Existential Punk

i'm An Outlaw Preacher!

Untitled from Connie Waters on Vimeo.

Something Beautiful Podcast, My Interview With Pete Rollins

Back in February when my good friend, Pete Rollins, was in Richmond, i had the wonderful opportunity to interview him. i am so not a technical person, so when i met Liz and Jonathan Monday evening for dinner, Jonathan was able to download a compressed version. It is now up live at Something Beautiful Podcast. i hope you enjoy it!

Rollins is the founder and coordinator of the experimental collective in Belfast, Ireland, Ikon. he is also a writer, speaker and blogger.

He’s the author of the books, “How (Not) To Speak Of God,” “The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief,” and most recently, “The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales.”

Cross-Country Moving Adventure - 3rd Leg

Well, we had a wonderful, albeit short visit in Dallas/Plano with the family and friends! i so very much enjoyed meeting Liz and Jonathan. Today we are back on the road to continue onto Sacramento!

TUESDAY, 25 August 2009
Dallas/Plano, TX to Albuq., NM

Cross-Country Moving Adventure - 2nd Leg

SUNDAY, 23 August 2009
Nashville, TN to Dallas/Plano, TX

Cross-Country Moving Adventure - 1st Leg

SATURDAY, 22 August 2009
Richmond, VA to Nashville, TN

Cross-Country Moving Adventure

Well, we are in the throes of finishing up our packing as the moving truck arrives this Friday morning. Between packing, two doctor visits with IV infusions on Monday and Wednesday, taking care of business stuff for the move and planning our trips to Indonesia and Buenos Aires, having 2 major repairs on my Land Rover, Katryna and i are overwhelmed, exhausted and each of us had a meltdown on Tuesday. Thankfully some dear friends came over to help us pack and we are surviving! We will be staying Friday night at some friends, where they will be having one last get-together for us, and departing Richmond EARLY Saturday morning. We decided to drive to Plano, Texas to visit Katryna's parents. i will FINALLY have the opportunity to meet two great online friends, Liz and Jonathan. i am so stoked about this!

Here's our itinerary, and if you are someone who prays, we'd really appreciate your prayers!

Saturday 22 August 2009 - Depart Richmond, VA and drive to Nashville, TN.
Sunday 23 August 2009   - Nashville to Plano/Dallas, Texas. Stay 2 nights.
Monday 24 August 2009  - Plano/Dallas - Dinner w/ Liz and Jonathan
Tuesday 25 August 2009 - Depart Plano/Dallas and drive to Albuq., NM
Weds 26 August 2009     - Albuq., NM to Barstow, CA
Thurs 27 August 2009    - Barstow, CA to Sacramento, CA

Christianity 21

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Christianity 21: Faith in the 21st Century
21 Voices
21 Ideas
21 Minutes Each

HT Julie Clawson!

We live in a time of epochal change.

Many find this change exciting; for others, it’s a challenge. Call it globalization, pluralization, or postmodernism, this change affects our economy, politics, government, and education—all of society. And, of course, our faith and our churches are not immune to change.

So we have gathered 21 of the most important voices for the future of Christianity—21 voices for the 21st century—to speak into our future as people of faith in this age. They represent a diverse array of backgrounds, interests, and passions, and they will provide a wide range of innovative and challenging presentations.

Christianity21 is less a conference and more a happening, an event—a gathering of voices and ideas that will shape the future of our faith. And to the 21 voices, we want you to add your voice, whether you’re a seeker or skeptic, leader or layperson, disciple or doubter.

We hope you consider joining your voice to ours at Christianity21.

Friday, October 9 – Sunday, October 11
Colonial Church of Edina
6200 Colonial Way
Minneapolis, MN 55436
$195

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i am very sad to not be able to attend this exciting event as we will be in Indonesia. BUT, i encourage you to attend this very important event!

Adele: Admiring Your Strengths

   (Part II of: STARTING WITH OUR WEAKNESS)
CO-OPT BLOG POST PART 2

Click here to read more in this conversation . . .

* Starting With Our Weakness: Peter
* Starting With Our Weakness: Adele

ADMIRING YOUR STRENGTHS
As I have stated on numerous occasions: I do not know everything, and my weaknesses are abundant. To be truthful – and as hard as it is for me to admit – you have many strengths; strengths that I even admire. The YOU I refer to here are those people who are often my detractors: people with divergent viewpoints from my own, whether theologically, politically, and/or philosophically; people who find me to be a heretic, reprobate, and on my way to hell; people who are anonymous or leave fake email addresses; people who basically like to argue for argument’s sake.

You all challenge me in my arrogance, pride, bullshit, ungraciousness, and anger. Sometimes I am wrong and you call me out on it. Sometimes I am not wrong, but you still brave the waters to express your disagreement. I admire that.

