I’m entering a new season. I’ve decided to scale back my work considerably, as it’s slowly taken over most of my life. I often resent it and enjoy it only sporadically. Apparently building a small business means doing a lot of things wrong (such as overbooking yourself) before you start to figure things out.

But much worse than lack of joy in my work has been the fact that staring at a computer screen all day meant the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time in front of a keyboard to write. (And no, I’m not going to start writing longhand.)

The focal point in this season of change is the fact that, as of a week ago, I moved into Flatlander’s Inn, a church-based transitional housing community based in Winnipeg’s North End. Jaclyn and I have joined the core team and have committed a year to seeing if this is a fit. We’ll be living with 4 other couples, 7 kids, 3 interns and 5-7 transitional members in a crazy experiment in community, justice, and being a sign of the Kingdom of God where all are one in Christ.

I’m also preaching my first ever sermon at Winnipeg Centre Vineyard on August 22 either August 29 or September 5. In my many-year journey towards some type of pastoral ministry, I have not yet stood behind a pulpit. It’s not that I equate sermon-slinging with pastoring, but I do believe that teaching is a gift I have that has lain dormant for too long. This then is the time to become insecure, wondering if I’ll stink up the joint and be wrong about my gifts and calling after all.

I hope that this is the beginning of more regular writing in my life, whether or not those words make it onto this blog. I also hope (and pray) that this marks the beginning of a renewed focus on aligning my life with Christ and his kingdom. Lord, make it so.

In order to understand Smith’s defense of erotically-charged worship, we must first understand the basic question animating his book: “What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?” (18) In other words, Smith is arguing that the affective and erotic are more basic and fundamental than the cognitive. We are lovers before we’re ever thinkers.

If we grant Smith this point (and I do, although there’s an enormous and tantalizing philosophical debate lurking around precisely that point), then criticisms of “Jesus is my boyfriend”-type worship songs are not as easy as they seem. In a lengthy footnote, Smith has the following to say on the topic:

I think a philosophical anthropology centered around affectivity, love, or desire might also be an occasion to somewhat reevaluate our criticisms of “mushy” worship choruses that seem to confuse God with our boyfriend. While we might be rightly critical of the self-centered grammar of such choruses (which, when parsed, often turn out to be more about “me” than God, and “I” more than us), I don’t think we should so quickly write off their “romantic” or even “erotic” elements (the Song of Songs comes to mind in this context). This, too, is testimony to why and how so many are deeply moved in worship by such singing. While this can slide into an emotionalism and a certain kind of domestication of God’s transcendence, there remains a kernel of “fittingness” about such worship. While opening such doors is dangerous, I’m not sure that the primary goal of worship or discipleship is safety. Catholic novelists such as Graham Greene, Walker Percy and Evelyn Waugh recognize this thin fulcrum that tips from sexual desire to desire for God—that on the cusp of this teetering, “dangerous” fulcrum, one is closest to God. The quasi-rationalism that sneers at such erotic elements in worship and is concerned to keep worship “safe” from such threats is the same rationalism that has consistently marginalized the religious experience of women—and women mystics in particular

James K.A. Smith, Desiring The Kingdom, 79.

Community may suffer from overuse more sorely than any word in the dictionary. Politicians left and right sprinkle it through their remarks the way a bad Chinese restaurant uses MSG, to mask the lack of wholesome ingredients. But we need to rescue it; we need to make sure that community will become, on this tougher planet, one of the most prosaic terms in the lexicon, like hoe or bicycle or computer. Access to endless amounts of cheap energy made us rich, and wrecked our climate, and it also made us the first people on earth who had no practical need of our neighbors.

HT Jordon Cooper

Potential. Potentia. Potent.
Don’t give it your all, they might hold you responsible.

You believe in me.
But I don’t. No, not really.

It just comes naturally.
Mantra of the lazy and scared.

There’s nothing new under the sun.
 Settle.

Enjoy the show.
Take your hands off the wheel.

Drift.
 Grace.

This scenario perfectly illustrates why people dislike Christians—they’re the people you don’t want to have over—but there are many other things worth noting in a scenario such as this. The obvious question I’m driven to is why do we Christians persist in the belief that we all need to think and act the same? I think the answer is something like “because we excel at missing the point.” It is a question sure to produce frustration in those driven to ask it, so I’d rather put it to rest and explore some more illuminating questions.

For instance, what is it that drives us to boldly proclaim our opinions as though we have them from the mouth of God? I suspect that the very dynamics of faith and doubt play a major role here. Faith is always a conversation between trust and doubt; between assurance and anxiety. The speed with which we can move from one to the other is emblematic of the strengths and weaknesses inherent to the human condition. But the cadences of faith are lost on many Christians, who rigidly hold that doubt is the lack of faith rather than integral to it. And I can think of no better way for such Christians to ignore and sublimate their doubts and fears than to be resolute on matters of little to no consequence. (I have just explained the Religious Right.)

