Caleb and Joshua : Emergent Pioneers

February 5, 2010 at 11:53 am · Filed under emergence, faith, imagination, modernity, the bible

“But my servant Caleb – he has a different spirit…” [Num 14:24]

I have rediscovered the fascinating narrative from Numbers 13 and 14 concerning Moses and the people of Israel on the brink of entering into the Promised Land.

Despite associating this kind of Old Testament story with theologies of exclusion, spiritual heroics, conquest and conversion, I am now finding in it a particular resonance with current debates around emergence and the move beyond Modernity.

It’s a tale of twists, and here is the storyboard:

  • God tells Moses to send scouts from each tribe into Canaan;
  • They find a land rich and fruitful, but inhabited by fearful nations (“giants”);
  • Caleb calls for an “invasion”;
  • Almost all the others decry his bold stance of faith based on their fear of the giants;
  • Caleb and Joshua restate their faith in God to take it;
  • God appears in glory, and hopping mad;
  • Good old Moses placates Him and intercedes for the people;
  • God relents and forgives them but remains resolute about the consequences – not one of the fearful would enter the land;
  • The people repent and then cockily decide they want to take the land after all;
  • God says “not so fast!” – it’s too late;
  • They do so anyway and are thoroughly beaten.

Oi gewald, what a mess.

What if the Promised Land lay beyond the horizons of what we call Modernity? What if Postmodernity in fact contained the keys to unlock many of the perennial problems which lie at the heart of Christianity? What if the defensive positions of counter-emergents came from the same spirit as the vast majority of Israel – fear?

And if we could take a slightly more metaphorical posture towards the text, what if “taking the land” meant not conquest and conversion, but journey, adventure and conversation? What if it meant evolving truth rather than striving for an abstract and idealised proposition about truth? What if it was entirely missional, an immersion into the world, rather than evacuation away from the world?

What if the giants were the sin and illusion within ourselves, not an exteriorised other? Why is it that only a tiny majority seems to be able to break through from the conformity to fear based systems?

Is it possible that the forgiving God of second chances at times refuses a second chance, and that the emerging conversation and new wisdom consciousness is our last chance to save our Faith, which otherwise would sail into increasing irrelevance, until it simply disappeared?

If we re-imagine the story of Caleb and Joshua, we might find a nugget of ancient wisdom whereby we can in the present respond to a call into the unknown. We might be able to break with the deep, fear-based traditions which seem to choke the real message of the bible and keep smothered its power to transform us and our world. If we abandon the myth of certainly which lies at the heart of Modernism, we might, finally, with emergent pioneers Joshua and Caleb, arrive in the Space of Faith.

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A South African Emergent Conversation

December 9, 2009 at 8:48 am · Filed under Atheism, Jackson Khosa, Muzi Cindi, belonging, church, conversation, evangelical, inclusion, materialism, mission, modernity, postmodern spirituality, space, the bible, tribe, ubuntu

A group of friends met on the 4th and 5th December 2009 in Cape Town, around growing these friendships and working towards a common vision for emergence Christianity in South Africa. These included Jackson Khosa, Muzi Cindi, Marius Brand, Cobus van Wyngaard, Theresa and Andrew Hendrikse, Ann and Nic Paton, and Amahoro Africa’s Claude Nikondeha. In addition to socialising and relaxing, we shared meals, drummed, and talked.

One focus was the book by Muzi Cindi, whose unorthodox journey has sparked both indignation and amazement especially in his own African community, dividing established patterns of church authority with a host of radical questions about God and Atheism.

Cobus, Andy, Jackson, Muzi, at Little Stream

It was regrettable that for the “talking” and more theological part (held on Saturday), we had not managed to organise any South African women to take part – everyone shared this misgiving – but significant progress was made.

But we provided a means to be equally heard by way of each participant posing one question, which was then answered by all. This was constructive, and we came away with a broad flavour of what we might pursue going forward. These then are the questions:

  • Jackson – How big is our conversational space?
  • Muzi – How do we create space for those who do not understand us?
  • Marius – How do we make this space sustainable?
  • Andy – What holds us together?
  • Nic – How do we avoid chasing our own tail?
  • Cobus – what is the local agenda?