Peter and I are, 'continuing to reflect on what it means to be transparent about our weaknesses. Part of that necessarily demands that we be honest about “your” strengths: those places where you may hold the upper hand in an argument. Or where we haven’t fully developed a cohesive or coherent argument, or apologetic.'

To reorient since the last post…

* * *

Peter Rollins said:

“…What I really want to do is to enter into dialogs where I can talk about the weakest part of my argument and you can talk about the weakest part of your argument. and I can accept and celebrate the strongest part of your arguments and visa-versa.”

* * *

We’re inspired to celebrate the strongest part of your arguments. Here’s why that’s both natural and difficult for me to do: I became a conservative Evangelical, charismatic, non-denominational Christian during my sophomore year of college in January, 1989. I was on fire for the Lord where I went to church 2 to 3 times a week, joined Bible studies, volunteered in the youth group, witnessed by going door to door and handing out tracts, attended prayer meetings, et al. Inspirational preachers visited our church where we had healing services following the preaching. We often hosted big praise and worship services and contemporary Christian concert events. Each of these always had an altar call at the end. Even though I got brutally burned, which left a bad taste in my mouth and a lot of disdain I’m still working through, I am beginning to recognize there is much that I can learn and admire from my early Christian roots. I do not like to be boxed in, so I need to remember not to box YOU in! I am aware that not all Evangelical or conservative Christians manifest or concur with the following observations I make, but for those who do, here are some STRENGTHS I observe and admire:

EVANGELICAL/CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS are. . .

* Committed to G-D with heartfelt passion

* Care about and are concerned for the well being of others

* Are very serious about Truth and scriptures

* Attempt to live moral lives

Here is my attempt to flesh these out more:

1. Evangelical/Conservative Christians are “sold out” for G-D and living a life expressing that personally and publicly. They are not ashamed of who they are or what they believe.

I see a weakness in the Liberal Mainline Church of not being outward in their expressions of faith. For many it, is public by going to church on Sunday, but then the rest of their faith remains private. For those on the Evangelical/Conservative side this is a puzzling thing for them to grasp. For them, to compartmentalize is foreign and even un-Christian. With a desire to respect all people and honor differing religions, liberal Christians avoid “proclaiming” too loudly… but that translates into lacking the enthusiasm conservatives have in spades.

2. Evangelical/Conservative Christians are genuinely concerned with what happens to others. They care about their needs, physically, emotionally and spiritually. They pray for others, often spending great lengths in intercessory prayer for people and nations.

3. Evangelical/Conservative Christians take the Bible very seriously, and work very hard to see how it applies to their lives. They seek out Truth and G-D's will in their lives, and desire to please and obey G-D. They spend staggering amounts of time seeking G-D through the Holy Spirit, praying to discern how best to live according to the Bible.

4. Evangelical/Conservative Christians attempt to live upright, moral lives in order to obey and be pleasing to G-D. They want to do right. They want to avoid wrong. They are tireless advocates for upright living, and are often great examples.

As G-D-loving human beings, we have a lot more in common than many of us remember or care sometimes to admit. Though sometimes disappointing and painful, I’m beginning to be thankful for my Evangelical background and the things it taught me about G-D. I’m thankful for the opportunity to reflect on the ways faith can connect and enrich our divergent, complicated lives. At times, we may not agree on very much, but I hope we can always find areas of common ground, and admire common beauty. Divergent viewpoints paired with love and respect are what make this world a beautiful place to live in, and I think make G-D smile.

Shalom!

Peter: Admiring Your Strengths

(Part II of: Starting With Our Weakness)
Peter Walker
Co-Opt Blog Post Part 2

Click here to read more in this conversation . . .

ADMIRING YOUR STRENGTHS
(Part II of: STARTING WITH OUR WEAKNESS)
Peter Walker

Click here to read more in this conversation…

• Starting With Our Weakness: Adele Sakler
• Starting With Our Weakness: Peter

Admiring Your Strengths
I have a lot of weakness.  If I’m really honest, you have a lot strengths.  No, not ‘you’ (my obviously-like-minded friends, allies and progressive/liberal/emerging blog compatriots) but YOU, the anonymous posters who find my relativism shocking, my impiety troubling, my language offensive, and my disillusion downright depressing.  I don’t say that disparagingly. 

And maybe you aren’t just anonymous.  To be fair, you’re my friends (in some cases, my closest friends) – online friends like RickNiek and Joan, and flesh-and-blood friends like James and Brent.   You care enough about the conversation to cry “foul” when I’m being unfair or reactionary… some of you care enough about ME to cry “bullsh*t” when I’m talking out of the wrong end of myself.  Or when I at least sound like I am - when I’m being ungracious, inarticulate, and theologically/conversationally/spiritually lazy.

