Final Notification

Getting a "Final Notification" from any one of the "Christian" websites I happen to belong to, tells me nothing, except that they seek to coerce me into accepting their terms.
Getting 'final notification' notices is now so common-place, that I ignore the term all-together. It's emotionally coercive. Some of the sites that use this terminology are considered "Christian." Sadly, that means nothing. Coercive commercial techniques aren't considered anti-Christian by these entities. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But as a Christian, in my naivete, maybe I should be. I thought being Christian should illustrate something better.

And once again, my savior looks like this.

Genocide and Forgiveness

Tonight I watched the finale of a film about the Holocaust, from the perspective of a survivor who decided to "forgive" the Nazis who experimented on her and her twin sister during the war. Questions were raised about whether she even had that right to forgive those beyond her own experience of persecution. The film gave us a very complicated woman, Eva, who decided for her own sake, to forgive those who had tortured her and her twin sister on behalf of the Nazis. She decided to forgive not only those who had done these crimes against her and her sister, but also decided to forgive the entire German people and the Nazis among them for what they did. Then, later in the film, she, Eva, visited Israel, and more importantly, the Palestinian territory, to try to work her "forgiveness" into their fabric. The experience, however, for her, was unnerving to say the least. She found herself being the person who represented "power" (as an Israeli) being confronted by those who knew no power of any sort. They confronted her with the many crimes that were committed by Israelis against Palestinians on a daily basis, including outright murder. She saw, if I may say so myself, and I don't know I have this right, the discomforting sight of being on the other side the victimization table. I think she was not able to see herself as belonging to a people who could ever do such a thing. She had "forgiven" those who had victimized her from a perspective of innocence. And certainly, as a child, she was indeed innocent. In that sense she could forgive those who had violated her and her sister from a vantage point of actual innocence. In other words, they had no power to resist the violence against them. In this she was correct. Yet, when she ventured to scenarios which reflected a picture which had Jews, Israelis, being in positions of actual power, she did not have the emotional or intellectual framework available to her to allow that her own people could be guilty in the way (though not by any means in the way Nazis had been numerically) other oppressors had been before. And yes, including the Nazis. That's the most disturbing part of this. Could a people, a people victimized so horribly, become a people capable of the same horror?
This is where forgiveness takes into account, and must take into account, that every human being has within himself and herself the ability to forgive and yet also has the ability to be the perpetrator of the greatest crimes known to humanity. This brings to mind that we must always be attentive to what stirs within us as much as what drives those we would be against.

Sun coming out from hiding

Twitter Evangelism

Tonight I discovered that Twitter is a powerful means to interact with people, whether far away geographically, or ideologically. I interacted with someone who "follows" me on Twitter about both politics and religion. It was fascinating. He's someone who is "conservative" politically, and who I thought was similarly conservative, i.e. orthodox, in his Christian convictions. Yet at the end, after finding out he believed in some pretty wild conspiracies regarding certain birth certificates, I also came to find that he questioned the basics of the reliability of the Christian text.

This exchange was enlightening to say the least.

It showed me that many among "Christian" conservatives are driven as much by a mindset that is governed by a conspiratorial way of seeing the world that not only questions our current President's origins, but also questions the foundational origins of the historic Christian faith. This, quite honestly, surprised me. It betrayed a radical skepticism that I hadn't assumed for the person I was interacting with about these issues. In my initial interactions, I saw the typical Christian conservative expressions. And in this I assumed that he had a basic trust in the reliability of the text governing Christian life. It was only as we engaged, back and forth, about political issues, that he mentioned the "birther" issue. That was my first clue. Then, within minutes, he asked about 'sources' and 'codices' regarding the basis of scripture. My first inclination is to think that he's been overly influenced by Dan Brown nonsense. But I don't want to prejudge. He may simply be examining the textual variants that do actually exist. But the fact that he brought it up so quickly after offering up the 'birther' argument does make me wonder if he's operating from a framework that is inherently conspiratorial and unrealistically dualistic. Other topics came up that, I think, point also to an either/or mindset, such as a strong focus on illegal immigration issues. In any case, it's been a good conversation so far. He's been receptive to what I've had to say so far. I hope it can be fruitful and help us both come to a better sense of what is true. In any case, it's been really interesting.

