the emergent christian

Forgiveness thought

2009-11-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

Think about this.

Jesus went around forgiving people, and claiming the authority to forgive sins. Further, he freely offered this forgiveness, without requiring anything of the people who sought him.

But when Jesus did this, he had not yet died. And yet, he claimed he could forgive sins.

If Jesus could forgive sins at any time, could God forgive sins at any time?

Reading the Bible literally?

2008-12-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to use this post to critique literal readings of the Bible. Instead, I want to paraphrase The Princess Bride, and point out: "I don't think that word means what you think it means".

A long time ago, a preacher I knew told me about another preacher who offended his congregation. What did the congregation do? According to my friend: "They literally crucified him!"

Except that they only got angry. No crosses or nails were used to express their anger. So, um, "literal" is probably the exact wrong word to use there.

I have the same reaction when I hear people talking about whether they take the Bible literally or not. A common conversation might go like this:

Vaguely Christian Person: "The Bible teaches that God hates gay people."
Vaguely unChristian Person: "Wait, you don't take the Bible literally, do you?"
Vaguely Christian Person: "Yep, every word."

The funny thing to me is that "taking the Bible literally" is the very last thing either of them should be concerned about in this conversation. No one that I know has ever suggested the passages on homosexuality are "figurative".

Bigger issues are "Does the Bible teach that homosexual activities are sinful?", "Does it teach that God hates sinners?", "Do the passages on homosexuality need to be interpreted in light of cultural circumstances?", "Is every word of the Bible from God?", and even, "Do we take the Bible's moral pronouncements seriously?"

These are big issues, and not one of them is addressed by asking whether one takes the Bible "literally" or not.

Since the Bible is rife with NON-literal metaphors like "the Lamb of God", etc, it should be obvious that "taking the Bible literally" is exactly the wrong thing to be talking about.

Unfortunately, the horrid usage of the word "literally" has caused it to be confused with "seriously" or "truthfully" or "factually". And that has led a lot of people to have knee-jerk reactions against talking about "figurative" or "metaphorical" interpretations of scripture.

Once, I was having a conversation with someone about being "cleansed by Jesus' blood". I mentioned that this was figurative, and she practically (but not literally) went ballistic. She kept insisting that we literally come into contact with Jesus' blood at baptism, and that his blood literally cleanses us.

Consider: blood has no ability to clean anything. Christianity is not about being literally clean - it's about having sin removed. Sin is not literally dirty. Jesus' blood isn't literally around anymore, and is certainly not floating in baptismal waters.

So everything about this is a metaphor. People become figuratively dirty through sin, and need a figurative cleansing. Jesus' figurative blood figuratively washes people, removing the figurative dirt.

Realizing these facts doesn't in any way diminish what Jesus has done. In fact, to try to take these concepts literally just makes them creepy and weird.

Almost everything in the Bible is infused with figurative language. From Revelation, which is entirely figurative, to the parables, which mean "figurative", to the expressions like "Lamb of God" and "Bright and morning star", to Jesus' own insistence on using metaphors like "eat my body", regardless of how offensive people found them.

So, please stop talking as if any of our doctrinal or moral controversies are tied up with taking something "literally". Of all words, let's at least let the word "literal" be used that way.

Apocalypse: Been There, Done That

2008-12-08T12:37:00.001-08:00

I've just finished writing up an article about why I believe the Second Coming has already happened. It's relatively short, far from comprehensive, and is only an attempt to look at the basics. Essentially, it's an overview of the story of the New Testament, and the times the New Testament authors perceived themselves to be living in.

http://micahredding.com/blog/apocalypse-been-there-done-that/

More important than understanding the WHEN of the Second Coming, is understanding the WHAT and the WHY. And I attempt to address that.

The real damage done by pre-millennialism and other religious eschatologies of the last 200 years is that they rob us of an understanding of what God has already done, why Jesus did what he did, and what God is truly interested in.

If we can discover a better understanding of eschatology, we can recover a better understanding of God.

I'd love to discuss this. Feel free to leave comments on the article below.

Zehnder: the band, the men, the mission

2008-11-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

I received Zehnder's newest album: "Going Up" the other day. It's being offered as worship music.

It sounds quite unique. I wonder if they anticipate other people singing along to this? I don't really think it has either the hymn-like or devo-song feel that allows for people to sing along. But that doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it's not simple and repetitive.

The album's sound is kind of "acoustic L.A." It reminds me vaguely of Alanis Morissette. But it is more acoustic, and definitely, uh, more christian.

Ultimately, it might be really good for getting into a kind of mystical trance. You might like it.

Christianity in my life

2008-11-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

I grew up in a series of churches that could be described as legalistic and ultra-conservative. But those designations aren't really important. The important word is shallow.

It would have been easy for me to accept the religious perspective I was handed, as it was. I would have done what was needed to stay out of hell, would have understood what check-marks I needed to check, and that would have been it. And then I would have set out to make my life as thoroughly secular as possible.

