Brian wrote a very nice review for a class he had and he graciously has let me post his thoughts here. He’s in the 9th grade:

It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit
By Patrick Oden

It’s a Dance: Moving with the Holy Spirit, written by Patrick Oden, is a book pertaining to the subject of pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit. I found this novel to be quite helpful, since it confirmed many thoughts I had about how the Holy Spirit works. It breaks down the teaching into easy-to-read chapters and the teaching is, in fact, simply a conversation in a coffee shop. Within that conversation, many spiritual truths are taught. The two main characters in this book are Luke and Nate, a reporter and a pastor, respectively. Luke is a reporter for a local newspaper. Nate is the pastor of the Upper Room, a church that meets in the upper room of a coffee shop. This is the primary place in which the conversation occurs.
Luke was assigned by his editor to “visit different churches” and “s what religion is like in our neck of the woods.” (page 2) He visits many churches and synagogues in the area and finds that most of their theology is very much the same. Discouraged, he then visits and the Upper Room and his perspective on religion is changed forever.

Our conversation starts out as an interview between Luke and Nate. The two cover many topics, including leadership, community, welcoming strangers, and focusing on Jesus. During Luke and Nate’s talk, other members from the church stop by and interject their thoughts; one about creativity, another about life in the spirit. Everyone Luke encounters in the Upper Room is full of the Spirit, as evident by their insights on the matters of Spirituality.
One the interesting points that I learned from the book is that “The real evidence of the Spirit is community” (page 70) The way that the Spirit manifests itself is through the unity of the church.

While Luke and Nate are talking, a young woman enters the Upper Room. She is apparently a member of the church since Nate recognizes her immediately and introduces her to Luke. Her name is Melissa, and she is an artist. She and Luke begin talking, and they arrive on the topic of creativity, of which Melissa had some excellent insight on the issue. Melissa was convinced that creativity came from the Spirit. She believed that in order to complete the work the Spirit needs you to do; you must be willing to step out of your own traditions.

Melissa told Luke that she became disenchanted because of tradition. She disliked the repetition of church. She wasn’t herself when she was at church, and she became tired of it. She had a large falling-out with church with church and her family and she went off on her own to be an artist. When she decided to come to the Upper Room, she found that to be herself, she had to be with God.

Luke and Nate began conversing again, and as they draw to a close, Nate invited Luke and his wife to come and visit during one of their services. We can infer from the text that Luke is having marital problems; they even had a tough time showing up to church together. As they arrive, everyone Luke had met earlier that week came up and welcomed them. Everyone was friendly and cordial, making the two feel at home. The service was a life changing moment for Luke. He and his wife resolved their greed and selfishness and they became regular attendees to the Upper Room.

I originally came up to this book expecting it to be dry and unexciting because of the topic, but as I read it, I became enthused. The chapters are full of great insight to the Spiritual world, and the movement of the Holy Spirit makes the book to be appropriately deemed “A Dance.” I find the section about Community inspiring because our church, although small, has community in excess. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend It’s a Dance to anyone mature enough to understand the messages included.

One of the fun things about It’s a Dance since its release has been the absolute diversity in those who resonate with it. I love, love, love hearing what people from totally different backgrounds, ages, experiences, churches think about the book. When I wrote it I wrote out of my experiences, out of what I have seen and understood, hoping that what I wrote wasn’t just about me, or wasn’t me telling others what to think, but was in fact a telling of what a lot of us have experienced and feel deep within. If the Spirit is truly working in the ways I noted, there shouldn’t be lines drawn of who experiences these aspects and drives. Brian’s thoughts were both fun and encouraging to me.

I should probably note, especially given the consistency of posts I’ve attained here, that I have another blog, my personal blog, where I spend a lot of time and have a lot of posts relating to the topics in It’s a Dance. I’m still trying to figure how to make the best use of this site, so it might be sporadic yet here. But, wander over to Ravens if you’re so inclined to hear more of my ponderings.

A fitting prayer for this St. Patrick’s Day:

O Holy Spirit of Love
In us, round us, above;
Holy Spirit we pray
Send, sweet Jesus, this day.

Holy Spirit to win
Body and Soul within,
To guide us that we be
From ills and illness free.

From sin and demons’ snare,
From hell and evils there,
O holy Spirit, come!
Hallow our heart, Thy Home.

I say of the heart, because religion does not consist of right opinions or orthodoxy. While such matters are not necessarily outward things, they are not of the heart, but of the understanding. A person may be orthodox in every point, espousing right opinions and zealously defending them; he may think correctly concerning the Trinity, and every other approved doctrine taken from the Scriptures; he may agree with al of the historical creeds, and yet have no religion at all. He may be as orthodox as the devil, and still have no more religion than a pagan. He is indeed a pagan if he is a stranger to the religion of the heart.

This alone is religion as it is truly so-called. This alone is of value in the sight of God. Paul summarized religion in three particulars: righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

~John Wesley, “The Way to God”

I’m trying something out. Or practicing at least. I got a new webcam and I thought it would be interesting to do a reading of my book. Here’s the first installment, the beginning of chapter 2.

I know. I need to practice some more.