Adele and I are continuing to reflect on what it means to be transparent about our weaknesses.  Part of that necessarily demands that we be honest about “your” strengths.  The places where you may hold an upper hand in an argument.  Or where we haven’t fully developed a cohesive or coherent argument or apologetic.  

To reorient since the last post…

* * *

Peter Rollins said:
“…What I really want to do is to enter into dialogs where I can talk about the weakest part of my argument and you can talk about the weakest part of your argument. and I can accept and celebrate the strongest part of your arguments and visa-versa.”_

* * *

Having grown up in conservative Evangelical Christian environments, there is a lot I still admire, and much I still carry with me.  These are not hard-and-fast rules – not every conservative or Evangelical Christian exhibits or even agrees with all of these observations.  I don’t want to unfairly stereotype.  But these are some STRENGTHS I want to acknowledge:

Conservative/Evangelical Christians…

• …Are passionately and wholeheartedly committed to not only their personal faith, but to advocating for their faith in the real world in dynamic, articulate, intelligent and captivating ways.
• …Attempt to align their personal morality with that of biblical witness, and seek – whenever possible – to avoid ideological disagreements with biblical  statements. 
• …Tend to successfully avoid “slippery slope” arguments that identify or validate “cracks” in an Evangelical reading of Scripture.
• …Are incredibly successful at adapting their theological understandings to the language of contemporary critique and debate.
• …REALLY love Jesus.

Let me try to break those down a bit: 

1. Conservative/Evangelical Christians are passionately and wholeheartedly committed to not only their personal faith, but to advocating for their faith in the real world in dynamic, articulate, intelligent and captivating ways.

One of the greatest failures of the Liberal Mainline Church has been its inability to differentiate itself from liberal secular culture at large.  Evangelicals know how to tap into underlying human needs, fears and drives, and they recognize that many people want to know where they’re going, what their purpose is and what the established boundaries for safe/healthy/normal living are (I have mixed feelings about that, but it’s a powerful reality, and I don’t think it’s all good OR all bad).  For the countless people who resonate with this, Liberal Christianity offers very little, while conservative Christianity offers hope, understanding and security.

2. Conservative/Evangelical Christians attempt to align their personal morality with that of biblical witness, and seek – whenever possible – to avoid ideological disagreements with biblical statements.  They see, for example, Pauline directives (as in the Colossians Household Code) as still wholly applicable.  “Wives, obey your husbands…”  Even as women have entered the workplace and nearly every level of political leadership, Evangelicals attempt to be faithful to their reading of the original text’s intent.  That perspective sees Biblical witness, not as exhibiting cultural quirks that should be recognized and superceded, but as timelessly applicable.  “All Scripture is God-breathed…”

3. Conservative/Evangelical Christians tend to successfully avoid “slippery slope” arguments that identify or validate “cracks” in an Evangelical reading of Scripture.  The Colossians Household Code, mentioned above, goes on to list expectations of propriety for slaves and slave masters.  It does not challenge the institution of slavery, but rather seeks to gently insert a Christian ethos into that system.  I have heard multiple pastors explain that New Testament slavery was not so insidious or violent as the kind of slavery Americans associate from our own sordid history.  Rather, Biblical slavery was an almost-respectable, established economic system that actually provided opportunities for slaves to achieve social stature that might be otherwise unattainable outside of their servitude.  While I find this argument historically untenable, it is clear that fissures begin to emerge in the foundation of the New Testament’s inerrant, objective, universal authority when contextualization is given too much play.  That is not to say Evangelicals do not utilize contextualization (as I will mention in the next point) but that they are careful not to let “context” undermine Truth.  In this specific instance, by reframing slavery, they can avoid dealing with the implications of the New Testament (apart from the OT, which has different associated expectations) validating an evil system of servitude and domination.

4. Conservative/Evangelical Christians are incredibly successful at adapting their theological understandings to the language of contemporary critique and debate.

Read anything by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell and you’ll find highly articulate, well organized, and often inspirational apologetics for Evangelical Christian tenets.  I won’t go into them.  Read The Case For Christ.  They effectively utilize all sorts of rhetorical devices, from Socratic debate to scientific methodology, to construct their arguments and demonstrate the logic of their theological assertions and Biblical interpretations.  And frankly, I’m thankful for some of that.  There is enough there to validate faith for the thinking person.  Strobel demonstrates that a thoughtful, educated person can believe in the unbelievable.  Like C.S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers before.