Columbus Day, Tish B'av and Native Americans

Today is Columbus Day. If you're a European American, it's customary to wish someone a happy Columbus Day. It's a holiday I celebrated gladly every year as a child back in New York City. I've lived in Italian neighborhoods just as much as I've lived in Irish neighborhoods (not to mention Latino and black neighborhoods). Both holidays (Columbus and St. Patrick's) are extremely popular on Staten Island, no matter your background. But regarding Columbus Day we always celebrated it as the day America was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus. We'd recite the names of his three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria; Memorize the nice little poetic device of "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" and hear about how he, and all those after him, brought European civilization to North America. Columbus Day was always a fun holiday. After all, I had the day off from school! What more could you ask for?

In August, there's a little known Jewish holy day called Tish B'av. Even most Jews hardly know about it. It's a holy day you never say have a happy one about. It commemorates the day the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, first by the Babylonians and then centuries later by the Romans. According to tradition, these events both happened on the same day, the ninth of Av, which is what Tish B'av means. So this day holds a special and very somber meaning for Jews, since it commemorates a day of disaster for their people not just once, but many times, culminating of course in the modern holocaust.

Meanwhile, back to Columbus Day. How about the opinion of those who already lived in the land he "discovered"? This day, which is so celebrated by millions of Americans as a day of great discovery, is seen as the darkest day in Native American history. It's a day that marks the beginning of their end as a people connected to their land. It's a day that marks the beginning of a genocide that still has not been fully, or even partially, in most American's eyes, recognized or admitted. What of the enslavement of American Indians by Columbus himself? What of the consequent eradication of large swaths of peoples from the Alleganies all the way to the west coast?

Columbus Day is celebrated as a day of discovery.
Tish B'av is remembered as a day of mourning.
Native Americans also see this day as a day of mourning.
This day is their Tish B'av.

Let us walk in their steps and mourn with them. But better yet, let us walk with them towards a better future. We must be honest about what has happened. To lie about it is to perpetuate the crimes of the past. But we must move forward.

Biblical Global Justice

This semester at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary one of the classes I'm taking is Biblical Global Justice with the Rev. Dean Borgman. As soon as I saw the syllabus I knew I wanted to take the class. Our first textbook is "Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World" by Enrique Nardoni. It's by far the most scholarly of the books he's requiring for the class. But it's well worth the reading, if only for the fact that it makes abundantly clear that the Biblical model of justice predated the Biblical text. I know that this can seem scary to many Christians, especially evangelicals, since it seems to put into doubt the uniqueness of the Biblical witness. I used to struggle with that same tension. Many years ago I used to say that the pagan writers borrowed their ideas from the Hebrew writers and that that explained the similarities between the Biblical text and the surrounding cultures. I didn't know then that these writings predated the Biblical witness by hundreds of years in some cases. So as I came to realize that the Biblical writers were the ones doing the "borrowing" I had to decide how I was going to deal with that. I couldn't go back to my previously held position. The archeological evidence is far too strong to put the Hebrew text in the front of the line chronologically. I still believe very strongly that the Biblical text is unique in comparison to other texts, in that it reveals like no other texts of that time (or since) the singular Creator God Yahweh over and against the other gods of the surrounding nations. Is there a great deal of similarity between the temples, the covenant language, the creation stories, the flood narratives, and the Biblical narratives? Absolutely. As an evangelical, I believe that God has spoken in a peculiar way through the Hebrew prophets so that his Person and attributes are revealed in a way that gives us an accurate picture of Who God Is. Is it exhaustive? Not in the least. But is it sufficient for a right knowledge of the Creator God of the universe. Yes. It is also sufficient for a saving knowledge of that Creator God to those up to the time of the first advent of Christ. Once again, as an evangelical Christian, I believe in the unique salvific centrality of Christ's Person and Work.

The reason for all of the prolegomena here is that it is sometimes the case that those who would affirm what I've just affirmed regarding the composition of the Biblical text also negate or at least relativize the centrality of the Biblical witness and by extension the centrality of Yahweh in the OT and Christ in the NT as regards salvation.