With nothing deeper than staying out of hell, no actual interest in religion or Jesus or God would have been needed - and there would have been no reason or room to be interested.

But my life didn't work out that way. From early on, I knew there was a space - sometimes big, sometimes small - between what my parents thought and what the church was teaching.

The religion that the church taught me was bland, uninteresting, extremely shallow, and held no significance whatsoever. It did not inspire great things, it did not provoke great dreams, it did not ask for anything except a narrow understanding of "moral living", and a basic set of religious rituals to perform on weekends.

Instead, it sunk me in a mire of depression. All I could see was the ignorance and shallowness of those around me. And those were the people held up as models for us to aspire to.

But my parents created a space between what I was hearing in the church, and what they thought. And that space became a bigger space in my mind between the church's religion and what was real. That space became a crack of light, through which I saw hope.

Because of that space, I never saw Christianity as the rituals, traditions, prejudice, and shallowness of the churches I was in. Instead, I saw it as something beautiful and transcendent, something far removed from anything I knew. And I began my search for it.

Stuck in the hopelessness of my surroundings, I saw Christianity as the one thing that could transform my life. Somehow, Christianity held out the possibility of being free, of becoming better than what my surroundings had prepared me to be, of living a meaningful and fulfilled and dramatic life.

I looked to Christianity for transformation.

I feel like Paul, saying "not that I have already attained..."

But this hope is the one fuel that has driven my life. I live like I do because I believe there is something beautiful and transcendent hidden away in the teachings of Jesus - hidden only because our religious traditions have clouded our minds. I live like I do because I want to attain to it.

And I only hold out that hope because a long time ago, my parents subtly demonstrated that Christianity is not what the church told me it was.

Thinking about Genesis

2008-10-17T15:11:00.001-07:00

I have been doing some reading about Genesis, the beginnings of humanity, and the evolutionary account of human origins. It strikes me that a bit of clarity in thinking is in order. One may take several stances on the Genesis account:

The account is of divine origin, and describes a beginning totally distinct from that proposed by modern science. This we can call the literalist stance. This view holds to a very literal understanding of the events described in Genesis 1-3.
The account is of divine origin, and concerns itself only with very recent history, in harmony with the account of modern science. This we can call the localist stance. This view might hold that Adam was the first Jewish person, or the first person chosen by God (like Noah or Abraham) to carry out God's wishes.
The account is of divine origin, and is a complex metaphor about all of history, in harmony with modern science. This we can call the allegorical stance. This view might hold that the 6 days of creation were six ages, and that Adam represents a primordial tribe, or a succession of different individuals over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
The account is not of divine origin, but was intended to understood as literally true, just like in view #1. It just happens to be wrong, and modern science is right. This we might call the secular literalist stance.
The account is not of divine origin, but concerns itself with the recent past, which the Jewish people would have had records of. This we might call the secular localist stance.
The account is not of divine origin, but is a complex metaphor about all of history, in harmony with modern science. This we can call the secular allegorical stance.

What is confusing to me is the number of people who seem to hold view #6. As in, they don't believe the account is divinely inspired, but they believe it deals with realities of science that we're only just now discovering.

As far as #3, the idea of day-ages seems fairly straight-forward, with precedent in ancient Jewish interpretations. But how does this view deal with Adam? Many of the ideas I've run across have a complex understandings of just who Adam is. The idea that God intended to reveal the truth about human origins, but delivered this in a complex allegory in which multiple persons over hundreds of thousands of years are summed up as one individual seems a little preposterous. To be specific, some of the interpretations I've read don't seem like anything one could ever deduce from the text.

There are other views possible. One view which I believe will gain a lot of ground in the near future is that the story is not chronological at all, but symbolic of processes and truths. So that the days of creation aren't intended to indicate that grass was created before fish, but that there is a pattern to the order of the universe. The days of creation follow a pattern of separation and then filling: Light is separated from dark on day 1, then sun and moon and stars fill this division on day 4; Clouds and separated from sea on day 2, then birds and fish fill these respective areas on day 5.

These views are the broad picture - the details can vary greatly.

The New Mystics

2008-10-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading The New Mystics, by John Crowder - the guy who wants to "toke God". As has been mentioned by others, the primary feeling one has in reading this book is cognitive dissonance. How can he write this well?

He does write well, and compellingly. One of his thoughts struck me hard, and I wanted to see what others thought.

He suggests "suicide preachers". As in, other people send Suicide Bombers to blow us up, we send Suicide Preachers to show them something better. Instead of watching a lone individual explode, destroying those around him, we'd see hundreds of people "imploding" on a lone preacher, destroying him.

The concept is mind-shaking. Particularly when he goes on to suggest these "suicide preachers" would come from the ranks of the young men with few connections, and little to lose. The mentality is the same as that of the suicide bombers, only to reverse ends.

The idea is not that far from scriptural. Jesus and the early disciples purposefully put themselves into "suicidal" situations in order to proclaim the message of Jesus even louder.

What do you think?

A biblical pattern

2008-09-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'd like to get feedback on this. Here's a pattern I see in the bible. First, Genesis 1:

Begin: the earth is formless and void and dark.
Day 0: God said: "Let there be light!"
Day 1: Divided the Light from the Darkness
Day 2: Divided the Sky from the Water
Day 3: Divided the Land from the Sea
Day 4: Filled the Light and Darkness with Sun, Moon, stars
Day 5: Filled the Sky and Water with Birds and Fish
Day 6: Filled the Land with Animals and Humans
(anticipation of something new - humans)
Day 7: Rest

Now in this, there's an obvious pattern. 3 days of separation, then 3 days of filling in those separations with something to "rule" them. The sun is said to rule the day, the moon rules the night, birds rule the sky, fish rule the sea, and humanity rules the earth. It's a nice parallel.

Another thing I'm pulling out here is that what happens on Day 6, the last set of "fillings", sets the stage for an entirely different order of things. After Genesis 1, God will no longer be dealing with the sky and sea and land as much as he will be dealing with humanity. Humanity appears in this creation order as the anticipation of something new - the human order.

Interestingly, at least 6 days of this pattern seem to hold in another way as you continue to read through Genesis.

Begin: a human is formed out of dust
Stage 0: God breathes into him the breath of life
Stage 1: Divided man from nature (naming the animals)
Stage 2: Divided man from woman (the rib)
Stage 3: Divided woman from serpent (temptation)
Stage 4: Fill the division of man and nature (cursed with toil in working the ground)
Stage 5: Fill the division of man and woman (cursed with pain in raising children)
Stage 6: Fill the division of woman and serpent (cursed with enmity)

The curses God hands out line up precisely with the separations he caused the first time around. Where before man and woman were separate, now they will struggle with each other. And as Adam will have struggle bringing forth food from the ground, Eve will have struggle bringing forth children. In the same way, the serpent's offspring will struggle with Eve's offspring.

And in the curse on the serpent, there is the anticipation of something new, a perplexing prophecy that indicates a new order of things is coming.

Your thoughts?

A Christian Band? - embedding Christianity in life

2008-09-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

This is from my personal adventure blog. It deals with an alternate approach to how Christianity plays in public today. I call that approach embedded Christianity.

This weekend I was asked for the thousandth time if my band is a “Christian band”.

It’s a tricky question - with many ramifications on either side.

If I say, “Yes, we are a Christian band”, then I pigeon-hole us in a way I don’t want to be pigeon-holed. In many people’s minds, at least, this would mean that we only play songs that directly talk about a spiritual or religious subject. To most people, it would mean we were playing “Contemporary Christian Music”, a genre that has less to do with Christian subject matter than with a particular sound that has broad appeal among the Christian market.

Neither of those things are true about us. We do not play CCM (Contemporary Christian Music), nor do I limit my songs to ones that have religious themes.

My approach to music is from a different direction altogether. Rather than set out a genre that I want my music to fall into, I set out from the start to write music about things I cared about. The things I think about and immerse myself in become the subjects and the inspiration for the songs I write.

Rather than set out to write a song about the theological notion of God’s grace, I write a song that arises suddenly and spontaneously from my experience of the utter depth of my faithlessness - and the recognition of God’s presence even there.

How could I say we’re a Christian band? But how could I say we’re not?

The issue is that we’ve divided the world up into the “Christian market” and the “secular market”, into “the Christian subculture” and everything else. We have Christian movies, Christian music, Christian comedians, Christian television, Christian books, Christian bookstores, Christian colleges, etc, etc, etc.

I don’t think Jesus intended things to be done this way. Jesus didn’t intend to set up a subculture - an insular group creating content only for themselves. Instead, he intended to create a group that would go out into the world and draw from his example to create, to transform the situations they found themselves in.

Rather than Christian movies, we should have Christians embedded in Hollywood, involved in the making of movies, influencing them to be deeper, more artistic, more authentic. Rather than Christian musicians, we should have Christians involved in the creation of music at all levels, embedded in the music culture, authentically expressing the human spirit.

If we shift from the idea of a Christian subculture to this idea of embedded Christianity, we will see something far more productive than simply an alternate version of whatever’s popular in secular culture. Instead, we will see the rise of an entirely new level of cultural and creative development, as Christians everywhere begin to use their God-given creativity to transform all of their lives.

If we shift to this idea of embedded Christianity, we won’t just see more songs written to be sung on Sunday mornings, we’ll see songs written to cruise to, to climb mountains with, to sing to your friends and neighbors. We’ll see music that addresses all of our God-given human emotions, that honors the depths of humanity created in the image of God.

And bearing the image of God in all that you do is definitely not a narrow genre.

Music

2008-09-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, the church I was part of was offended by Christian music. According to the argument, worship only occurred in the church, without the use of instruments. Therefore, any music that DID use instruments was okay, as long as it was NOT intended to worship or praise God in any way. For instrumental music to offer thanks to God was for it to encroach on "God's music".

Thus, in a strange twist of logic, Christian music became the "devil's music". It was okay to listen to country, rock, or pop - just not Christian.

At the same time, I was hanging out with another group of very conservative Christians. But their conservatism was in the other direction - they believed that all "secular music" was sinful, and it was only appropriate to listen to explicitly Christian music.

I was in a very confusing situation.

Driving up to someone's house with my radio tuned to the local Top 40 station would potentially earn me some looks and a reprimand. But to switch over to the local Christian station would offend others' conscience.

Either way, I was straying outside the lines of what GOD considered appropriate.

This odd dichotomy was characteristic of how I grew up, and it forced me to think very hard about a lot of things. One question I asked myself was "what music is from God?"

I thought very hard. Who was behind the melodies of different genres of music? Who was behind the driving beats? Who was behind the lyrical cleverness I admired so much?

And it occurred to me that ALL of this was a creation of God. Just like Peter saw the unclean animals, and heard God tell him "eat!", I realized that there was no dichotomy. There was no music of the devil - all of it was from God.

Every bit of a piece of music, from the rhythm to the chord progression, from the timbre of a singer's voice to the words of their lyrics, comes from God. The fact that notes can come together to make chords, the way a rhythm resonates with you, our entire ability to appreciate another person's musical creation - it's entirely a gift from God.

Which is not to say that some music isn't offensive or disturbing. But nothing can be disturbing or ugly without a reference point - a God-given beauty hidden inside it. Even if I don't choose to listen to rap, r&b, or much country, I still have to acknowledge that the existence of any of those genres can only be traced to God.

In the middle ages, there was a theory called "The Ape of God". The devil, the argument went, can only imitate what God has created. Therefore everything evil is simply a distorted imitation of something good. It was an insightful way to look at the world, and all the things attributed to Satan.

But it did not go far enough. There is nothing that a devil can create that God has not already made - no pleasure that can be created that God did not call into existence. Even if there is something horrendous and ugly, it is not even an imitation of God's handiwork. An imitation of God's creation can never escape the fact that only God allows its existence.

The devil himself can only exist because of God's graciousness.

Everything that exists is from God. Look closely and see it.

Unintended Consequences

2008-09-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Greg Newton posted a good piece about the Uncertainty of Justice over at Emergent Village.

It's easy to talk about justice. It's harder to actually do justice.

As he points out, even something like giving food to struggling farmers can actually undermine the local economy.

The problem is unintended consequences. Our world is a complex network, an ecosystem. Human society is an ecosystem to itself. And when you try to alter an ecosystem, you find that the task is much more complex than expected.

Another name for this is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly's attempts to drink nectar in America can result in a tsunami in some other part of the world.

Almost all political solutions sound promising. That's why they're developed, after all: to sound really good to a large number of people.

But the downfall of political solutions is in the doing. All political solutions result in unexpected side-effects.

The problem isn't just in politics. It's in improving the economy, saving the environment, treating diseases, waging war, and dealing with religion. Complex systems are difficult to tinker with.

But complex systems are exactly what our future will consist of. And so humanity's new job is to discover the science, the technique, of working with complex systems in organic ways.

This is our task, and our hope of survival.

Beyond Polarization

2008-09-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

People often say, "God is not a democrat or republican". This is a welcome change from a few years ago, when people often claimed that a Christian could only vote for a particular political party, or face the wrath of God.

But it is not enough. That statement does not adequately deal with the depth of feeling on each side of the issue.

Conservatives, for example, feel that liberal policies are blatantly immoral. They steal from one group to distribute to another, they advocate the death of children, etc. Opposition to the "liberals", then, is not just a political preference, but a deeply held ethical belief.

On the other hand, liberals protest that conservatives have gutted the gospel. Jesus' statements about the poor are ignored by conservatives in favor of their wealthy constituents. Opposition to the "conservatives", then, is an attempt to deliver divine justice.

Both are right and wrong in this. Liberals bring the realization that law does not equal ethics; whether to outlaw abortion is a different ethical question than whether abortion is good. This is something the conservatives have yet to realize. Conservatives bring the realization that the "means" are just as important as the "ends"; that every means of helping the poor is not equally right.

There is a lot that each needs to learn from the other, as old party lines are transcended, and new social and political realities begin to form.

What insights can you bring from your traditions?

I'm Not There: Bob Dylan and The Spirit

2008-07-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

I first watched I'm Not There at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville. It's a film based on the many lives of Bob Dylan, who is played by six different characters, including Kate Blanchett. It's not your average movie fare, to say the least. It sparked several thoughts the first time I watched it. And on the flight back from Kuwait, I watched it again.

I'm not enough of a Dylan expert to feel qualified to evaluate the movie, but here is what it made me think.

Chaos is Key. The universe exists on the edge of order and chaos. The artist is the one who travels farther over the edge than anyone else, and brings part of his experience back. The revolutionary is the one who brings the chaos back with him. When Bob Dylan went electric at the height of his folk popularity, he found a way to introduce chaos into his world. From listening to him, it seems that this was his intention. Chaos is both destructive and constructive: it tears down the forms of the old, so that something new and unexpected may result.

There is no "End". We deceive ourselves into seeing ourselves heading towards a climax. Perhaps that is the only way we can see things; but once there, we discover that our climax was only a local maximum on the road of history. The movie (perhaps unwittingly) made this point through several false endings, both in the individual characters' lives, and in the movie as a whole. One character dodges a bullet and escapes to the hills, to live a reclusive life as a vanished legend. We've seen this story before; he goes out in a blaze of glory, but secretly he survives and vanishes into a cloud of dust. And his story is supposed to be over.

But life is not a fairy tale, and no matter how much legend we've created for ourselves, life must go on, and our character (no matter how much he tells himself otherwise) will continue to adventure and travel and run from the law.

Many in America saw their world coming to an end in the 1960s. Everything was falling out of whack: between hippies and war, assassinations and corruption, the world seemed like it was falling apart.

But life goes on, and so after the cultural apocalypse of the 60s and 70s, you have the 80s and 90s.

Humans are so used to expecting an end. Living in a world without end requires new ways of approaching life.

Jesus was an artist. The second time I watched the movie, I was struck by something that particularly hits home to me as a musician.

In one scene, the Bob Dylan character is fed up with the world, and goes out causing mayhem with poet Allen Ginsberg. In a park, they find a statue of Jesus on the cross, and begin hurling insults at it. But the insults are tinged with sarcasm: "Come down, boy, or you might get hurt up there!" and "Play your early stuff!"

The unspoken truth is that they are not actually mocking Jesus; they are seeing themselves in his place. Just like them, Jesus was a radical who was often simultaneously lauded, rejected and misunderstood by his own people. Just like them, Jesus was an artist, a poet - and the public didn't always understand the demands of his art.

The bane of the performing musician is the guy in the back of the audience who yells "Freebird!" It's a joke, a stereotype - but it's true - the audience doesn't want art, they want to hear what they know, what they've heard before. The audience doesn't want to hear The Rolling Stones playing their new songs; the crowds yell:

"Play Satisfaction!"

"Play your early stuff!"

Jesus found himself in this scenario again and again. He healed people, and people loved him. He fed people, and thousands followed him. "Multiply more loaves!", they would yell. "Play your early stuff!"

But Jesus the artist wanted to move on. Jesus wanted to transcend what he had already created, what he had already done. He wanted to do things bigger and deeper and wider than he had done before. He had a bigger vision in mind. But the crowds didn't see it.

Jesus tells them that the real bread is his body, the real drink is his blood. And the people leave. "Why doesn't he just stick to the good stuff?", they probably asked. "We know what we want to see! Why this new teaching? Why these new songs? Why not some more food miracles?"

"Play your early stuff!"

Art has its own desires. It desires to transcend what has come before, to move to a higher level, to draw the audience into a deeper engagement and understanding.

And so art has a pain attached to it. Especially when your art is your love for all mankind.

God Does Not Belong to Anyone

2008-07-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

God does not belong to anyone.

The merchants of God try to sell him, putting "half price!" and "deep discount!" stickers on him, wrapping ribbons and bows around his little box.

But he is not theirs to sell.

And if you take him home, he will escape from the pretty trappings on the mantle, and run through your house, upsetting your pretty little life.

Music as Community

2008-04-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

For a while now, I've been quite aware of the whole "Musician-as-Entrepreneur" community. This community revolves around re-visualizing the artist as the small business-person. And it has done some pretty important things, notably spreading the ideas that you don't need a "music executive" to give you permission to make music, and that it's perfectly acceptable for artists to make money from their art.

Here are some examples of this movement:
David Hooper - music business
Bob Baker - music business advisor
Scott Andrew - diy musician

But after listening to these ideas for several years now, I'm starting to feel like something's missing. They're good ideas. I just need something more.

After all, I became a performing musician so I could influence others, and share my songs and ideas with them.

So I'm re-thinking what it means to be a musician. And I'm thinking of a new model for independent music.

Musicians as instigators.
Songs as powerful ideas.
Bands as causes.
Concerts as actualized change.

This is how I've thought for some time now. Only now, I see it more clearly.

My role as musician is to be an instigator or catalyst of change. My songs are the pieces of time and tone that encapsulate the powerful feelings and ideas of change. My band is a cause to be believed in. My concerts are moments when our vision becomes actualized.

And the concert and the listeners and the audience...that is the music becoming community.

