going beyond Candide

Watching the musical Candide at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater was an interesting discovery in interpretation. Voltaire, the author, is questioning how optimism and the church interpret the world. He intended to strip away the naivety of “hoping for the best” to see the depravity of men, the cultural stuckness of women, and the need to get used to being disappointed.

I wonder if this philosophy of the Enlightenment is not a common vision. Though the theater was full and delighted in the quality, people seemed equally happy to dismiss the hope of a creative God engaged in this world. Candide communicates much truth about the uses and abuse of humans toward one another, which I took as an apt description of the state of fallen humanity. But I left wondering why we have to give up hoping and focus only on our garden of survival.

Churches have a great task in creating hope in the alreadyness of God’s activity in the world. Yet so much is focused on what we can do, and we dismiss the story of God in creating our own. Yes, we need to be honest about our weaknesses and failures, compassionate toward the needy, and active in loving those who dance around us. But we also need to be able to speak of God’s future with a grounded optimism that extends beyond the mental twisting portrayed in Candide. How do you live the story of God’s hope in your context?

finding our story

I finished reading Who gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals by Robert Webber. He contends that through a story of Allah’s conquest over all non-Muslims, radical Islam is on the rise in our world. At the same time, the Western church and culture are weakened and fading as they accommodate civil religion, rationalism, privatism, and pragmatism -- meaning that as we are all about our individual selves and what works for us as individuals, we are losing a unifying story that holds us together. Competing stories will determine the future of the world.

For better or for worse, a culture is sustained by having a story that gives meaning to the existence and direction in which a people live and dream. A dream where everyone does his or her own thing is a dream of disintegration. It is kind of like people wanting to say there is no truth (a unifying belief) and then wanting others to believe their truth about this. If we aim at giving everyone their own truth, there is a built-in self-destruct for everyone to disregard what others think and to become insensitive and indulgent. One definition of hell is everyone serving himself or herself.

Webber proposes that we need to regain the Christian story, to sing, pray and enact God’s creative, nurturing, and restoring work in the world. Our stories find meaning within that narrative. We need to go to church for more than a fill at the gas pump. We need to find meaning in the context of God’s ongoing story. What story does your church tell -- its own, the story of individuals on a private spiritual journey, or the story of God’s Creation, Incarnation and Re-creation? What story do you live in?

reconciliation tears

Reconciliation themes in movies almost always leave me in tears. Last night I watched Mao’s Last Dancer, part of the Seattle International Film Festival line-up. It was the first time the festival used an Everett venue, meeting at the Everett Performing Arts Center, in a city blossoming with the arts. Mao’s Last Dancer was directed by Bruce Beresford, the director of Driving Miss Daisy. He was actually present for the showing and answered questions afterward, which was wonderful.

The film is based on the autobiography of a boy who was born in rural China, separated from his family at a young age, and who became one of the great ballet talents of our age. Growing up apart from his family, dealing with the culture clash of American life, and defecting to the West were compelling themes of struggle and survival. But the deeper themes for me were his reunion with parents after decades; the dance in the village square for his first teacher, who had been taken away; and finding identity as a person with many national loyalties.

I am currently reading Who Gets to Narrate the World, written by Robert Webber. Webber asserts that we are losing the Christian story in the ways we think about who we are, what gives life meaning, and what is our destiny. Watching Mao’s Last Dancer, I am convinced we need to watch, tell, and live stories of reconciliation within God’s big story in order to make visible the glory of the gospel that brings tears for the right reasons. What themes touch you deeply in movies?

the world growing up

In medieval times, the church controlled the lives of people. Protestants protested to change that world; their protest grew up to be the Reformation. Some people resisted whatever had anything to do with religion, including the authority of the church to dictate; their resistance grew up to be the Renaissance. In their quest to change the world, they exchanged revelation from God for human reason, saying they were enlightened; thus the Renaissance grew up to be the Enlightenment. Eventually, weary of being controlled by the world of reason, the world grew up into Modernism, controlling through science. The protesters against modernism are postmodernists, trying to change the world to affirm the individual. What will postmodernism grow up to become? Could we become a relational world?

connecting

Social networking has helped me reconnect with the past. It has a "rest of the story" feel as I weekly catch glimpses of holy moments in the lives of those who populate my story during many decades past. I believe in living in our stories fully, and that means viewing the past as it impacts our present. I find I am encouraged by my conversation partners, and I am delighted to discover the past is not buried, but has produced a garden of amazing new/old friends. Do you experience more connection at church or at work?

Ray Anderson . . . bridge person

The passing of Ray Anderson is a personal loss to me of a man who modeled for me being a bridge person. He both taught at Fuller Theological Seminary and pastored a church. This is exceptional and yet so wise in bridging the gulf between the academy and the church. I took Theological Anthropology from him in 1992, which provided an intimate glimpse into the world of really caring for people because we have a vision of God that will not let us just sit back and observe; we must engage and help through restoring relationships. This is my life as well, as chancellor of a seminary that is embedded in a local church full of misfits.

Ray also bridged the gap between theology and counseling. He wrote books, worked with Dennis Guernsey, and lived his own life as a people helper. The stories he would tell of sitting in the office and hearing the pain-filled hearts of those who came to him were captivating and made you want to join in.

Ray was an external examiner for my PhD because he understood and valued the works of Karl Barth, John Zizioulas, and John Macmurray, the focal conversation partners in my work. Ray comes from a tradition of theological giants who have reshaped the conversation of theology to be more about the acting God of the Gospel and the place of that triune God in our everyday lives.

Ray was an innovator who was beloved by students. Everywhere I go, when I mention Ray to someone who knows him, a smile lights up a face that has been with a giant. Many say he was their favorite. His earthy humanity made him approachable and yet a vast wilderness to be explored.

I invited him this last year to be on my seminary board, but he said no, he was trying to stay focused . . . but if there is anything he could do . . . Ray was the theologian who most closely approximated my own theological and practical views. I feel I have lost a person who is one of the last to speak my language (in a world where so many languages are being lost as the last few step off the stage).
Ray’s name is added to a list of great Trinitarian theologians who have taken the church to a new possibility of life of personal relating with God and one another that is not of this world in origin, but is that purpose of this world in intention. Their books fill my shelves in special collections of favorite authors:

Colin E. Gunton - May 6, 2003
James B. Torrance - November 15, 2003
Stanley Grenz - March 11, 2005
Thomas F. Torrance - December 2, 2007
Ray S. Anderson - June 21, 2009

Others are rising, but they will stand on the shoulders of these humble giants.

meeting is mission

I met this week with Dr Jeff Keuss, who teaches at Seattle Pacific University. During our conversation I was struck by his idea that meeting is mission; that is to say, I believe that when we sit at table and converse with anyone, we are fulfilling the mission of God to create, through friends, community that reflects the life of the triune God. If all our theology is lived, what does it look like? Is it high attendance at church services? Is it feeding the poor? Is it about our obedience in extending friendship each day through conversation and shared time and activity? Probably all of these apply to some extent, but in a fast-lane society, it may be that personalized moments are a gospel experience.