Forcing "Jerusalem" to Happen

A Dallas Willard quote in response to Steve's question about if the American Experiment has failed:

[On the new earth and] in this new city--"Jerusalem," or "the peace of God," is its name--"all cultures and languages will come together to see God in his glory (Isa. 66:18). They will transmit that vision of God throughout all of the earth, and all humanity will come regularly to the center of divine presence on earth, to delight in God and worship him (vv. 19-23).
The power of God's personal presence will, directly and indirectly, accomplish the public order in and among nations that human government has never been able to bring about. Truth and mercy will have met and kissed each other at last, like long-lost friends (Ps. 85:10). Grace and truth are reconciled in the person of the Son of man (John 1:17).
The greatest temptation to evil that humanity ever suffers is the temptation to make a "Jerusalem" happen by human means. Human means are absolutely indispensable in the world as it is. that is God's intention. We are supposed to act, and our actions are to count. But there is a limit on what human arrangements can accomplish. The alone cannot change the heart and spirit of the human being.
Because of this, the instrumentalities invoked to make "Jerusalem" happen always wind up eliminating truth, or mercy, or both. World history as well as small-scale decision making demonstrates this. It is seen in the ravages of dictatorial power, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the death by minutiae that a bureaucracy tends to impose. It is well known how hard it is to provide a benign order within human means. For the problem, once again, is in the human heart. Until it fully engages with the rule of God, the good that we feel must be cannot come. It will at a certain point be defeated by the very means implemented to produce it.

feel free to stop reading there (that's the main responce), but Willard continues:

God's way of moving toward the future is, with gentle persistence in unfailing purpose, to bring about the transformation of the human heart by speaking with human beings and living with and in them. He finds an Abraham, a Moses, a Paul--a you. It is this millennia-long process that Jesus the Son of man brings and will bring to completion. And it is the way of the prophets, who foresaw that the day would come with God's heart is the human heart: "the law of God would be written in the heart." That is, when what is right to God's mind would be done as a simple matter of course, and when we would not be able to understand why anyone would even think of engaging in evil. That is the nature of God's full reign [i.e. the Kingdom of God].
All of the instruments of brutality and deceit that human government and society now employ to manage a corrupted and unruly humanity will then have no use. As, even now, the presence of a good person touches, influences, and may even govern people near-by through the respect inspired in their hearts, the focused presence of the Trinitarian personality upon the earth will govern through the clarity and force of its own goodness, and indirectly through its transformed people.
Thus we see repeated portrayed in the prophecy the gentleness of this government--for the first time a completely adequate government, in which the means to the good do not limit or destroy the possibility of goodness. The beautiful prophetic images portray the divine way of operating: "Your true king is coming to you, vindicated and triumphant, humble, mounted on a donkey. His word will bring peace to the nations, and his supervision will take in all lands, from where his presence is centered to the farthest reaches of the earth" (Zech. 9:9-10).
Divine presence replaces brute power, and especially power exercised by human beings whose hearts are alienated from God's best. "I will focus my being in their midst forever. And the nations will know that it is I the Masterful Lord who makes my people different" (Ezek. 37:26-28).

The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, pp. 380f.

As long as we humans act like we're God (and God's not) there's no real hope for any human institution. But the day described above will come. I long for it. Don't you?

Maranatha, Lord Jesus!

The Creative Process

My good friend Chris (who also happens to be Quincy's newest resident) responded to my post "Why Photography" over at Narf's Cavern. I'd recommend you go read his profound insights there before you continue reading this.

I suppose there’s more evident arrangement and technical skill involved in lyric writing than photography, but I imagine some photographers out there would happily disagree. Nor is it true that personal skill always shines through lyrics while great photographs minimize the role of the photographer. The truly great songs are the ones that are so natural, so perfectly affecting, that they don’t seem written at all. It floors us that great songs were “written” because they seem to us to have been “discovered.” I suspect, in a very deep sense, they were.

Chris, I couldn't agree more with you. The photograph is full of the photographer just like the lyrics are full of the composer. Hopefully they've uncovered something deep and true that already existed, but they bring their identity and vision to what was there so now there is this neat partnership or pairing of the two. Both are essential for the final product to ever exist.

[side note:
Perhaps we can use this as an illustration of the Trinity and how the Holy Spirit partners with us. The product of creativity should be full of us, and yet it should also be full of God (the object reflects God's glory--we capture it and then reflect it again). So, we humans are in one sense wholly responsible for the final product, but in another sense God is the one who is wholly responsible. The product is full of both God and us, and yet it is unified. Similarly, the God is full of the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and yet is singular and whole. Or, Christians are wholly ourselves and yet wholly dead to ourselves so that God can live in us and direct us. In that process our individuality is accentuated through partnership with God.* Just because something seems paradoxical or contradictory doesn't mean it is necessarily false. Some mystery is good.]

God seems to work like this everywhere. He's chosen to reveal himself through music and nature, people and governments, his Church and himself, but he still relies on those people and organizations to be an accurate reflection of him in order to glorify his name. I can choose not to honor him (much like I can choose not to take a beautiful photograph when I see it in front of me)--it doesn't mean God's any less deserving of honor (or the scene is any less strikingly beautiful)--it only means that I've decided not to participate in that greatness, that beauty. In the truest sense it is "my loss."

