ORDER: control freaks

Introduction – Order – Chaos - Conclusion

Our understanding of God is affected by the environment we find ourselves in or to put it differently, all theology is local. We just can’t escape that. To have a shot at a more accurate view of God we need to make a distinction between God and our understanding of God. The moment we make our understanding of God an absolute, we’ve turned it into an idol.

Although we’re in a postmodern era, our cosmology is still, in most part, a modern one. We still operate under the many categories of the enlightenment. Newton’s mathematical explanations for the behavior of the physical reality gave rise to the hope that we can predict and therefore control our reality. This led to the development of the modern Sciences by which people were trying to understand the inner workings (laws) of our world SO AS TO be able to predict it and in turn, gain control of it. Order was the quintessential dynamic everything was believed to be based on. Hence the development of a natural order philosophy. In the centuries that followed, the reasoning muscle has been exercised and built so much that people were thinking (and some still are): since what is real can be explained rationally, what can’t be explained rationally must not be real. Order was the lens through which everything was looked at.

The advent of the modern Science and many of the recent technological achievements have pointed to an undeniable measure of order in our universe and many things can, indeed, be predicted pretty accurately. There’s no question that we benefit from order. But can order be found in everything? Is order the adequate response to everything?

How could God be in control, we say, without a predictable order? How can I relate to God without an understanding of the divine order? We want to be in control, to know what we’re doing and order seems to be the answer. As a result we project that unto God. A chaotic God is unpredictable, cannot be figured out and so cannot be trusted. We have effectively forced God to fit our categories. God has to be a totally orderly God or He can’t be God.

We need to expand our horizons if we are to let God be God and get a better glimpse of Him. We need to learn to embrace chaos, which takes us to our next Monday post.

How do you describe order?

Why is it that we’re so attracted to it?

The unpredictable God of order

Introduction – Order – Chaos - Conclusion

If someone would ask you to portray God, would chaos be part of your description?

Does your experience of God point to an element of unpredictability?

What shapes our concept of God? Are we willing to put our faith in a God who is bigger than our theological constructs, whom we allow to incarnate into our world, surprise us and be endlessly changed by him? Or do we settle for a hand-out, a tradition passed on to us?

For those who say their concept of God is solely shaped by Scriptures and say: Ap. Paul makes it clear that “God is not a God of disorder”, I have some questions: don’t we betray our claim to be inspired by Scriptures (by all 66 books) when we base our understanding of God on Paul (alone) or on certain passages in the Bible? What are we to make of all those stories that seem to catch us off guard in their depiction of God? Can we be faithful to the witness of the sacred texts and hold an honest view of complete order to God’s activities, in that they are always, totally predictable?

What about our experience? Can we say existentially that God is a God of order? Does our experience reflect complete order? Or to put it another way, is “order” the best overarching description of life? Is there cause and effect in every aspect of our life showing a linear development? Does always B come after A and C after B or sometimes C comes after A and B comes after H? In other words can we honestly say that life, in its entirety, is predictable?

This Monday I’m starting a four-part series on order, chaos, God and their interaction in our lives by asking some questions. As we reflect on these, it would be helpful for our conversation here to get your perspective. How would you answer these questions? Although I have an idea of where we’re going with this (I am not totally clueless when I ask these questions ), I’m looking to be stirred by you as we navigate these waters together. Invite others to participate in this.

And now, indulge us with your comments …

The art of embracing the other

Daniel Goleman wrote in Social Intelligence: “our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person.” (p.4)

Although our own very existence is dependent on other people, we have, paradoxically, a resistance toward them. We seem to like others when they are like us and distance ourselves when they are different. Yet at a deeper level we crave for something different. Same ole, same ole gives us a sense of security and safety, yet it is not fully satisfying. We really need the other and the other really needs us.

Instead of isolating ourselves in parallel universes, we need to start flexing our reaching out muscle, we need to start practicing the art of the embrace. To help with this Samir Selmanovic wrote the book It’s really all about God. If you are anxious that he might ask you to give up your identity, your tradition and start compromising … you can RELAX!!! To the contrary, he’s proposing a way to better discover ourselves, to deepen our understanding. What I like about this book, is that it is “an attempt to step above, under, or sideways from our religions and look at them not merely as their adherents but as human beings.” [Italics mine] Samir does a wonderful job at this in his reflections and more importantly in the memoir of his personal story. For way too long we have approached our religions (or any belief system for that matter) in such an abstract way (we like to call it “spiritual”) that we forgot the human element essential to them. Samir brings us back to earth and puts our religions to the test of life, breaking the typical boundaries religions tend to set.

