VillagePastor

The 2011 Immaterial, Unrelated, Extraneous, Irrelevant Awards

Like last year, I moved from one completely different world to another, in a matter of a few days.  From the desperation of the streets of Ethiopia, where I was earlier in November, I spent the last few days in the meeting rooms of the Marriott Marquis, a luxury hotel in San Francisco, participating in theological meetings.  But as I experience each year, these meetings have there own desperation—for some relevance. 

There are some bright thinkers in this society for sure, and I am encouraged to see careful scholarship done in areas from Philosophy to Theology, from Hebrew to Greek studies. Still, I read through the program handbook, and I find it challenging to choose  papers that I believe speak to the average congregant in the pew.  But then, most are not written to them (but who some of these papers are written to remains a mystery to me).  So here, as is my annual practice, are those papers receiving the “The Top Ten Most Irrelevant Awards”*, those papers that seem, at least on the surface of the title, to be neither here nor there.

1-Implications of the Toledoths Regarding ANE Influence on Genesis

2-Jesus ‘Minus Triplex’ Reexamined: A Proposal for ‘Munus Monoplex’ or the One Unified Role of Jesus

3-Solving the Euthyphro Dilemma and Defending Theistic Ethics

 4-‘Dionysus will soon enough be the judge of our claims to wisdom!’: Nietzsche as the Sublime Muse of Moral Decision-Making

5-Why are (Some) Platonists so Insouciant?

6-Epistematic Euccatastrophy: The Favorable Turn of the Evidence”

7-On the Impossibility of Omnimalevolence: Plantinga on Tooley’s New Evidential Argument from Evil

8-The Dignity of Damnation

9-Discourse Type, Slot Machines, and the Hebrew Bible

10-A Farewell to Arms: The Rhetoric of Arms and the Death of Goliath

 Honorable Mention:

From the Beach Boys to Surfer’s Chapel: A Theology of California Surf Culture

Athletic Imagery in John? ‘Just Do It’ with Nike and Stephanos

The great news is that these, and nearly all 500 others are available for purchase, including my somewhat relevant paper, “What Corporate, Political, and Pastoral Leadership Can Learn from One Another” (a paper I am sure someone has identified on another post as lacking the intellectual muscle to be considered for a theological society meeting).  You can also find it under articles written on my blog site. Until next year…

 *I am not making any of these up

Life From the Other Side

I'm just about to leave Ethiopia, a different world for sure. You know you are in a different world when...

1 –  you are in line to board the plane in Beirut, and you are asked to sit until the women have boarded first

2 – the sun shines. This normally does not happen for an Oregonian this time of year, but here in Addis, the sun shines directly overhead because you are near the Equator, but you are cool instead of extremely hot because you are at 8,000 ft in elevation. In other words – a climate to die for

3 – you stand in line for a visa and make small talk with an expat from Germany who has come to bid on a military project to help support drone missions over the horn of Africa

4 – you step out of that airport and meet a young woman who reminds you of your daughter, and she is dressed in a colorful Ethiopian dress, and she smiles and asks for help and she walks with a limp and then you realize she has no hands and begs for a dollar, and you get in the car and that image hangs with you the rest of the trip

5 – one moment you are sipping a cappuccino in a lavish hotel, hanging out with wealthy expats, and strolling along perfectly manicured gardens and luxury pools, and you end the day driving darkened streets, navigating through a sea of humanity, who have no place to go, and beyond them you notice shadowy female figures who line the streets, waiting to sell their bodies

6 – you step into a small restaurant, and they come with pitcher and soap and towel to wash your hands because they do not provide utensils because this is a different world where hands serve as fork and spoon

7 – you drive by a dark and scary stretch of a rough part of the city and see two rough looking policemen holding hands because men are not shy to express their common friendship

8 – you have a nice Ethiopian meal with cultural dance that gets basically hijacked by inebriated Chinese businessmen

9 – you see donkeys everywhere, and horse drawn carriages at every turn, and all of creation seems to groan, and an occasional horse is put out in the road to eventually be hit for it has served its purpose and the owner will require full cost by the errant motorist in order to buy a new horse, and you realize afresh the words of Rom 8 that creation groans in this broken world

10 – men are not shy to pee on the side of roads in full view, but would not want to get caught spitting in public

This is my third trip to Africa, the first to Ethiopia. It turned out to be a side trip at the end of teaching in Beirut, with the main aim to see the Heye family, who are doing an amazing work here. I say amazing, because i notice that this place can take its toll, but they have held up well. Pray for them. And now, back to the other world...

A Few Concluding Thoughts from Beirut

About eight years ago, three of us sat in a small guest house just outside of Damascus and dreamed—an Australian OM Director, a London businessman, and a NW pastor. Seeing both the strategic location of Lebanon and a church weakened by disunity and independence, we began to put together a deliberate plan for bringing ministries together—and called it the Near East Initiative.  It is pretty amazing what has happened.  Each year since, more and more people have been coming from all over the world to think together and pray together and act together.

This weekend, nearly 150 gathered together in North Beirut, coming from the States, Europe, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, the Gulf, Australia, Canada, South America, and Africa.  We met to create initiatives that will more effectively reach the next generation, plant churches, build leaders, do relief work, and pray. It’s too early to talk about one of the initiatives, but it could radically change the landscape.  Exciting stuff!   

