To live in the world is to live with shadows, even more it is to create shadows. In a universe that revolves around a sun, to live is to cast shadows. There are only a few times when we don’t have a shadow: high noon, cloud cover and night. All three are inescapable realms of life.

Night is often be feared; our difficulty seeing at night heightens our fear of the unknown; and of course crime, sneak attacks, and espionage often are perpetrated under the cover of dark but “dark” is so much more. Though often frightening, the night is also is our time for rest. Work ceases, communities gather to tell stories and dance, night is for intimacy and expressions of love. This light/dark dance is a daily rhythm. Every moment is either growing darker or lighter; it is simply the way life works on planet earth; a constant move from one to the other.

Remember God’s first act of creation in the Genesis one account is to separate light from dark. But the separation was not the whole story; rather it was the relationship between light and dark that together made day. The God-given shared identity “Day” that gave meaning to both light and dark. And God called the existence of light and dark together “good.”

Cloud cover forms when the convergence of the invisible warm water vapor in the air with cool air or surface condenses the vapor into visible water droplets or ice crystals. Basically cloud cover is about convergence, warm meets cool. What happens when “my world” meets your “your world”? When my cool front (my last name is pronounced “freezen”) meets your warm front. Sometimes I get steaming mad; sometimes my thinking gets foggy, still other times my vision clouds over. When opposing forces collide clouds, thunder storms, or even tornados are likely to follow. Clouds also give us rain, and who would chose draught over rain. The collision of worlds is vital to life.

At first glimpse the shadowless state of high noon seems so perfect. High noon is life directly under the son, life without shadows. Well that’s not entirely true; at high noon we stand on our shadows. The short period of time directly around high noon exposes sun-dwellers to the dangers of sun stroke, sun burns and dehydration like no other time in the day. One of the challenges of being in the sun is that we are often having so much fun that we lose track of time and before we know it we look like lobsters, feel faint and are in desperate need of a cool drink and some shade. To live in the sun requires time in the shade and vis versa.

What about good and evil?

peace, dwight

“A Tribute to Stanley Grenz” by the Princeton Theological Review has recenlty been published.  (Spring 2006, Volume XII, Number 1, Issue 34).

Prolegomena:
* “In Dedication to Professor Stanley Grenz” by Erik Leafblad

Introduction:
* How I Took Barth’s Chair, and How Grenz Almost Took It From Me by Ed L. Miller

Articles:
* Straddling the Tasman: The Relevance of Grenz’s Revisioned Evangelical Theology in the Australasian Context by Brian Harris
*The Implications of Postmodernism for Theology: On Meta-narratives, Foundationalism, and Realism by Jim Beilby
* Faith Seeking Understanding in a Postmodern Context: Stanley Grenz and Nonfoundational Theology by John R. Franke
* Grenz’s Theological Method and the Commodification of Religion by Bradley B. Onishi
 

Reflections:
* Stanley J. Grenz’s Contribution to Evangelical Theology by Roger E. Olsen
* Stanley Grenz, Women in Ministry, and the Trinity: A Model in Practical Theology by David Komline
* Stan Grenz Among the Baptists by Myles Werntz
* Theology for Pastors: Appreciating Stanley J. Grenz by William Mangrum
 

Book Reviews:
* Review of Stanley Grenz’ The Named God and the Question Review by Keith Johnson
* Review of Stanley Grenz’ Rediscovering the Triune God: the Trinity in Contemporary Theology Review by Daniel McClain

Peace, dwight

The following was written by theologian LeRon Shults, and was sent out in today’s Emergent/C (the newsletter of emergent).

“The coordinators of Emergent have often been asked (usually by their critics) to proffer a doctrinal statement that lays out clearly what they believe. I am merely a participant in the conversation who delights in the ongoing reformation that occurs as we bring the Gospel into engagement with culture in ever new ways. But I have been asked to respond to this ongoing demand for clarity and closure. I believe there are several reasons why Emergent should not have a “statement of faith” to which its members are asked (or required) to subscribe. Such a move would be unnecessary, inappropriate and disastrous.