The only way we can stop the animosity between various faiths traditions is by seeing each other as fellow human beings and not objects of each other’s conquests.

If you’re interested in finding out which religion is the right one or trying to find a way to validate your tradition against the others … well, you will find the book not very satisfying.

Before you can appreciate though what the author is saying it’s important to understand the presuppositions underlying the book.

1. About God. After all, the book is It’s really all about God, right? The basic idea is that there really is only ONE God. This God created only ONE race, the human race and so He is personally invested and involved in each human being life (reflected in God’s image in each one of us). Here’s the kick. Although we have this human bond in common, each of us has been created unique. We each reflect God uniquely in our life. We each represent a facet of this wonderful diamond called humanity, reflecting the glory of God. So to get a better glimpse of the Divine we need each other.

2. About people. The author doesn’t operate from a dualistic view of humanity: us vs. them. Out of the first premise flows this second one which confers dignity to all people. Even if we have different stories and come from different backgrounds we all have the same access to the Divine. God does not restrict Himself from anyone. God does not have favorite children. Because God created us all, we all have equal inherent value and in turn something sacred (of value) to offer to all. The problem is, due to this openness on God’s side we tend to think that it is unique to us, to our tribe, to our religion and develop a superiority complex. We construct sophisticated language trying to contain God and our experience of Him. And so from something once beautiful we erect walls around to protect us against the other, not realizing that in so doing we cut ourselves from a fuller understanding of God.

With these few notes have a delightful reading !!!

For those who read the book, can you share some thoughts with us?

For those who have not or don’t plan to … why?

Is there anything in what I said that makes you uncomfortable? Can you share?

___________________________
Here’s what’s coming next Monday: The unpredictable God of order

AVATAR: a metaphor for emergent evangelism

A while back I dated a girl who asked me: why do you like me? I said: I like you for your potential. Now, I still can’t believe she went ahead and married me.

Although evangelism is a term associated with the evangelicalism (for apparent reasons), anyone who’s set to follow in the way of Jesus will inevitably be involved in evangelism. It is what has been called The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:46-47 and Acts 1:8). The question is: what does it mean to do evangelism?

The recent movie Avatar is a great illustration of the way Christians have been relating to the rest of the world and a lesson for how they should relate. Truth is, we don’t relate to the “other” from a position of equality. For a long, long time Christians have made evangelism a one way street. They have projected themselves to be God’s brokers to the world. Their role was to bring God to places where there is no God. This approach has put Christians in a posture of superiority. If Christians built relationships with the other (be it a next door neighbor or someone from a far off country) it was ONLY to learn their ways SO AS TO get a chance and a way to present their God. Like Jake Sully, they learn about the other in a dry, mechanic way without any emotional investment. There is an AGENDA! There is no real interest in the other. As Samir Selmanovic writes in “It’s really all about God”, we don’t think the other has anything of value to offer us about God. We certainly don’t need them; they are the ones who after all need us. If we care, we care for “their potential”.

This is where the Avatar movie is a great metaphor for what evangelism could and should become. Although Jake Sully entered Na’vi world initially with an agenda in mind, he got to appreciate their way of life, its beauty so much so that he wanted to become part of it. Eventually his presence there really helped to save them. But it was something organic. Evangelism should really be a two way street. We enter the other’s world because we really believe we are enriched by the interaction and our horizons will be enlarged. We celebrate good and beauty where ever we find it[1]. Jesus often found faith outside his religious tribe (Israel, God’s people) and praised it (Matthew 8:10; 15:28 to name a few instances). Actually, when we read the Gospels we often find Jesus saddened by the lack of faith among his own people and followers.

We don’t bring God to the other, but find God in the other.

We get to know them so as to see what God has been doing before we got there and learn alongside. Evangelism is a take and give, give and take love relationship. We initiate the relationship because we believe there is a treasure in the other we can’t miss. We evangelize “to be evangelized.”[2] If we’ve got something of value to offer (which we certainly do) it should become evident in the relationship. But let’s not force it upon the other but let it grow naturally. Just as we find value in the other, the other will find value in us. This kind of evangelism the world needs desperately. We need it desperately.

___________________

[1] Rob Bell: “Velvet Elvis”

[2] Peter Rollins: see his post.