Hacking Christianity

Apparently, a story I contributed to will be on NPR's Morning Edition, 9am EST on Thursday the 4th (Two New Bibles Preach a Hip Eco-Friendly Gospel)

Please hold me accountable if my ego gets inflated over being a part of this fine program.

For first-timers' reference, my reviews of the two bibles being featured can be found here:
- The Bible Illuminated [review]
- The Green Bible [review]

And the purpose of this blog can be found here:
- Hacking Christianity Manifesto

Welcome to our visitors and consider this an open post to talk about the issues raised in the program.

Methoblogger John Meunier posted a week or so ago the parallel between Joel Osteen's creed about the Bible...and the creed of the Marine Corps Rifleman (Get your Bible, Get your Rifle).  He didn't know how to respond to it, so I'm offering to do so now! ;-)

If you've ever watched Osteen on TV or in person, the spectators at his parish hold their bibles in the air and recite with him Lakewood Church's Creed.

“This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I do what it says I can do, I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of God, and I will never be the same. Never, never, never. I will never be the same. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than the enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, or the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit.
“My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other.
“Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
“So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy.”

The triumph of Christ is evident in the marketing techniques used by Lakewood.  From a white paper on the "business" of Lakewood (PDF):

[Osteen] raises his bible up in his right hand while reciting his creed. The upraised gesture symbolizes victory and championship. The image almost looks as if he won an Olympic metal. This reinforces Lakewood’s slogan that explicitly encourages championship
...
Lakewood’s catchy slogan is “At Lakewood, Discover the Champion in You!”

Compare this to the last line of the Rifleman's Creed:

“So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy.”

Creeds and liturgies affirm and state what the community believes.  They are descriptive, but in some ways they become proscriptive.   By holding a bible up in your hand and reciting a rousing creed, a call to arms, then the bible becomes the tool by which triumph is achieved.  In Constantinian times it was conversion by the sword.  In contemporary times, it is conversion by marketing.

I am weary of triumphalism (anyone remember the "God Is On Our Side" documentary back in 2004?).  While I have no problems with the theological assertion that victory over death is true...the fruits (the effects) of such a way of framing that promise are often anything but humbly listening to the Spirit.  From the article linked above:

This is the problem of Christian triumphalism - it sees only success and believes in a God that generates that success. Any troubling evidence that all is not right is ignored. The personal and financial scandals of fundamentalist preachers are conveniently swept under the carpet. This is not a religion that lives by confession and forgiveness: It is a religion that knows that it is in the right, period. Jerry Falwell must be the smuggest man on earth. Instead of God being “other”, the one who is over and against us, God is on the side of the believer to whom he gives an absolute moral stance and a privileged insight into how the world works.

My friend Mike Slack has written much about Lakewood seeing only success.  Read it here.  Suffice to say, a God who wants you to be rich or prosperous definitely wants you to triumph over everyone else, not necessarily live in harmony with one another...especially since we will "win" in the end.

I believe in a God who does give us assurance.  But God does not give us faith to rub it in others faces.  I believe in a God who wants us to converse with one another, and find shared companionship on our journeys.  Manifestations of Christian triumphalism, whether in a huge parish like Lakewood or my small congregation, that sound like a call to arms point more to the sickness in that community rather than the presence of the Holy Spirit.

What do you think?

• How do we walk the line of faith and assurance without rubbing it in people's faces?  
• In what ways are the chest-beating assurance turning people away from Christianity more than they are thinking "I want to be a part of that team?"
• If you are not Christian, what role does this kind of triumphilism play in your perceptions of Christianity?
  

Discuss.  Welcome to our visitors!

Is an invite to Triiibes.

http://www.triiibes.com


Triiibes is a web community dedicated to the kind of grassroots and exemplary styles of leadership that I am.  It sounds like exactly the type of people to have a conversation about grassroots and non-hierarchical methods of transforming the church.

It is a closed community.  So if you are reading this blog, and think I would be a good fit, I'd love an invite.  Use my email in the CONTACT page on the top of the blog.

You are beautiful.

The installation 'bios [bible]' consists of an industrial robot, which writes down the bible on rolls of paper. The machine draws the calligraphic lines with high precision. Like a monk in the scriptorium it creates step by step the text.

