people like Robert Bellah and others who have named the pervasive individualism of American culture such a question is a refreshing question for those of us who see the gospel as much more than a me-and-Jesus trip.  And not just a 'moral' revolution…but a revolution that encompasses all of existence…an alternative redemptive vision of reality and how one lives within it. 

Take a snapshot of the global scene. Terrorism. Religious strife. War. Global Capitalism. Environmental changes.  A Christianity that is captive to individualism and the public/private and sacred/secular split will be vulnerable to other stories that do not have this vision of God's new world at its center.

Indeed.  The problem is that Christianity is a 'religion'.  Religion, to me, seems to connote a set of held beliefs and doctrines…with some practices.  An interior reality…a matter of one's individual disposition before God.  Or in more popular forms of Christianity a 'private relationship with God'.  I know in latin the word 'religion' means much more than this but for some reason in America 'religion' has come to mean something staunchy…a set of dogmatic beliefs.  I often hear people say things like, "keep your religion" to yourself.  Recently, I was listening to some old Arrested Development.  Speech, the lead MC, has a song titled Fishin' 4 Religion:

The reason I'm fishin' 4 a new religion
is my church makes me fall asleep
They're praising a God that watches you weep
and doesn't want you to do a damn thing about it
When they want change the preacher says "shout it"
Does shouting bring about change ? I doubt it
All shouting does is make you lose your voice
So on the dock I sit in silence
staring at a sea that's full of violence

In Speech's words we hear a native desire for 'religion' to be something much more than a 'shout unto the Lord'.  Looking out into a world filled with violence and brokeness one gets the suspicion that the gospel is calling us to something more than just a shout and a praise.  Mind you…a shout and praise are good things…but there is a new world that is calling for our attention.  A new world that is beckoning for us to give concrete expression in our everyday existence.  The gospel calls it the Kingdom of God.  I share Brian's suspicion here.  For me, it is a nagging suspicion that will not be satisified by televangelists, human potential seminars in gospel drag, rigid moralisms, etc..

I want a revolution!  Why?  Because I believe Jesus rose from the dead!

The Secret Message of Jesus

I just received my copy of Brian McLaren's new book The The Secret Message of Jesus. I am really looking forward to reflecting on McLaren's gift here. It seems that I share a similar trajectory that he does in attempting to imagine a post-Colonial expression of Christianity within our North American context. Much of North American Christianity still upholds particular Constantinian habits that need to be challenged and subverted. One of those habits is racial Constantinianism..i.e. the maintenance and sustenance of a hegemonic white male Christian discourse and ecclesiology that posits itself as "norm" and "standard" for theology and praxis. The aesthetic production and grammar of North American Christianity is completely, if not almost entirely borg-a-fied with what I call the symbolic universe of ecclesial whiteness. Of course this has been a matter of ecclesial and theological habit…an unconscious habit that we have inherited from half a millenia of being church locu imperii (on the scene of empire).

Thus far what I have read (just the intro and ch.1) McLaren presents a hopeful trajectory for future theology and praxis for North American Christianity. More later…

John Hope Franklin

 

Yesterday me and the family went to hear Dr. John Hope Franklin talk about his recent autobiography, Mirror to America, at the Levine Museum of the New South here in Charlotte, NC.  It was a great experience hearing him share some of the formative stories of his life.  It was also amazing to hear him recount his thoughts on history, culture, and politics with such clarity (He is 90 years-old!).  As he was re-telling his personal history within the context of a greater historical narrative I found myself reflecting on how I will re-tell my stories to my children and their children.  How will I re-tell the stories?  What stories will I tell.  Of course during the lecture my youngest boy, Abraham, thought the session was over when he ended his talk by saying, “its about time?”  “I didn’t understand a word he was saying…what was he talking about dad?”  Which led me to talk about the significance of a life like Dr. Franklin.  I think I got the point across…for the kids were excited to shake hands with him during the book-signing.  I hope I don’t get so enslaved by the ethos of our culture that places very little value on the oral tradition, the legacies, the heritage….that ethos in our culture that simply wants us to move on to the next big thing.  I pray I have just an inkling of the story-telling capability of a Dr. Franklin as I age…so that I can tell the younger generation about the struggles of life and the goodness and faithfulness of God.  I hope I can be as faithful a griot to my kids as Dr. Franklin has been for many of us.