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May 29, 2008
Facebook in Reality!!
So I came across this today. In case you wondered what facebook in reality would be like, check this out. Oh, and its set in the UK. So the humor reflects it;)
peace...
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2008
Loads of lasts..
Please indulge this personal journal. I need the space and community for it;)
As you will have read before, Laura and I are currently in the final stages of a transition from Geneva to Atlanta. It is a truly bitter sweet period for us.
This week especially is turning out to be full of several lasts. For starters, it is the last time I'll be on campus at any of the international schools. Next, I attended my last board meeting with YFC Geneva last night. I took my leave before the meeting ended, and well, that is that. Finally, we will be having a final team outing and student party this weekend.
Yes, change is in the air as is the genuine transition from one physical place to another. We're not sure what all the next season will have for sure, but we're excited for the space between knowing and doing.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers this week if you don't mind.
Thanks..
joshua
Posted by joshuacase at 06:48 PM | Comments (2)
May 26, 2008
Dinner with the Arch
Last Tuesday, Laura and I were privileged enough to be able to have dinner with our friend Canon Ted Karpf, the rest of his 'family in Geneva' and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Laura and I were by far the youngest of the crew there, but we had a great time with the Arch, Mthunzi, and the rest of the people there.
For my dearest friend Ted, it was also a special occasion as he literally got called out by the Arch in his address to the WHO. The Arch said, 'You know, when I came here, I was not feeling too well. In fact, I felt like death warmed up. And then I arrived here at the WHO, and the WHO lived up to its reputation because I was seen. I was seen by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Pascale Gilbert-Miguet, who treated me and here I am before you today! Let us give her a nice clap. (applause) and can say to you all that I am a lot, a lot better. And if in the course of my address I may sound intelligent, you must know that it is due to the contributions of Father Ted Karpf. When I am not bad, it is probably Ted' words you are hearing.'
If you wish to read the rest of the speech/address/sermon, continue reading below! Believe me, it is well worth the read!
Here are a few other links to the Arch's time in Geneva.
Desmond Tutu: "Caring and compassion will prevail over evil and injustice"
Commonwealth Health Ministers meet in Geneva
Desmond Tutu Urges Governments to Do Better for World Healthcare
Save "the cradle of mankind" says Tutu on Africa
And last but not least, here is the photo of Ted, Myself, and the Arch. What a joy!
man do I have some stories;)
jc
It is an auspicious year since it is also the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As it happens it is also the 30th Anniversary of your own Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care and the 7th Anniversary of the Abuja Declaration pledging 15% of the national budget to be earmarked for health by African Heads of State.
Thus there is no shortage of significant subjects about which we could confer together. I received a letter from Consumers International that urged me to raise the issue which her Royal Highness refers to, that of childhood obesity. They claim that worldwide 22% of all children under 5 years old are overweight. And somebody in the World Council of Churches said that they wanted to mention the dire consequences of children living with AIDS. They gave me T-shirt, and asked if I can wear it? But it doesn't go well with purple. I have an embarrassment of riches.
But as I have mulled over a possible topic, it struck me quite forcibly that in many ways it would in fact be somewhat presumptuous of me to talk to you about health issues when you are the professionals and have a plethora of experts you could call on who would have the specific data relating to your area of interest.
I thought it would be less presumptuous and more appropriate if I were to speak in the area of my own competence – the spiritual, the religious or ethical sphere. I would be likely to speak with a bit more confidence and perhaps a modicum of authority.
Reflecting again on your history and Constitution, the fullness of the right to health is still incomplete. Health not only encompasses the physical, mental and social wellbeing, but must be inclusive of spiritual wellbeing. I will try to explain:
State of the World
I have a favourite book of cartoons by the late Mel Calman of the London Observer newspaper entitled, “My God”. One shows God somewhat nonplussed and saying, “Oh dear, I think I have lost my copy of the Divine Plan!” Looking at the state of the world we might be forgiven for wondering if God ever had a plan at all. There are devastating floods in one part and destructive droughts in another. Couldn’t God have organised things better so that there was enough water for all everywhere? Then there are all the man-made disasters of tyranny and oppression, an endless doleful catalogue of woe.
