Counter-culture v. gospel culture

In the introduction to his Western Culture in Gospel Context, David J. Kettle surveys a variety of models for Christian witness:

1. The witness of traditional religious conformity, which at its best seeks for all aspects of culture to resonate with a Christian worldview, and at its worst leads to nominalism or (worse -) Christian imperialism. 
2. The witness of traditional religious symbolism and art, which though it can often preserve a sense of the transcendent and sacred can also become opaque and tokenistic. 
3. The witness of an appeal to cultural identity, which takes seriously the influence Christianity has had on Western cultures but can all too easily lead to a tribalism which excludes non-Western Christians and non-Christian people and influences in the West.
4. The witness of a parallel Christian culture, that avoids many of the pitfalls of closing the gap between church and culture by seeking to maintain this distinction, but can tend towards a kind of gnosticism that in attempting to keep the world out of the church (perhaps inadvertently) keeps the church out of the world.
5. The witness of consumer religion, which has uncritically adopted the dominant spiritual paradigms (business shamanism, individualist consumerism) of Western culture and adapted Christianity and the church to reflect it.

While this typology is new (and I'd suggest, provisional and not exhaustive), none of the particular models is. I've heard many faithful and thoughtful Christians advocate the best (and some of the worst) of each of these models at some point, but the third seems to be increasingly popular in conservative Christianity in the simplistic formulation "Australia is (or was founded as) a Christian country," usually implying that other Christians are more Australian and should have more power than people of other faiths or none. 

However, it was how Kettle presented the fourth model that especially caught my attention. He says that those whose agenda it is to oppose or resist culture (that is, be counter-cultural) are no less captivated by culture; it remains the host culture and not the gospel that determines how Christians witness. This is seen most clearly in the peculiarly modern form of fundamentalism that arose as a response to modern liberalism. The fundamentalists thought they had avoided the cultural compromises of liberalism, but were no less shaped by their modern context. But the same possibility awaits me: as I seek to engage the individualism and consumerism of Western culture my priority needs to be not responding to greed and selfishness in its current cultural manifestations, but rather the generosity and hospitality of God in the gospel. 

New books

Recently two more books arrived from Wipf and Stock on the topic for my masters thesis: spirituality for mission.

I've started reading the first of these: David J. Kettle 2012 Western culture in gospel context: theological bearings for mission and spirituality.

Sadly, Kettle who was the coordinator of the Gospel and Our Culture Network in Great Britain died last year. Already this book is a rare find: lucidly written, theologically astute and with profound insight. It is a masterful piece of missiology.

Pilgrimage as formation for chaplaincy

Both my pilgrimage along el camino and my week with the brothers at Taizé are part of an independent guided study subject undertaken towards a coursework masters, with the topic 'Missional Spirituality'.

My particular mission context is the Australian Defence Force and that is why there are two aspects to my study tour. Far more than most westerners, soldiers are communal people; they eat and sleep, party and fight, live and die together; something that so many churches can learn from. Oh, and soldiers no more choose their comrades than Christians choose their brothers and sisters. This is why I'll be spending a week at Taizé with Catholic and Protestant brothers: eating, sleeping, playing and praying with those who share the rhythms that I need to develop for a spirituality of mission.

But soldiers are also nomads. It is because of their love for their country that they do not stay within its borders. They are a people who belong to each other more than they belong to a particular place. Soldiers also know solitude, silence and walking – this is why I'll be hiking 900km of the camino and keeping silence between breakfast and lunch.

So during the study tour I'll be wearing my boots: having something with me – on me – at all times to remind me why I'm walking or staying, why I'm on my own or in the monastic community, and why I'm silent or speaking to strangers.

Journaling

Consider how irregular my blogging is, and you will have some idea of how unsuccesful most of my attempts at daily journalling have been.

My life is highly resistant to attempts to impose routine upon it, but it has been known to happen – in restricted ways, and for limited times – in the past, but it's not something that comes easily. But almost nothing of any value is achieved without difficulty. Walking 900km in a foreign country will not be achieved without difficulty. So, if I can hike, on average 30km a day for 30 days, perhaps then I can also journal about those travels for 30 minutes at the end of each day.

Though a generalisation, my theory is that a person's life is either easy for them to write about, or worth writing about. I'd much rather have the former problem than the latter!

Church Newsletter

This small article was written for my church's newsletter, because – as is clear below – my colleague Simon (the senior pastor) who more often than not writes the 'Pastor's Post,' well and truly has his hands full at the moment.

As if moving across the world wasn't enough, this weekend the Wards move into their third Australian house.
In less than a month, Anita and I head overseas for a holiday. Then after Anita heads home, I stay on to walk 900km across Spain.
Last weekend the church went camping. As well as the necessities – like good coffee – we had some luxuries, but by and large the people who went to Triple C left most of their everyday lives behind.

For God's people in the Old Testament, going to a particular place – usually the temple – gave people a special experience of God's presence, which is why the psalmist says "blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage." As a faithful Jew, Jesus himself also participated in the feasts and festivals: at the camp service, John Armstrong shared with us from John 7 about a time when Jesus addressed those who had also left their everyday lives behind to journey to Jerusalem. Not only that, but Jesus also started his public ministry with an extended time of solitude in the desert, and continued during his ministry to regularly withdraw to a quiet time and place.