But I don’t agree with all of Strobel’s conclusions.  And I don’t necessarily find his apologetic devices helpful for modeling ideal Christian attitudes and behaviors.  In fact, I find the tone of trying to “prove” something particularly intimidating.  The attitude behind it is in classic opposition to what Adele and I are trying to do here: find the other’s weaknesses, and exploit them, while emphasizing the strengths of my argument.  I haven’t spent considerable time developing any sort of strong refutation to those arguments.  I don’t really want to.  But if I got up and debated anyone well-versed in the Strobel/McDowell/Kirk Cameron School of Theology, I’d get nailed.  The only sorts of fitting arguments still rattling around in my head are theirs.  They’re what I grew up with.  And frankly, I still haven’t learned how to overcome many of them.  At least, not without completing throwing out the Bible and Christian tradition.  Which I don’t want to do.  I want to be a thinking person who still believes the unbelievable. 

5. Conservative/Evangelical Christians REALLY love Jesus.  What else is there to say?  I know a lot of really intelligent people, with really high-minded values, and very high regard for Jesus.  They seek to live the way Jesus might, in this modern world.  They think about the things Jesus would care about.  They try to do what Jesus would do!  But “love?”  … “Let’s get back to Jesus’ teachings.” 

What I never want to lose, no matter where my faith journey takes me, is an absolutely intimate, passionate love for Jesus Christ.  Evangelicals understand this in absolutely personal, reality-altering ways.  I’d like to think that I do, too.

THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS…
When it comes to theology and debate, the “absolute truth” is, as I have walked away from conservative evangelicalism and its certainties, I have not replaced my old theology with an “equal” (in my view) new theology.  I realize, with this blog, that I am standing in the middle of this dusty ol’ town at high noon.  There are six-shooters pointed at me and as I reach for my sidearm, I find nothing but an empty holster.  “Damn.  Threw it away on a whim of conviction.  Now I’m unarmed, and I’ve been talking just as big and belligerent as ever…”

Ah, but I’ve been unfair again.  Because you aren’t horse thieves or cattle rustlers.  You’re the good guys, just like we’re the good guys.  And those aren’t guns you’re gripping.  They’re Bibles.  And I seem to have set mine down… 

Maybe, by being counterintuitive here, recognizing your strengths and acknowledging my weaknesses, we can move past the defensive, entrenching zones of hostility that keep us shooting at each other while everyone with any sense stays indoors and wonders when it’ll end.  Would it be possible for us to help one-another construct stronger incarnations of our spiritual and religious visions? 

I can’t really begin growing spiritually until I acknowledge that there are many, many Christians – even conservative Evangelical Christians – who have theological systems far more developed and refined than my own. In this process, I have to confess that the pushback and disagreements you offer, in friendship, fellowship, and yes, even in antagonism… in the flesh, and through the blogosphere… it is meaningful.  Your words have weight/validity/intelligence and are worth my respectful consideration.  There’s a powerful part of me that wants to deny all this.  I want to invalidate your disagreements, pretend only a fool would contend for a position other than my own, and prove you wrong/ignorant/unformed/mistaken.  But the truth is, I’m not intelligent or articulate enough to do that.  And even if I was, I wouldn’t want to be. 

Adele, thanks again for joining me on this journey!

For The Love Of G-D & Country, Legalize Weed!

It is so crazy that marijuana is illegal and people go to jail for possessing small amounts of it. It is not addictive and is NOT a gateway drug to harder drugs. That is a scare tactic by those who are involved with  the 'WAR ON DRUGS' instituted by President Reagan. This war has done NOTHING to stop drugs from entering our country and being consumed. Several states, including California, have legalized weed for medicinal purposes. Medical Marijuana is used to help menstrual cramps, pain related to cancer and HIV AIDS, and other medical problems. Weed has less of an effect on people than alcoh

The USA should legalize weed. By doing this they can regulate it and make A LOT of money. They could model it after the coffee shops in the Netherlands. If the government chooses not to legalize it, then they should not press charges for possession of small amounts. The coffee shops in the Netherlands are just like Starbucks; They serve you great coffee and food but with safe and high grade weed!  'Technically, pot is not legal in the Netherlands but but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are able to sell it openly.'

These are simply my personal thoughts and opinions. No one has to agree with me. i do not have a problem with people smoking marijuana. They are much nicer being stoned than many belligerent alcohol induced drunkards! To some, i am  already a heretic for being queer and calling myself a Christian. So, why not add fuel to the fire, eh?! If i am already on my way to hell, i figure anything else must be icing on the cake! i am looking forward to being able to get Medical Marijuana when we are back in California for all the pain i am in due to the Lyme Disease. My joints and head are looking for some much needed relief! As a person who suffers chronic pain, i see medical marijuana as something that can help me reduce the agonizing pain i live with day in and day out. And, i really don't mind detractors calling me a heretic. i wear that as a badge of honor because a heretic is someone who holds an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted. There is nothing really wrong with that. It's just a difference of opinion! The History of Weed video below is very informative!

Even Glen Beck, who most of the time says asinine things, thinks legalizing weed is worth it! HT Huffington Post for these two videos: Glenn Beck says to legalize Marijuana and stop the violence:

History of Weed: