Book report
First - a weather report.
Did we all in this journal loop just get snow? April 10, huh? Isn't it Spring yet?
We got 30" (in the spots where the 40-60 mph wind wasn't blowing). It was a nice day. We had gone to church the night before, anticipating the storm. Monte had lots of firewood in, so I kept the stove going all day. I read. Listened to my favorite NPR shows while knitting an outfit for our neighbor's soon to be born little girl.
The newest book I just finished for my book group (Walking With the Poor by Bryant Myers which is analyzing Christian Transformational Developments primarily in the 3rd world, but applies just as much to America) reopened thoughts started with two other books I was reading at the same time a year ago: The Celtic Way of Evangelism and Divine Milieu by Jesuit, geologist/archeologist, Pierre Tielhard de Chardin.
The books overlap in a way of visualizing worldviews. Myers shows a visual credited to Paul Hiebert that the Celtic book talked about in the 2nd chapter. The traditional worldview is holistic. But modern worldview (following the Enlightenment) has split this wholeness as two-tiered, with the physical and spiritual worlds completely separated, with an “excluded middle” level to life. I am intrigued with this middle level.
The upper tier being the transcendent or sacred, beyond what our senses can perceive, basically untouchable. The Modern Worldview would list God, Allah (I just learned this is an Arabic word for God, prior to Islam). The Force, and Christian Witness. The Traditional Worldview is primarily Formal Religion. It’s the place that deals with the ultimate issues of life: origin, purpose and destiny. Myers adds the Biblical Worldview listing God the Father, the risen Christ, and the saints before us. The question asked in this tier is “Whose God is true?” It is the Gospel-as-Word.
The bottom level is the empirical level. It’s the seen world; life that our senses can apprehend-what we hear, see, feel and touch. It’s science and technology. It’s this level that we learn to plant, clean a fish, fix a water pump, build a house and 1000’s of other things. Myers lists it as the Holy Spirit with us, Christ in us, the word of God, and science with a purpose. This level asks, “What Works?” It’s the level of Gospel-as-Deed.
In the Traditional Worldview, the middle level is Low Religion. It’s inhabited by mechanical forces such as shamans and magic, ancestors and spirits, curses and blessings, evil eye, sacrifices, and folk religions. This level mediates between the seen and unseen worlds, having access to both. This is the world of curses, amulets, charms, astrology, and other attempts to bargain with or “handle” the unseen world. This is the level that drives most peoples lives, most of the time.
We would say that’s all superstition and ignorance. But facts don’t bring comfort to the unpredictable and unknowns of life. In the Biblical Worldview angels, prayer and visions, sacred space, and signs and wonders Myers lists. The question asked is “Whose God is more Powerful?” It is the Gospel-as-sign.
Do we have a place for the appearance of the supernatural? Do we have a home for signs and miracles? I read an article on the fact that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing expression of the church today in the world. It’s probably because it is more at home in the middle tier. The article said Pentecostalism looks different in the rest of the world than in the West. In the States the focus is tongues. I think postmodernism is trying to bring this middle layer back.
The book is looking at the traditional approaches of development/relief organizations and showing our western failure of hearing the community’s story about the unseen world, therefore failing to have answers or even taking it into account. It leads to current trends of change. Of primarily looking at who we are as Christians and that poor and non-poor alike all come down to identity, calling/vocation, and relationships. The Gospel-as-Sign comes from a very personal relationship with God that will overflow in all we say and do.
When Monte and me were pondering this a year ago, he pictured it differently. He drew it as a triangle with an inner triangle that touches all the outer triangle sides, representing the excluded middle. It’s the area that man and the ordinary live. An untouchable God would be the apex. He was doing numbers to the umpteenths at both ends, like science as the triangle base, both untouchable.
Monte thought on this more in his notes, which we need to talk about again. But he narrowed the problem down to the lack of story in all the outside points.
Walking With the Poor told a story of an African tribe given seeds to put in 8 categories of their lives. They were divided by things felt they controlled, how much is controlled by outsiders, and then controlled by gods and spirits. The largest control is by gods and spirits, then outsiders. But ... if it's outsiders coming in to help communities ... and they ignore the importance of gods and spirits (the middle level), nothing they help with will be sustained over the long haul.
What I'm asking is, what does this middle level look like today for us Christians?