My conversations were wide ranging.  I had lunch today with a very smart former executive of Frito-Lay, listening to his story of how God has brought him from success into significance; Wednesday night I sat across from a former Army Ops officer who trains people how to be alert to terrorism.  He travels all over the world into some of the most dangerous places.  I was on the edge of my seat. Thursday night I had dinner with an American who travels all over the place, determining recommendations for grants. He loves to see money go to great kingdom projects. I listened to a nuclear scientist on Friday morning give some of the most amazing predictions for where the world is going.  I prayed with a young man from the Midwest who has been serving God in Yemen; visited with a man who has begun an international school for kids in Amman, that is attracting Muslim parents from the highest offices in Jordan; hung out with an oil man from London who is focusing on business start ups; listened to a man from Hong Kong tell us the amazing work God is doing in China; visited with a pastor from Aleppo, Syria, a church I have preached in, tell me how the besieged government is trying to reach out to Christians; preached today in a church strategically placed along the green line near South Beirut, where believers from Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, etc congregate and worship and are doing great things.  And it all started with teaching 17 students at a seminary in East Beirut, who are from all over the Middle East, and who are training to be tomorrow’s leaders

Wow! It beats driving to Gresham. I’m sure I have missed a lot.  There’s something so energizing about being with the global body of Christ.  Tonight at 1:00am I will travel to Ethiopia to see missionaries.  It gets pretty lonely on this side of the world, and I am sure it gets especially tough in Ethiopia.  I am looking at it as an extended visitation.  If you think of me, pray it is safe and fruitful. I am so grateful for a church that is global, that is serious about engaging in ministry around the world.  I am also anxious to return back to family later this week—and the body of Christ at Village.  

The Life Report

Waiting for a flight to Beirut on Sunday, I came a cross a Saturday column by David Brooks of the NY Times entitled “The Life Report”.  He talked about a discovery he made recently, coming across a collection of short autobiographies that the Yale class of 1942 wrote for their 50^th reunion.  Some are inspiring, and some are ones you want to avoid.  The most common lament is that people worked all of their lives for the same company and now realized how boring they must be.  Others regretted risks that were not taken. Most played it safe.

Ironically, I was just into The River of Doubt by Candice Millard.  It’s the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s darkest journey.  If there ever was a risk taker, if ever anyone lived a life that did not play it safe, it was Roosevelt.  He had this propensity to lose himself in physical hardship and danger.  Frail and sickly as a child, this future President overcame it by forcing himself into a regimen of harsh physical exercise, something he did all of his life. His idea of a vacation was not Camp David; rather, he would occasionally head for the badlands to fight with bears, often alone.

But when his political career ended, he was bored and ripe for an adventure. He was ready to change professions, become a naturalist and an explorer.  He was invited to venture into the dense jungle of the Amazon.  But Roosevelt went far deeper.  He shifted from the original plan, and to the horror of his sponsors, he decided to go where no one had ever gone in the Amazon.  He decided to explore the River of Doubt. It had never been mapped.  No one knew its length or direction, or anything about the perils that went with it.  Roosevelt saw it as his last chance to be a boy, but when he emerged months later, he had aged way beyond his 54 years.  After his journey on this 1000 mile river through the dense Brazilian rainforest, He was an old man who never fully recovered.

It’s understandable.  Just to get to the river required a harrowing journey of two months over vast and varied terrain.  His group lost 98 mules alone on the way.  And then they came to the river and began their descent, there was no turning back.  Here is some of what he and the others faced: hordes of gnats, sand flies, horseflies and bees and malaria carrying mosquitoes.  Staying afloat on their crude and heavy canoes was a must. The river was full of alligators, 500 pound anacondas, razor tooth piranhas, poisonous frogs, bull sharks, and candiru—tiny fish known for wiggling their way into the urethra, creating the most unimaginable pain.  On land, there were jaguars and wild pigs and flying monkeys, and the most lethal snakes in the world, whose bite meant the worst suffering and death within minutes.  There always lurked hostile Indians, violent and unpredictable, who celebrated their victory by eating their human prey. Worst of all was the jungle that was anything but a sanctuary, where everything fought for survival, and anything and anyone that was weak or infirmed was ruthlessly dealt with.  Daily deluges of rain drenched them, and then there were the terrifying sounds at night, spine chilling noises that kept a man awake in mortal fear.

Roosevelt chose to enter this world for the sheer experience of discovery.  But once he entered, disease, hunger, and exhaustion stalked him at every turn, down every falls, through every rapid, and on every hike.  By the time he came out, he and those in his party appeared almost inhuman.  Gaunt, hollow cheeked, clothes tattered, skin bruised and baked and bitten, Roosevelt lost one fourth of his weight.

Sadly, there is hardly a mention of God in the story.  I am always amazed at this.  How futile and meaningless it all is when it is largely about self.  The book left me both amazed, saddened, and empty.  Perhaps, many of the Yale stories are the same. I’m challenged by all of this to live meaningfully, to live adventurously, though I have no desire to do anything much more daring than kayaking the Pend Oreille.  Hopefully my essay will ring with passion and conviction, but most of all, be about His story in me.