Let me know what you think. Oh, and the bird sounds are thrown in, no extra charge.

cheers

One of the thoughts I have in mind about this site is to post excerpts. Some folks have described reading It’s a Dance like sitting at a table at the Columba overhearing the conversation. In a conversation it’s sometimes hard to keep quiet, but when reading a book that’s sort of how things go. Nate can’t hear you after all, even if you scream and wave your arms wildly trying to get his attention.

So posting excerpts would be a way to open up the conversation, giving you a chance to respond and ask your own questions or make your own points. I figure I can substitute for Nate if stays quiet.

The key, though, is having people join in on the conversation. I’ve already written the excerpts and pursued the interaction on paper. That’s what the book is about. So, I guess I’m curious if there are folks out there who would participate, and if not then I’m going to hold off on this bit of the blog until there’s a few more folks around here.

Truth be told I’ve not been around here myself regularly, so hopefully getting back into the habit of posts will stir things up a bit and encourage folks to swing by more often.

Like I said, I’ll be presenting an academic version of my book in March at the Society of Pentecostal Studies conference at Duke University. I recently finished the paper and submitted it, and will be adapting the presentation from this thirty page paper. Basically, it’s addressing the same core issues I deal with in the book, but instead of being conversational it’s much more focused and intellectual. Basically, it’s what I had in my head as I was writing, taking the outline Gibbs and Bolger provided, along with some other emerging church writing, and showing how their efforts match up to academic theology, which makes the points into points about the Holy Spirit. In this case I focused on the work of the theologian Jürgen Moltmann, who graciously contributed some kind words about It’s a Dance that’s printed on the back cover.

Here’s the end:

“Life in the Spirit is a life in the ‘broad place where there is no cramping’ (Job 36:16). So in the new life we experience the Spirit as a ‘broad place’—as the free space for our freedom, as the living space for our lives, as the horizon inviting us to discover life.” Yet, in the history of the church there have been again and again restrictions placed upon this ‘broad place’ some for reasons that make sense in attempts to deter heresy, other times for reasons that can only be characterized as anti-Christ as they assert personal or corporate power for reasons of individual gain. Most often, and consistently through the last two thousand years, the restricted place of the church has not been due to some kind of intentional nefarious rejection of God, but rather due to uncritical assumptions of the broader culture in each era, leading to wholly non-Spiritual boundaries. Churches in which racism or sexism dominate are restricted places. Churches in which the rich dominate poor, or the powerful dominate the powerless are restricted places. Restricted not for those who are the aggrieved, restricted for the aggressors and for the whole society, unable to take up the whole work of the Spirit because of these inherent, societal, restrictions.

As Moltmann writes “‘The broad place’ is the most hidden and silent presence of God’s Spirit in us and round about us. But how else could ‘life in the Spirit’ be understood, if the Spirit were not the space ‘in’ which this life can grow and unfurl.” The dismantling of institutional racism, the new emphasis on equality between men and women, the growing awareness of first world responsibility to the third world, and the increasing concern for the environment have all broken the bonds of restriction that have silently fought against the constant mission of the Spirit. So it is no surprise that now, in this era of new openness, we can see new movements that in their freedom reflect the freedom that is God’s kingdom, movements that echo in practice what Moltmann emphasizes as traits of the broad place of the Spirit. “We explore the depths of this space through the trust of the heart. We search out the length of this space through the extravagant hope. We discover the breadth of this place through the torrents of love which we receive and give.” Only those contexts which freely open themselves to this continual discovery can expect to learn and to express a holistic pneumatology.

This is not a new reality of the Spirit or a new movement of the Spirit but is, in essence, the heart of what was spoken of by the Prophets and then experienced in the early church beginning on Pentecost. In this way, we could call the movement described by Gibbs and Bolger not only the emerging church, but indeed a form of neo-Pentecostalism in which a holistic pneumatology is embraced through a new, liberating freedom for living. “God’s Spirit encompasses us from all sides and wherever we are (Ps. 139). Christ’s Spirit is our immanent power to live—God’s Spirit is our transcendent power for living.” In embracing this reality in full, individually and communally, in unity and in diversity, the church emerges into the comprehensive vision of the kingdom of God.

I’m not going to post it here, for various reasons, but if you’d like to see a copy of it let me know: patrickoden at gmail dot com.

For the last week and a half or so I’ve been working on a major project. It’s the paper that I’ll be presenting at the Society of Pentecostal Studies conference in March titled “An Emerging Pneumatology: Jurgen Moltmann and the Emerging Church in Conversation”. Basically it’s an academic version of It’s a Dance where instead of having a few folks chatting at a pub I basically finally got to writing out the underlying foundations of the book as found in Gibbs and Bolgers Emerging Churches and in the writings of Moltmann. It’s a little bit of what was in my head that got me to start writing It’s a Dance, drawing the connection between the various traits and the theological study of the Holy Spirit.

It took a week and a half to write but it’s been on my mind since the middle of December. I had to really get back into the mindset of the topic and that meant a lot of re-reading and some new reading, expanding a little bit of my Moltmannia.

