So today I had several epiphanies, the greatest of those being that I missed my 1/4 life crisis. Perhaps I was too busy listening to John Mayer sing about his 1/4 life crisis when I should have been experiencing mine. Wait. Hold on a minute… On second thought, maybe I’m right on time. Most of my friends experienced their 1/4 life crises when they were 24 or 25. I’m 28, at least until November. In other words, my beleaguered friends had worked in their respective industries for about 2 years after graduating from college before the brunt of their what-am-I-doing-with-my-life crisis came crashing into their souls. (BTW: what, you might ask, was the number one solution to my friends’ dilemma? Graduate school). I am suggesting that I am right on time for my 1/4 life crisis because I opted to swim strait across my educational pool without coming up for air, completing my undergrad and master’s degrees in 8 years. I have now been out of seminary 2 years and four months (give or take a few days) and today I experienced that helpful, albeit stressful, moment of existential UHH??? It’s optimistic to a fault, however, to proffer a Jake’s Shelf Life of 112 years. So really, today I celebrated my 2/5 life crisis … a bit more realistic appraisal methinks.

Today I sat through a deacons’ retreat during which a friend and colleague shared her faith story in view of receiving a diaconal blessing for her ordination. My friend–who has a very different personality than I–shared a point in her spiritual journey towards vocational ministry in which she had the courage to walk away from a PhD program in music after 2 or so years of progress. I admired my friend for her willingness to forgo “success” in order to save her soul. She returned to Georgia without a PhD, but it was in route that she surrendered herself to the freedom of following God into the great unknown. The introspective introvert whom you know as Theofragen has been turning this over all day like a baker kneading dough.

My wife and I went for a walk with my seven-month-old baby daughter to talk about my 2/5 life crisis (advantages of marrying a psychotherapist). At the end of our walk we passed an older woman standing by a young man who was probably 18 or so. She gooed and gahhed over my daughter, before putting a thoughtful hand on her son’s shoulder and saying, “Cherish this time with her because before you know it she’ll be this big,” gesturing to her son.  She was absolutely right.  I can never get this time back with my daughter once it’s passed… a very sobering thought.

I’m reminded of a speech I heard in seminary by a professor at his retirement reception. The abbreviated version is that he worked as hard as he could in high school to get into the right college, telling himself that once he got into college his pace would slacken a bit. He recited this same speech to himself while progressing up the academic ranks from college-MA-PhD-Ass. Prof-Asoc. Prof-Full Prof-Tenure, etc. At his retirement from a school that many in his denomination would consider the apogee of a stellar career, he told us that as soon as he finished two more Hebrew commentaries for his publisher he was going to slacken his pace a bit. These words came from a man who had spent 4/5 of his life driven to succeed. The professor’s speech was amusing to some, but haunting to me.

Do I want to maintain this pace until I’m 65 or 70? Can I? Right now I work 50+ hours per week at a job that I very much enjoy, support my wife through a PhD program that makes amends for minimal financial resources with things like 20 hour a week graduate assistantships @ minimum wage, and advanced trauma practicums for $0.00/hour, co-raise the most precious little girl I’ve ever laid eyes on, start a new church in the least-churched area of Atlanta, all while getting ready to launch a new, postmodern worship venue at my church in Buckhead. Those fabulous washboard abs I had worked so hard to sculpt before my daughter was born have resumed their original Pillsbury Dough Boy starter kit form.  What’s a guy to do?

I can’t do it all, nor do I want to.   I’ve learned from senior ministerial advisers who have fallowed a similar trajectory that it tends to end in burnout, some form of less than scrupulous behavior, or premature heart disease.  None of those options are appealing.  The challenge is, however, that I perceive a Divine calling to everything in which I’m involved.  It’s not as if I just have to spend those five nights awake knocking down pins at the local lanes (no offense to any possible bowling aficionados out there).  This is my self-prescribed, cyber-intervention.  My wife calls this good self-care.  I welcome your suggestions, anecdotes, and wisdom.  Peace.

Join us on the 2nd Monday of each month in the fall @ 6:30 PM @ the Vortex for a community meal/conversation. The venues hosted by trin-i-tas tend to be rather agenda driven. These community meals allow us an opportunity to simply be, in community. We meet on the Vortex patio (adjacent to the 15 ft. skull guarding the main entrance). Feel free to stick around for a free Texas Hold’em tournament at 8 PM.

 Update: We have had difficulty in procuring the location for this event.  I only just heard from Grandma Luke’s today since they had been experiencing email troubles.  Therefore, due to insufficient lead time for promotion, etc. we are canceling the venue.  Stay tuned for a rescheduling of this event in the future.  Sorry for any inconvenience this may present.  Peace.

God is (Not) Dead is an alternative worship experience hosted by trin-i-tas. We will be gathering for worship at 7PM on Sunday, September 16th @ Grandma Luke’s Bakery and Cafe. Refreshments will be provided.

