View From The Basement

How to read McClendon

I met with Wes today to chat about how to read McClendon. I'm 3/4 though his ethics, but Wes has read all of his theology, so it was good to defer to an older wiser and better read head. Wes is also an American which means he's more attuned to some of the historic and cultural issues / context which will have formed McClendon and into which he will have written.

To aid us in our quest of learning how to read McClendon we had a chapter from Stanley Hauerwas' book, Wilderness Wanderings where he, in chapter 11, gives us some advice in reading McClendon, chief of which is, "McClendon wants us to read with and perhaps even at times against him, not simply to read him."

I'll try and post some more thoughts on this soon.

Micah

those of you who read my living out scripture post which was part of a meme started by Andy will know that Micah 6:8 is important to me. Yet this one verse need to be understood in it's context, thus I've been re-reading the book of Micah. a couple of thoughts occurred to me today.

(1) Micah, like many of the prophets commands the people to remember or recall what God has done in the past. For example, 6:5 "My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered him and from Shittim to Gilgal, in order that you might know the righteous acts of the Lord". Yet for me this remembering does not come easily. Given I'm not part of the community Micah writes to who presumably have as past of their communal consciousness these stories of God's acts, I don't easily tap into what Micah wants us to recall. Thus in passages like this we must be prepared to take time to read what Balak counseled etc., so that we might know what it is we should remember.

(2) Commenting on the word Torah James McClendon writes, "we often translate   it, "law," yet it comes from a root meaning "to give direction, " "to point the way." (Ethics, p182).

If we are, as Micah 6:8 instructs us, to walk humbly with God then we obviously need to know what direction we are going in. My hunch is that to act justly and love mercy function like Torah, i.e. give direction or an orientation for our journey. That said justice and mercy cannot merely be ideals or concepts but must become practices that we engage in as individuals and as a community. Thus they constantly challenge our propensity to go our own way but help keep us in the way.

God's feelings

James Wm McClendon, Jr. writes in his Ethics,

love is a feeling. Doubtless we do not know what we say when we assign "feelings" to God, but to distinguish God's pity, mercy, forgiveness, and delight as he looks toward our human condition as if these aspects of God's nature were without felling - pure good will,or mere taking throught for us - would be, not to raise God above ourselves, but to lower him beneath. Feeling, if it be God's feeling, isitself divine, and love of whatever degree in some way mirrors or echoes that feelingness in divinity".

Our correspondent in India

A friend who recently moved to India has started to blog and reflect on his move. Why not go and pay him a visit HERE.

Help I'm a chick!

HT to Lynn for this little quiz. The problem is I come out as a girl!

You scored as Galadriel, Galadriel 83% Frodo Baggins 77% Aragorn 76% Legolas 73% Samwise Gamgee 73% Eowyn of Rohan 70% Peregrin Took (Pippin) 70% Gandalf the Grey 66% Meriadoc Brandybuck (Merry) 63% Saruman the White 60% Arwen of Rivendell 60% Gimli 53% Gollum 30% Boromir 27% Which Lord of the Rings character are you most like? created with QuizFarm.com

What's the point of facebook?

Like many people I've signed up to Facebook, but i find myself asking "what's the point of facebook"? Yes I know it's meant to help us all connect and stay in contact with people as we hurtle around this wee globe we're on faster and faster, but you have to ask "what kind of connections are sites like facebook fostering?"

To me Facebooks simply seems a way of sharing some information, much of it inane! I mean do you really want to know that tonight I plan to eat my dinner, play with the kids, wash the dishes, do some ironing, read a little and watch the athletics from Japan. Given this seems to be the level of information that is shared I worry that people's discernment regarding what is appropriate to share in a public domain and what should be kept private gets blurred. We loss all sense of boundaries and can confuse reading about someones activities with genuinely knowing them.

I think blogs are different in that many of the blogs I read / know are looking to create conversation and link with people that way. Also, posts are longer and thus from many blogs you get a sense of a narrative of a persons life.

That said Facebook has added a nice visual bookshelf.

John is also asking questions about social networking.