There are the long lines of bedraggled refugees from natural and man-made disasters. We have the casualties of racism, ethnic strife and xenophobia--and isn't awful, awful to read what about what is happening in my own country? And staring us in the face is the looming catastrophe of climate change and ecological degradation signaled by tsunamis, cyclones and hurricanes.
And you would be particularly aware of the devastation caused by disease – TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS, river blindness, polio, cholera, infant mortality, maternal illnesses referred to so eloquently by her Royal Highness, many fuelled by poverty – children dying of easily preventable diseases if they could but get the inexpensive vaccination/inoculation; many illnesses resulting from a lack of clean water, proper sanitation and decent housing. There is also evil when we refuse or become immobilized by bureaucracies or corruption to provide the needed-remedy to heal the nations.
We must never forget that as government leaders, we have a calling to dispel ignorance, restore justice and defend liberty. We have this calling to ensure peace and build good health. Much disease and heartbreak is preventable if governments had the political will – the 15% Now campaign seeks to urge African Heads of State to honour their pledges and so prevent unnecessary deaths of 8 million of their citizens.
Then there are those leaders playing havoc with the well being, the health of their people. In these places, even the children are enlisted into ranks of soldiers. Likewise, parents watch helplessly as their children succumb, either because medication is rendered useless because of lack of electricity and so of refrigeration, or they are held up at check points and may fail to reach the hospital in time, if at all. Dear friends, health cannot be de-linked or separated from the killing effects of living under the bonds of terror, oppression and tyranny. The times are thoroughly out of joint. Evil is real and rampant.
In our Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, we were devastated by the stories of atrocities committed. “We gave him drugged coffee and shot him in the head. Then we burned his body. It takes 7 – 8 hours for this to happen and so whilst it was taking place, we had a barbecue and drank beer.” You wondered what could have happened to the humanity of those perpetrators that they could sink so low. We could burn a human being here. We could burn a human being and barbecue. We could burn a human being and drink beer. We realized of course that it bore witness to the fact that you and I, all of us, have this horrendous capacity for evil. Those who supported Hitler did not have horns and tails. They were human beings like you and me, often even prominent, respected members of their communities. Yes, we all have the capacity to sink so low.
But wonderfully, wonderfully, that turned out not to be the whole story, nor indeed the most important part of the story. Wonderfully, exhilaratingly, there was another, a glorious side. We witnessed extraordinary exhibitions of magnanimity as victims of the most ghastly atrocities, people who should have been consumed by bitterness and a lust for revenge, we witnessed how they spoke words of forgiveness, of generosity to their tormentors in public and embraced them then, and we realized then that, yes, we have a capacity for evil, but, wonderfully, exhilaratingly, as I said before, we have this amazing capacity for good.
Early this year we of this group, called the Elders, visited Darfur – the descriptions do not tell half the story of the awfulness that we found there. We had a meeting with the Internally Displaced People and staggeringly, staggering they could laugh – what an amazing example of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of daunting conditions. The Muslim men wore white costumes – and they were spotless. I looked around the squalor wondering where did they get the water. It all testified to the wonder of the human spirit, the capacity to laugh, to cling to dignity and self respect, to refuse to see oneself as a victim, or to be pitied as one.
And then, and then we were impressed by another feature of that depressing landscape – the wonder of the remarkable humanitarian workers. These were citizens of different lands most of whom could have led safe and comfortable lives in their homelands. But no, here they were, some returning more than once in this bleak place, so utterly insecure, where they ran the risk of being abducted; and woe betide the victim if it was a women – running the gauntlet of sexual violation and worse.
And yet, and yet, and yet here they were as they were to be found in so many other parts of the world which was hurting -- either through natural or manmade disaster. There they were with an amazing dedication and commitment making you feel proud to be human. And many of those you represent are found in this glorious company of humanitarian workers as doctors, nurses, ambulance workers as they hare having offered themselves as part of the world, offering themselves as part of those treating the human disaster. Wow, what a fantastic array of goodness, of compassion, of caring; continuing the Divine project of healing a broken and wounded world; making whole that which is alienated and hurting.