Starting with the old testament and the books of Moses ‘bios [bible]’ produces within seven month continuously the whole book. All 66 books of the bible are written on rolls and then retained and presented in the library of the installation.

So, what is this? Dick calls it Performance Art but can't decide what to do with the narcissism inherent in performance art since the performer is a robot.  Peter quotes the project's desire to create an environment where "the massive appearance of the robots, the movements and the machine sounds effect the visitor."  So, in the performance aspect of this piece, the idea of automatons assembling one of the most human of books may be disconcerting.

The project is called the BIOS bible. BIOS?  Here's their explanation of the term:

In computer technology ‘basic input output system’ (bios) designates the module which basically coordinates the interchange between hard- and software. Therefore it contains the indispensable code, the essential program writing, on which every further program can be established.”

In layman's terms, the BIOS is not the operating system, like Max X or Windows.  The BIOS is the link between the hardware and the software.  The Operating System is still software running on a BIOS.  Got it?  In other words, your dell computer may have Windows Vista, but it is a dell-written BIOS that works behind the scenes to make the computer work.  So, if you have a perfect BIOS, then everything else is squeaky-clean.  The theological statement and comparison with a perfect God is clear.

However, here's the question this evokes in me: Would the Bible have been better if it had been written by robots and not humans?  We would have gotten perfect replication.  The stories would have been compiled then and future replications would have been perfect.  No errors.  No human fallibility. 

Are we looking at post-human reproduction where reproduction includes human effects even though the copy is perfect?

What the robot does is a step up from print in reproducing the manuscripts made by monks, which is great, though it doesn’t say whether the robot arm applies differential pressure and angle of stroke depending on the previous letters, or how far across the line it is, or how far down the page, like a human being would. If it did, then that would in my mind give the work a magical, delicate quality of something written. I don’t want to get all tedious and mystical about some missing innate human or animistic quality, but I like the idea of a robot arm having to stretch a bit at the edges of the page, altering its stroke weight after a particularly arduous cadel previously, all that kind of stuff. I can imagine a whole series of publications that could be given this ‘hand done’ treatment. We could have special editions of books made by one-time-only robot arms, ones that get tired after a number of copies and can’t be made to write any more, books made by robots with a signature style, with minds of their own. All eventually of course leading to original works created by machines so advanced we have to refer to them as human (or post-human) too

What do you think about this project? Is its theological claims of perfection and reproduction faithful?  Or is its squelching of human ingenuity (even though it is a product of it) render its reception of the Spirit meaningless?

Discuss.

(Yes, the title is a parody of a line in the 90s film Jurassic Park)

Typealizer tries to categorize your blog in one of then Myers-Briggs personality types.

Try it.  Typealizer

Does it work?  Not for me.  It categorizes me as ISTP...which, if you know me, is the polar opposite of my personality type ENFP.  Every test from Methodist ordination to the internets says that's my type.

So, take it with a grain of salt.  Unless it matches!

So, for those of you that read my twitter and facebook statuses, you know I recently got into the Society of Biblical Literature's annual event in Boston by playing the "local clergy" card....which was fun.  Yes, I might have roped in Blake into the escapade, but I'm not saying either way.

Anywho, I got $200 worth of books for a bit over $100 (40-50% discount), which makes my continuing education fund happy as well.

Here's what I got:

• Peter Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God and The Fidelity of Betrayal (thanks for the recs, Blake...if you were there).
• Incarnation and Imagination: A Christian Ethic of Ingenuity (Ray)
• Homosexuality and Christian Faith (Walter Wink)
• Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Wink...one of the "facets" series where you take a concept and boil it down to a 100pg book).
• In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (Horsley's the editor)

The first was The Peoples' Bible, which offered ethnic American perspectives as part of an NRSV study bible.  Let's do the John 3:16 test on both these bibles (I check out how commentaries treat John 3:16 to see if I can stand it).

The Peoples' Bible has the following note written by Miguel A. De La Torre, a professor at Iliff:

John 3:16 - God so loved the world--God's desire is that neither the earth nor its inhabitants should perish but rather they they may have life.  salvation means that humans have sufficient food and the earth is safeguarded from those who would commodify it for gain.  When the few monopolize the earth's resources so that the many cannot be sustained, the gift of salvation is nullified. 