But God loves individuals, and small groups, and huge institutions, and all of creation. He actually is smart and big and powerful enough to get his mind around such big and small things at the same time. Probably my favorite verse in John's Revelation to the Church is:

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

--John telling us how God intimately knows each of his children

I think I'll let Chris close:

I’d like to think that it’s not pride to recognize when something is good, to recognize when you have a talent for sharing that with people in artful ways, and to take joy in what you’ve done. That’s a gift and we ought to treasure it. We are told to think on whatever is right, noble, pure, lovely, virtuous, etc. and so it seems like a good idea to me to be pumping out as much lovely, noble, pure stuff as we can, so we have more to think on.

-----------------------
* Rather than being absorbed into a universal consciousness where we lose all sense of identity like some religions propose.

Three weeks?!? I appoligize

Yuck, three weeks without any posts. I suppose you'd never know that I've been fairly busy looking here since it's been deathly calm and quiet. Ironic.

Well, if I have any readers left, I thought I'd let you know about a tool that Google's put out for just such an occasion. Google Reader is a very nice little program that continually checks all your favorite blogs and feeds for updates. That way you only have to visit one site instead of coming to my blog (and everyone else's) everyday in hopes that I've written something inspiring and thought provoking. (Keep hoping--someday it might happen.)

So, go check it out. Now you can know within minutes that I've labored to help you waste a few more minutes of your day. Feel free to go ahead and click the button to connect directly to my site--that way your visit will be logged and my ego assuaged.

[something more substantial soon--I promise]

The Ineffectiveness of Talking Head Preaching

I've been thinking about and struggling with the concepts of teaching and preaching as they applied in the early church and in house churches. I read this today over on the House Church Blog. I think that some of the problems with preaching (as done) are accurately diagnosed, and a treatment is offered as well. Check it out and let me know what you think--I'm still trying to figure this one out.

Boundry Conditioning

Here's an interesting video. I think it has implications for the Church. (HT* The Forgotten Way)



This PS2 add (I really don't get how it's advertising the PS2) is a great illustration of the problem of centered vs bounded sets. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch discuss this concept in their book, The Shaping of Things to Come (an excellent book that I'd recommend to anyone who has any interest in the past or future of the body of Christ). Ben Cheek also references this idea in his very good e-book examining the person of Jesus, Revolutionary. Since I'm short on time (and since he does a better job than I can) I'm going to quote from Ben (book 4 page 9 and following).

Frost and Hirsch use this as an illustration to demonstrate the difference between bounded sets and centered sets. A set is a collection of objects, or in the case of the spiritual community, people. A bounded set is a group of people defined by their boundary and by their separation form others. On the other hand, a centered set is defined by their center and their relationship relative to that center (how close they are to the center).

Churches that see themselves as bounded sets have a clear line of who’s in and who’s out. Those inside the boundary all have certain minimal qualities in common like baptism, membership, doctrine, etc. The point is to get unbelievers or non-Christians to become believers or Christians by crossing the boundary. The work of the leaders is to tend the fence, make sure none of those inside “cross the fence” and are lost, and in some cases they prevent others from getting in who are outsiders and don’t
belong.

In contrast, churches that see themselves as centered sets have no clear line of who’s in and who’s out — in the broadest sense of the group, everyone who has any kind of connection at all is in. What all the people have in common is a relationship to the center, but these relationships vary considerably in closeness, quality, strength, and style. The point is — whether you consider yourself a Christian or a not-yet-Christian — to move closer to the center of the set: towards Christ and his core values. The work of the leaders in a centered set community is to link to people and to the center. Like rescue workers, they use their relationship to Jesus as an anchor line, while they extend relationships to those farther out (regardless of their Christian/non-Christian, member/non-member status), which they use to pull them in closer.

I'd recommend picking up Shaping or downloading Revolutionary. This is an important thing for Christ's church to think about.

-----
* HT: (I just found this today) blogging jargon for "Hat Tip" or, in other words, the source for where the blogger found the content for his blog

God's on the Move in the Bronx

This past weekend Steve and I made a quick trip down to New York City to visit some friends and fellow revolutionaries.

I'm busy with a lab writeup on Photodynamic Therapy (if you're curious), so head on over to harvestboston.net to see what Steve had to say about our trip.

What is a Christian?

There's an interesting conversation going on over at Steve's site (http://www.harvestboston.net/). (Come to think of it, there are always interesting conversations going on over there. You should definitely frequent his blog.)

Well, the current discussion is on what it takes to be a Christian. It's in direct response to an experience that Steve, his wife, Jen, and I had a couple weeks ago when we joined a local Christian mysticism group for a movie and discussion. You can read all about that experience here (my thoughts are in the comments).

Go check it out.

Self-Love?

For a while now one of my friends--Steve from Harvestboston.net--has been thinking and writing about this concept of self-love (check it out here and here). He brings up a good question: if the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves then do we need to better understand what it means to love ourselves? I think we do. Perhaps the best thing I can do to love myself is to observe Sabbath. In taking some time out of my week having fun, relaxing, worshiping, reading, being with God and Jennie and friends, or by spending time doing whatever else would truly be rest I will better experience God as present and real. And really, who am I to think that without God's help and presence that I could truly help or bless anyone else? All blessings originate from Him.

I was reading through C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters this morning and found the following quote. (If you're unfamiliar with the premice of the Screwtape Letters then please click here first.)

To anticipate the Enemy’s [God’s] strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour’s talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love–-a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our enemy; he really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.

–Screwtape (C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, letter 14, pp 71f)