All of you, all of you, including those fantastic people who are part of NGOs around the world; all of you in the healing enterprise are God’s collaborators in making this a better world – more compassionate, gentler, more caring, and more sharing. In the tradition of Abraham there is a notion that God deliberately made the world imperfect, so that God could enlist us all in the business of making the world perfect.
When we were fighting against the viciousness of apartheid, we helped to sustain the morale and the hope of our people in what seemed an unequal struggle by reminding them, "Hey ours is a moral universe, that there was no way in which wrong, evil, injustice, oppression could ever have the last world." "Hey", we would say "this is God’s world and God is in charge." Sometimes you wanted to whisper in God’s ear, “God we know you are in charge – but why don’t you make it more obvious?”
Yes, wrong, evil will not have the last word. Goodness compassion, love, justice, laughter, caring these are what will prevail, will triumph over their ghastly counterparts. Tyrants, dictators, perpetrators of injustice and oppression may strut about the stage as if they were invincible cocks of the walk. But as sure as anything, they will get their come-uppance; they will bite the dust and do so ignominiously. That is the verdict of history – the tyrants, the despots, the upholders of apartheid, etc. etc. – where are they now? No, no, we will not gloat.
The Right to Health
It is evident from generations of witness that there is no situation that cannot be transformed. There is no person who is hopeless, that is without a hope and a remedy. There is no set of circumstances that cannot be turned about by human beings and their natural capacity for love. It is essential that the world see such ideas are put into action through the promises of the WHO, on behalf of all people, communities and nations. For we need each other to become truly free, to become human, and enjoy the spiritual wellbeing of our creation in relationship to God and each other.
When we review the right to health, we cannot help but notice that its global scope contains the hopes and aspirations of all the peoples of the world. It also calls upon the WHO to guard and guide the nations – the Member States, as you call them – protecting their citizens and guaranteeing the right to health for all people. It is a sacred and solemn covenant – a promise that you are called upon to undertake. Let me thank you for your tenacious commitment and what this means in the lives of the more than 6 billion residents of this planet.
And I am indeed grateful, as we all are in Africa, that your Director-General has already become a partner in creation with God by addressing the monumental health concerns of Africa and the health of women and girls as critical to your priorities. Imagine, imagine if you will, that the cradle of humankind -- because of disease, conflict and destruction -- is precariously placed to become its final burial ground? We cannot lose Africa! As we often sing in our houses of worship: “God bless Africa. Guide her leaders. Guard her children. Grant her peace.”
It is a godly coincidence that nearby the World Council of Churches is also celebrating its 60th anniversary. Together WHO and WCC share a common mission to the world, protecting and restoring body, mind, and spirit. It is important that this is also the 40th anniversary of the Christian Medical Commission, whose values and experience in Primary Health Care, informed and shaped the 1974 WHO Guidelines for Primary Health Care, which were reaffirmed at Alma Ata.
You see, we – faith and health – have been together a very long time. Health is not only freedom from suffering and illness, but according to your Constitution: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” These words enshrine the fundamental reason you are here and suggest something of what we share in our commitment to the world, together. Perhaps it would be good for us to include the recognition that there is an intrinsic relationship between God and humankind, which can be acknowledged as “spiritual wellbeing”? Perhaps one day this notion of wellbeing can be included in the WHO definition of health?
Conclusion
You are the guardians of the dream of "Health for All". You have the opportunity and responsibility to lead the world into a healthy place. You are the enactors of justice: justice in the distribution of a country's wealth for health; justice to meet the Millennium Development Goals; justice to save the lives of your people, and enable them to prosper and build healthy nations! God is watching. The people are watching. You are commissioned to go to wipe the tears away from all faces and bring forth lives filled with strength, and purpose which will make for peace.
I have sometimes imagined that when God looks down at the mess we have made of things, that God might wonder, “What ever got into me to create that lot?” and God weeps. And then God looks again at you and all those others who want to help God change this world to make it a better world and, hey, a smile begins to break over God’s face like the sun shining through the rain and God says, “Ah, ja, ja that is why I created them, they are vindicating me.” And a little angel, have you noticed, the little angel? This little angel goes and wipes the tears from God’s eyes.
