The Little Friar

Jeremy Armstrong's Impolite Questions for a Generous God is an edgy, sometimes surprising, quest for answers by a guide who has learned to ask the often-unasked questions of faith.  This book is surprising in all that ways that a good journey into new territory is surprising.  Readers will be left asking their own questions and searching for fresh answers after learning from Armstrong which are the fruitful quests and which ones aren't. What you find here is a beautiful way of asking tough questions of a very gracious God.  And that way takes you through  art, film, literature and (especially) music.  All of which make Impolite Questions a refreshing book.  And when you come to the end of the book, you'll rediscover the joy in relishing questions over answers.  Because by the end of this book you'll find that God has been with you all the time, whispering just over your shoulder, that the questions you have are made better by learning from Armstro...

Eberhard Arnold's God's Revolution:  Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom is a collection of brief essays on nearly every aspect of Christian discipleship for a countercultural church.  Eberhard Arnold, pastor of the Christian community of the Bruderhof (at the Rhon Mountains in Germany), wrote these essays between 1917 to 1933.  During the period when Nazism began to take shape in Germany, Arnold's vision of a practical faith committed to non-violence and peacemaking, full community of goods, the proclamation of the gospel and lifelong faithfulness in marriage. What you find in God's Revolution is a pastoral vision of the Kingdom of God in the world where real disciples live. _______________________ I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.

Every now and again as a reader, thinker, theologian and writer I sit and list in my mind those who have helped me to read, think, do theology and write.  Intellectual indebtedness is one of the most enriching forms of being in another's debt.  Throughout the years as I have been reading and preaching, thinking and sharing, praying and talking, writing and listening, a number of voices have become familiar, known, trusted, and therefore significant to the point of defining of the way I now think and talk about what I believe. The list grows, as does the debt.  Walter Brueggemann, Jean Vanier, Thomas Merton, P T Forsyth, Evelyn Underhill, Jurgen Moltmann, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dorothy Day, James Dunn, Jonathan Sacks, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Kung, Julian of Norwich, Karl Barth, Lesslie Newbigin, Dorothee Soelle, Frederick Copleston; poets like Denise Levertov, R S Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, ...

As a little boy there was a song I loved to sing.  I learned it from my grandmother.  She taught it to me and I sang it, and all my life it has replayed inside my mind. Into my heart, into my heart, Come into my heart, Lord Jesus; Come in today, come in to stay, Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. It was (or so I thought in those days) a song about conversion, about getting saved, being born again. A Sinner's Prayer.  At Sunday School they were always warning us to make sure we'd invited Jesus into our hearts.  In another song I remember from those days, the human heart was compared to a castle where Jesus lives: Joy is the flag flown high from the castle of my heart, For the King is in residence there. It seemed a pretty grand thing, to have Jesus living in your heart.  And we always felt sorry for the poor non-Christians, those people who went about like walking ghost towns, their interior houses empty and abandoned.  Our most fervent wish was tha...

I learned that love was our Lord's meaning. And I saw for certain, both here and elsewhere, that before ever he made us, God loved us; and that his love has never slackened, nor ever shall. In this love all his works have been done, and in this love he has made everything serve us; and in this love our life is everlasting. Our beginning was when we were made, but the love in which he made us never had beginning. In it we have our beginning. All this we shall see in God forever. May Jesus grant this. --Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Julian's Revelations of Divine Love is among the half dozen or so classic texts of Christian Spirituality that I've read and pondered regularly for years ( this is the edition I most recommend).  I first discovered this beautiful text in 1992.  Since then, I've probably read it at least once a year.  As with the other five or six texts -- call them my devotional canon.  Such reading isn't informational but formational...

There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is God's reality revealed in Christ in the reality of the world ...  It is a denial of God's revelation in Jesus Christ to wish to be 'Christian' without being 'worldly', or [to] wish to be worldly without seeing and recognizing the world in Christ. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics , p. 58 This quote raises for me, as so often in my reading of Bonhoeffer, troubling questions about approaches to mission that tend to see Christ as present in the church, absent from the world, and therefore the Church's mission to take Christ to a needy world.  Actually, Christ is already there and the Church needs to catch up with him, and discover ways of incarnating, embodying and offering the love of the living God in Christ through practices that are themselves Christlike -- such as peacemaking, brokering reconciliations, expressing imaginative gestures of redemptive love, acts of mercy and compassion as contr...