What is Community? Part 2 : Community is Creation

2008-04-03T11:27:00.001-07:00

What IS community? Is it shared location? Shared experiences? Shared beliefs? Is it even possible to have significant community without the benefit of physical presence?

I think so, but I think we need a new way of thinking about community.

I think that we have to understand community in terms of SHARED CREATION.

One of the things I do is to write songs. In the rare moment when I write one that is really, deeply good, I feel like I've touched something deep inside me. I feel like I've tapped into something God gave me, and I value that moment of creativity for its own sake, even if no one else ever hears that song.

But the same impulse that leads me to write the song compels me to share it with others. And so I go out and spread it, sharing it with those I feel will be receptive to it.

Most definitions of "community" stop there. Among churches, "community" means that everyone listens to the same sermons. Marketers think of "community" as people who like the same music, or watch the same reality TV shows. Online "community" is usually about being a fan of something, like Star Wars or Macintosh computers. These types of "community" are all about having a central flow of information or a central source of creativity.

That's a pretty pale definition of community. Although it is an attempt to build community on the basis of shared beliefs or interests, it's a poor replacement for the traditional concept. This is why many churches (and a lot of modern life) seem pretty shallow and unfulfilling; their idea of community is building up a certain size listening audience.

Having people hear my song is good, but when someone hears the song and is inspired to go out and create something themselves, that is something entirely different. That's how most musicians become musicians; and that's how it worked for me. Particular musicians created music that affected me deeply, and sparked my desire to do something as profound as they did. And they made me realize, to my amazement, that I was capable of doing so.

When the people who've heard the song turn around and create music, art, lifestyle changes, literature, or movements, then an amazing process has started.

That process continues when those people come back and inspire me with their creations. And when the people who've been inspired by the song begin to create and inspire each other, over and over and over...

That's when I think community has begun.

So community is not just shared interests or activities, or being in the same audience. Instead, real community happens when our creation and inspiration of each other becomes intertwined, and we're all involved in the creative process together.

A "community" needs to do more than listen to, or discuss, the same things. A community needs to be involved in actually creating things, drawing inspiration from each other, allowing shared ideas to cross-pollinate.

What is Community?

2008-04-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

What IS community?

This is something that I'm going to be thinking about for awhile.

Community has traditionally referred to a geographically integrated group of people. This kind of community shares common experiences and habits. They shop at the same grocery store, send their kids to the same school, have some relatives in common, and share the same basic world-view and outlook on life.

This kind of community started fraying at the edges when Christianity was introduced. Christianity originated as a small persecuted group, not at home in either the Jewish or the Roman world, and so Christians explicitly believed that an individual might hold a radically different belief-system than their community. Further, Christians saw themselves as part of a community that transcended location.

So Christianity introduced the concept of community built on values rather than history. But this concept is a hard one, and if you are no longer a small, persecuted group, it is probably too vague to put into practice.

It wasn't until the 20th century that the traditional type of community really started to fall apart. Mobility and technology reshaped the world, so that people were no longer tied down to an ancestral village, state, or nation. Travel became a common right, rather than an exotic adventure.

In the 21st century, this has practically demolished the traditional idea of community. Next-door neighbors no longer have much in common, or share much conversation. Cities allow people to choose dramatically different traditions and styles of living. Community as something centralized by geography has almost disappeared.

Some people look to online community to take up the slack. For many of us plagued with wildly untraditional ideas, it has ended our sense of isolation, and helped us to find a sense of legitimacy.

Others look to local churches to take on the mantle of community. Many people develop important relationships through their affiliation with a particular church.

But what IS community?

Is it shared location? Shared experiences? Shared beliefs?

...more to come...

Going public with my ideas

2008-03-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

I am a grand schemer; I devise plans not just for me, but for the world. And a small part of those ideas get put into practice, and change things. But most of it goes undone.

During the weekend in Atlanta, I attended the APCA conference, lived through a tornado, and set my mind on fire with ideas. Ideas that need DONE.

And so in determining to DO things, I've decided that I need to go public with my intentions. I need ideas and help from others, and the ability to bounce my ideas off the world.

My aim is to do more with my band than just deliver a concert. I want to create an experience, and transcend what bands are "supposed" to do. I want to empower people to turn around and create their own world, rather than being content to consume the one created by what's left of MTV.

I'm taking baby-steps in that direction already. We're working on partnering with some organizations that are doing important things. We've worked with charities (like the Heifer Project) that we felt were doing something unique and creative in the world. We're moving into concerts that are more meaningful, and are more than just a show.

I want to make our concerts places where people build spontaneous community, not just an event people watch together. I want our concerts to empower and inspire people to go home and change their life. And I don't mean that in a touchy-feely way.

Some concerts leave you feeling like you want to quit your job and burn down your house. Not because they make you feel destructive, but because they inspire you with the vision of something bigger and much more amazing that YOU are capable of.

I want to do that. I want to be that band. I want to inspire the next renaissance.

There's my soul. I want your feedback.

