Washington island tuesday 1

something is trying to be born:
envisioning a new kind of Christian faith
Text

From the place where
we are right
Flowers will never
grow
In the spring.
The place where we
are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be
heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai

a new kind of
christianity:
ten questions that aretransforming the faith

Something is on the way out and something
else is painfully being born.
It is as if something were crumbling,
decaying, and exhausting itself,
while something else, still indistinct, were
arising from the rubble....
We are in a phase when one age is
succeeding another, when everything is
possible.
Vaclav Havel,“The New Measure of Man”

Fr. Vincent Donovan:
Do not leave others where they are.
Do not bring them to where you are, as
beautiful as that place might be.
Instead, go with others to a new place neither
your nor they have ever been before.

500 years ago: Luther’s 95 theses.
Theses are statements intended for
debate, to bring us to a new state.
Needed today: not statements, debate,
or a new state (static location)
Rather ...

Needed today:
New questions to create conversations
to lead us on a new quest.

Statements (or theses) create
debates that bring us to new a
state (or status).
! ?
Questions create conversations
that launch us on new quests.

What are the questions?
1. The narrative question: What is the shape of the
biblical narrative? Storyline, plotline?
2. The authority question: What is the Bible, and
what is it for? How does it have authority?
3. The God question: Is God violent? Why does
God seem so violent and genocidal in so many
bible passages?

4. The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus, and
why does he matter?
5. The Gospel Question: What is the gospel -
a message of evacuation or transformation?
Exclusion or inclusion?

6. The church question: What do we do
about the church?
7. The sex question: Can we deal with
issues of sexuality without fighting and
dividing?
8. The future question: Can we find a
more hopeful vision of the future?

9. The pluralism question: How should
we relate to people of other faiths?
10. The next step question: How can
we pursue this quest in humility, love,
and peace?

How things should/could/might be
Tension
How things are
Tension
How things used to be

Question 1:
What is the shape of the
biblical narrative?
(A pre-critical question)

Hell
Salvation
History/
The 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?

the danger of a single
story
chimamanda adichie

There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think
about whenever I think about the power
structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a
noun that loosely translates to "to be greater
than another."

Like our economic and political worlds, stories
too are defined by the principle of nkali: How
they are told, who tells them, when they're
told, how many stories are told, are really
dependent on power.
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of
another person, but to make it the definitive
story of that person. The Palestinian poet
Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to
dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is
to tell their story and to start with, "secondly."

25
Start the story with the arrows of the Native
Americans, and not with the arrival of the
British, and you have an entirely different
story. Start the story with the failure of the
African state, and not with the colonial
creation of the African state, and you have an
entirely different story.

sdrawkcab gnidaer
Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Finney, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther,
Aquinas, Augustine, Paul, Jesus
reading forwards
Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Jesus

Exodus: Liberation & Formation

Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy

G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Mercy

G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Mercy
HUMAN DESTRUCTION
HUMAN VIOLENCE
HUMAN EXPLOITATION

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Ivan Illich (Austrian
former priest,
philosopher, social
critic, 1926-2002)

Neither revolution nor reformation
can ultimately change a society,
rather you must tell a new powerful
tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps
away the old myths and becomes the
preferred story …

… one so inclusive that it gathers all the
bits of our past and our present into a
coherent whole, one that even shines
some light into the future so that we can
take the next step…. If you want to
change a society, then you have to tell an
alternative story.
- attributed to Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest,
philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)

Question 2:
The Bible Question
The Bible Question
What is the Bible?
Or:What is it for?

Barna Group: New Research Explores How Different Generations View and Use the Bible
... However, despite these similarities, the Barna studies show that the youngest generations are charting
a new, unique course related to the Bible. Here are the types of changes being forged by young adults:
•Less Sacred – While most Americans of all ages identify the Bible as sacred, the drop-off among the
youngest adults is striking: 9 out of 10 Boomers and Elders described the Bible as sacred, which
compares to 8 out of 10 Busters (81%) and just 2 out of 3 Mosaics (67%).
•Less Accurate – Young adults are significantly less likely than older adults to strongly agree that the
Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. Just 30% of Mosaics and 39% of Busters firmly
embraced this view, compared with 46% of Boomers and 58% of Elders.
•More Universalism – Among Mosaics, a majority (56%) believes the Bible teaches the same spiritual
truths as other sacred texts, which compares with 4 out of 10 Busters and Boomers, and one-third of
Elders.
•Skepticism of Origins – Another generational difference is that young adults are more likely to express
skepticism about the original manuscripts of the Bible than is true of older adults.
•Less Engagement – While many young adults are active users of the Bible, the pattern shows a clear
generational drop-off – the younger the person, the less likely then are to read the Bible. In particular,
Busters and Mosaics are less likely than average to have spent time alone in the last week praying and
reading the Bible for at least 15 minutes. Interestingly, none of the four generations were particularly
likely to say they aspired to read the Bible more as a means of improving their spiritual lives.
•Bible Appetite – Despite the generational decline in many Bible metrics, one departure from the typical
pattern is the fact that younger adults, especially Mosaics (19%), express a slightly above-average
interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge. This compares with 12% of Boomers and 9% of Elders. ...