This all involves a little bit of a trick that I’ve yet to sort out but really need to learn how to do so. In writing that I had to get very academic again, but I didn’t want to post in that kind of style and I didn’t want to let go that style in order to find a more approachable cadence. So I stopped posting while I was getting my mind back in shape. It was hard this time, I think, because it’s been so long since I had to get myself academically focused. As I keep my feet a little bit more in that world, hopefully I’ll find it easier to pop back and forth.

As it seems a lot of doors are opening in the academic direction, more than the pastoral (though there’s a wee conversation about that too I need to bring up), my goal is never to dwell in the ivory tower but really to keep writing what I’ve been writing, and focus on books that can engage the broadest possible audience.

Thanks for all your encouragement as I keep at this.

Cheers, Patrick

In 1901 students in a class taught by Charles Parham began speaking in tongues. This was something they sought, and something which in their mind proved the power of the Holy Spirit. It was an evidence. The evidence of the Holy Spirit, as illustrated in Acts 2, Acts 10, and then in Topeka, Kansas was considered speaking in tongues.

Such an evidence as this gained traction. More people prayed in such the way the Topeka students prayed, more people began speaking in tongues, some indeed recognizable as regular languages it is claimed. Then such a thing as this had a trip down route 66, to Los Angeles where on Azusa Street, it is known, this claim to the evidence of the Holy Spirit began to do a curious thing. It exploded. It was given a name, Pentecostalism, and this name has traveled from the dusty streets of the City of Angels to all corners of the world.

So there must be something to Charles Parham’s discovery. And there certainly is. For instance read Numbers 11:22-24:

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.

And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!”

But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!”

And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets. The story of this passage isn’t about all the people becoming prophets, however, it’s not even about a small number of people becoming prophets. Moses, you see, was rather overworked. He was the man who went up the mountain and came down with a bright face and a lot of authority. All of it. Question his authority and you might, like Miriam, get a spot of leprosy. Moses, even with all of his honors, was still but a man, and not a man superempowered to do all the work that authority must do in a group this big. He was spending a lot of his time on minutiae. A man such as Moses should not be immersed in minutiae. He had things to do, like keep everyone’s eyes on the prize.

Keeping their eyes on the prize was a particular problem as the people tended to be rather grumbly. And what with all of Moses work, and his devotion, and whatnot, he got fairly fed up with being between the rock of God and the hard place of Israel. He felt trapped and asked God to kill him. God said he’d rather not, but that he would show him a thing or two. So he had Moses call 70 elders and God spread the wealth a little bit. The Spirit was poured out over the whole bunch. And when the Spirit came, well these men got a bit filled up. Overfilled really. They weren’t enough in themselves and the Spirit overwhelmed them. It was like walking out into a bright day after spending years in a dark cave. The eyes get overwhelmed and they squint. When the Spirit comes, the soul gets overwhelmed and things begin to happen.

That’s the sign of the Spirit being poured out on a person. But, that’s not the reason for the Spirit. God sent the Spirit here so that Israel would have a bit more leadership variety, all while knowing everyone is on the same page. This is important as having leaders turned to different pages often means a whole mess in the making. Take Korah for instance. The earth sure did.

The Spirit is the only way of the work of God, and without the Spirit there is only a muddle. But that’s really the key point. The Spirit is about the work of God, not giving us the goods to put on a show for ourselves or for anyone else.

Which brings us back to the gift of Tongues and Acts 2. Now, it’s certainly not the case as some authoritarian people might suggest that the gift of tongues is gone. It’s in the lists, and it serves a purpose. So did prophecy in the old days, and today. But, the ecstatic overwhelming quality in which the souls becomes filled and overfilled into a frenzy is a sign of the Spirit’s coming, but it’s not a sign of the Spirit’s staying. Tongues is not the goal of God. Neither is prophecy.

What is? Well, the quick response from many is salvation. Which is true in a way. But that’s not really it either. That’s just a beginning of the beginning. Salvation is sort of like, if I can engage in a terrible analogy, buying a ticket at Disneyland. It costs a lot, usually children are more eager for it and pay less, but the payoffs are nice because there’s the Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones, and Star Tours inside. The payoff, you might be surprised to know, is not in buying the ticket. I mean there are Disney themed pictures and even the occasional Mickey Mouse or Goofy wandering about. That’s not why anyone would want to go to Disneyland and if you suggested going to Disneyland soley to buy a ticket that would be silly, what with the hassle of parking and driving all the way there. No, you buy a ticket to do something more, and salvation is a ticket to something more.

That something more is what the Spirit is really about.

God is in the restoration business. He has created us in his image, but we’ve gone and distorted his likeness. As Mark Twain once said, “I was made merely in the image of God, but not resembling Him enough to be mistaken for Him by anyone except a very near-sighted person.” Yet God is wanting to renew that resemblance. The Spirit comes for that very purpose, to lift us up, and guide us into becoming wholly sanctified. Jesus opened the door to this process. The Spirit presses it forward in our very lives, taking our salvation and making into a whole lot more. Wesley called this sanctification. The Eastern Orthodox call it theosis. These are but words to describe the fact God thinks we are worth quite a bit, and able to be quite a bit more than our present wallowing selves.