“Why is such a move unnecessary? Jesus did not have a “statement of faith.” He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent. The very idea of a “statement of faith” is mired in modernist assumptions and driven by modernist anxieties – and this brings us to the next point.

“Such a move would be inappropriate. Various communities throughout church history have often developed new creeds and confessions in order to express the Gospel in their cultural context, but the early modern use of linguistic formulations as “statements” that allegedly capture the truth about God with certainty for all cultures and contexts is deeply problematic for at least two reasons. First, such an approach presupposes a (Platonic or Cartesian) representationalist view of language, which has been undermined in late modernity by a variety of disciplines across the social and physical sciences (e.g., sociolinguistics and paleo-biology). Why would Emergent want to force the new wine of the Spirit’s powerful transformation of communities into old modernist wineskins? Second, and more importantly from a theological perspective, this fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends and embraces all finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite reality in distinction from another. The truly infinite God of Christian faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping, as all the great theologians from Irenaeus to Calvin have insisted, and so the struggle to capture God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic idolatry.

“Why would it be disastrous? Emergent aims to facilitate a conversation among persons committed to living out faithfully the call to participate in the reconciling mission of the biblical God. Whether it appears in the by-laws of a congregation or in the catalog of an educational institution, a “statement of faith” tends to stop conversation. Such statements can also easily become tools for manipulating or excluding people from the community. Too often they create an environment in which real conversation is avoided out of fear that critical reflection on one or more of the sacred propositions will lead to excommunication from the community. Emergent seeks to provide a milieu in which others are welcomed to join in the pursuit of life “in” the One who is true (1 John 5:20). Giving into the pressure to petrify the conversation in a “statement” would make Emergent easier to control; its critics could dissect it and then place it in a theological museum alongside other dead conceptual specimens the curators find opprobrious. But living, moving things do not belong in museums. Whatever else Emergent may be, it is a movement committed to encouraging the lively pursuit of God and to inviting others into a delightfully terrifying conversation along the way.

“This does not mean, as some critics will assume, that Emergent does not care about belief or that there is no role at all for propositions. Any good conversation includes propositions, but they should serve the process of inquiry rather than shut it down. Emergent is dynamic rather than static, which means that its ongoing intentionality is (and may it ever be) shaped less by an anxiety about finalizing state-ments than it is by an eager attention to the dynamism of the Spirit’s disturbing and comforting presence, which is always reforming us by calling us into an ever-intensifying participation in the Son’s welcoming of others into the faithful embrace of God.”

Peace, dwight

“What if humans are in conversation the way fish are in water?”

Rabbi Dov Gartenberg and I met through Synagogue 3000, he and I will be team teaching a Hillel Foundation class in May at University of Washington and Panim Hadashot sponsored by JConnect.  We titled our class:

Seeking Common Ground: A Conversation with a Rabbi and a Pastor On Religious Identity and Belief in a Pluralistic World

Its a rare opportunity for young Christians and Jews to engage in conversation about religious identity and faith in a world of diverse choices and religious contentiousness.

Our themes will be:

1. Does my religious identity or lack thereof help or deter my relationship with others in a diverse society?
2. Beyond God on my side: Does a sense of religious choseness make sense in our times? (Post-evangelical, post-insular Judaism)
3. What is religious conversion in pluralistic world?
4. What does it mean to affirm your faith tradition in a world of multiple ‘truths’’?
5. Can secular and religious people find common ground?

Class Information:

Tuesdays, 7:30-9:00PM,  May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30

@ University of Washington, Hillel Foundation

4745 17th Ave NE Seattle, WA 98105.

Geared to persons of college age through mid 30s.

Registration Information:

Cost: $25.  To register contact UW Hillel at 206-527-1997 or register online at http://www.jconnectseattle.org/Classes.htm

For more information,  contact Rabbi Dov Gartenberg at rabbidov@panimhadashot.com or call at 206 525-0648.

