November 1, 2014

1. the story we find
ourselves in

2. that became a
modern institution
and now must adapt to a
Postmodern context
modern context
modern context
modern context
modern context
modern context
modern context
modern context
Post-colonialist
Post-secularist
Post-rationalist
Post-communist
Post-capitalist
Post-nationalist
Post-institutionalist
Post-patriarchal
Post-Christendom

3. Postmodern shifts
beauty
solidarity
humility
methodology
liturgy
mission
networks
story

4. Question 1:
What is the shape of the
biblical narrative?
(A pre-critical question)

6. Eden Heaven
Hell
Salvation
Fall
Fallen History/
Fallen world

7. Platonic Ideal Platonic Ideal
Hades
Atonement,
purification
Aristotelian
Real
Fall
Into
Aristotelian
Real

8. Pax Romana Pax Romana
Civilization,
development,
colonialism
Barbarian/ assimilation
pagan world
Destruction,
defeat
Rebellion
into
barbarism

9. Is there an
alternative
understanding?

10. sdrawkcab gnidaer
Rick Warren, Billy Graham, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther, Aquinas, Augustine,
Paul, Jesus
reading forwards
Adam, Eve, Sarah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus

11. Exodus: Liberation & Formation

12. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

13. Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

14. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy

15. HUMAN DESTRUCTION
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
HUMAN VIOLENCE
HUMAN EXPLOITATION

16. HUMAN DESTRUCTION
Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
HUMAN VIOLENCE
HUMAN EXPLOITATION

17. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
e
n
e
s
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
kingdom
of God

18. kingdom
Isaiah: Peaceable God
Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
Exodus: Liberation of & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

19. Creation

20. Creation
In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth. Now the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the
deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters.. (Genesis 1:1)
Real or simulation?
Finished, or ongoing?
Your role?

21. Crisis

22. Creation
Crisis
Garden - hunter/gatherers
Field - herders & crop farmers
River valley - towns & cities
Tower - walled cities/ civilizations

23. Calling

24. Creation, Crisis
Calling
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country,
your people and your father's household and go to the
land I will show you.
"I will make you into a great nation/ and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,/ and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you
I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
So Abram left, as the LORD had told him…
(Genesis 12:1-6)

25. Creation
Crisis
Calling
Blessed to be a blessing
Rejoining God’s story of
creation, being saved from
the crisis.

26. Captivity
Revolutionary insight:
God is on the side of the slaves.

27. Ex. 3:7 Then the Lord said, ‘I have Captivity
observed the misery of my people
who are in Egypt; I have heard
their cry on account of their
taskmasters. Indeed, I know their
sufferings, 8and I have come down
to deliver them from the Egyptians,
and to bring them up out of that
land to a good and broad land, a
land flowing with milk and honey, to
the country of the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Amorites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites. 9The cry of the Israelites
has now come to me; I have also
seen how the Egyptians oppress
them. 10So come, I will send you to
Pharaoh to bring my people, the
Israelites, out of Egypt.’
27

28. Captivity
Getting slaves out of Egypt: 10
plagues
Getting Egypt out of freed slaves: 10
commandments

29. Conquest

30. Conquest
The Bible, God, and violence:
An evolving understanding ...
Pointing forward.

31. Conversation

32. Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity, Conquest
Conversation
Priests, prophets, poets,
sages, storytellers
through calling, journey, slavery, exodus,
conquest, judges, kings, civil war, exile,
return, continuing domination

33. Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity,
Conquest, Conversation ...
Christ

34. Christ
Domination - Romans, Herodians, Sadducees
Revolution - Zealots
Purification - Pharisees
Accumulation - Wealthy Judeans
Victimization - Galileans, Samaritans, poor
Isolation - Essenes
Jesus - Another story …

35. Christ
Kingdom of God …
Calling everyone into
reconciliation with God, one
another, and creation

36. Christ
Cross …
God forgiving, not seeking revenge
God revealed in an vulnerable
victim
Exposing myth of redemptive
violence

37. Christ
Resurrection ...
Vindication
Ascension - enthronement
Bestowal of Spirit on “all flesh”
New Embodiment of Christ

38. Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity,
Conquest, Conversation, Christ ...
Community

39. Community
empowered and united by the
Holy Spirit
for mission
for the good of the world.

40. Consummation/Celebration

41. Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity,
Conquest, Conversation, Christ,
Community
Consummation/Celebration
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you
know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(I Corinthians 15:58)

42. Consummation
Possibilities (creativity) versus plans (control)
Promise as personal, not mechanistic
Participatory eschatology

43. Creation, Crisis, Calling, Captivity,
Conquest, Conversation, Christ,
Community, Celebration

44. the story we find
ourselves in

45. Fr. Vincent Donovan:

46. Religion is our own creation. Its horizons are necessarily
limited to our horizons. Since it is our creation it will serve
us. In a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, we
look to it as that one, solid, taken-for-granted basis to our
lives. It leads us to cling to the forms and structures with
which we are familiar and which we have found
comforting. At the dying of an age and the birth of a new
one, religion will be in the forefront of those institutions
clinging desperately to that immovable rock of unanalyzed
assumptions.
But revelation shatters that rock, disturbs our horizons,
presents a God who is not like us at all, a destabilizing and
surprising God who cannot be used to justify all our
projects; instead, One who asks us questions we do not
want to hear. (The Church in the Midst of Creation, p. 118)

47. Never accept and be content with unanalyzed
assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the
people, about the church or Christianity. Never be
afraid to ask questions about the work we have
inherited or the work we are doing. There is no
question that should not be asked or that is outlawed.
The day we are completely satisfied with what we
have been doing; the day we have found the perfect,
unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer,
never in need of being corrected again, on that day
we will know that we are wrong, that we have made
the greatest mistake of all. (Christianity
Rediscovered, 146)

48. There are many reasons
to compare our churches
to an old male tortoise
…

50. 50

51. 51

52. 52

54. 54

55. 55

58. the story we find
ourselves in