We realised at once that the key word for us was “space”, and had a go at exploring what it meant for us.

  • I am comfortable. I do not fear inquisition.
  • I am relaxed in the suspension of judgement.
  • The underlying reality, full of potential.
  • Grace, the holding environment.
  • A home for spirituality and community.
  • A set of connections.
  • The space is not defined by an essence, but by the fact of questioning.

Here are some comments on the Q + R:

While we want to engage all people in our conversation, we are called first and foremost to our “own tribe”. By this, many of us mean evangelicals. Rather than point out the sins and deficiencies of other tribes, we need to concentrate on those which are ours. For example, it is not really our business what “demons” haunted Hinduism; we need to deal with those inside the Christian fold.

So for us as Christians, even though we see ourselves as post-modern, the bible with all its difficulty and its glory remains a necessary discussion. We acknowledge that many people do not know how to navigate it. We need to share in the burden of interpreting the text. We neither cop out nor declare the bible irrelevant, nor do we simply conform to what is passed down to us.

As for how do we create space for those who do not understand us, we need to realise that if we strike out in a new direction, those who we “leave behind” are lightly to become our biggest opponents and critics. Misunderstanding is not primarily an intellectual issue – it has more to do with emotion – specifically feeling judged – than differing ideas.

A broad understanding of sustainability was explored. Specifically this had to do with sustainable models of ministry. For example, in ministry family is often the first victim. This occurs when we place the “vocation” above relationships, and do not see the relational as core to the calling. Romantic ideas, which are bound to arise in an ethos of newness such as we are all experiencing, will also become unsustainable if they are not tethered to relationship and sound theology. In all events, in our lack of sustainability, we must be honest.

Unity was talked of not as an excluding force, but as an including one. The question is not what “defines” our belonging, but rather “What holds us together?” We spoke of the fact that in modern church practice, the progression is generally “Believe – Behave – Belong”. In emergent circles, this emphasis has been reversed to “Belong – Behave – Believe”: here we first of all host, include, and love. This creates relationship, and our behaviour changes as trust grows.

However, we want to go beyond the mere reversal of these elements, and view them as three interrelated dimensions, dynamically influencing each other. It was agreed that the reason this is being so hotly debated is precisely because of the static idea (emphasised in modern thought but certainly going back to the early years of the Roman Church) that belief was the primary determinant for belonging. In this day and age, belief has become idolatrous in its elevation.

Nic and Jackson

We spoke of Ubuntu, the African understanding that I am who I am through other people, and that this laid the foundations for a new spirituality of connectedness. For many Africans, it was simply lifestyle, but may not be overt philosophy. African emergent thinkers must integrate Ubuntu into their theologies.

One thing the group had shared in common were long journeys in around and out of the church. How we dealt with these journeys was important. For some, trust had been radically broken; their weaknesses were used against them, destroying relationship. But for others, solace had been found in relationships where failings had been held, and love was found despite those weaknesses.

The social dynamics of the New South Africa were expressed in the question “How do we avoid chasing our own tail?” By this we mean that postmodern white people tended to be leaving the dream of material prosperity behind, and perusing community, while many blacks were doing the opposite; leaving community and Ubuntu behind as they reached for material prosperity. Somehow we needed to avoid merely going around in circles, and as Emergents we must pull one another towards our centre.

This means that we should limit our “evacuation plans”; for whites we must not be overly judgemental of those blacks who are emerging from poverty and doing what our forebears have already done – bought in to the dream of prosperity. For the blacks, we need to not to too quick to abandon our Ubuntu; for it is in this that our common salvation might be found. As we whorl about this pool, we must keep communicating, keep a healthy conversation going, and hold one another close against the centrifugal forces pulling us outwards and ultimately, apart.

The closing question remains open ended, and it concerns the local agenda. What are we going to do, how are we going to sustain these friendships, what mission might emerge? How are we to own our South African situation, not being overly influenced from abroad? What is the balance between thinking and actually doing?

