Grow Mercy

Resacrilizing

Posted on September 3, 2006 by stephen t berg / 3 Comments

Thank you "Former Saul" for this comment posted on the Open Letter to Christianity Today:

I would agree with the direction but not the timing…in my limited understanding, Jesus put an end to the sacrificial requirements with His final sacrifice for all…while there is a way around it, not sure why we would try?

Coming to see the radical difference between a sacrificial reading and a non-sacrificial reading of scripture, in other words, the difference between a God who occasionally uses sacrifice (who supposedly made certain sacrificial prescriptions for his people) and a God who has nothing at all to do with sacrifice, is truly difficult for those of us inculcated in the traditional penal-substitutionary atonement doctrine. Perhaps it’s on the level of a Copernican shift.

For people who grew up with a (Ptolemaic) geocentric understanding of the solar system, the heliocentric version proposed by Copernicus was unthinkable. The atonement as simply and only Christ’s utter self-gift that exposes our sacrificial ways, may seem as unthinkable.

But presuppositions, preconceptions, can be overcome through trying on new lenses, trying out a different framework. Coming to scripture with (St. Anselm’s) the familiar framework of penal substitution in mind, those scriptures that allude to God’s sacrifice of Christ, fit well enough. However, when you take with you an view of God being completely non-violent and non-sacrificial, a view that Jesus reveals the whole nature of God, full-stop, that the "sermon on the mount" is arbiter of God’s unfolding revelation, then, concerning conventional atonement, things are turned inside out.

Is it possible that God’s supposedly putting an end to the sacrificial system or its requirements through "sacrificing" is geocentric thinking? Is it possible that in this scheme we remain half-blind to our own sacrificial-scapegoating ways of constructing life together. Instead, is it possible that God’s putting an end to the sacrificial system through uncovering its workings and our complicity in its perpetuation, is Copernican thinking?

Is it the sacrificial reading that furtively "makes its way around" the revolutionary aspect of the gospel? Is it possible that while substitutional atonement recognizes God’s self-gift in Christ and our (sin’s) role in Christ’s death, it cannot go the whole way because in the end it is still God who demands Christ’s death in payment for our sins? Does God’s wrath need appeasing through human sacrifice, even when that "human" is also God? Or was it our wrath that needed appeasing?

The Gospels do not require a sacrificial reading, and in fact ask for a non-sacrificial understanding.

Is it any wonder that the "resacrilizing" of Christianity has lead to anti-Semitism, the Crusades, and continues to serve as justification for wars of all kinds? the current USA’s Administrations justification for war as just one example.

So yes, with utmost respect, we must try to come to grips with God’s radical non-sacrificial and non-violent ways. It’s time to reject all dispensational categorizing and any and all shades of Arianism and take Christ’s word that God is fully revealed through Jesus Christ.

Technorati Tags: Sacrifice, Arianism, Atonement, Christianity

Beauty/Poverty

Starbucks Log – Pirate Shopper

Posted on September 1, 2006 by stephen t berg / 0 Comment

A middle-aged man with a full head of thick greying hair has just walked into Starbucks. He is carrying a large brown bag with clothes in it. A white shirt sleeve has escaped and is hanging out of the top of the bag. He walks past the counter without looking at anyone and enters the washroom behind me.

—
The sun was up and bright and shining at a low angle into the faces of drivers as they made their way east on 104 Ave. Eyes were shaded behind visors but faces were lit up and I wasn’t quite prepared this morning to see how beautiful people are. I mean people-this amazing "race" that we all belong to-are beautiful. All beautiful in their way.

And now, I am wondering how it’s possible we do the things we do to each other, or don’t do the things we should do for each other.

I have a picture in my mind of the human bones that were scattered on the hill beneath Jasper and 82 St. How is it that for some, their primary experiences have only been grotesque?

"Grotesque society making grotesque demands,"…do the "losers" at Commercialism think this? Do people who haven’t been able to catch on to the rules of Techno-capitalism see only futility in life? Has the ever increasing demands of Enterprise driven them to resent every vestige of the "mechanism".

What is it like to find that it is impossible to fit into the "enterprise mechanism"? The "Enterprise" always guarantees winners and losers: "We" want people to desire the things "we" desire while at the same time wanting them to not quite achieve or acquire the things "we" have achieved and acquired.
—

The man with the bag of clothes has just emerged wearing a wrinkled dark-blue pin-stripe suit. He’s walking slowly with his left hand massaging his lower back and his right hand carrying the bag full of slept-in clothes. He slept in his car. He is groomed now and except for the suit, which will hopefully be ironed by gravity, looks as if he could walk into any office in the Bell Tower.
—

Two discoveries on my walk to work this morning: A pirate’s shopping cart and some homeless shoes.

pirateshopcart

homelessshoes

Technorati Tags: Pirates, Homelessness, Beauty, Poverty

Christianity/Spirituality

Unlikely Gospel Artists

Posted on August 30, 2006 by stephen t berg / 0 Comment

Here’s a CBC Radio clip worth its salt…and light. Pastor Jonathan Gonyou does a whirlwind tour of unlikely gospel tunes and unlikely-er gospel recording artists that will surprise and perhaps astound. Prince-4

It will be easy for the tightly-knit among us to pass some of these artists off as dabblers or provocateurs sent to bedevil the true flock, or at least leave us scratching noggins.

But what Jonathan G. finds here, by overturning a wide swath of pop-stones in his quest for anything and everything redeemable–is, more often than not, genuine human yearning and longing for a meaning that transcends culture’s calcified boundaries and offers salvation.

Well done Pastor Gonyou. Link to clip.

Technorati Tags: Music, Christian Contemporary, Christianity, Spirituality

Beauty/Christianity/Spirituality

On Being a Conduit

Posted on August 29, 2006 by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. (Psalm 147)

You would imagine that God, who determines the number of stars, has no problem binding up wounds and healing broken hearted people. No doubt, both have certain challenges. But those special challenges, what ever they may be, are God’s. Good thing.

I had a friend in high school who migrated to the coast with a group of us. We went to see what was there and to find what we could find.

We were not far into our twenties when he began to believe he could move stars with his newly expanded mind. He also believed, as things progressed, that he could travel to the stars, fly within their orbits, accompanying them on their stellar ways. And all this astral journeying without leaving the couch.

When he returned he would tell us stories about what it was like. And when we got tired of listening he would go downtown Victoria and corral strangers and tell them. When they got tired, which was pretty well immediately, he began to walk in traffic with his eyes closed, moving the approaching cars out of his way with his hyper-expanded mind.

Later, we would visit him in the hospital where we met his new doctor friend who challenged us to figure out the acronym MDMD. We shrugged and he laughed, and pointing to his head, spouted, "Medical Doctor Manic Depressive". Me, I just wanted to take my friends head in my hands and reshape it.

I wonder why anyone would venture to think that they have the power to heal broken souls. Perhaps this is the reason these two verses from the 147th song–about stars and hearts–are juxtaposed. There is always a temptation to attribute any "success" at helping people to ourselves. So the tip from the Psalm is when this temptation arises just decide to determine the creation of stars as well. That should set you straight.

As soon as we think that we are "sources", we cut off the true Source from flowing through us. And if and when there is any healing of hearts and souls, it is because of something that flows between the Source and those involved. Making the mistake to suppose that we are anything but conduits is just as delusional as the hallucinations my friend still suffers, these thirty years later. But, being a conduit true to your own special shape is a most beautiful thing.
Confedbridge
To the motion of the Spirit…be true.

Technorati Tags: Beauty, Christianity, Spirituality