-micah

Politics, again

2008-02-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

I apologize if I offended anyone with my last couple of posts. I wasn't trying to paint a bleak or pessimistic picture; I'm very optimistic about humanity. But I felt the need to testify to the truth as I see it in this one area.

Nor was I trying to say that all politicians are evil. Doubtless, many have approached politics with the sincere desire to do good.

It's just that I don't believe politicians anymore. The higher you ascend the political tower, the less and less sincere you become. You can tell that the presidential candidates are not honest or sincere people. Or if they are, it's been buried beneath the advice of their political advisors. I would normally not say that about anyone ... but actions speak.

I do believe in working for good in whatever situation you are in. But I also believe that if you're going to be a bull-fighter, you should expect to be gored. Certain things just go together, like politics and corruption.

For what it's worth, Ron Paul and Barak Obama seem to be the most sincere of the candidates.

-Micah Redding

Alternatives to Politics

2008-02-05T21:32:00.001-08:00

If politics is about who controls the guns (and it is), what alternatives can we create? Here are some ideas:

Most people view "law" as a series of statements about what we value. As in, "we hold marriage to be between a man and a woman". But those kinds of "laws" are just touchy-feely comments added in to make you feel nice. They're not really laws. Real laws specify who lives and who dies; who spends their life in jail, and who goes free.

We could perhaps extract the one from the other. Statements of values need to be made, and are valuable in and of themselves. We could easily establish a universally recognized body which would make appropriate statements about the values of the nation. Such an entity would be known as a "Court", but would have no connection to an executive branch (unlike in the current system).

Such an entity could even judge cases, and make decisions in difficult controversies. When neighbors fought, they could bring their cases before this Court. But because this entity would have no executive branch, it would be very inclined to bring mutually acceptable resolutions to bear for both parties. When this failed, the judgment of the Court would be held by the country as most likely being the truth, and people who were aware of the case would use this information in choosing how to behave towards the guilty party.

Any executive groups that developed, like security or police forces, would use the judgment of the Court as the basis of how people are treated. If they interacted with a criminal who had been judged guilty, they might feel free to lock that person up for an appropriate amount of time. The security force would be hesitant to abuse their power, as they would rely on the endorsement of the Court to drum up new business.

In this case, we've extracted violence from any kind of government-like organization, and put it in the hands of small, de-centralized citizen groups. That may be the recipe for less control, but it's also certainly the recipe for less fascism.

On the other hand, we've switched from creating "laws" to having a "central standards organization", much as we have for web programming. In web programming, we have no laws, we just have recommendations from a central, trusted group. And they accomplish more than laws ever could.

I've presented just one possibility here. What are some others?

Here's to Politics

2008-02-05T21:18:00.000-08:00

Here's politics and the world in a few hundred words.

Law is violence. A "law" is just the statement, "do this or we will kill you". Tax law means "pay taxes or we will lock you up in jail, or shoot you, or destroy your family". Criminal law is "don't do bad things to other people, or we will lock you up in jail or shoot you, however we feel at the moment". Civil law is "pay those people the money you owe, or we'll send someone out to harass you, and if you don't listen to them, we'll send someone out to threaten you, and if you don't listen to them, we'll shoot you".

The motives might be good, and we might defend the right of the law to use violence. But violence is what it is.

Government is the use of violence in a diplomatic and secretive way.
Politics is the bitter struggle for the right to control the guns.

When you have something that is birthed in violence, it will return to violence. Thus, politics will never be clean, politicians will never be honest, and the government will never be effective. They're not designed to be. The government exists to maximize its ability to perform violence, not to suit some petty purpose you believe you've foisted on it.

Because of this, entanglement in politics leads to corruption. Look at the religious right and their multitude of scandals.

But there's a better way. Politics doesn't have to rule. Let's consider other possibilities.

I'm Not There: Bob Dylan and The Spirit

2007-12-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

I watched I'm Not There last night at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. It's a film based on the many lives of Bob Dylan, who is played by six different characters, including Kate Blanchett. I 'm not enough of a Dylan expert to feel qualified to evaluate the movie, but it sparked several thoughts.

Chaos is Key. The universe exists on the edge of order and chaos. The artist is the one who travels farther over the edge than anyone else, and brings part of his experience back. The revolutionary is the one who brings the chaos back with him. When Bob Dylan went electric at the height of his folk popularity, he found a way to introduce chaos into his world. From listening to him, it seems that this was his intention. Chaos is both destructive and constructive: it tears down the forms of the old, so that something new and unexpected may result.

There is no "End". We deceive ourselves into seeing ourselves heading towards a climax. Perhaps that is the only way we can see things; but once there, we discover that our climax was only a local maximum on the road of history. The movie (perhaps unwittingly) made this point through several false endings, both in the individual characters' lives, and in the movie as a whole. One character dodges a bullet and escapes to the hills, to live a reclusive life as a vanished legend. We've seen this story before; he goes out in a blaze of glory, but secretly he survives and vanishes into a cloud of dust. And his story is supposed to be over.