The eminent philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

“God is dead” is an oft mis-quoted and misunderstood notion and it carries a very different connotation in the mouth of Nietzsche than by the later harbingers of ‘death of God’ theology (eg. Thomas Altizer and Richard Rubenstein). “God is dead” is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals (a la postmodernity). In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. This nihilism is what Nietzsche worked to find a solution for by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than the Christian values beyond which he felt most Christians refuse to look.

Is God dead? If so, who killed God? What can belief, morals, story look like after the death of God? Might God live still? If so, how does this fact influence the minutiae of our lives? Join us on the 16th as we probe these questions together. Peace.

Aimee Semple McPherson was a media pioneer, preacher, founder of the International Church of the Four Square Gospel, and one of the most influential preachers in American history. These facts are often overshadowed by the fact that she also happened to be a woman. In her day she was somewhat of an admixture of Billy Graham, Howard Stern, and Oprah Winfrey.

In this week’s Speaking of Faith podcast, Krista converses with two scholars, Anthea Butler and Arlene Sanchez Walsh, who each offer an even-handed appraisal of this charismatic preacher. It’s an episode that is as historically poignant as it is ecclesiologically relevant. You can check it out by clicking here.

If you’re going to be in the neighborhood next Monday, feel free to join us at the Vortex in Little Five Points around 7pm to share food, drinks, and fellowship as we explore this significant conversation about an amazing figure in the history of the Church. Peace.

Despite myriad other implications, scholars tend to speak about immigrants solely in terms of their political and economic impact. In last night’s Speaking of Faith episode, Krista interviewed Prof. Manuel Vásquez, associate professor of religion at the University of Florida, and author of Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas and Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America. In his scholarship, Prof. Vásquez explores how religious and spiritual worldviews shape Latino cultures — and how they are reshaping North American religion and culture in fascinating ways.

If you’re going to be in the neighborhood, feel free to join us at the Vortex in Little Five Points around 6pm to share food, drinks, and fellowship as we explore this significant conversation about the impact(s) of migration upon religious life in America. Download the podcast here. Peace.

Starting next Monday (August 6th) we will begin hosting weekly theology on tap conversations in L5P.  We will gather around 6pm in front of the laughing skull at the Vortex where we’ll be eating, drinking, and talking on the patio.   The conversation will only last an hour, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a weekly gathering.  If you want, feel free to stay for the free Texas Hold’em tournament that begins on the patio of the Vortex at 8pm.

Our conversation partners this Fall will be none other than the most prominent and insightful religious thinkers of our time.  National Public Radio’s Krista Tippett hosts a weekly program called Speaking of Faith.  Speaking of Faith entails conversations about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. Each week, Tippett probes the myriad ways in which religious impulses inform every aspect of life and culture, nationally and globally. Speaking of Faith fills an important and neglected need in American media by addressing the intellectual and spiritual content of religion head-on, illuminating the ideas and practices that form the headlines from the inside.

We will be following these weekly conversations as catalysts for our own conversations in L5P.  In anticipation of each gathering, I will be blogging about that week’s topic, so if you miss the show or don’t have time to listen to the podcast, you can still come somewhat ready to engage in conversation with the rest of us.  You can download the podcast here.  See ya on Mondays.  Peace.

Initially I was encouraged when I learned of a grassroots and institutional push to articulate a new Baptist ‘voice’ in North America. The nation’s two living Baptist ex-presidents are calling for a historic convocation in Atlanta in early 2008, intended to improve the “negative” image of Baptists in North America and to unite the majority of Baptists into a loose-knit network to address social ills.In a Jan. 9 press conference earlier this year in Atlanta, Ex-Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton announced the plans for a 2008 convocation. The 2008 convocation is a result of Carter’s initiative to create a new Baptist “voice” to counter what he and others say is a negative and judgmental image of Baptists in North America. Last April many of the same Baptist leaders signed the “North American Baptist Covenant” to counter the often combative pronouncements of many of the nation’s most prominent Baptist leaders. That meeting included representatives of the Baptist World Alliance, American Baptist Churches, National Baptist Convention USA, Canadian Baptist Ministries, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other groups.

These were exciting developments, and as a Baptist and an Atlantan I was ready to get behind this proposal. I was saddened to read this article today, indicating that two influential Baptist groups (one of which I am a member of) have been barred from participating in the upcoming event because they are decidedly open and affirming of LGBT congregants.

“This is not a rejection of either organization or the people in those organization[s],” wrote Alan Stanford, general secretary of the NABF, in a July 18 e-mail alerting leaders of the two groups to NABF’s decision. “[I]t is a recognition that we can not hold together the large coalition of Baptists needed to create a new Baptist voice in North America and address the issue of sexual orientation at the same time. We ask for your forbearance and understanding.” My question for Stanford is this: can we at the same time articulate a covenant that is otherwise than the “negative and judgmental image” Baptist’s currently enjoy and refrain from addressing the issue of sexual orientation? The answer is “no.”

