(Dis)functionally Complementarian

29 04 2013

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

In light of John Piper’s most recent bout of asinine, vitriolic insanity, I’m considering exclusively subjecting myself to the authority of women for the next year. Maybe longer.

No more male theologians. No more male bloggers. There’s too many of us anyhow. We’re always going on about something, and it’s all-too-often through the lens of a dominant, patriarchal culture.

Some of us, oh we apologise for it.

We apologise for the fact that we’re whiteish, middle-classish straightish men. And then we get back to the business of being the whiteish, middle-classish straightish men who, from time to time think about women.

We get back to the business of being the whiteish, middle-classish straightish men, who from time to time read Rachel Held Evans, or Julie Clawson, or maybe tune into Jamie the Very Worst Missionary for kicks. We might respect church-planting pioneers like Karen Ward or Nadia Bolz-Weber, for what they’re doing. Just don’t ask us to go hear them speak, or change who we read. Don’t ask us to learn from them.

Let me get back to my Tom Wright and Walter Brueggemann. Sit me down with Wendell Berry or Brian McLaren or Shane Claiborne. You know, the heavyweights. Oh sure, there are some of us enlightened egalitarian dudes out there. And we’ll react negatively against Piper’s statements, not least because he’s an easy target.

The two questions I’m left with go something like this: Have we changed? Are we willing to do so?

If change means more than making a little noise and milking it for a few blog posts, I don’t know what I’ll do. Because really, in the end, I want to go back to reading the good old boys. What women are doing good theology these days anyhow?

And who the hell is Ellen Davis?

A note to all of the whiteish, middle-classish, straightish egalitarianish males out there: it’s time to come clean.

As much as we rail against Piper, many of us, when it comes to our “teachability” are functionally complementarians. Take a snapshot of your bookshelf or blogroll. What’s the ratio of male to female authorship?

The patriarchy has a deep coercive hold on you too.





Anti-Terrorism: Let’s get serious!

24 04 2013

by Brian Walsh

Let’s talk about two bills that have been before the Parliament of Canada.

Today, the Federal government passed Bill S-7 which amends the Criminal Code to give the state escalated powers to hold people without charge if they are suspected of conspiring towards a terrorist act. That the bill was pushed into the House this week is, of course, just a tad cynical. I mean, who would want to limit the state’s power to combat terrorism in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing last week, and the arrest this week of two men accused of conspiring a terrorist attack on a Via train.

A mural of murdered Salvadoran Environmentalist Marcelo Rivera, who opposed Pacific Rim’s mining efforts in San Isidro, El Salvador.

Now consider another piece of proposed legislation. Liberal MP John McKay put forward Bill C-300 a couple of years back: “The Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act.” This bill would have imposed sanctions on Canadian mining companies when they engaged in unethical behaviour in other countries. This bill was defeated in the Fall of 2010, and I simply note in passing that then Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, made a point of not being in the House for that important vote.

Bill C-300 wanted to find a way to insist that Canadian businesses who engaged in environmentally destructive mining, unsafe and oppressive working conditions, and even murder, would be somehow held accountable in Canada.

Let’s be clear about something here. Both of these Acts are about protection. The one that passed was about limiting personal liberties in order to protect Canadian citizens and society. The one that was defeated was about limiting certain corporate liberties in order to protect citizens, society and the environment of other nations. Read the rest of this entry »





The Time Was Ripe: Bruce Springsteen, Hope and Jesus

22 04 2013

by Brian Walsh

(On Sunday, April 21, the Wine Before Breakfast band led a service at the Church of the Redeemer. The songs they played were “The River,” “We are alive,” “My Father’s House,” “Hungry Heart,” “Rocky Ground,” “If I should fall behind,” “Land of Hope and Dreams,” and “The Promised Land.” The texts for the evening were John 10.22-30 and Revelation 7.9-17. This is the sermon from that service.)

 

The time was ripe for the question,
and the suspense was unbearable.

This wasn’t the kind of thing that you played around with.
This wasn’t the time to be elusive.

While some asked the question to confirm their worse suspicions,
for others the question arose from their deepest hopes.