In tonight's class, in particular, we dealt largely with the issues of economics and what the Bible says about economic issues. The readings so far have leaned liberal in their analysis. But remember, this is Gordon Conwell Seminary, which is not, and never has been known as, a liberal seminary. It's a very theologically "conservative" i.e. orthodox school within the evangelical Christian tradition. But because this class is dealing specifically with the issues of global justice, and it's trying to address them from a Biblical perspective, some of the passages (and analyses) are going to sound downright liberal, whereas other passages are going to come off sounding very conservative. If your theology offends political partisans of both stripes, you're probably somewhere that's good. It's not guaranteed of course. The standard isn't who you offend. It's who God offends. If you find yourself offending the same types of people He offends in the OT and NT, then you're doing well.

Do you sound like you might be a crypto communist because you like early Acts too much, and Mary's Magnificat gives you the warm fuzzies? But at the same time you're thought to be dangerously narrow-minded because you actually believe Jesus when He says that there is no way to get to the Father except through Him, and that in the same Acts you agree that there is no other name under heaven by which women/men may be saved? If you believe that all of these passages are equally inspired, then you just might be a Christian who is equipped to speak to the idolatries of both the left and the right. You may also be a Christian who can speak to the idolatry of consumeristic consumption that has ravaged the spiritual life of American evangelicalism. But in order to be able to speak to that particular idolatry, you (I) must first own up to our part in partaking of that deadly delicacy, turn from it, and then reach out to those caught up in the same mesmerizing meme which tells us we are what we own. And that we can never own enough. Our diagnosis must be savagely precise so that we can administer the anointing oil of the good news of Christ and His Kingdom. Nothing else will do. Nothing more, because nothing more is needed. Nothing less, because nothing less will suffice. Christ and his Kingdom gives us the motivation to move mountains in our world all the while knowing that moving a mountain and not knowing Christ means you've just rearranged the chairs on the Titanic. As Christians, we're called to heal, mend, tend, and minister to the whole person, body and soul. Nothing less and nothing more. Because nothing less will suffice and nothing more is needed.

Branches before open blue sky

Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary

It's day two here at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. I'm still settling into the routine of life out here. It's been eight years since I last was in an academic environment. Classes start on Friday morning. Yesterday, today and tomorrow is orientation for all of the new students. I drove out on Monday morning and drove through the day until about 1am. I stopped in Lee, Mass. for the night and took off again at 6am for the last leg of the trip. I got into Boston around 8:30am and drove right into rush hour traffic. It was stop and go for about half an hour. But once I hit 95 north it cleared out considerably. As I got closer to GCTS I kinda knew where I should exit and I kinda knew what the main roads were that led into South Hamilton. Well, needless to say I drove for almost 2 hours around the northern suburbs of Boston looking for GCTS. Eventually, I found a cop in Beverly, a neighboring town, and asked him for directions (he was the third person I had asked BTW!). Once he realized that I was hopelessly lost, he told me he would lead to the seminary himself. A few minutes later, after he got done having a vehicle towed, he pulled beside me and led me to the front gate of Gordon Conwell! What a blessing! I wish I had gotten his name, but in any case I am very grateful for the services of this gentleman from the Beverly Police Department. He made what was turning into a very stressful day into one that I now look back on with gratitude.

The days leading up to my trip out here were just as dramatic. I only applied three weeks ago. And I also only received confirmation that I was accepted last Wednesday! My last day at work was last Friday, so either way I had to move on to something new. I drove out here with only the acceptance confirmed, nothing else. No housing had been secured. No financial aid had been secured (that's still being worked on!). But I came out with my car packed to the rafters trusting that God was behind all of this. I was excited, anxious, sad, happy, nervous; just about every emotion ran through me in the past week. In fact, on Saturday I really struggled with anxiety right off the bat and had a hard time getting packed. Thankfully, good and faithful friends helped me that day get through and I was able to get most of my belongings packed away in storage.

Then Sunday came. I went to church. It was great as usual, but it was also emotional to see my friends there, knowing that I wouldn't be seeing them again for several months at least. Then after church Jeff and Melissa had a dinner for me with a bunch of other friends, many of them from my Hope College days. That was even more emotional. Finally, Sunday night came and I became so anxious that I thought I might not even go. Every potential drawback came roaring into my mind of why I shouldn't do this. Everything that could go wrong stared me in the face. I was terrified of what might happen. I was also very sad at the prospect of leaving Holland after 12 years. I had built up many very important friendships over the years, not the least of which was Jeff and Melissa and their little boy Tsepo. That was the hardest part by far. Even writing this causes tears to well up in my eyes.

