Author: ppadmin

        Here are 19 essays that describe significant interaction between religion and culture, eg religious ethics, education, death, film, music (and others). The essays have a global vision—processes of religion and culture are not the specific property of the west.

        Each part of this volume demonstrates the interweaving of religion and culture, according to three spaces. First, power relationships that deal with issues of conflict, science, sexuality—outlining how religions and cultures create societies and communities. Second, private space where individuals are moulded. Third, the tension between public and private, or political and ethical, eg the public preservation of Elvis Presley’s grave becomes intensely private for individuals on pilgrimage there. The article demonstrates the interweaving of religious and culture eg religion can’t be separated or compartmentalized, operating only within the walls of religious institutions or during religious events and dates.

        I found some of the essays in Religion and Culture more fascinating than others (there were 19 to choose from!). Eg ‘Conflict and Peace Building’. ‘Because religion plays a role in the dynamics of conflict, religion may play a role in peace building as well’ (p 3). We need to clarify whether religion is a cause or a rhetorical cloak.

        York teaches in the philosophy and Religious Department at Western Kentucky U; he asks us to question our true allegiance, to examine our discipleship, to be people who hunger and thirst for justice. He calls us back to the subversion of grace and nonviolence.

        He has moving references to modern day saints whose lives focused on the practice, politics and worship expressions of our faith, a faith lived as a Christian under the post-Christian, religious empire that is the United States of America. The fact that we follow a crucified G-d suggests that discourse about this G-d will be provocative. And his reflections range widely.

        •All creatures are included in G-d’s care; all are on G-d’s heavenly mountain (Jonah, Isaiah 11, Psalm 24)

        Johnson sketches the history of American imperialism, seeing its beginnings in 1898 with the Spanish-American war, portraying its brutal colonization of the Filipinos as ‘divinely ordained racially inevitable and economically indispensable’ (p 43).

        Intellectual foundations of American imperialism replaced the militaristic formulation (eg manifest destiny),reaching new heights(depths?) during WW II. The Korean and Vietnamese wars furthered the spiral.

        Johnson cites three hallmarks of militarism: a withering of the influence of non-military options (eg decrease of the State Department’s influence), increased presence of military officers or representatives of arms industry in high government position, military preparedness becomes the highest priority of the state.

        A Spiritual Life is a moving selection of the writings of poets, prophets and pastors who reflect on what makes for a vibrant spiritual life, drawing on a wide spectrum of personal experiences, exposing the reader to a wonderfully diverse group of people with a wide range of Christian experiences. Cole identifies three ways of discerning and living an authentic spiritual life: poets (8 entries), prophets (9), preachers (6). He admits the limits of using these three categories for discerning and living a spiritual life, and many of the articles in this anthology could easily fit any of the three categories.

        A word about some of the entries.

        ‘Spirituality and Chronic Illness’ talks of living with multiple sclerosis. ‘On Spirituality’ emphasizes the community dimension of spiritual formation; spiritual formation is more than private discipline; spiritual formation is an essential concern and a legacy of the community of faith—faithfulness to G-d and service to others’ (p 115). A moving reflection on his baptism—as a four-year old—marks Cole’s written comments (“More religious than Spiritual’). An insightful essay (sermon?) by William Willimon probes the relevancy of his book, Resident Aliens, and the claim that we don’t have to cultivate a tedious set of practices (eg Sabbath) in order to live in G-d’s time ( p 230).

        ‘Something isn’t working in the way we’re Christianity anymore’ (p 9), and here is McLaren’s attempt to identify both what isn’t working now’ and what is needed to make religious faith relevant, based on ten questions.

        The questions probe the nature and authority of the bible: is G-d? Who is Jesus? Can we talk about human sexuality? How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions? McLaren tries to identify a passage out of our conventional paradigm and a passage into new possibilities. He points out the extent to which the church functions in a Greco-Roman fashion; ‘what would we call the biblical story line isn’t the shape of the story of Adam and Abraham; it’s the shape of the Greek cultural narrative that Plato taught’ (p 37).

        This Greco-Roman perspective is marked by anxiety (the need to keep on top of things), by vulnerability to paranoia (‘theirs’ and ‘us’), hope for the future (‘they are gone’ and our group is normative’), life is an unending all-out war.

        Religious affiliation is dropping, and yet interest in spirituality is on the rose. Bass offers a fresh interpretation of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ trend. Some commentators say we are undergoing yet another revival; others say Christian belief and practice are being replaced by new ethical and religious choices.