Words are performative deeds.  What these words perform is our character. The letter of James has some wise warnings about teaching and the qualities needed in a good teacher.  The Jewish Wisdom background of James becomes obvious when, more than once, he urges the importance of wisdom, maturity and responsibility in the ways we use words. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.  We all stumble in many ways.  Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check ... Who is wise and understanding among you?  Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.  Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.  For where you have envy and s...

It's time for me to be as direct as I can be about something I've avoided talking about directly in public for a long, long time:  Abortion.  Considering the fact that this topic is now blowing up my Facebook feed, maybe it's time for me to say something pastorally theological about the crisis in which American society now finds itself. First, let me say that the things I've said in the past about why moral law makes a horrible foundation for legal law is still true.  I stand by the words.  In fact, they're something of a foundation upon which I intend to build here. A very well-known conservative Christian author recently accused me of being a "progressive".  That's bullshit, and anyone who's taken the time to hear me out on nearly any issue knows it's bullshit.  I make a horrible "progressive" Christian (the lie about modern progress is just that, a lie).  I'm also a horrible "liberal" Christian ( here's why )...

The collision between King Ahab and the prophet Elijah is described in brief stark terms in I Kings 17.  Elijah announces a drought. Three years later he returns from hiding to challenge the prophets of Baal to a religious trial of strength.  For Elijah Mount Carmel was exhilarating, self-vindicating, and a very public demonstration of God's power.  But it was emotionally draining, the cost only felt in delayed shock and an overwhelming sense of vulnerability (1 Kings 18). So he ran away, scared out of his wits by Jezebel.   God's response to Elijah's breakdown began with practical concern for a human body depleted by overworked limbs and overwrought emotions.  Rest.  Food.  Sleep. Then an interview on the mountainside. This terrified man, afraid not only of Jezebel, but of the burden of his life, and the expectations of his God, discovers the presence and person of God, not in elemental force, but in the creative whisper that first moved on the ch...

I decided this week that the time had finally come for me to judge myself.  Put aside all the pundits -- those whose opinions are shaped only by emotions and not by reason -- and allow the text of The Mueller Report to speak for itself.  Several friends asked if I would share my initial observations after finishing the reading, so here goes: Generally:  It was a grueling reading of legalese that left my heading hurting, just a bit. But here are a few of my thoughts after having read the Report (at least in its current redacted form). Fortunately, this edition I used also contained a number of other items, including Attorney General Barr's letter to Congress.  This is where I actually began.  I wanted to see how the Attorney General -- typically a consummate professional (even though our politics have always diverged) -- would characterize the Report in summary.  That letter struck a bad cord with me.  Particularly this line:  "In making thi...

One of the spiritually significant things in my inner life has been the past few weeks.  I've not had the ability or even the motivation to pray.  The reverberations of grief, shock and sadness so far beyond consolation, drain away so much of what is normal emotional engagement with life and its routines.  That's because the routines are disrupted beyond repair; nothing will be the same in the aftermath of what feels like the death of something so significant as what I've experienced.  It's been doubly hard because I can only share that grief with a few folks and cannot name it publicly yet. It takes time to take any grief in.  It takes time to want to even think too much about it.  And whatever else prayer is, it makes you think as you search for words.  In a time of intense sorrow, prayer is a process of taking in, of internalizing a reality that cries out for denial and contradiction.  Prayer requires engagement at the depths of our bei...

The painting "Stilling the Tempest" is a powerful visual exegesis of Mark 4.39 and Jesus' command, "Peace! Be still!"  This is perhaps one of my favorite images of Jesus right now. Jesus with a Chinese face, is standing in the place of command at the prow of the boat.  Mountainous seas with real mountains on the horizon, the whole scene a cauldron of threat and danger.  The desperation of the oarsmen, the loss of control signalled by their lost rhythm, the faces set in expressions of fear or determined resignation, all conveyed with power.  In the foreground a massive billow, reminiscent of a tsunami and originating under the boat, heads towards the viewer of the painting. But the dominating figure of Jesus stands with arms outstretched and hands raised, upright and balanced in a boat tossed by elemental powers doing their utmost to overwhelm.  Of course he stands in a cruciform gesture, redemptive and powerful at the same time.  His authority over the wa...