He once walked in the evening breeze with a man and a woman. He’d like to do so again. The Spirit makes us pleasant and inviting company for such a thing as this, restoring our souls towards real wholeness so that we think right, feel right, listen right, and feel joy right. Our wan selves can’t handle the fullness of the Spirit, so we’re given time to change. Part of what we have to learn, part of the extensive remodeling of the Spirit is our learning how to relate. God, you see, values relationship, being in eternal relationship and creating in terms of relationship. We have lost this, becoming selfish, isolated, indulgent people who are always gunning for our rights or expectations. Always seeking to fulfill our desires by using other people. The way of the Spirit, however, is in mutual giving and mutual receiving so that we live for others as they live for us.

That’s what we see at the end of Acts 2. The Spirit poured out. There were tongues. There was evangelism. It is only at the end of the chapter we get to the heart of it all. The Spirit comes, and people begin to instinctively respond in the fullness of community. They interact with one spirit for they are filled with the One Spirit who unites and shares and values all equally while expressing divine qualities diversely in each.

Of course saying that Acts 2 is a fine community is a common thing. That’s the goal of every shameless idealistic group of people who leave their churches to live in a commune and do things “right”. Only that’s not quite it either. See, the thing at Acts 2 isn’t about this group of people who decided to be selfless and share. They were simply expressing the continuation of the fullness of the work of the Spirit in their lives. In other words, they didn’t think about it, they were just doing it. It was as natural to them as such as thing is unnatural to most of us. Natural in the fullest sense of the term, being part of our truest nature. But, we don’t do this, and we don’t see this. But we don’t see a lot of things. That doesn’t make it untrue, that just goes to show our present status on the ladder of God’s restoration.

Should we see the fullness of the power of the Spirit in our own lives. Should we experience the kind of renewal and the kind of enlightenment we read about, then its not a matter of our choosing then to sell our property and give a great deal to the poor. We just will do those sorts of things. It’s a reflection of the Spirit, not a working towards the Spirit.

That’s what Charles Parham had wrong. He thought it was about the tongues. He thought it was about the fireworks and the parade, when really there’s a lot more to it. Inasmuch as he got it wrong, inasmuch as many of those who came after him missed reading to the end of the chapter and so cut off, or grieved the Spirit in whatever way, they missed out on seeing in their own lives the fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of themselves, in a gathered community that reflects the ultimate reality of God among us.

We miss out on such things for much the same reason. But, there’s no reason to make an artificial attempt. There’s only to do those sorts of things the earliest church did and pray the Spirit comes upon us in power, and then not get distracted by the shiny things but press on in the Spirit so as to see the real work. It’s not something we do. It’s something we become. That’s the gift of the Spirit, to us and to this world.

I suspect William Seymour got a lot more of this than did Charles Parham. Not all of it. He was entranced by the initial works as well. But, there was a freedom to press on and see what happened, a freedom which too many denied to him. Sad. But that’s the topic of another post.

One of the core reasons I wrote It’s a Dance was because I read Scripture. Starting early on in life with various versions, including a constantly used Picture Bible, and continuing through college and seminary I have spent a lot of time with Scripture. The Picture Bible is worth noting because it taught me how to view the Bible as a whole, expressing a common theme, rather than a collection of scattered verses plucked out and pieced together in support of a theology.

And so it is in reading Scripture that the themes of this book were validated as real Scriptural themes, not just the emphases thought up by postmodern church planters. When I tested these emphases against Scripture I found they resonated, far too often covered up by other church emphases that I found little or no actual Scripture about.

That’s why I made it a point to use Scripture as the foundation of the conversations and why in most cases I included the full passage of the text rather than just a reference. I want people to get into Scripture and see the themes for themselves, to look at whole passages. Often looking at whole passages for the first time.

This is part of my fundamentalist heritage. I value Scripture and think it is indeed the canon by which we gauge everything else. Only so many of those who hold up the Bible and proclaim inerrancy or other kind of authority often don’t really take that authority holistically or seriously. The Bible becomes a tool and a weapon, instead of a source and guide and gauge.

I noticed the other day that it would have been nice to have an index where I posted the verses I used or referred to in the book.

And that’s the nice thing about having this blog. It’s not too late. Here are the portions of Scripture I specifically used, categorized according to chapter.

Chapter 2 - Focusing on Jesus
Acts 2:1-13
John 15:26-16:16
Titus 3:3-8
Ephesians 1:13-14
Ephesian 3:4-5
1 Peter 3:8
Matthew 1:1-25

Chapter 3 - Breaking the Boundary Between Sacred and Secular
Acts 10:1-48
Luke 10:30-37
Acts 8:26-39
Acts 6:1-7
Acts 7:44-50
Romans 7:6

Chapter 4 - Drawing us into Community
Matthew 8:18-22
Luke 18:18-30
Acts 2:42-27
Matthew 14:25-33
Acts 4:31-37
Luke 15:11-32
Acts 5:1-11

Chapter 5 -Empowering for Right Living
Romans 7:14-25
Acts 19:11-16
Romans 8:2-4
Romans 8:5-17

