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Practicing reformation

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It’s almost October 31. And this year, Reformation Day is taking the spotlight from Halloween as it is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s famous “blog” post on the door of the Wittenberg church. He had 95 points, which (by today’s standards) is not a blog-friendly number (10 seems to be the sweet spot). Yet it went viral and caused a seismic shift in Europe. The tremors are still felt today. With the giddiness the number “500” creates, I’ve heard many call for a reformation for our generation. Timing is everything (almost), so it isn’t opportunistic but wise to rouse the church to a reformation on such a grand anniversary. Lot of movements, after all, piggybacked on such historical resonance (Good Friday on Passover, Christian Pentecost on Jewish Pentecost). But much of the rousing has been ephemeral simply because there wasn't much content. Yes, we are due for reformation – anything 500 years old is bound to have deleterious accretion – but what are we being reformed from and … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Reformation

Hearing the Bible

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“Reading in silence is the source of half the misconceptions that have caused the public to distrust poetry.” — Basil Bunting What the poet Basil Bunting says of poetry is true of Christian Scriptures. The silent reading of Scriptures has spawned misuses and the subsequent distrust of Scripture. I do not have in mind merely the strident atheist who considers it to be old wives’ tales. I refer to ardent Christians who fight tooth and nail for divine inspiration, lifting Scripture to a lofty pedestal beyond the dirty human hands of historical criticism and make Scripture the fourth person of the “Quaternity.“ For the Bible-lover and the Bible-hater both approach the book in the same manner — as an essay, with statements to be analyzed and distilled. The doubter hunts for contradictions. The believer scans for the main idea and then goes to work vigorously translating the concept into a system of doctrine. And nothing embodies this attitude of analytic study better than the cold, … [Read more...]

Tagged With: biblical literacy

With and without disabilities: A new understanding of worship

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On July 30, Susan McSwain brought her friends from Reality Ministries to lead us in worship. Reality Ministries is a community of people with and without disabilities serving each other and serving the city of Durham, North Carolina, together. As they lead worship that Sunday, I experienced a joy so pure I almost questioned all previous experiences of joy in worship. In trying to say thank you, I found myself reflecting theologically on that iris-widening encounter. Theology, if I am reading Paul correctly, is a thank-you note to a life-impacting gift. So, here is my letter to give thanks for the gift I received in worship. Dear Susan McSwain and the Reality Ministries Team, Thank you for leading worship for us. For you weren’t just a guest preacher and worship team breaking up our routine. No. You changed the worship of New Life permanently. For the following Sunday’s worship wasn’t ordinary either. Your team wasn’t there, but your joyous spirit was flaming through us, like … [Read more...]

Faith and healing

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  My grandfather beat my grandmother every time she went to church. Because every time she went, she tithed and my grandfather couldn’t understand why my grandmother would pay a tax to a church that didn’t do a thing against the Japanese occupation that was already taxing them heavily. He saw the village pastor as a crook and the church as a Western scam fleecing the poor and profiting on the desperation of the oppressed by promising the hope of heaven, a promise that can never be tested. But the more my grandfather beat my grandmother, the more she stood her ground. She tithed his meager salary, as well as eggs laid by her hens and rice from her small harvests. After one particularly bad beating – he was more drunk than usual – my grandmother knelt under the wooden cross of her village church and through swollen cheeks vowed to a 100-day prayer. She remembered the widow who got her justice from a corrupt judge by her tenacity. She was going to beg and exhaust God until … [Read more...]

Tagged With: healing

Home, belonging and Big Tent

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Eric Barreto, an associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, started his Bible study on “differences and diversity in the Book of Acts” at Big Tent by asking the 600 gathered in St. Louis to turn to the person next to them and tell the story of when they first experienced their race or experienced people of another race. Of course, he says, no one needs to share. But who is he kidding? We are Presbyterians. We love to talk. Soon the chapel’s vaulted ceiling was swirling with noise like the “thunderous cascades” described in Revelation as strangers shared intimate stories. The stranger to my right is the clerk of a presbytery. She is an elegant senior with short red curls, a thin long face and glasses on her sharp nose through which she looks at me with compassionate eyes. She doesn’t look anything like my mother, but she still reminds me of her. She tells her story of growing up with a black nanny, a privilege she didn’t recognize until college … [Read more...]

Tagged With: BigTent17

Psalm 77 (a spoken word translation/rendition)

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Listen to the author read his poem.   To the DJ Jeduthun. A lyricism by Asaph on In Times of Calamity, I Cry to God I SCREAM to God, SHOUT into God’s ears! God hears me! Or Is God too ancient to hear? Is God in need of a hearing aid? I’m in a shit spray and I’m desperate for some divine clarity. All night I pray, count breath, meditate, to deal with this oppressive stress but my soul finds no rest. Nothing’s working. I read Bible verses on God's love, and I moan because they sound so formulaic. I go to mass; I’m still a mess. (Instrumental - beat only) YOU clasp my eyelids open, I am so gone I don't know where to begin. I try to think about the good times, before all my troubles began, I said to myself, focus on the good shit, stay positive, I declare, I am strong and loved by God, standing before the mirror, then repeat it until I believe it. But the man in the mirror doesn’t believe it. Then I stopped with all these roundabouts and … [Read more...]

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