novus•lumen

Tomorrow, churches all across America will incorporate the Hymns of Americana into Her worship hour. “My Country Tis of Thee,” “America The Beautiful,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” will all be sung with as much gusto as “How Great Thou Art,” “Amazing Grace,” and “God of Wonders.”

Worship of God will be replaced by worship of America.

Rather than affirming our commitment to God and our faith in Jesus Christ by reciting the Apostles Creed, we’ll seig heil to the American Flag and renew our commitments to Empire.

Worship of God will be replaced by worship of America.

Rather than praying to our Father who art in Heaven that His Kingdom will come, His will be done on Earth as in Heaven, we’ll ask God to bless our Kingdom and the fruits of Americas labor.

Worship of God will be replaced by worship of America.

Rather than confess our collective sins as a nation, we will ask protection for our troops as we wage an unjust war and seek relief from the pump so we can return to serving Mammon with glee.

Worship of God will be replaced by worship of America.

This Sunday morning, rather than bearing prophetic witness to the values, authority and Way of God’s Reign as an eschatological community by calling on Empire America to atone for its flagrant abuse of Eikons of God through torture in the name of a pseuro-war on terror, Her mass exportation of a culture of smut, Wall Street’s mass economic exploitation of the Global Brown Man, and our collective flagrant abuse of God’s Creation, the American Church will bow before Lady Liberty once again, kissing her ring, suckling her bosom. She will split the fattened calf over The Table, burn the required incense, and break bread at basement potlucks festooned with Red, White, and Blue, thus making peace with god Americana until next July 4th…

“Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.”

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One of the reasons I’ve been so MIA in writing lately is because I finished up a two week intense class on the Gospel of John. One of the project was to complete a journal of the book, with 1 paragraph per chapter. I thought I would post those 200 word entries over the course of the next several weeks. I hope the few sentences both encourage you in your life with the Messiah and spur you to read this amazing Gospel.

CHAPTER 1

At the beginning of his gospel, John firmly plants his witness within the larger Jewish story by deliberately using “in the beginning…” and also using the Greek word LOGOS. Rather than being a contetualizatin technique for the Hellenistic culture, it is a depictin of the Word of God and used to link Jesus to both being WITH God AND God. Its was emphasized right in verse 1 that Jesus was God, not simply divine, of which he could have used THEOIS to indicate divine. Rather, he stretches the boundaries os 1st century Jewish monothesism to declare Jesus with God and God. And in continuing to emphasize and equate God with the Word, he declares himself as Creator; all things have their Being, all things are made in Him. This again emphasizes the transcendence of the Word/Jesus

What’s more: Jesus is the source of Life itself. “In him was light” is a universally religious equation with Life. Light = Life. This again is in keeping with the Jewish Story which saw the Messiah as the Light entering the darkness. And it is in this “Light of Men” that John testifies so all men may believe/trust in Jesus.

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In the Fall of 2006, I had the opportunity to work for a national upscale department store after working for over four years on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.. Our store was located in one of the wealthiest and diverse counties in the country, resulting in a mosaic tapestry of tongues, tribes and religions. My department alone included six Muslims, an Orthodox Jew, a Sikh, a Buddhist, a few non-Western Christians and others who were spiritual, but non-religious. Ethiopia, Morocco, Somalia, Gabon, India, Afghanistan, Japan, Columbia and Pakistan were all represented, creating an amazing work environment and cross-cultural learning experience. It was in this context that a clash of national heritages occurred. One afternoon my Gabonian co-worker asked me, “Is your name African?” As a thoroughly white midwestern American (in the strictest WASPian sense of the description) I could not help but laugh out loud at his question! Obviously, my African co-worker got a kick out of it, too. He was curious about my family heritage, because he came from a part of the world where my ancestors were apart of something I could only touch and feel at movie length. You see, my last name, Bouma, is Dutch and the Dutch Empire used its naval and military might to colonize parts of western and southern Africa, including Gabon where my African friend was from. Through such trading companies as the Dutch East Indies Company and Dutch West Indies Company, the Kingdom of The Netherlands used its might to leverage trade in newly discovered lands outside of Europe. And it was through the Dutch West Indies Company that my family name spread from European to African. Thus began my introduction to the realities of colonialism.

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This was originally posted on July 31, 2005. At the time I was in full time ministry on Capitol Hill ministering to those in positions of influence in the American government. In the midst of ministering I also began to wrestle with the intersection of American Christianity and the American government, with the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the New Rome. That wrestling birthed this post.