Chapter 6 - Welcoming Strangers
Luke 19:2-9
John 4:1-30
Acts 8:13
Acts 9:10-31
Acts 15
Acts 9:31
Acts 11:17

Chapter 7 - Spurring Us to Give
Isaiah 61:1-11
Matthew 2:2-5
Galatians 5:22-25
Matthew 25:31-46
Hebrews 12:15

Chapter 8 - Provoking Participation
John 7:-39
Luke 11:13
Acts 2:4
1 Corinthians 12
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Acts 11:28-30
Acts 21:10-14

Chapter 9 - Inciting Creativity
Exodus 31:1-11
Exodus 35:30-36:7
1 Kings 18:7-16

Chapter 10 - Leading as a Body
1 Kings 22:17-28
Romans 7:6
1 Samuel 16:3
Hebrews 5:12
Acts 10
1 Corinthians 12

Chapter 11 - United us through Worship
Philippians 2:1-13
Ezekiel 36:24-27
Song of Solomon 3:1-4
Ephesians 5:25-32
Isaiah 63:11-14
2 Corinthians 13:14

I’ve noticed something over the last few months that I didn’t intend to do.

I think there’s a progression in the book. The chapters can’t really be re-ordered. I’m not talking in terms of the narrative. I’m talking the topics.

Here’s the order of the chapters:

• Focusing on Jesus
• Breaking the boundaries between Sacred and Secular
• Drawing us into Community
• Empowering for Right Living
• Welcoming Strangers
• Spurring us to Give
• Provoking Participation
• Inciting Creativity
• Leading as a Body
• Uniting us through Worship

As I noted in the book, these topics aren’t my original idea. All but the chapter on Empowering for Right Living (holiness) come from the book Emerging Churches by Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs. The chapter on holiness was a suggestion from my publisher, and the one that I wrote last. When he suggested the idea, however, it immediately hit me how perfectly suited it was with the others, so I wrote it up and fit it into the narrative where I felt it would be most effective. My more immediate reason for including it near the beginning was pacing and rhythm. I introduced a new character and wanted the conversation with him to fit where there could be a more natural break in the conversation between Nate and Luke.

Plus, I did have a sense that holiness is one of those foundational aspects that should be touched on early. I didn’t see how well it fit into the rest of the overall pattern of progression.

I started noticing this progression after reading one of the reviews that made a comment about the chapter on leadership, calling it the weakest chapter if I recall. Not because I had somehow faltered in writing skill, but because it wasn’t really that new in ideas and was though to reflect old, tried methods that didn’t quite pan out. This bugged me. Not the review. I just about agree with that and that’s why I got to wondering about leadership in particular and why the flow in that chapter didn’t emerge with something better or more fresh.

As I pondered this I realized that it’s not the content of the chapter or the leadership style expressed in it that is the problem. It’s the progression. Most church plants, you see, start with the end. They start with the liturgy and gather together a core group of leaders, giving each this set responsibility to organize a stylish worship experience so as to attract those burned out by traditional models.

Starting with an open leadership model, however, leads to a lot of problems because there are no set boundaries and there are not yet developed instincts on how and when to share and move with leading. It becomes an intentional, imposed model, equal for equals sake.

With an understanding of progression, however, the worship gathering is not the first piece and open leadership is not imposed upon a new community. Rather, a gathered community must first focus on Jesus. If the focus is on the ecclesiology, method, outreach, or anything else it’s going to crumble, because that means its running off the power of the invested participants, not the inherent power of the Holy Spirit. Personalities and leaders can go a very long way in mimicking the power of the Spirit in charisma and action. But the Spirit lasts. People don’t. That could be why there is such turnover in emerging church communities, with almost every one I’ve personally seen exhibiting a 3, 5, or 7 year itch in which the driving leaders feel a ‘call’ to go somewhere else abandoning what they helped start and often leaving the community without roots to sustain itself.

The emphasis has to start with Jesus. All I know is Christ and him crucified, Paul said. To live is Christ, he also said. This is the centering, the focus, the drive, the model, and the hope. Everything else must derive from this center, or else the community goes out of balance.

And that is the work of the Holy Spirit–bringing emphasis on Jesus.

I’m going to work through this progression more through this week. Stay tuned.

And let me know if you see or feel any other rhythms in the book. I’d love to start looking at those too.

I’ve decided, for a couple days at least, to post the revised article I finished a couple of weeks ago. I’m curious to hear some responses, especially from the emerging church side of things. Because there isn’t a settled emerging/missional theology I’m picking and choosing as I go from a selection of writers who I see best getting to the heart of what’s going on in a positive, rather than deconstructive, way.

It’s also the case that as I turn more academic in my writing I don’t want to be an academic writer… ever. I want to develop a style that can be dynamic, adjusting one way or another depending on the particular audience, but never leaving one side out altogether. So I’m curious about a broad reading.

I’m going to leave the link up only for a week or so mostly because I don’t want the link I’m posting to be broadly accessible for very long.

Please let me know your thoughts, if you get download it, either as a comment here or an email to dualravens at yahoo dot com.

I’m writing a new paper that bounces off some of the ideas in this one so I’m curious to see how those idea work.

Have a merry Christmas week!

