earthsedge

I found out my thesis proposal for my BA was officially approved, so I’ll be trying to get as much done in the few months before we leave for Amsterdam and the FIS begins. ‘Thesis’ isn’t really the right word-it’s not a research paper. It’s more like a ‘creative project’-a collection of personal essays reflecting on my experience in missions over the past eight years. I think I’m really going to enjoy it. The tentative title is Following Christ Across Cultures: Reflections on Faith, Culture, and Mission. I might have to revise that later, but I’m pretty happy with how broad it is. I’m supposed to be putting in 50 hours a week of reading and writing. The writing part is definitely the more challenging side of the project. I feel like I have plenty of ideas of what to write about, but actually putting them into coherent and readable essays is another story. The reading, of course, is the fun part (the guy in the picture above is obviously having the time of his life). I get to revisit some books that have influenced me in the past few years, and read a bunch of books that I’ve been looking forward to reading. Here’s my working bibliography (for the one or two of you out there who are actually interested-feel free to offer suggestions if you think something is missing):

Review

Boyd, Gregory A. The Myth of a Christian Nation: How Political Power is Destroying the Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005.

Boyd, Gregory A. Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Chandler, Paul Gordon. Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road: Exploring a New Path Between Two Faiths. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2007.

Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Hiebert, Paul G. Transforming Worldviews. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.

Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Jenkins, Philip. God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Jones, E. Stanley. The Christ of the Indian Road. New York: Grosset and Dunlap Publishers, 1925.

Kruger, C. Baxter. The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005.

Kruger, C. Baxter. Jesus and the Undoing of Adam. Perichoresis, Inc., 2007.

Newbigin, Leslie. The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989.

Raschke, Carl. GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.

Torrance, James B. Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996.

Torrance, Thomas F. The Mediation of Christ. Helms and Howard, 1992.

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. HarperOne, 2008.

Projected Reading

Chandler, Paul Gordon. God’s Global Mosaic: What We Can Learn from Christians Around the World

Frost, Michael and Alan Hirsch. The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church

Hirsch, Alan and Leonard Sweet. The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church

Hughe, Richard T. Myths America Lives By

Hunter, George G. III. The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible

Kurlansky, Mark. Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Mellis, Jim. Latest book (This is my boss, who is writing a fantastic book on intercultural relationships)

Miller, Darrow L. Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture

Noll, Mark A. The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith

Peterson, Eugene H. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

Rah, Soong-Chan. The Next Evangelicalism:​ Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity

Smith, James K.A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies)

Stier, Jim and others. His Kingdom Come: An Integrated Approach to Discipling the Nations and Fulfilling the Great Commission.

Torrance, Thomas F. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ

amsterdam, bibliography, books, culture, faith, fis, mission, thesis project

It’s the last week of my communications course! I turned in my research paper on Friday, and I give the oral report tomorrow. Just for fun I put the whole text into wordle, and this was the result:

course, paper, postmodern, scf, western europe, worldle

Here are two interesting articles, with two different perspectives.

The first one, a New York Times piece by Russell Shorto, was forwarded to me my boss in Amsterdam. It looks at the Dutch system and what America can learn from it. One of many thought provoking quotes:

There is another historical base to the Dutch social-welfare system, which curiously has been overlooked by American conservatives in their insistence on seeing such a system as a threat to their values. It is rooted in religion. “These were deeply religious people, who had a real commitment to looking after the poor,” Mak said of his ancestors. “They built orphanages and hospitals. The churches had a system of relief, which eventually was taken over by the state. So Americans should get over ‘socialism.’ This system developed not after Karl Marx, but after Martin Luther and Francis of Assisi.”

The second article is an essay by Charles Murray, who is looking at socialism from a totally different angle: the existential consequences. An interesting quote:

Put aside all the sophisticated ways of conceptualizing governmental functions and think of it in this simplistic way: Almost anything that government does in social policy can be characterized as taking some of the trouble out of things. Sometimes, taking the trouble out of things is a good idea. Having an effective police force takes some of the trouble out of walking home safely at night, and I’m glad it does.

The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation and faith, it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality–it drains some of the life from them.

Murray goes on to speak of empty churches and the erosion of meaning in life (what he calls “European Syndrome”) in Europe, and how science will soon validate many of the positions of social conservatives.

Interesting stuff.

america, charles murray, Dutch, russell shorto, socialism

A few days ago USA Today had an informative article describing the dramatic decline of  religious groups in America:

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

“More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself,’ ” says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

There’s no doubt about it: the religious landscape in America is going through some big changes. We will either go the way of Western Europe, or Christianity will look very different in 50 years…

america, ARIS, christianity, culture, decline, research, usa today

…but on the downside I’m apparently not very original.

I’m thinking about resurrecting “linking the week,” but until then here’s an article on “Christian Hipsters.”

I was surprised to discover that about 75% of what he describes could have been written about me. I am definitely wary of both TBN and evangelicals who get involved in politics. I despise CCM, and I’m not a big fan of mega churches. And the term “soul winning” does makes me cringe, as do sock puppets. I could more or less drop the last  paragraph. But it was the authors he mentioned that really surprised me; with a few exceptions, they’re some of my favorites (e.g. I just finished a book by Marilyn Robinson, and I’m currently reading one by N.T. Wright. This is one of my favorite poems, by Wendell Berry.)

I like what one of the comments said, tongue in cheek: “Should I seek help?”

The funny thing about emerging “cool” demographics is that as soon as you have described them, they lose their appeal. No doubt that in this case that will happen before too long. But until that happens, I would be more likely to embrace being 75% cool if it came with a better name. “Hipster?” That word will forever have a totally different meaning to me. I was trying to pin down some vague memory of this word, and then suddenly it hit me:

There is this cheap textile shop in the Netherlands (I think “Zeemans” but I could be misremembering), and for a few weeks they had this massive ad campaign for these black, lacy panties. At nearly every bus stop in Amsterdam there was a sign with a scantily clad booty and the giant words “THE HIPSTER-NOW ONLY 1.99″ (I may have the price wrong-but you get the picture).

“Christian Hipster”-my mind just doesn’t know what to do with that.

amsterdam, christian hipster, culture, faith, generation y