It seems fitting to leave this post right there …

Other syncrobloggers

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World Machine Dream

December 3, 2009 at 9:42 am · Filed under altered consciousness, charismatic, church, dreams, epiphany, eternity, grace, imagination, memory, mythmaking, psychodelics, punishment, redemption, sacred places, tradition, transfiguration, universal restoration, world system

David Priilaid hates descriptors, but 5 things that best describe him are:

  • He is an academic working at the University of Cape Town
  • He teaches entrepreneurship with a view that people have lost their voices and with insight can rediscover their “abilities to sing”
  • He is a post-anglican evangelical charismatic christian
  • Has experienced 10 years of Jungian psychotherapy and is a great fan of James Hollis
  • Loves Steely Dan, Bill Evans and a good glass of Cape Red at his right elbow

I had this dream in the early hours of Sunday 29 November.  The vivid and technicolor character of it made me feel that this was some kind of vision.  You as reader can be the judge.

A major social project had been commissioned to excavate and unearth an old artifact.  The project felt a little like some sort of archeology, though the terms never seemed explicit.  Teams were commissioned to do the work.  Cohorts of ten to 15 workers.  This was a global enterprise.  And a massive administration had been put together to coordinate the process.  The bureaucracy was run from giant glass faceless buildings – three storey’s high large low slung, with brown and charcoal slanted glass – non-descript but self imposing and dwarfing the people that worked therein.  Just the architecture of the buildings made people feel insignificant.

In the dream I witnessed one instance of rebellion against the system.  People just left through a wider distant exit; and those leaving didn’t even feel that the system would notice.  They “got” away with it.  It was like escaping across the old Berlin wall.

Finally our team from UCT (University of Cape Town) was returning from our session of work.  Other teams were also involved.  One from Harvard, I saw.  Our team was about to leave, our job completed, when we each received letters from the administration heads (bosses) telling us that we couldn’t leave until a joint fee of approximately R4000 had been paid because someone had not paid their way, perhaps even absconded (as in the paragraph above, though again, not explicit).  The message was inscribed, beautifully, in gilded cursive on decorative parchment-styled paper.  The words too, were carefully crafted, even appeared as pretty rhyming couplets, but on closer scrutiny, the message reeked of political spin and social engineering.  It was straight manipulation – and something inside me snapped.  I had finally seen enough and knew the system for what it was.

And then I moved to a scene where the work happened.  It was a work yard.  It felt ancient and dusty, the floor a hard screed of dried cracked mud.  This is where excavation occurred.  The yard was dominated, though by a contraption that now feels like one of those circular treadmills, where animals or people were yoked to long poles that rotated around a fulcrum.  There was a slope too, and a pitched roof that ran up the slope to a point of exit at a higher level. It felt like a place of great labour, endurance and suffering.

As I “snapped”, I saw one of these yard animals snap too – you could see in its eyes that it had had enough of this system of work.  The animal was a beaten down beast of burden.  It could have been a bull, or a sheep or an ox.  It was some kind of mixture.  It had a light brown coat of short fur which was mud-caked and you could see that it carried old scars on its back.  Regardless, this animal moved slowly up this covered rock strewn corridor.  You could see it suffering as it scrabbled up this path.  Then as it scaled the summit, it moved onto what I can only describe as some kind of exit platform.

And then something quite remarkable happened.  As it stepped onto the platform, this animal was transformed into a creature of gold.  It gleamed of gold – as if this is what it was made of.  Inside.  It was imbued with dignity, awe and splendor.  Its coat was streaked – as with day-glo – in colours of green, purple, gold.  It held its head up high, and it was a magnificent to behold.  I as the dreamer followed this creature up the slope and watched, in awe.

Then a team of work-horses was also sloped off to the exit-platform.  Once more this team of pack-animals was transfigured – this time into a set of Pegasus creatures, with wings – and once more wearing slashes of the same fine colours: green, purple and gold.  The narrative of the dreams seemed to be implying that this is how these creatures really are – and how they should be seen – and treated accordingly.  And thus the tragedy and irony was clear to behold: the “system” had debased them, abused them, and treated them as creatures of labour.

