wright + colbert = ???

I found out at the N.T. Wright page that he will be on the Colbert Report tomorrow night (Thursday) !

My worlds are colliding.

-Bryant

on the fringes of empire

Vice President Cheney’s Christmas card from 2003 contained the following quote from Benjamin Franklin:

“And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw have a lot to say about the American empire of our day in their book Jesus for President.

They call it “a project to provoke the Christian political imagination.” It’s about what to do when the empire you live in gets baptized . . . when the lines between faith and patriotism get blurred. It pushes the question, where does our ultimate hope lie . . . in kings and presidents, or in God? When it comes down to it, too whom do we pledge allegiance . . . to our country or to the Jesus we find in the scriptures? Referring to the Constantinian compromise as the “Fall of the Church,” Shane and Chris mount a compelling case that the followers of Jesus will most appropriately locate themselves on the margins and the fringes of empire, modeling a radical alternative lifestyle of allegiance to “another king” named Jesus. They echo the call of John in the book of Revelation to “come out of” the “great whore” of the global market and the kingdom of Caesar (apparently not all Bible passages come with a G rating).

Their emphasis is not on how to vote on November 4, but how to live on November 3 and 5. They want us, as followers of Jesus, to be able to say with a straight face and a clean conscience, “If you want to know what we believe, look at how we live.”

Shane Claiborne

I love this book (how can you not when every page is a visual masterpiece) and the arguments are provocative as advertised. One cannot come away from this book without a renewed passion for following Jesus in radical ways in one’s own local family of faith. But I’m troubled by the lack of balance. (The following comments come with a grain of salt, since I haven’t finished the book yet.) Are the “fringes of empire” the only appropriate places for followers of Jesus to locate themselves? Is there a place for Christians as civil servants or legislators or presidential candidates? Because a government will never fully implement the reign of God this side of Jesus’ return, does that mean we should separate ourselves from it completely? Is it possible to pledge allegiance only to Jesus but to still seek influence in the halls of power?

These questions were floating through my mind going into the Envision conference. I had my ears tuned in to see how they would be addressed, since I knew the participants would have a wide range of views on the matter.

Bart Campolo

Shane talked about this stuff Sunday night, and panel including Shane, Lisa Sharon Harper, Bart Campolo, and Miroslav Volf returned to these issues Monday afternoon. I have some notes, but I seem not to have connected them all with a person who said them. I think it was Shane who at one point conceded that “if we see someone else [in politics] coming alongside the marginalized, we can go along with them.” Someone noted that Daniel, while in captivity in the Babylonian empire, became advisor to the king, while managing not to compromise himself (though he didn’t always have an easy time of it). Harper, while affirming our vocation to form communities embodying an alternative way of life, lamented that without political involvement, the volume of change that can occur (at least in the short term) is so much smaller. Someone added that “No candidate will deliver the kingdom of God, but they can contribute.” Bart Campolo, passionate and opinionated man that he is, insisted “YOU VOTE!” Volf argued that voting and participating in the political process is a way of stewarding that portion of your money that goes to pay taxes, and that even if you have little hope that political leaders will do real good, at least we can hope to prevent them from doing the kind of harm that they have in the past few years! He delineated the proper contributions that Christians can make to the political arena and the broader public square:

1) compelling embodiment
2) vision
3) critique

Also at the conference were others such as Jim Wallis and Ron Sider, who have been passionate advocates for political activism on behalf of the poor and oppressed. Sider didn’t even need to speak in order to make his point–I was told that he had to leave the conference early in order to meet with Barack Obama.

Jim Wallis

Together, the speakers clarified and confirmed my desire for a balanced view of our proper place as followers of Jesus in this American empire. My personal takeaway? Keep trying to live a balanced life of embodiment, vision, and critique, without idolizing political power or putting my ultimate hope in it.

-Bryant

post-Envision

I’m back from the Envision conference at Princeton. What a packed two and a half days! I made my way through Philly on Sunday afternoon, walking from Penn campus,

through the Odunde African festival,

to South Street for a cheesesteak at Jim’s.

A few trains later, I made it to Princeton. A highlight at the conference was running into my friend Rajeev Nandakumaran (a.k.a. G-VO) who performed his music the first night of the conference. We lived in a squatter community in Manila together three summers ago.

There was a conference bookstore with most everything 50% off!  I stocked up, mostly on IVP books.  I read one on the trip back to L.A. on “what postmodern skeptics taught us about their path to Jesus” which was really excellent!

I ditched one of the sessions to take a “Princeton Orange Key Campus Tour.” It was fun to learn some of the history.

Our last session Tuesday night took place in the beautiful chapel, where John Perkins was honored followed by Jim Wallis giving his characteristic rallying cry.

More soon on the content of the conference.

-Bryant

our first post

We’ve decided it’s time to start chronicling together our spiritual/religious journey. Partly for ourselves, partly for any others who might be at times encouraged by it, at times able to resonate with it, at times able to learn from our mistakes.

Part of the impetus for starting this blog now is that I will be attending this Envision 08 conference at Princeton from Sunday-Tuesday.

“Envision ‘08 is about the power of the gospel to transform the public square. It’s about Jesus and justice, evangelical history and heritage, and practiced theology. It’s about the next one hundred years of the church and its impact on the common good.”

I’m excited to brainstorm with others about how followers of Jesus can be a “counterculture for the common good” in our world today. I participated in an online synanim dialogue on June 2 which drafted some vision documents. You can also look at the official conference vision statement.

I’ve signed up for the following track:

Religious Pluralism and Christian Faith – Understand more deeply the meaning of Christian witness in a multi-religious world, especially where religion is a source of conflict and war.

Led by Miroslav Volf and Samir Selmanovic

I’m working through a couple of Volf’s books and hope to blog about them at some point.

-Bryant