Did we all in this journal loop just get snow? April 10, huh? Isn't it Spring yet?
We got 30" (in the spots where the 40-60 mph wind wasn't blowing). It was a nice day. We had gone to church the night before, anticipating the storm. Monte had lots of firewood in, so I kept the stove going all day. I read. Listened to my favorite NPR shows while knitting an outfit for our neighbor's soon to be born little girl.
The newest book I just finished for my book group (Walking With the Poor by Bryant Myers which is analyzing Christian Transformational Developments primarily in the 3rd world, but applies just as much to America) reopened thoughts started with two other books I was reading at the same time a year ago: The Celtic Way of Evangelism and Divine Milieu by Jesuit, geologist/archeologist, Pierre Tielhard de Chardin.
The books overlap in a way of visualizing worldviews. Myers shows a visual credited to Paul Hiebert that the Celtic book talked about in the 2nd chapter. The traditional worldview is holistic. But modern worldview (following the Enlightenment) has split this wholeness as two-tiered, with the physical and spiritual worlds completely separated, with an “excluded middle” level to life. I am intrigued with this middle level.
The upper tier being the transcendent or sacred, beyond what our senses can perceive, basically untouchable. The Modern Worldview would list God, Allah (I just learned this is an Arabic word for God, prior to Islam). The Force, and Christian Witness. The Traditional Worldview is primarily Formal Religion. It’s the place that deals with the ultimate issues of life: origin, purpose and destiny. Myers adds the Biblical Worldview listing God the Father, the risen Christ, and the saints before us. The question asked in this tier is “Whose God is true?” It is the Gospel-as-Word.
The bottom level is the empirical level. It’s the seen world; life that our senses can apprehend-what we hear, see, feel and touch. It’s science and technology. It’s this level that we learn to plant, clean a fish, fix a water pump, build a house and 1000’s of other things. Myers lists it as the Holy Spirit with us, Christ in us, the word of God, and science with a purpose. This level asks, “What Works?” It’s the level of Gospel-as-Deed.
In the Traditional Worldview, the middle level is Low Religion. It’s inhabited by mechanical forces such as shamans and magic, ancestors and spirits, curses and blessings, evil eye, sacrifices, and folk religions. This level mediates between the seen and unseen worlds, having access to both. This is the world of curses, amulets, charms, astrology, and other attempts to bargain with or “handle” the unseen world. This is the level that drives most peoples lives, most of the time.
We would say that’s all superstition and ignorance. But facts don’t bring comfort to the unpredictable and unknowns of life. In the Biblical Worldview angels, prayer and visions, sacred space, and signs and wonders Myers lists. The question asked is “Whose God is more Powerful?” It is the Gospel-as-sign.
Do we have a place for the appearance of the supernatural? Do we have a home for signs and miracles? I read an article on the fact that Pentecostalism is the fastest growing expression of the church today in the world. It’s probably because it is more at home in the middle tier. The article said Pentecostalism looks different in the rest of the world than in the West. In the States the focus is tongues. I think postmodernism is trying to bring this middle layer back.
The book is looking at the traditional approaches of development/relief organizations and showing our western failure of hearing the community’s story about the unseen world, therefore failing to have answers or even taking it into account. It leads to current trends of change. Of primarily looking at who we are as Christians and that poor and non-poor alike all come down to identity, calling/vocation, and relationships. The Gospel-as-Sign comes from a very personal relationship with God that will overflow in all we say and do.
When Monte and me were pondering this a year ago, he pictured it differently. He drew it as a triangle with an inner triangle that touches all the outer triangle sides, representing the excluded middle. It’s the area that man and the ordinary live. An untouchable God would be the apex. He was doing numbers to the umpteenths at both ends, like science as the triangle base, both untouchable.
Monte thought on this more in his notes, which we need to talk about again. But he narrowed the problem down to the lack of story in all the outside points.
Walking With the Poor told a story of an African tribe given seeds to put in 8 categories of their lives. They were divided by things felt they controlled, how much is controlled by outsiders, and then controlled by gods and spirits. The largest control is by gods and spirits, then outsiders. But ... if it's outsiders coming in to help communities ... and they ignore the importance of gods and spirits (the middle level), nothing they help with will be sustained over the long haul.
What I'm asking is, what does this middle level look like today for us Christians?