Next up went a team of people.  Again they too were transfigured into super humans – almost angels, it seemed.

The entire transformation process was touched with a deep sense of quiet resolve, pride, dignity – and an underpinning of anger – as if to say – “ok: let me show you who we really are!  And you treat us like slaves!  We are outer-worldly supernatural creatures, struck in the coin of God.”

Finally I saw the super-structure that was being excavated.  It too was transformed.  Where once it had seemed as a skeleton, an ancient ruin of rickety brackets, now it was was gold; an inverted pyramid – the base at the top, a pyramid vessel of gold, with liquid gold sluicing off the top.  It was if this structure was alive, brimming with gold and fire and energy, a vessel of the sun.  The structure rose slowly from the ground – and then seemed to tower over us, dwarfing us in its magnificence.

And this is where the dream ended.

David Priilaid
Hout Bay

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“Wild man wise man” session 6

December 1, 2009 at 9:17 am · Filed under Francis of Assisi, Richard Rohr, Sergio Milandri, altered consciousness, belonging, initiation, punishment, purgatory, risk, tradition, tribe

Initiation

In almost all cultures the world over, young people undergo rites of initiation. It normally marks the passage into adulthood. However in the recent west this has become less and less a feature of our culture, such that we live in what Sergio refers to as a “partly initiated society”.

We need to rediscover and reconnect with these ancient practices. These rituals are in essence an emotional and spiritual phenomenon, meant to be felt and internalised. While women encounter this naturally through the overt changes of puberty, this has become highly problematic for the modern male. What remains of these rituals – confirmation, or boy scouts, lack the visceral power of traditional initiations. It is left to gang membership and the military, which hardly transform us in the right direction.

According to Rohr, “men must be tried, limited, challenged, punished, hazed, circumcised, isolated, starved, stripped and goaded into maturity”.  This separates him forcefully from the feminine energy, and this experience wounds him ritually and “prepares the young man to deal with life in ways other than logic, managing, controlling and problem solving.” [P 31] Without this wounding, paradoxically, we shall never heal.

In small groups, a story was shared by a participant in which at 13 years old, he was told by his wise mother to get on his bicycle, and not to return home until he had a job. He was faced with the terror of the fact that he did not know when he would sleep at home again. He went from restaurant to restaurant adding his name to long waiting lists. But eventually he was offered a kitchen job and a beginner’s wage. He went home a changed person, and for 8 months, proudly made enough money to comfortably cover his weekend dream activities.

Initiation needs to be rediscovered in our society, Rohr : “Initiation always taught the young man to die before he died … a constant truth taught by Jesus, baptism, the prophets, Mohammed, the mystics… as St Francis put it , ‘if you have once faced the great death, the second death can do you no harm.’” [P 36]

Note, I have explored in some depth the topic of “The Shamanic Shadow” which inlcudes the biblical basis for a more feral spirituality including the sort of initiation proposed by Richard Rohr.

This post is part 6 in the series Richard Rohr “From wild man to wise man” with Sergio Milandri of relating.com. The session was held on the 30th November 2009 at Sans Pareil, Hout Bay, South Africa.

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Philip Clayton in conversation with Nic Paton

November 19, 2009 at 9:53 pm · Filed under Brian Swimme, Philip Clayton, evolution, faith, incarnation, panentheism, physics, spirituality, teilhard de chardin

Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Sacred Evolution, Hosting the Universe, missional biology, co-evolving, radicalised ecozoic incarnation, and the generation that is asking “brilliant questions”:

Philip Clayton (author of “Transforming Christian Theology“) in conversation with Nic Paton (curator of The Sout Project).

Listen to Philip Clayton in conversation with Nic Paton.

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The Sout Project CD now internationally available!

November 11, 2009 at 11:13 am · Filed under Worship, blogs, music making, the sout project

sout_cover_medIt’s a month yet to the official launch (11th December 2009), but I just wanted to tell everyone that “Story”, world-emergent album from Cape Town’s The Sout Project collective, is now available for international purchase from Portland’s incredible independent music portal CDBaby.

Online distribution to the likes of iTunes and Amazon will follow in coming months.