But once again, Jeff spent time with me late Sunday night and we talked, I cried, he listened, and he asked the right questions. A little later a friend (Jon) who is staying at the house came in and we also talked for nearly an hour until I calmed down. I finished up packing what I could into my car that night, got what sleep I could, and got up Monday to leave.

I woke up later than expected simply because I was both physically and emotionally exhausted. So I didn't actually leave until 9:30am. But because of the rest and the conversations I had had the night before I awoke in a much better frame of mind. I packed what was left that could fit in my car and I said goodbye to Jeff, Melissa and Tsepo and drove off. I found out the next day when we spoke on the phone that that moment was the hardest one for them. We've shared our lives for over two and a half years and had become family. I will always be grateful for what they have been for me both as friends, but also as my sister and brother in Christ.

The trip ended up being much better overall than I had expected. The car ran perfect the whole way. The trip itself, by the end, was just over a thousand miles (part of that of course was due to my getting completely lost right at the end). Anyway, here it is, day two, and my housing is provided for; which was my biggest worry. And my financial aid is slowly coming together. I still need to find work. But I trust that that too will fall into place. So far I've had no reason to doubt that God will provide for me. After all, he's been doing just that throughout my whole life. This particular adventure is just one more example.

The Gospel Coalition

I just discovered the Gospel Coalition website when reading Michael Spencer's twitter feed (yes, I "do" twitter!). Michael had linked to a particular video of John Piper and Tim Keller speaking about how important it is for those who are God centered to listen to those who are Christ/Cross centered and vice versa. Upon listening to the initial link, I visited other chapters in the series and was very impressed. I look forward to seeing more of what they have.

Back from NY, next stop, Boston and Gordon Conwell Seminary!

What a week. I get back at 2:30am Monday morning after driving 15 hours from NY. Upon coming into Michigan I realize I'm not supposed to move to NY, but I'm not supposed to stay in Holland either. It dawns on me that my long dormant and delayed dream of Gordon Conwell Seminary may finally come true. Each day this week I've taken a step and so far so good. My transcript from Hope College is heading to GCTS as we speak. I've gotten part of the online application done. I've got three people to write the recommendation letters. I hope to have my own essays done by tonight, or at the latest, by Monday. Thankfully, since it's now an online process, once I'm done, it's received by them instantaneously. I can almost taste the lobster and clams! I hope they still do the seafood cookout for new students!

It's strange how events can change so fast. I shouldn't be surprised of course. God has long worked that way in my life. Whether 12 years ago this week when I first came out to Holland to attend Hope College on very short notice, or even further back, when God worked His strange grace through my homelessness when I was 21. Or more recently, when He worked through a convicting (literally!) grace nearly three years ago. In all of these events, God has reminded me each and every time that He has always been in the midst of my circumstances. It's just that my typical hard heart and hard head needed a glaring flashing light in my face before I would recognize His face in that light. I am and always will be grateful for the various ways that God has used the people around me to intervene in my life. His love is truly beyond comprehension.

Heading off to NYC

Well, I'm heading off to NYC. Specifically Staten Island, my hometown. I lived my first 32 years there before I moved to Holland, Michigan to attend Hope College. That was 12 years ago! It's hard to believe that I've lived here that long. Holland is seriously one degree of separation! I'm looking forward to Pizza (yes, with a capital P, b/c NY Pizza is the real thing! Thin crust rules!), gyros, and serious Chinese food. Though China Kitchen does rule Holland, and with good reason. Those fried dumplings are to die for! Boy, I seem to be food obsessed. But best of all, I'm looking forward to seeing friends (and my sis) and taking tons of pics and video for my friends. It'll be good to get away and have some down time. I definitely need to recharge.

In the coming days and weeks I hope to have some new posts on issues related to our cultural slide toward extremism. It's such a big issue, that I've been intimidated by it and haven't posted anything so far. I'm also planning a detailed review of Derek Webb's new album Stockholm Syndrome, which I finally bought and have listened to many times. Still processing that one! It's different to be sure. I like the message, but the style is taking some time. If I have access, I've post from NYC with pics and video!