I can do this in my head!

In my head I'm still 16 - 18 years old - I think I can attempt or should be able to do things that I tried then. Yet I can't, or when I do I end up very sore!

The kid in the video is only 12, and I think I should leave the real life dangerous stuff to this generation of kids and content myself with memories and dreams.

Glasgow's "worst" building?

I took this pic of the new and nearly complete (?) BBC building on the banks of the river Clyde in Glasgow.

I have one question regarding this building, "is it now the ugliest building in Glasgow?"

Ok at night it will be lit up which will be a slight improvement as to how it looks during the day, i.e. a big gray box!

What also gets me about this kind of architecture is that its a globalized aesthetic. What I mean by this is that if you were to look at the architecture of this building there is nothing in either its design nor in the materials used to indicate which city you are in or indeed which country you are in.

I don't mean to be parochial, but given the lack of use of local architects for prestigious city center projects (this building was designed by David Chipperfield in London), and also the use of local materials. Gone are the days when you could be taken blindfold to a British City center and when your eyes were opened you could tell where you were because of the architecture!

Well that's my rant over.

Atonement Pub Theology

Last night a bunch of us gathered (at the Tramway pictured) for a pub theo session to discuss the atonement, or more specifically Fr Richard Rohr's comments on the atonement.

Rohr states, "As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of the Franciscan understanding of the redemption, based on the teaching of Blessed John Duns Scotus in the 13th century. He did not believe in any "substitutionary atonement theory" of the cross: Jesus did not have to die to make God love us, he was paying no debt, he was changing no Divine mind. Jesus was only given to change our mind about the nature of God! (Imagine what we are saying about the Father, if he needed blood from his son to decide to love us! It is an incoherent world with no organic union between Creator and creature. No wonder so few Christians have gone on the mystical path of love, since God is basically untrustworthy and more than a little dangerous.)

For Duns Scotus, Jesus was the "image of the invisible God" who revealed to us a God's eternal suffering love for humanity, in an iconic form that we could not forget. He was not "necessary," but a pure gift. The suffering was simply to open our hearts, not to open God's - which was always open". You can read this is context here.

Now some of you may be thinking, "what's the world coming to that a bunch of people from a Baptist church are discussing a Franciscan understanding of the atonement". Well, what can I say apart from "perhaps we are in good company". This session had been occasioned by the fact that many of us have benefited from some of Rohr's teaching, so when he visited Glasgow this summer a number of people I know went to hear him. At one of his talks he made a throw-a-way comment about the atonement which got people thinking, talking and questioning.

It is always hard in these kinds of settings to include everyone and to not let things descend into a question and answers session directed at one person or head off on an unfruitful detour. I think we managed to include everyone and that there was some genuine discussions and sharing of ideas and understandings.

In getting the group started in thinking about this stated that perhaps the most important question with regards to all this is "what is at stake, does it matter how we understand the atonement?" So how would you answer that question.....please leave your answer in the comments section.

Barth's Dogmatics in Outline

Stanley Hauerwas recommends that you should read Barth's Dogmatics in Outline once a year. I confess that this has not been my practice, but I found myself drawn to this short work in preparation for a Pub Theology session on the atonement.

Whiter you agree with Barth or not Dogmatics in Outline is a joy to read, yet it should not be read too quickly. Like a good malt whiskey we need to drink slow from the wells of Barth and let his words linger that their subtlety and profoundity does not pass us by.

What caught my attention in this reading was Barth's attempt and concern to connect the life of Jesus with His passion. I leave the following quote as a taster, an appetizer as it were, but I recommend that you sit down and enjoy the full meal - in other words go and read Dogmatics in Outline, it will do your "soul" good.

In Calvin’s Catechism we may on this passage read the extra-ordinary conclusion that in the Confession the life of Jesus has been passed over up to the Passion, because what took place in this life up to the Passion does not belong to the ‘substance of our redemption’. I take the liberty of saying that here Calvin is wrong. How can anyone say that the rest of Jesus’ life is not substantially for our redemption? In that case what would be its significance? A mere superfluous narrative?