Despite the scriptural precedent and Jesus' example it's easy for us to mistakenly think that now there are no special places anymore, there is no need to go anywhere or to get away. In fact, the opposite is true. Certainly it's true that God's dwelling place is no longer (just) in Jerusalem, but – through Jesus – in the lives of his people. And it's also the case that we celebrate Jesus as our passover lamb every time we meet, and not just once a year. It's not that there are no special places or times anymore, but that every place and time is special: "God with us" can be the experience of every person, regardless of history or geography.

So, even though Christians don't need to go to Jerusalem (or any other place) for passover (or any other festival), it's still fitting for us to think of ourselves as a pilgrim people, wherever and whenever we go: that, after all is the point of the great commission in Matthew 28. As for camping, moving house, and trekking – these activities help remind us that God's people are always on the move. 

Pilgrimage as antidote to gnosticism

Pilgrimage, done properly is one of the best-known antidotes to gnosticism. Gnositicism runs screaming at the sign of a muddy boot. When wise men prescribe pilgrimage, there's a fair chance that the diagnosis on the notes is "gnostic."

 — Charles Foster 2010 The sacred journey, The ancient practices (Nashville, Tn.: Thomas Nelson), p 19.

Road trippin

With the RHCP song at the front of my mind, I'm wondering what the relationship between pilgrimage and road-trip is.

Though Anita and will likely make our way from Munich to Barcelona by road, and from there I'll bus it to Irun, I don't think of this travel as part of my camino. I can think if too many reasons why road trippin really isn't pilgrimage (pace, convenience and amount of preparation required), for any road trip, that is, except for one to Chicago.

Now, predictably, Sufjan Stevens is at the front of my mind.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Aussie Camino

An episode of the ABC's Compass has made me aware of an enterprising group that has taken the initiative in establishing the camino Salvado from St Joseph's Subiaco to Australia's only monastic town, New Norcia: some 145 kms over six days. The route is named after Dom Salvado who walked it many times. I'm particularly pleased that following in the footsteps of this Abbot-Bishop would bring Australian pilgrims into contact with the histories of both the camino de Santiago and Australia's mixed relations (to say the least!) between the church and indigenous Australians.

Needless to say, I hope to walk this way one day soon.

Practice Travel (MREs)

I'm walking the camino and visiting Taizé mostly to develop a particular type of spirituality: missional spirituality, or simply, spirituality for mission.
And my missional vocation will be lived out in a particular type of context: military chaplaincy.

It's therefore fitting that in the same way that soldiers will conduct mission rehearsal exercises before deploying overseas, I'm currently conducting my own mission rehearsal exercise. I'm in Sydney for the week to attend a facilitation by Steve Taylor on mission, discipleship and leadership in cultures of change. In a number of ways I've tried to make this trip a practice for my travel in Europe:

• I travelled only with hand luggage (I don't think I can ever travel with checked baggage again, it's so much quicker and easier),
• I relied heavily on the hospitality of others - my hosts are generous and flexible and even though I do my own thing a lot of the time, I still feel like we share a significant amount of time, 
• most of my non-study activities were unplanned before arriving (except for one), even a proposed trip to the a neighbouring city. 

In some ways I'm already starting to live the life of a pilgrim – travelling lightly, looking for God's grace at work in others and spontaneity – but there is certainly much to learn as I refine both the way I travel and discipline the way I live. 

(Numerous clichéd ways of making this last point tempted me in this late-night moment of weakness – much ground to cover, a long way to journey, etc – but I have successfully avoided placing them in the body of the post. I include them here for illustrative purposes only.)

Technology and pilgrimage

Today I started reading the journal of another caminante, edited and compiled into book form; it's inspiring and I know that I'd really like to be able to do the same. I'm not sure that I'm capable of adding another expectation: so far my commitments are to the pilgrimage journey and certain practices along the way – what that all adds up to at the end seems a little beyond me, especially now. And even if I could undertake this extra task, I'm not sure that I should. 

Mostly I want to avoid taking too much technology with me: I remember Richard Foster's insight that simplicity is not about having nothing more to add, but having nothing more to take away. I am primarily a traveller, and not a photographer or writer and I really want to walk as I normally would and not be weighed down by a camera, books and a computer, even if it means that I have less to show for it afterwards. And that, for me, is really saying something. So I'm still working out what to take with me, but most importantly what to leave behind. If only I could this way when I'm not on pilgrimage.

[The Spanish word for 'pilgrim' is peregrino, from which is derived touregrino, for a spiritual tourist (perhaps another post on this one day?). In the twenty-first century, can the technogrino ever be a true pilgrim?]

Reading list

On top of reading that I'm doing for my other, current, subjects (Lifelong learning for leadership and Mission, discipleship and leadership in cultures of change), I'm also hoping to read or re-read about a dozen books on missional spirituality, the camino or Taizé before I go. So, here's the list so far:

• Arthur Poel Boers (2007) The way is made by walking: a pilgrimage along the camino de Santiago
• Kenneth Collins (2000) Exploring Christian spirituality: an ecumenical reader
• Charles Foster (2010) The sacred journey
• Christian George (2006) Sacred travels: recovering the ancient art of pilgrimage
• Anthony Gittens (2001) Bread for the journey: the mission of transformation and the transformation of mission
• Ignatius of Loyola (1914) The spiritual exercises
• Frere Roger (2006) Essential writings
• John Brian Santos (2008) A community called Taizé: a story of prayer, worship and reconciliation
• Evelyn Underhill (2003) Essential writings
• Tom Wright (1999) The way of the Lord

As you can see, there's room for a couple more. So, if you've got a suggestion please let me know in the comments.