Peace, dwight 

Holy Week Begins. In the series of Lenton readings that Quest has been using this year one of the readings for today is the 22^nd Psalm . . . it’s a Psalm to be read out loud.

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?

Why do you remain so distant?

Why do you ignore my cries for help?

Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.

Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.

Yet you are holy.

The praises of Israel surround your throne.

Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them.

You heard their cries for help and saved them.

They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man.

I am scorned and despised by all!

Everyone who sees me mocks me.

They sneer and shake their heads, saying,

“Is this the one who relies on the LORD?

Then let the LORD save him!

If the LORD loves him so much,

let the LORD rescue him!”

Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb

and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.

I was thrust upon you at my birth.

You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near,

and no one else can help me.

My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;

fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!

Like roaring lions attacking their prey,

they come at me with open mouths.

My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart is like wax, melting within me.

My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.

My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;

an evil gang closes in on me.

They have pierced my hands and feet.

I can count every bone in my body.

My enemies stare at me and gloat.

They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments.

O LORD, do not stay away!

You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!

Rescue me from a violent death;

spare my precious life from these dogs.

Snatch me from the lions’ jaws, and

from the horns of these wild oxen.

Then I will declare the wonder of your name to my brothers and sisters.

I will praise you among all your people.

Praise the LORD, all you who fear him!

Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!

Show him reverence, all you descendants of Israel!

For [God] has not ignored the suffering of the needy.

He has not turned and walked away.

He has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you among all the people;

I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.

The poor will eat and be satisfied.

All who seek the LORD will praise him.

Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.

The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.

People from every nation will bow down before him.

For the LORD is king! He rules all the nations.

Let the rich of the earth feast and worship.

Let all mortals – those born to die – bow down in his presence.

Future generations will also serve him.

Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord.

His righteous acts will be told to those yet unborn.

            They will hear about everything he has done.

Peace, dwight

 

“Who what am I?  My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me.  I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine.  I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come.  Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each ‘I,’ every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude.  I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.”

Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.   New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1980, 440.

peace, dwight

The other day I was asked for a working definition of “interpersonal relations” within an educational environment. I hummed and hawed and stumbled a little longer than was necessary to reinforce my buffoon-tendencies. Of the many possible responses which have come to mind since that moment the one I keep going back is the following.

The Mandolin Maker & His Nephew

by dwight friesen

Once upon a time, there was a mandolin maker named Gepetto, (his second cousin twice removed was also named Gepetto and he made the most enchanting puppets; but that’s a different story). He was known far and wide for making some of the most beautiful mandolins. It was said that you could line up twenty mandolins play the same tune and even the untrained ear could appreciate the unparalleled splendor and resonance of Gepetto’s instrument.

One day Gepetto’s nephew – an aspiring mandolin maker himself – came to his uncle wanting to learn his secret. “Please, tell me how you make your mandolins sound so sweet?” he began.

Gepetto took his nephew by the hand and led him to his supply of lumber, putting his index finger to his lips he hushed his nephew, and picked up a piece of wood. He felt it, caressed it, and rapped with his knuckle all the while listening to it. “This piece is perfect for a tuning peg,” he said after a few moments and lovingly laid the wood in the hands of his nephew. “Find another piece that sounds like this and I will tell my secret.

And so the nephew picked up a piece wood and felt it, caressed it and rapped it with his knuckled all the while listening to it and declared he had found one. Gepetto took the wood and listened to it himself, and smiled. “You have a found a very useful piece, but it is not a tuning peg, this piece will serve us by keeping us warm.” Gepetto threw the wood in the fire and picked up his chisel and resumed his work. “My offer stands,” he said as a ringlet of maple fell from his chisel.

By the end of the day the nephew’s hands were slivered, and his knuckles were raw, and he still had not found a suitable piece for a tuning peg. Gepetto, seeing the growing frustration, joined his nephew and picked up another piece of wood, and began the process. This time the nephew thought he saw something in his uncle’s connection with the wood that he hadn’t seen earlier – he studied his uncle’s face and was mesmerized by the way his hands glided over the wood. “I want to be that kind of person” he thought.