Christians from industrialized Western nations have interpreted this verse as a call to evangelize the world; but impoverished peoples have responded by pointing out that the capitalist ethos has brought not life but death, as those nations have enriched themselves through extraction and exploitation.

Cool.  Great perspective, and I'm better from reading it from a less insular viewpoint.

On the other hand is what looked like an equally good contender is The Inclusive Bible.  I'm all about inclusive versions of Scripture.  Let's do the John 3:16 test. In this translation, it said something along the lines of "God send the Divine One" instead of "The Father sent his only Son."  A bit dodgy, but worked for me.

But alas, the shine was soon to fade from the latter and leave the former looking better.  While thumbing through the Inclusive Version, I remembered a scripture I was attempting to make inclusive, so I turned to the Beautiful Bridegroom section of Revelation (to the guy at the Sheed & Ward bookstore who didn't know his Scripture, it's Revelation 21...tsk tsk).

• What would they choose?  Partners?  Beloved? 
  
• Nope..."bride and groom."  

Apparently, gender inclusive does not "relationship inclusive" and that means they will make it unreadable to all kinds of couples, Massachusetts or otherwise.

FAIL.

So, I got the People's Bible instead.

I think I made the right choice, as the commentary is worth more than an inclusive bible that falls short.

What books are you reading lately, or are excited to read?

So, apparently, most elected officials score a 44% or lower on this Civic Literacy Report .

Me?  Glad you asked!  78%. Yes, I'm smarter than most elected officials.  I say that with great humility and a little incredulity towards my elected officials.

You answered 26 out of 33 correctly — 78.79 %
Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #4 - B. Would slavery be allowed to expand to new territories?
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #12 - B. the Supreme Court struck down most legal restrictions on it in Roe v. Wade
Question #13 - E. certain permanent moral and political truths are accessible to human reason
Question #14 - B. stressed the sinfulness of all humanity
Question #31 - A. an increase in a nation’s productivity
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person

There are probably two types of bibles: those that want to start a conversation, and those that want to add to the conversation.

• My previous review on the Bible Illuminated was obviously the former as the book tries to draw people in via unconventional forms and means. 
• This bible, The Green Bible, is probably part of the latter.

It colors them if they fall into one of four criteria.  Passages that show:

1. how God and Jesus are involved with Creation.
2. how all elements (land, water, plants, humans, animals, etc) are interdependent
3. how nature responds to God.
4. how we are called to care for creation. 

I'll admit that my first impressions were negative. I am weary of these types of color-coded bibles. The redline KJVs often highlight the Messianic texts in the Old Testament, to my annoyance. But more importantly, one of my first bibles in college was The Five Gospels where the Jesus Seminar went through the Gospels and color-coded them based on how close they were to the original words of Jesus. This sort of thoughtful yet arbitrary color-coding did not make a strong impression on me (except how much of John is second-generation).

All that said, here's some joys and concerns.

Joys
There's some excellent "extras" found in the essays at the front of the text. Barbara Brown Taylor's treatment of cattle and humans in the Creation story is hilarious and poignant. Gordon Aeschliman connects creation care with poverty initiatives. Brian McLaren talks about human sin taking precedence over Creation being Good and traces the extra-biblical notion of this Creation being disregarded.

Better yet is the "green trails" at the end which trace certain elements of Creation texts through Scripture: There are study and question guides on six topics, such as Creation as "Good," being connected to Creation, the impact of human sin, and creation care as justice.  I essentially got six bible studies that I can get really excited about for $20...a bargain!

Concerns
Some of the texts highlighted are done because "they show Jesus or God interacting with nature."  However, as eco-ethicist Marla Marcum told me, not all those passages are meant to be centered on how God or Jesus interact with nature, but simply to show the power of God. The ways how JC and God interact with Creation are not meant to be lessons of how we should, but rather exemplifications of the power of God. Take heed!

Conclusion
While not as revolutionary as the Bible Illuminated, The Green Bible is not meant to be so.  It is meant as a tool for personal or group study, and has many practical impacts. It is meant to add to the conversation to answer the questions of "what did Jesus have to say about recycling" and traces biblical themes in response. 

Thoughts or impressions?

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• The Green Bible