But life is not a fairy tale, and no matter how much legend we've created for ourselves, life must go on, and our character (no matter how much he tells himself otherwise) will continue to adventure and travel and run from the law.

Many in America saw their world coming to an end in the 1960s. Everything was falling out of wack: between hippies and war, assassinations and corruption, the world seemed like it was falling apart.

But life goes on, and so after the cultural apocalypse of the 60s and 70s, you have the 80s and 90s.

Humans are so used to expecting an end. Living in a world without end requires new ways of approaching life.

Proof vs. The Bible

2007-12-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

I like proofs.

I find beauty in elegant mathematical facts, strung together to establish surprising truths with rock-hard precision.

But as I've gotten older, I've reluctantly realized that bible study is not an area for "proofs".

See, the bible is not a book of systematic theology, statements of cold fact, or logical deductions. It's a book of stories, poetry, proverbs, wit, allusions, and emotion. And it's hard to deduce cold logical statements from that.

The Church of Christ holds that instrumental music in a church service is wrong. The argument is made based on a little-known principle called "The Law of Exclusion", which states that if something is not commanded, it is prohibited.

Now, even the most staunch proponents of this view admit (when pressed) that this principle is largely dependent on human discretion. Concrete baptistries are not commanded either, nor are pulpits or church buildings. In fact, we have examples and commands to the contrary on all of those. But the argument goes that such things are "expedient".

But one man's expediency is another man's heresy.

The bible is like history: it is messy. Like history, the bible is not the domain of cold, hard logic. We can no more prove that instrumental music is wrong than we can prove that Alexander The Great actually lived. We can no more prove that Alexander The Great lived than we can prove that Jesus really gave the sermon on the mountain.

History is the domain of reasonable certainty. Not proof.

There is no way to prove anyone's existence in history. All we can do is piece together the evidence, use reason and sense, and make educated guesses. And we must always keep in mind the limits of our own knowledge, and the filters through which we view the world.

Logic doesn't have those limitations, but history does. And so does the bible. The best we can do is to use reason and sense to determine what the bible means with reasonable certainty, always keeping in mind our own limitations.

Don't read me wrong: I believe in cold, hard facts. I believe that questions about God and Jesus have true answers in cold, hard reality.

But the bible is not a collection of cold hard facts. It is story, and story through which we must filter our lives.

And when we venture outside the realm of proof to the realm of reasonable certainty, a wholly different degree of humility is required.

Two Views of Jesus

2007-12-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

I read an article the other day which was intent on drawing the battle lines across our culture.

It stated that there were two views of Jesus in common circulation: the view that Jesus is God, and the view that Jesus was a social radical who preached a revolutionary message.

Read that again. The two views aren't "Jesus is God" vs. "Jesus was just a man". The two views are "Jesus is ranked as equal to God" vs. "Jesus taught important things". This author is contrasting two views of what is perceived to be most significant about Jesus. Is it more important what Jesus' rank and status was, or what he taught and did?

This Christian's answer was that it is more important what Jesus' rank was. It is more important to see Jesus as having the rank of "God" than to understand his teachings. And in a twisted way, I can see how this makes sense.

I think this is a common approach among Christians. Rather than worry about understanding the social significance of Jesus to his people and time, all we have to do is fill in the right name on our diagram of heaven. Thus, "Jesus" becomes simply another word for "God", and the Jesus these people pray to wears a white robe and emanates rays of light.

But I think both of these views miss the point.

If we understand Jesus as simply a social teacher and radical, we miss the fact that Jesus is revealing to us that God is like this.

And if we accept Jesus as "God", but don't understand what he did or taught, then we've missed the whole point of Jesus coming in the first place:

...to show us that God is unlike anything we ever imagined.

Back in the Saddle Again...

2007-12-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm actually too young to be sure if the title of this post makes a meaningful reference or not. I'm guessing it does, however, and am continuing on that assumption.

For the past few months, I haven't blogged, and wanted to start again, so I thought it fitting to describe briefly what I have been doing for that time.

First of all, I got married. Then, I undertook a long tour of college conventions and concerts across the country. Then, I picked up Facebook. Then, I began to consider how a person such as myself can facilitate a change of state in people's mentality.

This is what I have been considering and mulling over continuously for quite some time. My informal research has involved talking with hypnotists, public speakers, educators, and magicians, observing a wide variety of performances, reading interviews with Bono of U2, experimenting with Facebook, designing some web applications, engaging in a little bit of spoken word performance, and throwing a concert using some of my new ideas.

I sense that something is there to be uncovered. I feel like revolutions in people's thinking can and do happen. Right now, I'm thinking that what is needed is "truth".

Truth is what changes people.

But truth can't just be spoken. It has to be "realized". And that may involve stories, acting, movies, music, food, or experiences.

And I am looking to provide all of those things.

-micah