In response, Ken Pennings, executive director of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, aptly noted, “This really is more like the Old Covenant than the New Covenant. Why would we want to participate in this? There’s nothing new about this; it’s the same old exclusion.” I agree.

“North America desperately needs a true Baptist witness,” Bill Underwood, President of Mercer University, told leaders of the 30-plus Baptist denominational entities at the January gathering. “There’s no organization in this room that has a strong enough voice … but the organizations in this room together do have a strong enough voice.” Okay, but this recent action of silencing the marginalized voices is saddening at best, sickening at worst. What we need is a genuine Baptist voice for the Twenty-First Century, not some attenuated and dissembling covenant that feigns inclusiveness and “unity in difference.” I believe Jesus himself had a thing or two to say about this sort of tactic…putting old wine in new wineskins only makes a mess.

In keeping with the spirit of my friend, Adam, I thought I would contribute to the discussion with a “What is…” post of my own. In answering, indulge me the opportunity to comment on a movie that you may have seen. Peace.

We have fought with Captain Jack Sparrow for nearly two hours–through multiple imprisonments, marooning on a deserted island, swashbuckling feats of arms, the curse of Cortez’s gold–and now our infamous hero stands at the gallows, awaiting a short drop with a quick stop.

Jack is standing upon the hard, weather-worn wood of the hanging platform–a firm foundation, if you will. We hear the ominous rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of the snare drums and we worry for the fate of our ignoble, though lovable hero. We lean forward in our seats as the noose is placed around Jack’s neck. We listen as the formal charges are read, a lengthy list to be sure. Then we wonder, perhaps Jack does deserve this fate? The assembly gathered to witness this execution seems to be in solidarity with the powers of the world that a death is deserved as a consequence of these actions.

Our hearts catch in our chest as the execution’s beefy hand seizes the hangman’s lever. The drum tempo quickens and we know our time is nearly up (I mean Jack’s). We stand there; our feet are upon a firm foundation; standing there is no different than standing anywhere else. But we know, deep down in our souls, that everything is about to change. The bottom will drop out (We recall Yeats’ lament: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Meer anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”)

Just before we close our eyes, unable to bear the sight, we see a rustling in the crowd. We hear young Will Turner bellow, “Move!” Then, just as the bottom of the scaffold gives way to the relentlessness of gravity’s pull, Will hurls his sword just beneath the platform and we are saved, teetering with Jack upon the buoyant quivering of Will’s rapier. Our feet have found a tenuous place upon which to stand. We are not dead. Yet the noose is still around our necks and the fibers are now digging into our skin, uncomfortable yet bearable for a juncture. We toe the bouncing blade, knowing that this will keep us alive until our noose is loosened or cut. . . we hope!

He’s a lover-Jesus was constantly displaying love to those around him. Whether he was touching an untouchable, sharing table fellowship with ’sinners’, or entertaining existential questions in the middle of the night, Jesus showed love for others, he made love happen (facere amorem).

He’s unhinging-Jesus’s aporias, parables, actions, and indictments leave me off balanced, destabalized. I dig that. He challenges my selfish inclinations, my bad habits, and my narcissism. He brings my life and actions under erasure, thereby creating a lacuna in my soul where repentance and rebirth set me free.

He’s a seducer-Jesus awakens my soul, inviting me in and then not letting me go. He doesn’t overpower me with apodictic truths or propositional jargon. Rather, he asks a question, tells a story, prays a prayer… he wafts an aroma and then I find myself drawn in to find the source of the fragrance.

He’s a revolutionary-Jesus was inaugurating a revolution in his very being. He defied the hegemonies of both Roman military might and Jewish Pharisaism. He deconstructs theology by being God; he subverts anthropology by being ‘all to human.’

He’s faith(ful)-I mean this in both the objective and subjective senses–Jesus himself was full of faith; Jesus is one worthy of our faith. Like the father of the epileptic son, I confess “I believe. Help my unbelief!” (Mt. 17:24). With the ambiguity of the Greek phrase pistis Iesu Christu (Rm. 3:22 & Gal. 2:16), I am left asking whether it is Christ’s faith in God or my faith in Christ that is salvific. Perhaps its an imbrication of the two?

Peace.

This Thursday, at the Corner Tavern in Little Five Points, we will be hosting a theology on tap conversation from 7-9. Our topic for conversation will be otherness. How do we approach the Other without totalizing her? How do we encounter the Other as a Self when we ourselves are also a Self? The Bible, along with many other sacred texts I might add, has a great deal to say about how we receive those who are otherwise than we. Please join us for this illuminating conversation. Peace.