At the Margins

1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” is such a wonderful challenge to us as followers of Christ.

Unfortunately, I’ve often heard these verses misappropriated as a carte blanche for someone to do anything they want. “As long as I do it to the glory of God, I can do whatever I want.” Far from it. At times, doing something to the “glory of God” means not doing it.

That aside, I find it really exciting to ask what it means to do each thing I do to the glory of God…

What does it mean to eat to the glory of God? Perhaps, as John Wesley argued, not meat, since it is resource intense? Perhaps it means not over-eating (or under-eating for that matter)? Perhaps it means buying local?

What does it mean to work to the glory of God?

What does it mean to shop to the glory of God?

What does it mean to drive to the glory of God?

What does it mean to shower to the glory of God?

What does it mean to vote to the glory of God?

What does it mean to watch TV to the glory of God?

While these questions may seam simple to begin with, they are in fact quite difficult to answer. They even might vary from season of life to season of life. Praise God we have a lifetime to try to understand them and grace to fail.

It’s a question I am often asked. It’s also a question that makes me cringe. I mean, I know what they are asking, but I feel to respond with Grace Community Church or even Culpeper House is woefully inadequate.

I mean, as much as I love the people in each community and believe that they are in fact my Church, to describe either one simply as my Church denies a core reality of Church.

I mean, Church is not a destination or a club, it’s not something that is even geographical. It is much more organic than that. I believe that I am not only called to be a follower of Christ all the time, but to be the Church all the time. This simply is impossible if I define Church by an organization or building. Not to mention unhealthy. Christ spent much of His time in the world. We have created churches that are clubs, places that shelter us from the world rather than equipping us to love those of the world.

For me, Church is and happens whenever 2 or more followers of Christ gather for the purpose of seeking after Him (the above diagram is far from exhaustive). Sure, it’s something that happens on Sunday mornings, but it’s also something that happens many times a day in my community. We can be the Church when we are having dinner with friends, during late night conversations, during Bible Studies. I’m having Church when I spend time with the homeless downtown. I’m having Church when I spend time with His Gathering in Ft. Myers, Florida and when I’m eating breakfast with Stu. In fact, I’m having Church when I’m praying alone, as the Holy Spirit dwells in me.

I recently read a great book about being the Church, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore by Jake Colsen. It’s available in print, but you can also download it online at http://www.jakecolsen.com/JakeStory.pdf. It’s not Shakespeare, but it was really interesting to me—it’s not social justice at all, but presents a view of the Church that is incredibly different and to which I’ve only recently begun to be exposed. It’s a very worthwhile read and, if you read it, I would love to hear what you think.

As I’m sure many of you know, on Friday, March 16, 2007 Christians will be gathering across the country to protest the War in Iraq. Some friends and I plan to attend wearing t-shirts (recycled of course) emblazoned with “Blame Me for War,” as we agree with Jacques Ellul when he wrote:

If the time comes when despair sees violence as the only possible way, it is because Christians were not what they should have been. If violence is unleashed anywhere at all, the Christians are always to blame. This is the criterion, as it were, of the confession of sin. Always, it is because Christians have not been concerned for the poor, have not defended the cause of the poor before the powerful, have not unswervingly fought the fight for justice, that violence breaks out.

A friend sent me an e-mail with the Alternative Allegiance Version of the Christian PEACE Witness for Iraq document. I think it does a much better job of expressing the point that we as Christians must first take responsibility instead of blaming the American government. The first 4 pages are the revised version and the next 2 are the original. I posted it on my webspace at http://www.mattpritchard.com/CPWalt.pdf.

What do you all think?

I’ve been keeping with with the Wren Cross controversy. I ran across an article about a bill, introduced by Senator Will Coggin, to have the cross returned to the Chapel. An article in The Virginia Informer stated, in reference to Coggin, “he had ‘taken offense’ to the notion that a cross is inherently offensive.”

I’m even more disturbed because it is a view shared by many folks in churches across America. I struggle to find anything more offensive than my God crucified on a cross by His creation. To Christians, the cross must be simultaneously offensive and comforting.

As Derek Webb says, “the gospel is inherently offensive.” In Luke, Jesus, in reference to the gospel, states:

They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law.

It bothers me that the American church by-in-large has forgotten that the message of Christ is literally earth-shattering, perhaps that is because the American gospel is easy, say these magic words and you will go to heaven. There is no committment, there is no cost.

The message of Christ is for people to die to themselves and follow Him. The cross is an enduring symbol of that. Of course it is offensive. Praise our God that it is!

There has been a lot of discussion lately surrounding postmodernism and Christianity. My friend Scott Simmons recently provided me an excellent explanation from which the following heavily borrows:

Modernists argue that all Truth can be proven either rhetorically or empirically. This led to the scientific revolution, among other things. The problem is that in science, as in so many fields, we learned time and time again that we were constrained by a host of imperfections, whether they be incomplete information, imprecise methods, statistical issues, et cetera. Of course, modernists argue that this can simply be resolved with better mechanisms, i.e. we develop a better telescope and see more stars, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t there before, it just means that our equipment was insufficient to see them.

Postmodernists argue that truth cannot be perfectly derived rhetorically or empirically. That is to say that there is always a space of the unknown that breaks the continuity between rhetorical or empirical evidence and ultimate Truth. Secular postmodernists thus conclude that to say x is true is more a matter of personal understanding, values, or faith rather than in fact offering ultimate Truth.