Here’s Hope for the Kingdom.

In the last post I linked to an interview with Dr. Wayne Grudem. It’s a two part interview and it’s well worth reading. Here’s part one and here’s part two.

I found the interview because I was particularly interested in finding perspectives on cessationism, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit stopped doing charismatic works after the New Testament era. Well, that’s not exactly right. I was interested in hearing the thoughts of dispensational theologians on cessationism because I had read a text that said not only are there not miracles, but in fact the only way we hear from God is through Scripture. The Holy Spirit, the writer wrote, doesn’t speak.

Now that’s absurd. I won’t list reasons why because that’s basically the topic of It’s a Dance. If you’re here you likely know my thoughts on it.

Read the interview. For those serious about Scripture, and not just traditional forms of interpretation or particular parts of Scripture used in isolation, the subject of the Holy Spirit can be, I think, a very unifying topic. Especially as the discussion gets beyond the more obvious charismatic gifts and into the ten traits listed in It’s a Dance.

Especially since unifying diverse people is what the Holy Spirit wants to do and works at doing among us.

The reality of this world is that we can’t live without some kind of influence in our lives. They are everywhere and come in all sorts of flavors, shapes, directions and sources. We are bombarded with influence pushing and pulling.

So much so that we’re not ever independent thinkers. Even the most individualistic among us reflect influences that most of the time we can’t identify.

And that is the reason why it’s so vital to come to terms with the work of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s influence among, with, and for us. It’s not just an academic exercise or a theological game. It’s not trying to put into dry words what is a vibrant experience. It’s coming to terms with discerning the spirits, the influences, that drive us every single moment.

Ignoring or dismissing the Spirit, either actively or implicitly, doesn’t mean we can go on our merry way. If we are not following the voice of God’s Spirit, the ruach, then we are replacing the Holy Spirit with another spirit. When this other spirit is clearly offtrack it’s easy to see. If we’ve replaced the Holy Spirit with the spirit of lust, or the spirit of anger, or the spirit of gluttony, then our actions will reflect these driving influences. They will be the goals for which we move and act.

But we can also replace the Holy Spirit with good things.

Luke 9:57-62

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Home, work, family, church, responsibilities–all good things, and all influences which replace the Holy Spirit as guiding voices in our lives.

Even more difficult to discern, and maybe even more destructive, is using such gifts as theology or Scripture to replace the Holy Spirit. Wayne Grudem, a theologian who I certainly don’t agree on every topic, said this in an interview:

“We can…become too rationalistic; give too high a priority on knowledge instead of relationship and this can produce in us a bibliolatry (believing in the Father, Son and the Holy Bible). The net effect of this is the depersonalization of God and that part of the motivation for depersonalizing God is the increasing craving for control. We want to affirm that God is still a God of healing and miracles; Evangelical rationalism can lead to spiritual defection; many of the power brokers of Evangelicalism have been white, obsessive-compulsive males since the turn of the century; the Holy Spirit’s guidance is still needed in discerning the will of God; we must not avoid the sufferings of Christ in seeking out the power of the Spirit…”

This isn’t a problem with or an attack on Scripture or knowledge. It is a problem with people who use Scripture and knowledge without the Holy Spirit, dismissing the Spirit and then asserting verses to fit their preconceived perspective that they see as being equivalent to Scripture. As we see in the temptation of Jesus Satan himself is a master of Scripture and uses it quite well to assert what is entirely opposite of God’s purpose.

Very scary really. And that’s why there are so many wolves among the sheep, tearing and biting and destroying, all while dressed in pretty white sheepskins.

Understanding the doctrine and patterns of the Spirit, then, becomes a guide. The Holy Spirit works in ways that the whole of Scripture testifies about, and it is in looking at the whole, not parts, of Scripture that we must first discover and then watch ourselves and others.

The more we understand these patterns the better we dance with the real Spirit.

It’s a dance.

Sometimes things are moving fast. Sometimes things are moving slow. Sometimes its amazing to be out on the dance floor.

Sometimes a person realizes they’re stumbling over everyone’s feet and forgot the right steps.

I’ve kind of been going through that. Hence my quiet here.

That’s going to change. Not because I have this sudden new insight. But because instead of flailing about I decided to step back and listen, get a feel fro the music, let the rhythm get back in.

I have been sitting with the thoughts of It’s a Dance for over two years now. The burgeoning motivation began at the end of 2005. I began reading with a strong intent, then a few months later began writing. It was a flurry of writing. Finished the first draft in about 2-3 months. Then came my own editing. That lasted through the summer of 2006. I submitted it to Barclay in late September 2006, stepping up more editing for when, I hoped, they would want to see more. They did want to see more. Then in March 2007 they accepted it. But that was a new beginning, as there was yet more editing, writing (the chapter on holiness was a late addition), and decisions. This process ran through the summer of 2007. Then there was the marketing, and other tasks, including putting together this website.

For the first few months of 2007 I audited a couple of classes, and did the work for them. One was a theology class in which I had to read one Moltmann book a week. All through reading I had in mind the thoughts of It’s a Dance.