“Give it to us straight,
don’t mess around with us,
if you are the Messiah,
then tell us so plainly.”

The time was ripe for the question,
and the suspense was unbearable.

I mean, hadn’t he just awakened such hopes
with all of his talk about sheep and shepherds?

I am the good shepherd,” he had just proclaimed,
stunning the people with the double audacity of it all.
Audacious for a Jewish man to employ those two words in this way,
­– “I am” –
and audacious with its reference to the deepest Messianic hopes
– the hope for a shepherd leader who would feed the flock,
protect the sheep and bring them home.

So, given that kind of talk,
the time was ripe for the question.

But it was also the right day for such a question.
The time was ripe, even on the calendar.

It was at the time of the Festival of the Dedication.
It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple.

It was the Festival of the Dedication. Read the rest of this entry »





Fellow Travellers

22 04 2013

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

554779_10151399707603450_1390827641_nBack during my first year of seminary, I sat in the back row most classes. This should not, of course, be surprising, as I have been found seated at the back of most classrooms for most of my life. As an introvert, this was a great place from which to take everything in before deciding whether or not to speak.

By everything, I don’t simply mean the professor’s brilliant lecture. This bird’s eye view also afforded me the opportunity to observe the ways in which people responded to the professor, the material, and with each another.

Throughout that first year at Wycliffe College, I sat predominantly at the back of the classroom, and in most classes next to the same student. He was studying to become a priest. I had no idea why I was there. Divine will? Exploration? Youthful rebellion? Read the rest of this entry »





A Truly Remarkable Gift

21 04 2013

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

I think what brought it all home for me, wrestling with questions of faith an spiritual gifts, these past days, was a conversation with a friend. Driving into the city together, we were sharing stories of life, and faith with its attendant joys and struggles. It was there that I first voiced much of the wrestling that turned into my previous two posts (Concerning Spiritual Gifts & More Faith Required).

It was during that conversation that I first allowed myself to consider that the gift of faith, if a gift of God’s Spirit, is just that – a gift.

More than that, and in the broader context of 1 Corinthians 12, it started to become apparent (or perhaps a little less hazy?) that what St. Paul is driving at in this passage in particular, is that we all need each other. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the words of the passage repeated to me, but I’m always surprised when something new leaps off the page, leaving me with new insight.

God’s Spirit has bestowed these diverse gifts upon us, in disproportionate measure. This is somehow part of the plan. It’s not about me, it’s not about my self esteem or sense of self-worth. It’s not about how worthy I think I am, or how worthy I think I’m not. In the end, it’s about none of these things. It’s about the gifts of God for the people of God. Read the rest of this entry »





More Faith Required

20 04 2013

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (1 Corinthians 12:8-11)

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

It was a spring day in Kingston, a decade-or-so ago. Snow still melting on the ground, the sun cutting through the cold, and I was going to meet with a friend and Campus Crusade mentor to discuss my current crisis of faith. Crisis should, perhaps be put in quotation marks. it was no such thing. Challenge, perhaps. Evolution, maybe. But these words were new to me when applied to faith.

Meeting in the University Centre, we shared some time together, and then I shared my story. A story of blacks and whites fading to grey. A story in which the absolutes of childhood faith had a few more question marks attached to them. A story in which they worldview I had inherited was collapsing down around me, and in which I no longer knew how to proceed on my own. I was searching, seeking, looking for counsel. At very least, a companion on the journey.

As new as it was for me, it seemed as though faith and doubt existed in equal part.  Read the rest of this entry »





Concerning Spiritual Gifts

20 04 2013

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

Concerning spiritual gifts, I do not want us to be uninformed. It’s a concern as old as St. Paul, to be sure, yet I say this as one wondering if we haven’t all been a little misled.

It’s not surprising, really, if you think about it. It’s not really surprising if you consider the ways in which we’ve been formed, reformed and conformed to and within this idolatrous monolithic culture. It should not be in the least bit surprising that in such a world as this, we’ve ended up worshipping at the altar of our staunch, unapologetic individualism even as we proclaim (in lowercase letters and hushed voices) that jesus is lord.  Read the rest of this entry »








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