        But Bass claims we are in a new spiritual awakening, a new kind of post-religious faith. She references the episodic American religious ‘awakenings’ (the first in 1740; the second, 1800-1830; the third, 1890-1920). The first marked the end of European styles of church organization; the second ended
        Calvinistic dominance and introduced new perspectives on free will; the third was marked by the social gospel movement and by Pentecostalism. She believes the fourth is marked by the end of Christian dominance in the United States, as emerging forms of pluralistic religions emerge and new institutions embody the new spirit.

        Citing pollsters’ analyses, she sees American faith as having undergone profound extensive reorientation away from internalized religion toward internalized spiritual experience; the Unites states is caught up with the throes of a spiritual awakening, a period of ‘religious and political transformation’ (p 5).

        Barthal and Edling work with Peacemaker Ministries, immersing themselves with the conflict and distress of entire congregations, becoming channels of G-d’s reconciling grace. Their model for redeeming church conflict is based on Acts 15, a recounting of the conflict in the early church; the model articulates four core principles: perspective, discernment, leadership, biblical response (p 19).

        Getting help by involving others outside the immediate problem areas is not always done; conflict tends to isolate people; many times we need to ‘get help’ by involving ‘assisted peacemaking responses’ (mediation, arbitration, accountability); they present a suggested four-step process: glorify G-d, get the log out of your own eye, gently restore, be reconciled. Dealing with conflicts in the life of the congregation is not so much about resolving specific problems as about seeing conflict as a means by which G-d is growing us into true children of G-d.

        Key to dealing with conflict is to recognize that the presenting issue is seldom the real issue: understand not only what people want but why. The writers give helpful suggestions about how to determine the best/real question in the situation (p 92). Essential in dealing with conflict is the need for congregational leaders to model shepherd leadership (p 138) and developing a caring/serving community (p 158).

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Brian McLaren identifies five themes in Hardin’s book: who is Jesus? What is the message of the bible? What is a relevant atonement theory? Is there an approach to violence and peacemaking? What kind of G-d do we believe in? (xiii) Hardin treats these themes, drawing especially on the work of Rene Girard (p 160); it is violence done to an innocent victim that is the key for interpreting the Bible!

        Hardin comments on the Emmaus bible study (Lk 24:13-33); it was the forgiveness expressed by G-d in this resurrected Jesus that collapsed all the previous theological ideas and assumptions. Their theologies dictated a violent or retributive response by G-d (p 28). We need to read the bible from the perspective of Jesus, Hardin pleads, and Jesus talks of a relational G-d, not a retributive G-d: relation to Abraham, to Israel, to Jesus.

        Corinthian Christians did not automatically abandon the culturally accepted ways of doing things in Corinth. Paul was in Corinth for about eighteen months; why didn’t he respond to many initial issues only after they were raised by letter or verbally, from Corinth?  He had shared instructions (‘traditions’, 11:23, 15:1-4, and commended the Corinthians for following them (11:2).  Yet the Corinthians found it necessary to write Paul about six matters on which they lacked clarity (7:1,25; 8:1; 14:1; 16:1,12).

        These are basic issues readily faced after conversion to Christianity. Winter’s book reflects his convictions that Paul did not deal with many of the issues reflected in 1 Corinthians because they had not risen during his time there, or they had done so in a way different from that in which they were now encountering them.

        As a Roman colony, Corinth was highly susceptible to changes or trends in Rome itself.  Three major changes took place in the CE 50’s that had consequences for the social life after Paul left Corinth:  the creation of a federal imperial cult, the Isthmian Games (with the temptation to join in the eating festivities in pagan settings), severe grain shortages.  These changes occurred after Paul left Corinth.

        This is an incredibly rich collection of perspectives of the church and its relation to society, the relationship of Christian faith to politics. For some, ‘America is the New Empire, an incarnation of the empire of the apocalypse, the whore that deceives. For others, especially for those who take a Constantinian approach, the American Empire is salvation (p 12).

        This book reaction will touch on a few of the insightful perspectives given by the 14 contributors. Constantinianism is the commitment to the conviction that the state appropriately holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, that Christians should work within the structures of their legitimately violent states, taking up arms when called upon to do so and that history is best read through the eyes of people in power.

        Craig Carter writes about liberalism in the new Constantinianism characterized by four central concepts (freedom but from, not for, as Bonhoeffer develops it in Creation and Fall), desire (the quest for more), consumption (work as a necessary evil), progress.