"Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed forever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers." - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Where have we gone? Or are we just invisible?

"We are but of yesterday, and already we have filled all your world: cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market places, the camp itself, tribes, companies, the palace, the senate, the forum"

-Tertullian, A.D. 200

An Alternative Culture in his Back Pocket

So I'm rereading Leithart's Again Christianity and I came on somthing that I thought that I would share since it in some ways speaks to the ideas of identification and seperation, as Newbiging had.

"When an apostle showed up in a synagogue in the diaspora, he preached the gospel into a culture, the Jewish culture, that already had its own myths (he uses this in Lewis' sense of myth, that is, it is an extraordinary story) and rites and rules of behavior. When an apostle showed up in a city in the Greek east, he entered a culture that had its own set of civic myths, inculcated from childhood, recited on public occaisions, celebrated in the festivals and rituals of civic religion. When an apostle ended up in Rome, he entered a citty shaped by myths of Aeneas and Augustus, memorialized in festivals and sacrifices to the genius of the emperor.
"And when the apostle came, he came with an alternative myth (which is callled the 'gospel'), taught his converts to perform rituals of initiation and conviviality (which Christians eventually called 'sacraments'), and called men to an alternative way of life (which he called 'becoming a disciple of Jesus').
"The wandering apostle may have no money in his kit; but ge came to a town with an alternative culture in his back pocket."

Identification, in that he showed the common themes of man and his longing to be part of a biger story (myth) in which he plays a part. Seperation, in that the story of Jesus is diferent than the story of civic Greek or Aeneas or Ceasar.

In that Christians are called to be on mission, we are called to show how the alternative culture centered around the person and work of Jesus is plausible and holds weight against ceasar or materialism or individualism or...

Some Wisdom from Newbigin on Contextualization

"In using this term (contextualization) we start with the notion that every man is in a context which is not static but subject to movement. The culture which he shares is itself something changing and he has a part in directing the change. To speak of contextualisation in this connection means that each man has to seek to understand the way in which Christ is leading his own people towards the fulness of the New Man, and to try to follow and help others to follow. This means that his relation to his culture is a double one: there is both an identification and a separation. A man should love and care for his own people, his own culture, his own traditions. A man who has lost that love is less than human. But it has to be a critical and discriminating love. His participation in the New Humanity through Christ makes him aware of the fact that his own culture cannot be absolutised. It has to grow and change in the direction that the Gospel points out. Every Christian, in his relation to his own culture, must live in this tension - the tension that is always involved in true leadership, for a leader must both be one with those whom he leads and also be more and see more than they."

He finishes his essay with these words:

"In one of his poems written in prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks the question ‘Who am I?’ and confesses in the end that he cannot answer the question except by confessing ‘Whoever I am, thou knowest O God, I am thine’. The more ready we are to leave the securities of our small cultural solidarities and to launch out in the quest for the new humanity, the more we shall find that our human-ness depends upon our being able to confess to the one who alone is utterly faithful: I am thine."
- Salvation, the New Humanity and Cultural-Communal Solidarity

Another Rocky Votolato Show and Another Video

So I should really be working on my word study assingment for OT History right now. I'm having a really hard time with it though. I don't know what it is; I just don't feel motivated. Of course, that doesn't justify procrastination, but it does give a little background to why I would post anything on this blog that has been silent for the past 6 plus months. Well also, I went and saw Rocky Votolato at Off Broadway here in St Louis on Monday night and I thought that, despite my camera's memory card messing with the picture, I would share a video that I took. The concert was just as good as I was expecting. It was really nice just to get out and do something out of the ordinary, which has basically consisted of going from home to school and back home again. No, I did go on a youth group retreat with church this past weekend to lead singing. That was a lot of fun. Also I've been playing music at church and learning quite a few new tunes to old songs and new tunes to new songs, which has been great. Anyway, here's the video. The song is called Montana.



Untitled from pjrowan on Vimeo.