For this 2008 July 4th week I thought it was appropriate to, once again, reflect on where the Jesus’ community derives it’s power and hope, and hopefully put that hope in proper perspective over and against the willy-nilly salute to everything red, white, and blue. While ancient and Jewish, this story from Zechariah and Zerubbabel is instructive to us 21st century Americans on this day of patriotism.

So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.

Technorati Tags: 4th of july, america, christianity, democrat, patriotism, july 4th, republican

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Previous Posts
Intro
Ch. 1-3

So I’m reviewing Doug Pagitt’s new book A Christianity Worth Believing and posing some questions to this emergent leader and ecclesiastical provocateur (which may result in a blogerview…blog interview with Doug…). I’m gonna look at chapters 4 and 5 today, which begins laying the ground work for his faith-repainting effort in the rest of the book.

He begins chapter 4 by pointing out that “the Bible was written to a particular people in particular circumstances.” Furthermore, “The gospels are not generic, abstract truths. They are embedded stories. They are filled with culturally relevant language, images, and symbols that made them ring true in the hearts of their listeners.” And similarly, the gospel is to be retold in away that makes sense to this time and space. The gospel itself doesn’t change, but the retelling of it does so that we too can find Life in it.

It’s called contextualization. It’s about making the expressions of God and His Story indigenous to particular groups of people and particular times.

For example, just listen to the voice of the Masai people in Kenya and Tanzania as they retell God’s story in their own words.:

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Yesterday, the Pew Forum released the second installment of their original “US Religious Landscape Survey.” I blogged some comments on the last report and will do the same on the second installment in the next day or two. If you have time, I would highly encourage you to check out their survey on religious beliefs and practices in the American religious landscape.

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So the rest of the evening, about 30 min, was talking about how we can embody the alt.way of Jesus. It was pretty good stuff and I think I need the evening to process it all…as a former employee of the Empire (i.e. United States Senate staffer) and political science major, some of the talk didn’t sit well, but in a sense that it grated against what I’ve studied and lived. And now as I train to be a pastor and grapple with how does it look to cultivate alternative communities that embody the different, alternative Way of Jesus, there is cognitive dissonance. I’ll give some more thoughts tomorrow…

(internet shut off…)

9:00–American will have its own religion…its own distinctive message of salvation and manifest destiny, set apart people group, and own creed. Its own symbols and enemies and deity. But in it all do we hear the cross, the enemy love of Jesus, the BLESSEDS. Does it look like Jesus. American can say one nation under God, but what is the character of that God…and is Americas gospel reflective of the gospel of our Lover Jesus…Reading Gal 1:6-7

8:57–Caesar has colonized our creativity and economy (God on money) and creation (pictures of Mt Rushmore). And then we try and brand Empire with the Cross…the SUV with the Jesus sticker. It becomes legitimization of everything that stands against the Cross.

(read quote from Hitler who thought he was doing the work of the Lord by coming against the Jews. Then Truman quote thanking God for bringing the A-Bomb to them instead of the enemy and sought guidance from god for its use.)

8:55–Can we serve two masters? How can we wait on God to move in history when we can move it now…Many will remain faithful, like those in the military will plunge themselves on their own swords rather than kill others. Eventually Empire takes notice of the spread…Constantine becomes a Christian/ For many, people see that the Cross of Christ was exchanged fro the sword of Rome. CHristians begin to kill, and ask Gods blessing. Religious leaders will do horrible things in the name of God and ridding the wordl of evil. Instead of following tragectrory of Abraham and Sarah, they follow the way of Empire.

Since the Church has become respectable, the Church has been able to be prostituted for any cause…especially war and killing.

singing now about Babylon and rising no more.

8:50–They were athiests and faithless because they rejected the religion of Empire Rome and turned into a new citizenship. So the Christians described the Empire as a charming Adulteress. John in Revelation described Empire as the great whore and called the Church to come out of her. Empire offers a cup to drink to all the world…but its a fraud. THere is a cup however that is the true Cup. What is highly regarded among men is detestable in Gods sigh. Romes splendor is false and comes on the blood of the innocent.

8:45–The early christians were called to make disciples of the nations, meanwhile the nations would be trying to make disciples of them.

We are fools for Christ…Paul

I recognize no empire of this present age–Acts of the Martyrs

Christ in disarming peter diarmed every soldier–Tertullian

If everyone were to act as you christians the national government would soon be left utterly deserted and without any help––Origen

(they’re reading a bucnh of quotes of early church and other ancient peeps)

emperors could only believe in christ if they were not emperors–as if christians could be emperors–tertullian

8:30–We’re back

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