Perhaps a chart would demonstrate better:

Science would say that all the evidence points to the truth being the green line. A philosopher might point to truth being the blue line. But in fact Truth or reality might be the red line. Given the simple fact that no one knows what happens in the area of the unknown, anything can happen and thus truth is subjective.

Of course, everyone continues to argue that their truth is in fact Truth from the philosophers, to the scientists, to the theologians, to the outright crazy. Many secular postmodernist take this an additional step to say that truth is solely based in perception and thus there is no ultimate Truth. This is where Christian postmodernists differ.

Christian postmodernists believe that there is in fact an ultimate Truth and, though it may be hinted at and pointed towards in science, philosophy, and religion, it is the sole dominion of God. That is to say that human understanding of Truth lacks perfection and by very definition remains always deficient from ultimate Truth, always in need of redemption, and always requiring faith.

All Christian efforts to prove God, whether scientific, philosophical, or theological have and always will fall short. Wonderfully, this simply not only affirms the requirement of faith, but the core and ultimate need we all have for God!

Providentially, Christians worship a God who speaks. The one true God who has chosen to share ultimate Truth with all of mankind through the Holy Spirit and through His Word. Our understanding remains deficient and must always be examined and challenged, but we get to experience ultimate Truth, here and now, like no other people and in eternity, in perfection.

Soli gloria Deo.

Last week Kate Perkins, a wonderful young woman who I met at the PAPA Festival while she was spending the summer studying New Monastic communities, came to visit our community (see her thoughts about us in Christian Hippies 8). It was a good time to get her perspective on some of the things we have been thinking about and to just hear her thoughts about faith in general. I hope she will move to DC after she graduates as I think she will be an amazing asset for the budgeoning community here.

While she was visiting I learned about the removal of the cross from the Wren chapel at William and Mary and she said she was writing an editorial. My instant reaction was to think removing the cross was a nonsensical thing to do and my face and huff betrayed my perspective. Her response was, “I’m writing in support of its removal.” Instantly, I understood. Seeking the cross be returned runs parallel to insisting that “under God” remain in the pledge of allegiance, fighting for “In God We Trust” to remain on our currency, or for a moment of silence to open our school days. They are acts that in actually do very little to further the cause of God and by-in-large detract from it. In fact, all of them are more about giving lip-service to God than bringing a worthy sacrifice. They in no way help us continue to be a Christian nation–an historically bankrupt concept anyway.

Kate insightfully uses Isaiah to point to the idolatry of worshipping symbols. Take a look at her opinion editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Christian vs. Christ-follower

Link

Created: Wed, 01 Nov 2006

My friend Colin just sent me a link to a set of Christian parodies of the Mac/PC commericals. It’s a great concept, but I’m afraid they fall short.

Essentially it’s an issue of good concept, poor articulation. These are anti-Christendom, but leave one thinking that being a Follower of Jesus is even more meaningless. They spent a lot of time dismantling Christendom but failed to equally develop what it means to Follow Jesus.

My friend and housemate Ryan provided a very good critique:

Good application of the Mac/PC ads. But, as Colin says, poor and lukewarm generalization of Christian and ‘Christ-Follower’ (Shouldn’t they be the same? Let’s not draw even more lines to define who we are by differentiating ourselves
from others.) Another attempt to market Christ on a platform of feel-good Christianity? Probably. “Hey, I smoke, have a tongue-piercing, don’t take showers, AND I love Jesus; so that makes my relationship with Christ more authentic and me more ‘real’, man.” Would have been better if the ads de-emphasized the very things it brought to light.

At any rate I think they are interesting and worth discussing.

Worldmapper

Category: Tool / service

To commemorate World AIDS Day one of my friends sent me an e-mail with a map with countries resized according to the prevalence of AIDS. It’s part of a large collection of comparative maps at http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html.

While reading The New Friars by Scott A. Bessenecker (review forthcoming), I ran across a great quote from Tolstoy:

“Everybody wants to change the world and nobody wants to change themselves.”

As those who know me are well aware, I often fail to adhere to the theology I so strongly purport. I am a theologian who is all about a theology of action, but most of the time I find myself just writing and talking about it, not doing it. In fact, to be completely upfront, I am often trying to convince myself as much as I am trying to convince those I talk with.

The reality is that I know that Christ calls us to suffer, to leave those things to which we cling and cling to him, but I am so afraid. My heart desires to chase after the Master with reckless abandon, but my body says, “Why? You love people. You serve the poor. You proclaim the Gospel. Certainly that is enough.” And, though I live in a society and church that says my body is right, I know it is lying to me. Still I continually give in.

I am a hypocrite. But please do not let my hypocracy dampen the Truth of what I say, for they are two separate issues. The question is not if I do what I say, but if what I say is True. It is my prayer that you may inhabit the Truth of God with great boldness and zeal!!!

Member after member of the Christian left has declared victory in last Tuesday’s U.S. election, as did their conservative counterparts in elections past. The reality is that Christ lost the election this year, as with so many previous ones.

He lost the election when we chose to proclaim the Gospel with our votes as a substitute for our lives…When we decided it more expedient to manifest the kingdom in our laws, in our congress, and in our courtrooms than in our neighborhoods, in our families, and in our hearts…

I pray that we may repent and leave our comfort, our security, our control, our success, and the ways of this world so that the Kingdom of God may break forth more boldy among us!