Where Does God Happen?

At the top of the list of things Josh wrestles with in his own life is my uneasiness within myself as I relate to other people. Whether it's because I was raised in a loving-yet-high-expectation environment, mocked throughout my school years for my nerdiness (evidence of which has always been in abundance!), or my own conviction within myself that I have a major role to play in this world...I can't help but be anxious about how I relate to others.

My own knowledge of myself is remarkably limited...self-awareness is not one of my strong suits, and I've never been good socially. And, of course, this is intimately related to how well I can relate to and understand another human being. How this relates to our salvation, witness, and life in the Spirit is the concern of Rowan Williams' excellent Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another.

This litle book is actually a reflection upon the contemporary state of society and the church through the lens of the Desert Fathers & Mothers, and he relies heavily upon Benedicta Ward's excellent translation of the Sayings, for it is liberally sprinkled with statements and anecdotes illuminating a monastic vocation both dramatically different from our common life and remarkably desirable. Williams begins with the father of desert monasticism, St Anthony, and his interlinked concern with salvation and communal relationships:

Our life and death is with our neighbor. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ. (13)

And this theme of life & death & the neighbor doesn't just frame the opening chapter but the entire book. Self-examination, righting our broken relationships with God & neighbor, the balance between justice and mercy, and sitting in judgement (or accountability!) are all radically re-framed by Williams' exegesis of Scripture and the exemplary desert monastics. He then describes becoming a person (rather than individual or mindless automaton) before taking on the central tension between flight and stability in the last two chapters. An appendix contains some relevant selections from the sayings themselves.

The question that Where God Happens raised for me throughout has to do with the relationship between the type of faith encouraged by Williams and his monastic forbears and the current communities of faith most of us find ourselves in. To say that this type of reflection, action, and comprehension would be alien to the churches I'm associated with is an understatement. I'm forced to wonder: "Does this presume a more rigorous community that is throughly familiar with and committed to a Biblical/gospel faith?"

Or is this putting the cart before the horse? Perhaps all it takes is a St Anthony figure who is willing to live life with others, yet in isolation, to begin the transformative work in a local church or community. Williams proposes that we consider not a casuistic approach to ethics (in which you have a certain scenario, and then a set of responses) but a virtue-ethics approach which focuses on shaping character rather than outcomes. This is why Williams understands the church's blessing on life-long commitments such as marriage and ordination vows (and monastic vows): those who take them "are bound to the patient, long-term discovery of what grace will do with them" (67).

So I am not surprised that Williams, despite his position as Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, observes that "the church is always renewed from the edges rather than from the center. There is a limit to what the institutional church can do" (111). The priorities of being church as Jesus calls his disciples to be church are always at least in danger of being displaced (if it's not already happening) by the values of being a self-perserving, continuing institution. If anyone understands this better than Williams, their address must have Vatican City in it. So we return to the need for Church (whether local or global) to have renewal elements which call us back to the dirty here-and-now, the unpolished enfleshed existence which is but our raw material--not the end product.

Where God Happens is a difficult and challenging read, despite its lack of theological insider-language and brevity. It is precisely the kind of book which will haunt me for a long time after its reading, for its incisive description of human nature (my nature) as well as its insistence on the basic shape of the Kingdom of God and salvation. Williams reminds us that in the Christian life, "the goal is reconcilation with God by way of this combination of truth and mercy...to heal by solidarity, not condemnation" (19, 20).

Living Theologians!

"Ten living practical theologians who have changed my own faith and life and why you should read them too" would be the subtitle of this post, if Blogger would let me do that...

A few caveats on this list: I have read more than one thing by each of these authors. There are some great things out there that I would love to put on this list (Elaine Heath's life-changing The Mystic Way of Evangelism, for example) but this list reflects a consistently transformative oeuvre for these authors. Also, this is a list of people alive when I wrote this piece. I am sorely tempted to add Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr., but to be fair, then I'd have to extend it back 2,000 years, and that's too much trouble right now!