So I’ve sat with this stuff for a long time now. And that’s good. I see It’s a Dance not as a final moment of completed discovery but as a beginning. I introduced themes that could take a lifetime or more to examine and I see the rest of my life engaged in this task, in writing, in ministry, in whatever ways present themselves.

But with the book being published in November I was hit with something a little unexpected. Spiritual weariness. I got tired of thinking about spiritual topics. Not that I reject or dismiss or discount them. Just that the freshness was gone. It began to feel stale, repetitive.

It began to feel like a task I was doing as work, rather than passion.

I didn’t know this consciously. But I realize that is what has been going on.

What I’ve done is stepped back and returned to the sources. Scripture, theology, spirituality–books that drive me back to seeing God for his own sake, rather than seeing him as a subject I use in my own efforts.

I’m feeling a renewed rhythm. My soul is being reset, away from wondering what the book is doing or where it’s going, back to the things that prompted the book to begin with. Where my outer expression is derived from inner reflection.

Just thought its good to catch up a little here.

One of the words I play around with in It’s a Dance is kenosis. To be honest I’m a lot more confident about my use of perichoresis. The idea of Trinity and movement and dance and intersection between God and humanity is very visual to me. I see it in my head and then try to get some words around what I’m seeing. It not only is a nice word to use at parties it, for me, brings together in perfect sense all sorts of seemingly disparate aspects of God and church.

Kenosis is still a word I’m trying to understand. Oh, not intellectually. Trying to get my heart and spirit around so that I can dance with it.

Like a few terms in theology this one sounds fancier than it is, and the keeping of the term in another language adds to the mystique. Basically it means ‘emptiness’.

It’s a curious sort of now because it doesn’t seem quite a Christian value. Buddhists believe in emptying. Christians believe in filling. Buddhists pursue a divine nothingness. Christians the fullness of God.

So such a term becomes easy to write off as not being Christian. Only it’s entirely so. Here’s the passage the term comes from:

Philippians 2:1-11 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

This NIV translation makes the key verse into “and made himself nothing.” That’s doesn’t have quite the imagery. The NRSV puts it “but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave”, a translation echoed in the NASB and other translations. Emptied himself. Kenosis. That’s the word in the original Greek translated as empty, or made nothing. But empty is different than ‘made nothing’. Being made nothing contrasts with Creation, in which the nothing was made into something. That’s not the contrast suggested here, however. Rather, being emptied is assuming there’s still something, only it has been gutted, poured out. The container remains. The content changes.

Too often though the theological idea of kenosis has been a Christological conversation. Or in more friendly terms, when the idea of emptying comes up people want to talk about what it meant for Jesus to become a human. Thus, Philippians 2 has been called the Christological hymn, an expression of theology and an cause for articles and arguments.

Only like with Genesis 1 this emphasis on our questions pushes away the primary motivation by the original writer. Paul here wasn’t writing a systematic theology or emphasizing a point for specialists in Philippi to wrestle over. He was writing to a church, for the church, in a way that the church might grow deeper and broader.

He takes what may have been lyrics to an early worship song and returns to the imagery of Christ as the model for the church. The church is the body of Christ, and so Christ’s physical body is a representation of the church. Heavenly in calling, physical and humble in its expression.

Christ emptied himself. So too does Christ empty the church. Making it into the form of a servant, obedient even to death.

Only the church has expressed itself entirely the opposite. It has taken the last part, the part that is fulfilled in Christ in eternity but not yet in this moment. It has taken on the glory and the authority and the power to assert itself onto and into the lives of humanity. Taking the role of a king, the church has reigned.

When I say something like that the image of egregious failures comes to mind. Constantine’s re-ordering of the religious world. Medieval popes, athiests in essence who sought money. The crusades. Missionary exploitation of natives. Tele-evangelists.

The reality is, as a friend of mine wrote, “whatever’s wrong with society is wrong with me too.” Whatever is wrong with the church is wrong with me too.

Kenosis is the way of Christ. Ego is the way of sinful humanity. Kenosis is foolishness to the Greeks. Ego is wisdom and protection and assertion.

The Church reflects human ego. Jesus exemplified kenosis.

Self-protection is the role of the ego. Emptying is the work of Christ.

The ego promises victory and wholeness. Only it can only get us halfway. It demands. It hides. It distracts and it often will even lie. It puts on a show. It makes walls and it makes enemies. It is our anti-Christ. Anti-Christ within each of us.

Kenosis is the Way.

But that is the tricky bit. Not tricky to understand intellectually. I get that. Yay for being emptied so that God can reward me with fullness.

The tricky bit is that being emptied requires being emptied. And that actual reality is almost overwhelmingly emotionally too hard.

Much easier to write good theology and separate the admonition from the practice, pursuing the ego in action while emphasizing kenosis in rhetoric.

Everyone loses but it feels so safe.

Perichoresis comes back into play because in the ideal everyone is emptying and everyone is filling. Kenosis is our divine adhesive, that which creates in us a more profound bond than anything humanly conceived. By exposing my total weakness and pouring out all my self, with my gifts, with my resources, with my being, I over-extend. I fall forward. Only in the Dance someone else is doing the same thing. And another. And another. It becomes a dance not of feet shuffling but of flying. We all leap and catch each other in mid-air. A great circle, rising on the wind.