Not only is it very, very sad to need others to think and act like us in order to reassure us that we’re actually in the right (despite our suppressed doubts), it also has nothing to do with discipleship in the way of Jesus. Jesus has no patience for the self-righteous, if for no other reason than it’s all a sham. To be a hypocrite is literally to be a play-actor; a liar on the stage of life who desperately wants to look like they have their shit together, while suppressing their doubts under a stern mask of piety.

But another question that must be asked in the Christians-judging-others game that is too often played is why the hell do we care so much if we’re being judged? If those dishing out judgement are guilty of lying to the world (and themselves) in order to assuage their fears, then those on the receiving end are equally guilty for being afraid of what self-righteous idiots think of them.

Those who are afraid of being judged are guilty of the same problem as those doling out the judgement: they’ve bought into the story that they’re not allowed to have doubts or to show any weakness under any circumstances whatsoever. Maybe Jesus is so harsh with hypocrites because they deceive honest people into thinking that people of faith don’t experience doubt. Whatever story the judged believe, they are too easily offended.

Then there’s the question posed by the ubiquitous “hide the liquor” impulse: why do we do it? Because it’s easier. Because it doesn’t require us to do the hard and messy work of building a community of people who are honest with their differences. It doesn’t require us to challenge those we disagree with. It doesn’t make us stand up to the self-righteous bullying that we’d rather ignore than confront.

Peace is not the lack of conflict. All a lack of conflict reveals is a bunch of liars who prefer the easy way. True peace is found in those who are able to extend grace and forgiveness with one another as they are truly honest with each other. True peace is found in those who reject violence as a way to solve the conflicts that honesty bring about. True peace is messy, painful, beautiful and never quite as fully realized as we like. Which is why true peace will only be pursued by a people who pray.

Oh Lord, help.

Today I remember all those who have been murdered for the crime of being born on the wrong side of arbitrarily drawn lines on maps.

Today I remember that “serving your country” is a necessary euphemism, since the more accurate “joining an organization that intimidates and kills people from other countries” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Today I remember that we still cling to the idea that it is honourable rather than barbarous to enlist in an organization whose purpose is to extort and possibly murder those who are weaker than you.

Today I remember that many men and women in the armed services must cling to the idea that their brand of inhumanity is officially sanctioned and honoured in order to sleep at night. I feel pity for their plight.

Today I remember that the future peace of God has broken into the present in Christ, meaning that we can hope for a future where the armies of the earth shall be no more. There will be no more war, nor instruments of war. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away.

Now you can. That Was Not OK is here to help. Print the cards, and keep them in your wallet for just just such situations.

Because the biggest threat to the church is waiting in your fucking car for too long.

Edit: Thom Turner writes the kind of stuff I would have if I’d been able to manage more than cussing over at Everyday Liturgy.

For starters, talking about “climate change” is bizarre. Exactly how and when did we settle on this consensus to rename “Global Warming” to “Climate Change?” This name shift reveals a fundamental disinterest in the facts and much greater interest in political lines in the sand. Because let’s be honest - a movement with so little conviction in its core tenet is a little unsettling.

Also, the climate debate really needs to move away from whether or not the climate is changing (and in which direction) to whether or not we are living sustainably on this planet we call home. Hint: we aren’t. We are consuming resources faster than they can be replenished, and we have built a way of life that is insanely and fundamentally dependent on a single non-renewable resources. In engineering terms, our system is designed on a single point of failure that is guaranteed to fail. (I’m talking about petroleum here if you haven’t caught on.)

This is where the discussion would likely turn to “alternative energy,” which will be necessary as our oil supplies start giving out on us. But before we go any further down that path, let’s clear up two things:

1. No combination of alternative energies is going to allow us to run what we’re running the way we’re running it.
2. Ethanol is a pipe dream. There isn’t enough arable soil on the planet to feed our gas tanks, never mind leaving some for, you know, feeding people. The sooner we stop talking about running our cars on ethanol or biodiesel, the better.

It’s not about what’s happening to the climate. It’s about whether the way we’re living on the planet is such that humanity might have a future. Climate change is merely a part of this much larger issue. As a Christian, my tradition has language such as stewardship to indicate that the earth isn’t our possession, but rather a gift from God that has been entrusted to our care. Christianity also has language such as sin to describe the shameful way we are handling this trust, and repentance to describe what we must do in the face of all this: change our ways.

We must turn from the way that leads to death from the way that leads to life, not only for ourselves, but for those who are the weakest of all—those not yet born.If you are reading this and aren’t a Christian, please find language and resources in whatever form of life you’re in to name the problem of how we’re living in suicidal denial here. It isn’t a moment too soon to start.

And I’ll give all of us one simple task we can do towards this end: if you live in a city, live in a neighbourhood where you can get to your place of work and get the daily necessities of life without a car. Walking would be preferable, but transit is good too. If this is simply impossible in your context, find out why and change it. Learn about how we build our cities (and how that needs to change) from Andres Duany. Take some tips from Jim Kunstler on Some Ways to Plan for the Future.

Wherever you are, live more locally, use your car less, and slow down. Let’s not live on the planet like tenants who are trying to get kicked out. Let’s live like we mean to stick around for a while.