In that moment, something of his uncle passed over to the young man.

Years passed. Day in and day out the young nephew worked at Gepetto’s side until he was not so young and Gepetto was an old man. The fame of their magnificence mandolins had only grown. One afternoon an aspiring mandolin maker came to the nephew asking him how he and Gepetto did it. The now much older nephew was reminded of his first day in the woodshop with his uncle. The secret was his now, but not to be told. He was the secret. And there was only one way to pass it on. He took the boy over to the wood pile, and picked up a piece, he felt it, caressed it, and rapped it with his knuckle all the while listening. “This piece is perfect for a scroll,” he said after a few moments and lovingly laid the wood in the hands of the would-be mandolin maker. “Find another piece that sounds like this and I will tell my secret . . .”

peace, dwight

This morning I received an email from Tom with a link to a story about the Synagogue 3000 gathering in the Washington Post (which even includes a photo of yours truly). It’s the first post-event article I’ve seen, though, J. Shawn Landres and Ryan Bolger posted blog entries.

peace, dwight

Monday and Tuesday of this week I was privileged to be in dialogue with a remarkable cohort of Jewish and Christian religious leaders reflecting together on the challenges of guiding faith-communities in our ever morphing culture.  The gathering was hosted by Synagogue 3000. 

The S3K site says: “Synagogue 3000 is a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life. We seek to make synagogues compelling moral and spiritual centers – sacred communities – for the twenty-first century . . . Sacred communities are those where relationships with God and with each other define everything the synagogue does; where ritual is engaging; where Torah suffuses all we do; where social justice is a moral imperative; and where membership is about welcoming and engaging both the committed and the unaffiliated. We wish to change the conversation about meaningful Jewish life in our time.”

Synagogue 3000 is the successor organization to Synagogue 2000 (S2K), and some of the key voices behind the creation and management of S3K are Ron Wolfson, Larry Hoffman, Shawn Landres, Ellen Dreskin, Merri Lovinger Arian, and Joshua Avedon. 

In addition to the participants listed here below, many of the S3K board, finical supporters and members of the media were present.

Participants included:

Daniel Alter Denver, Julia Andelman New York, Andy Bachman Brooklyn, Sharon Brous Los Angeles, Menachem Cohen Chicago, Shir-Yaakov Feinstein-Feit New York, Lauren Grabelle Hermann West Philadelphia, Dov Gartenberg Seattle, J. Shawn Landres Los Angeles, Amichai Lau-Lavie New York, Margie Klein Boston, Shoshana Leis Riverdale, Jeremy Morrison Boston. Ryan Bolger Pasadena, Troy Bronsink Atlanta, Scott Collins Philadelphia, Tony Jones Minneapolis, Tim Keel Kansas City, Heather Kirk-Davidoff Columbia, Doug Pagitt Minneapolis, Nanette Sawyer Chicago, Dieter Zander San Rafael, and myself.

If I failed to mention someone or mislinked anyone, please post a corrective comment below.

Though there were so many beautiful moments – from times of prayer to lively-vision-expanding discussions – the moment that I find myself sitting with came from an exchange between the Rabbi of a mega-Synagogue and Tim Keel.  A question regarding how Rabbis of successful, established Synagogues might come alongside and support these new expressions of faith was voiced.  Tim responded by taking us to the story of Eli and Samuel.  The text tells us that “in those days messages from the LORD were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.” Eli had not heard from God for a long time, and Samuel didn’t know what he was hearing or how to respond when he heard from God.  But together they both heard.  Eli coaching Samuel and Samuel sharing with Eli, and by working together the people of God were blessed. 

I have come away with much to consider, and new voices and faces to shape my soul. 

Here are a few links to stories that ran prior to the gathering:  Religious News Service, The Christian Post and WNRF.  

Peace, dwight