Sounds lovely. Except for that first part. Being emptied. Denying my ego.

Maybe if someone else did it first…

I’m feeling it this morning and I think the safety of the ego’s shell sounds much more peaceful. Which means while I can talk about kenosis. I don’t get it quite yet. Hopefully others are wrestling with it as well and might share a piece of the puzzle.

Genesis 1 The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

A Scriptural view of the Holy Spirit doesn’t begin at Pentecost. It begins at the beginning. The very beginning, the beginning of Scripture and the beginning of time. A Biblical pneumatology (study of the Holy Spirit) begins with the ruach over the waters.

But what was the Spirit doing there? That’s a huge, huge question. Sadly Genesis 1 has been co-opted by the evolution/creationism debate so that, like with many parts of the Bible, our questions about God overshadow what God was trying to say to us.

I asked this question over at Shoutlife. Click here to read some really great answers.

From one of my favorite websites, ASBO Jesus:

This is the big danger when a pastor or other leaders or anyone really tries to set themselves up as the arbiter of the Holy Spirit, making themselves, effectively the Holy Spirit for their community, insisting they have a full picture of the mission of God. The fact is that God doesn’t give a single person the vision. We see this in the New Testament, especially in Acts. When there was controversy or decisions about missions or opening up to Gentiles the church gathered together and talked. They discussed, they shared. And within that early church there were different emphases, some to the Jews some to the Gentiles, some stayed, some went. The church was not committed to a set vision of a single impassioned individual who could know only that small piece of God they were given as their own mission. Instead the church had many visions, as the Spirit worked for the broader vision of God, who doesn’t trample but invites, who doesn’t neglect but includes, who doesn’t panic but is ever patient.

Ruach. That’s the Hebrew word for spirit. I don’t capitalize ’spirit’ because the Old Testament writers likely wouldn’t have thought in terms of a capitalized spirit. The Hebrew understanding wasn’t the Greek and it certainly wasn’t the Trinitarian preciseness we affirm today. The writers of the Old Testament weren’t concerned with that kind of preciseness. They were expressing and sharing, not parsing. This means it’s entirely useful to take what they say, but not to assume they meant everything we mean.

Take the definition of the word ruach, for instance. Our word ’spirit’ suggests either an ethereal being like a ghost (hence the old style–and personally irritating–Holy Ghost), or it means something similar to the soul, the real being of a person, as a Greek might say. The essence, the part saved or damned, separate from the container of flesh that is supposedly only a momentary capsule for our eternal quality.

The Hebrew word doesn’t have alternative definitions of ghost. Rather the choices of translation are wind or breath. Meaning that saying the Holy Ghost is a lot like a picture of a blond haired, blue-eyed Jesus. Culturally and Scripturally just wrong, owing more to latter day Europeans than former day Israelites.

So, when we run across the word ruach in the Old Testament, which we do about 359 times, the translators either use the word spirit or something to do with wind or breath. To break it down a bit, spirit is used about 200 times. Most of the time this is pretty obvious which is meant. We wouldn’t for instance talk about the East spirit blighting the land, especially when we think about the hot wind that comes from over the desert to the east of Israel.

Nor would we feel comfortable talking about the wind of God coming upon God’s chosen people. Maybe there’s an interesting imagery there but it’s more understandable to just say spirit.

Sometimes the translation gets a bit complicated. How for instance do we translate ruach in Genesis 1:2, a passage I’ll look at in the next post?

What does it mean for God to give man his ruach? Does he give him breath? Does he give him spirit? Maybe there’s a more blurry line there than is often understood.

The few times ghosts or spirits are mentioned the Hebrew has another word. We see this in Isaiah 29:4 and 1 Samuel 28:8. This word, which transliterates to something like aob (my Hebrew is awful rusty), isn’t connected with wind or breath or the spirit of God, but can also be used to mean wizard or necromancer. It’s a dead thing or a thing dealing with the dead.

Ruach is intimately connected with life. Ghosts are dead and do not breath. That which breathes is living. And so it wouldn’t be entirely wrong to call the Holy Spirit the Breath of God.

There were three sources that provoked me into writing It’s a Dance. In a way this follows what is commonly called the Wesleyan quadrilateral. We know about God through Scripture, Reason, Experience, and tradition. All of these can be mediums in which the Spirit speaks about God and our lives. Only what happens when one goes off in a wrong direction and then becomes the primary understanding? That’s what happened with Tradition. The church, for a variety of causes, established an understanding of the Holy Spirit that people assume to be true, because it’s the accepted understanding in practice and worship. In competition to express the nature of Christ, the Church sought primacy and power, pushed aside the freedom and fluidity of the Spirit, and created models of action and thought which then reinforced the church power structure.

All through history there have been seasons of renewal, in which the Spirit inspired prophets and leaders to struggle against the wrong assumptions of the church hierarchy. This isn’t to say the church is wrong or evil or without worth. Just the opposite in fact. The Spirit wants the church to be fully the church, as it was meant to be in this world, as an expression of the Kingdom of God, empowered by God, a witness and light in the darkness.
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