I pulled my copy of Bonhoeffer's Life Together from the shelf recently and began re-reading.  It's a book that, sadly, is neglected by the conservatives who want to claim Bonhoeffer's Discipleship as their own, as well as the liberals who want to claim Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers as theirs.  That's because Life Together is a radical little book.  In it, Bonhoeffer develops a pastoral christology that dethrones the ego and makes room for the other in Christian community, in Christ. This passage stood out to me in my re-reading: Because Christ stands between me and an other, I must not long for unmediated community with that person.  As only Christ was able to speak to me in such a way that I was helped, so others too can only be helped by Christ alone.  However, this means that I must release others from all my attempts to control, coerce, and dominate them with my love.  In their freedom from me, other persons want to be loved for who they are...

The first time I heard Jean Vanier was in Queen's Cross Church in Scotland nearly 20 years ago.  By then he was around 70, and already walked with his massive frame slightly stooped.  He could have played the Big Friendly Giant with a minimum of makeup and coaching.  Jean's gentleness was unmistakable, he wore his heart, not so much on his sleeve, more like a high visibility vest.  His movements were slow, his face most reposed when smiling which seemed to be his default setting.  He looked around at the audience with eyes that saw, and paid attention, and cared about what was going on behind the faces of those in front of him.  He saw more than faces.  This was a man who looked and loved, who smiled as an intimation of intentional friendship. He draped himself languidly over the tall lectern, his long arms and hands moving expressively, occasionally gesturing outwards as if trying to embrace the whole crowd.  He spoke of vulnerability and love, ...

One of my favorite books about Barth is von Balthasar's The Theology of Karl Barth .  That these two theological opponents were also deeply respectful allies in their search for an articulation of Christian faith more adequate to the mystery and majesty of divine grace, means that to read either or both of them, is to discover theology that is deeply satisfying, if occasionally frustrating, and often congenial if now and then contentious. Last night I started re-reading my other favorite book by von Balthasar:  Love Alone is Credible .  And I came across a passage that I've evidently marked on more than one occasion (because there are multiple pen marks): The decisive thing is that the sinner has heard of a love that could be, and really is, there for him; he is not the one who has to bring himself into line with God; God has always already seen in him, the loveless sinner, a beloved child and has looked upon him and conferred dignity upon him in the light of thi...

I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness over the past few days.  There's a prayer embedded deep within the Christian tradition:  "Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner".  It's hard to make excuses with a prayer like that.  In fact, it's a refusal to even try.  Once you've prayed a prayer like that, it's understandable why betrayal and all its related spiritual manifestations -- while certainly not easy -- are forgive-able. If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven.  That, it seems to me is at the heart of the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray.  He doesn't put conditions on his statement, either.  It's not a matter of forgiving someone if they're appropriately scared of the consequences or whether you can ferret out all the extenuating circumstances.  We forgive.  If we don't, we will not be forgiven. In other words, forgiveness isn't the same as making excuses.  Forgiveness says, "Yes, you did the thing,...

One of the great men who has had a significant impact on the way in which I envision and practice ministry has died. Jean Vanier died early this morning, just outside of Paris.  Jean, may flights of angels wing you to the face of God, and may God's Light perpetually shine upon you, and give you peace. "But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time" (Vanier, in Becoming Human ).

Richard Rohr has a large following, if the trends of my clergy friends' reading diets have anything to say about the matter.  I've lost count how often I see folks sharing his books and ideas on Facebook.  So it really shouldn't come as a surprise that I finally take him up and try to read him on his own terms, without the glosses that I find in those Facebook posts. Rohr, based on my reading, isn't anything if not transparent.  In his new book The Universal Christ , Rohr states rather unambiguously that to say Christ is to say everything .  He extols what he calls "perennial tradition" and elsewhere "perennial philosophy".  The Christian faith is a gloss, in other words, on a historically esoteric philosophy in all of its various forms.  He reads the creation story in Genesis 1 against its grain as an understanding of God as continuous with his creation, and likewise reads John 1 as denying exactly what it says, namely that the universal Log...

Dear clergy: Don't be a divorce pusher. By that I mean:  Whatever your congregant is going through, don't add to the mess by putting your stamp of approval on the situation, on one person's perspective, and therefore recommend divorce. I shouldn't have to say this.  But I do. Recently, I encountered a clergy person who offered someone to help obtain a divorce lawyer.  Without ever having contact with the other person in the marriage in question. Don't do that. Really.  Stop it. Divorce does not exist for you to encourage. Yes, you want to encourage your congregant.  Encourage that person to pray.  Encourage them to find creative and healthy ways to make wise decisions and handle conflict.  At first, unless the situation involves abuse of some variety, clergy should be "marriage-friendly" counsel.  Anything less is spiritual malpractice of clergy responsibility.  In case you aren't sure, please reread Gregory the Great's Pastor...