The story we find ourselves in. Post-colonialist Post-secularist Post-rationalist Post-communist...

the story we findourselves in

Post-colonialist

Post-secularist

Post-rationalist

Post-communist

Post-capitalist

Post-nationalist

Post-institutionalist

Post-patriarchal

Post-Christendom

The Christian Church is apremodern movementthat became a modern institution and now must adapt to aPostmodern context

solidarityhumility

methodologyliturgy

mission networks

story

Postmodern shifts

beau

ty

Question 1:What is the shape of the biblical narrative?

(A pre-critical question)

Hell

Salvation

Fallen History/

Fallen world

Fall

HeavenEden

Hades

Atonement, purification

Aristotelian

Real

Fall

Into Aristotelian

Real

Platonic IdealPlatonic Ideal

Destruction, defeat

Civilization, development,

colonialism

assimilationBarbarian/ pagan world

Rebellion

into barbarism

Pax RomanaPax Romana

Is there an alternative understanding?

sdrawkcab gnidaerRick Warren, Billy Graham, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Paul, Jesus

reading forwardsAdam, Eve, Sarah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus

Exodus: Liberation & Formation


Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation



Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy


G

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e

s

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s



G

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e

s

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HUMAN DESTRUCTION

HUMAN VIOLENCE

HUMAN EXPLOITATION


G

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s

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kingd

om

of G

od




kingd

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of G

od

Needed: a fresh and coherent way of telling

the story of the Bible ... the story of

Jesus ... and our story too.

Creation

CreationIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over

the waters... And it was good. (Genesis 1:1)

Crisis

Creation

Crisis

Garden - hunter/gatherers

Field - herders & crop farmers

River valley - towns & cities

Tower - walled cities/ civilizations

Calling

Creation, Crisis

CallingThe LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."I will make you into a great nation/ and I will bless you;I will make your name great,/ and you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."So Abram left, as the LORD had told him…

(Genesis 12:1-6)

Creation

Crisis

Calling

Blessed to be a blessing

Rejoining God’s story of creation.

Captivity

Revolutionary insight:

God is on the side of the slaves.

28

CaptivityEx. 3:7 Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’

Captivity

Getting slaves out of Egypt: 10 plagues

Getting Egypt out of freed slaves: 10 commandments

Conquest

Conquest

The Bible, God, and violence:

An evolving understanding ...Pointing forward.

Conversation

Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest

Conversation

Priests, prophets, poets, sages, storytellersthrough calling, journey, slavery, exodus,

conquest, judges, kings, civil war, exile, return, continuing domination

Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation ...

Christ

Christ

Domination - Romans, Herodians, Sadducees

Revolution - Zealots

Purification - Pharisees

Accumulation - Wealthy Judeans

Victimization - Galileans, Samaritans, poor

Isolation - Essenes

Jesus - Another story …

Christ

Kingdom of God …

Calling everyone into reconciliation with God, one another, and

creation

Christ

Cross …

God forgiving, not seeking revenge

God revealed in an vulnerable victim

Victory of non-violence

Christ

Resurrection ...

Vindication

Ascension - enthronement

Bestowal of Spirit on “all flesh”

New Embodiment of Christ

Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest,

Conversation, Christ ... Community

Community

empowered and united by the Holy Spirit

for mission

for the good of the world.

Consummation/Celebration

Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation, Christ, Community

Consummation/Celebration

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

(I Corinthians 15:58)

Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest, Conversation, Christ,

Community, Celebration

There are many reasons to compare our churches to an old male tortoise …

Closing suggestions:

1. Cultivate patient urgency.



3. Add, don’t subtract.



3. Innovate -

and imitate.



4. Turn toward the young -

Encourage

Support

Protect

the story we findourselves in

Fr. Vincent Donovan:

Religion is our own creation. Its horizons are necessarily limited to our horizons. Since it is our creation it will serve us. In a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, we look to it as that one, solid, taken-for-granted basis to our lives. It leads us to cling to the forms and structures with which we are familiar and which we have found comforting. At the dying of an age and the birth of a new one, religion will be in the forefront of those institutions clinging desperately to that immovable rock of unanalyzed assumptions.

But revelation shatters that rock, disturbs our horizons, presents a God who is not like us at all, a destabilizing and surprising God who cannot be used to justify all our projects; instead, One who asks us questions we do not want to hear. (The Church in the Midst of Creation, p. 118)

Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing. There is no question that should not be asked or that is outlawed. The day we are completely satisfied with what we have been doing; the day we have found the perfect, unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we will know that we are wrong, that we have made the greatest mistake of all. (Christianity Rediscovered, 146)

The story we find ourselves in. Post-colonialist Post-secularist Post-rationalist Post-communist...

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