What do we mean
when we say the Bible
is authoritative?
What do we mean by
authority?
What do we mean by
authority?

The Bible as
Constitution
• What purposes do constitutions (or social
contracts) fulfill?
• What problems arise with this approach?

Bible as Conversation
• The Bible as a cultural library
• Artifacts from stories within stories

LEGAL CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY LIBRARY
Uniformity Diversity
Preserve order Preserve diversity
agreement argument
enforcement encouragement

LEGAL CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY LIBRARY
Rules to live by Stories to live by
Conformity Creativity
Analyze, interpret, argue Enter, inhabit, practice
amendments? new acquisitions

Inspiration
• what would an inspired constitution look
like?
• what would an inspired community library
look like?

Question 10: How
can we engage
with these
questions without
fighting and
dividing?

A way of thinking
about
organizational
change:
insights from
macrohistorians

Coral: holy people
__________
Ultraviolet: compassionate communities
Violet: globally-networked individuals
__________
Indigo: “citizens of the world”
Blue: nation-states/democracies
Green: kingdoms/empires
Yellow: warlords
Orange: agricultural chiefdoms
Red: hunter/gatherer band

Coral: one with God
__________
Ultraviolet: holistic, unifying
Violet: integral, systemic, otherly
__________
Indigo: pluralist, relativist, globalist
Blue: individualist, rationalist, ideologue
Green: nationalist, rules, codes
Yellow: feudal, power-oriented
Orange: tribal, magical, animist
Red: survival, instinctual, “reptilian”

Coral: Quest for theosis
__________
Ultraviolet: Quest for sacredness
Violet: Quest for ubuntu (otherliness)
__________
Indigo: Quest for honesty
Blue: Quest for Individuality
Green: Quest for Independence
Yellow: Quest for power
Orange: Quest for security
Red: Quest for survival

Cultures may include two or
more zones, but will have
a center of gravity in one.
They may regress.

Development =
• Differentiate/Transcend
1.Integrate/Include

If we don’t differentiate or
transcend, we experience
stagnation, fixation and
stuckness.
If we don’t integrate and include,
we experience disassociation
and a backward attack-focus.

First tier zones think in terms of
right/wrong and good/evil.
Other zones are evil/wrong: our
zone is good/right.

Second tier zones think in terms of
appropriate and adequate.
Other zones are adequate for their
times and situations; we seek the
zone that is appropriate for us here
and now.

Think of climbing a ladder.
You gain a new and wider view from each
rung.
Your earlier view was not wrong - only
partial.
Early zones truly describe the way the
world looks to people at that vantage point.
You couldn’t get to the higher rungs if it
weren’t for the lower rungs.

This approach is not absolutist.
It doesn’t claim one view is right and
previous (or later) ones are wrong.
Nor is it relativist.
It doesn’t say that no views are truly
right, but only think they are.
It says all views are partial and that
greater wholeness is better than lesser
wholeness.

St. Paul seems to agree:
When I was a child, I spoke and thought
and reasoned like a child,
But when I became an adult,
I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly,
But then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall
understand fully,
Even as I have been fully understood.

So faith, hope, and love abide, these
three;
But the greatest of these is love.
I will show you the most excellent
way.
Follow the way of love.
Amen.

Exercise:
Consider the following in light of the spiral
dynamics schema:
Your life
Your church
Your denomination
Your nation
The world
Where is the center of gravity?
Where are the points of tension?
Where are breakthroughs happening?
Coral: one with God
__________
Ultraviolet: holistic, unifying
Violet: integral, systemic, otherly
__________
Indigo: pluralist, relativist, globalist
Blue: individualist, rationalist, ideologue
Green: nationalist, rules, codes
Yellow: feudal, power-oriented
Orange: tribal, magical, animist
Red: survival, instinctual, “reptilian”

How can we help our communities move
forward?
What will cause people to entrench?
What cost will we pay for stimulating
forward movement?
How can we make our churches safe for
people at each zone?
How can we not get stuck?

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