Please feel free to visit the soutproject.net, download a free mp3, listen to other tracks, and comment. And tell your friends to do so too.

If you are a blogger and would like to write a review, you will receive a free advance copy. Please submit your name, email address and blog URL, via the contact form on the site.

Reviews currently in:

What a gift The Sout Project’s “Story” is to all of us … a beautifully-crafted presentation of original songs that enrich and inspire both in their content and form. Many voices, many cultures, many styles, many rhythms … all woven together in one richly textured musical fabric colored by good news of hope, peace, and joy.

Congrats with SOUT! I love the honesty and freshness … The arrangements are profound. Vine, Circle, Meditation with Mechtild is breathtaking – and the contemplative “In all Things” speaks direct to the heart!

- Theo Geyser, In Via

I think it is absolutely fantastic … it really brings a multicultural presence to Emergence Christianity that is desperately needed.

- Thomas Turner, Arts Editor, Generate Magazine

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“Wild man wise man” session 3

November 10, 2009 at 8:42 am · Filed under Richard Rohr, Sergio Milandri, power, worth

Power and powerlessness

Lazarus and the Rich man

We were led by Sergio into a reflection on power. Specifically, we considered what we understood it to be, this included wealth, freedom, influence, eloquence, strength, good looks, manipulation, and all the manifestations of outer success.

Then we considered “inner” power, and listed things like dignity, love, authority, non-resistance or passive resistance. We spoke of Ghandi and Jesus, and how the might of empires had no hold on them, for their power lay within. We were reminded that no one can take our inner power away, regardless of changes in circumstances where our outer power is apparently stripped, such as in job loss, divorce, or other times of tragedy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Pattern-based Worship: The loop vs. the line.

November 9, 2009 at 11:40 am · Filed under agriculture, calendar, faith, liturgy, loops, materialism, modernity, nature, string theory, wheel of the year

One of the major features of the modern era, from which we are currently emerging, is linearity.  This is propped up by the “myth of progress” wherein all history moves towards the future through Greek conceptions of time – telos (purpose) and chronos (linear time) – expressed though our systemising of natural time via clocks. In this idea, accuracy and efficiency have become of utmost importance, because of our capitalist belief that “time is money”.

And these manifestations of modernity are not limited to the dominant economic model either, communism (especially the Soviet type) had an implicit faith in the ability of this “progress” to transform society, based in scientific materialism, atheistic humanism and Hegelian philosophical optimism. Read the rest of this entry »

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“From wild man to wise man” session 2

November 5, 2009 at 9:26 am · Filed under Sergio Milandri, dualism, intimacy, memory, risk, sexuality, spirituality

Male and Female God created them

We were encouraged to enter small group conversation with the heart and not the head, and reminded that groups very rarely went “deeper” than the ethos with which they began. The idea of “Cell Memory” – the body-wide repository of accumulated feelings, was introduced. Sergio spoke of mourning as a process of owning our own feelings instead of projecting then outwards or suppressing them. The central idea of the “Father Wound” which marks so much of our Western civilasation was futher opened up.

We began exploring the idea that the Genesis account demonstrates that the image of God was expressed in the creation of male and female aspects. We touched on Rohrs idea that “all healthy spirituality will always have a truly ’sexual’ character to it, a desire for re-union”. (Rohr p 13) Read the rest of this entry »

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“From wild man to wise man” session 1

November 5, 2009 at 9:19 am · Filed under Richard Rohr, Sergio Milandri, longing, memory, risk, spirituality

Sergio Milandri and Richard Rohr

The Wild (Wo)Man

We introduced the idea of wildness, presenting it not a negative and destructive force, but as the path to wisdom. The scriptures and the prophets have been read through the eye of civilisation, but on deeper examination are “a wild bunch” (Rohr p 3).

It was established that the preferred way of masculine communication was control oriented, involving the rational and the egocentric approaches. It was more “feminine” to feel empathy and be compassionate, and this generated the surrender, trust and vulnerability which lead to aliveness. It is imperative we make authentic contact with our “unexplored wildness”, taking this risk in order to be ultimately free to love. Read the rest of this entry »

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