Final note, the list is in alphabetical order merely because it would be a nightmare trying to rank them all. So without further ado, here are my picks for "Living Theologians!"

Rob Bell
He betrays an enthusiastic evangelical heart that is evident both in his media efforts like the NOOMA videos and the "Everything is Spiritual" tour as well as in his book-length offerings Velvet Elvis and SexGod. He rarely settles for the easy answers yet makes it look effortless as he exegetes a troublesome or over-familiar Biblical passage with a timely and fresh approach.

Frederick Buechner
Both his witty miscellanies of faith (Peculiar Treasures etc.) and his extended literary meditations on the ordinary holiness (Godric is perhaps the best-known) are full of God's laughter and laced with human finitude. I particularly recommend Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale as one of the most formative things I've read on preaching and ministry.

Richard Foster
I first met Foster's classic work in college, browsing through my nearby Cokesbury store for things I had heard other people talk about but hadn't yet read. In the 10 years since then, I probably have read Celebration of Discipline a half-dozen times, and taught it on multiple continents. His commitment to the development of the interior life (and its outward effects) brings me back to the living heart of the Christian faith time and again. Streams of Living Water, Prayer, and other Renovare' resources are excellent reads as well.

Gordon Lathrop
Perhaps not well known outside of Lutheran or liturgical-theology circles, Lathrop is an extremely conventional theologian in the sense that he tackles a particular area of theology and seizes it with the determination of a small dog. Yet he manages to do so with outdoorsy, ecumenical insights that yield unconventional thoughts. Lathrop's excellent reflection on the clerical vocation The Pastor and his trilogy of liturgical explorations (Holy Things, Holy People, Holy Ground) are some of the best things I was introduced to while in seminary.

Eugene Peterson
Perhaps best known for his paraphrase of the Bible known as The Message, Peterson writes with a prophetic, graceful word for pastors, lay leaders, and the whole flock of the faithful. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (reflections on the Psalms of Ascent which began The Message project) and Under the Unpredictable Plant display his fervor for the ministry of the local church and the conviction that is to be done under the influence of God alone.

Marilynne Robinson
With the partial exception of Buechner, Robinson is the only fiction author on my list. Her Gilead was nothing short of a masterpiece, and I'm beginning the follow-up, Home, which takes up the story of an Iowa town a generation or two later. Her study of theology and the life of "middle America" is harnassed by a soaring, piercing beauty which punctuates ever page.

Don Saliers
I had the delight of studying with Don at Candler, and he more than any other person I've met cultivated the sense of beauty and wonder that is present in liturgy, theology, and The Soul in Paraphrase is an excellent study of prayer and heart-language via Jonathan Edwards; Worship and Spirituality is the most delightful exposition of those two pieces of the life of faith that I've ever read; and A Song to Sing, A Life to Live is a conversation with his daughter Emily (of the Indigo Girls) on the deep relationships Saturday night concerts have with Sunday morning worship.

Barbara Brown Taylor
She is better known for her preaching, but her reflections on the intersection of Christian vocation and ordinary life such as The Preaching Life and Leaving Church are poetry in prose. I really can't describe them justly: go read for yourself!

Miroslav Volf

Exclusion and Embrace is a book that many of us read while in seminary, but it was his 2006 Lent book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace that really made an impact on my own life, highlighting the ways in which we fail to give as God gives as well as forgive as Jesus does. (It's also an excellent commentary on Luther on Paul). It is a must-read for pastors and church members who want to understand what is at the heart of God's character.

Rowan Williams
The Archbishop of Canterbury is not just the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but he is also an engaging and thoughtful author. He isn't afraid to let his scholarly credentials shine (he was highly regarded as a theology professor before his episcopal career began), but it always does so in service to the church. I particularly enjoyed Where God Happens (reviewed on The Expatriate Minister here) and Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, which began life as a series of Holy Week talks on the Nicene Creed.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these authors (and corrections to the list!)....