And God says, “Please help me – please help me to realize my dream; that all my children will know that they are sisters and brothers members of one family, the human family, God’s family – please help me, help me? Help me make this world a more compassionate place? Please help make it more gentle, and please help make it more caring? Help me? Help me? Help me? Please help me?"
---finis #
Posted by joshuacase at 12:12 PM | Comments (2)
May 23, 2008
Seriously Good Conversations
Here are a few SGCs from this week. Do enjoy!
Desmond Tutu Urges Governments to Do Better for World Healthcare
Justice and Compassion's '10 Years'
Next Reformation's 'missional vulnerability'
UNICEF seeks additional funds to aid children affected by Ethiopia’s growing food crisis
Shane Claiborne's blog at God Politics entitled 'Holy Mischief: 40 Years after the Catonsville 9 and the 'Fracture of Good Order' (by Shane Claiborne)'
Mike Campbell's 'Finding God In The Homeless'
Paul Mayer's post at Jason Clark's site entitled 'Are we fundamentalist enough?'
happy reading...
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 02:16 PM | Comments (1)
May 21, 2008
Bubble Wrap for adults with computers!
As a kid, my siblings and I almost aways fought over the bubble wrap. There was something about the popping and such that was just addictive. We loved it.
If you were one of those too, check this out. Or, if you are in Japan, look for a Puchi Puchi:
hehe...
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2008
Obama sets record in Portland
Obama recently set a record in Portland, Oregon USA while speaking to 75'000 people!! Read the rest of the story here.
Also, in case you wondered what today could mean for the Obama campaign, and the never-ending bid for the democratic nomination, David Plouffe writes:
We're poised to reach a major milestone tomorrow. When the votes are counted in Oregon and Kentucky, we could secure a majority of delegates elected by the voters.
A clear majority of elected delegates will send an unmistakable message -- the people have spoken, and they are ready for change.
As we near victory in one contest, the next challenge is already heating up. President Bush and Senator McCain have begun coordinating their attacks on Barack Obama in an effort to extend their failed policies for a third term.
Last week, President Bush used a speech before the Israeli parliament to launch an unprecedented partisan attack. Senator McCain echoed his divisive misrepresentation of Barack's foreign policy vision, engaging in the same fear-mongering and distortion.
We're just 16 pledged delegates away from reaching an absolute majority.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow night to see Barack's speech.
Thank you,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
joshuacase for obama
Posted by joshuacase at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2008
Newest Podacast Interview is Available
The most recent podcast is up at The Nick & Josh Podcast. Make sure to check out this interview with the Rev. Michael French. I promise, from a development and advocacy stand point, you won't meet a sharper guy!
Keep watch for other upcoming transnational interviews with Canon Ted Karpf, Pete Rollins and Kester Brewin!
peace..
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 01:37 PM | Comments (2)
My Beautiful Idol: A Review in Brief
Over the last few weeks I've been reading through My Beautiful Idol by Pete Gall. As one of the book-bloggers for The Ooze, I can honestly say that I was delighted to have received this book.
With a coy and fresh sense of personal awareness, Gall writes a delightful book about his journey from the heights of the marketing world, to the church. And while I won't tell you where he ends up, I will tell you that if your faith journey has included bad break-ups, humiliating conversations with yourself, great vulnerability when it comes to family, and a wrestling with the cheekiness of some faith expressions, then you will find your story is deeply connected to Pete's.
I would articulate, however, that while the book is well written and engaging for someone who is able to understand their life in the context of a journey of faith, it is written for people within that sort of a context. I found myself asking if people who would not identify with faith, or God, would actually get what Pete was saying, or if they would at times struggle with what appears to be an over-fascination with what God seems to be inflicting him. No, Pete is not a woe to me kind of guy, but his book is written as a memoir of one who has and continues to wrestle with God. It is a wrestling that many who come from a theistic worldview will feel at home with; however, for those from an other-than-theistic to atheistic worldview, it may just seem like too much "god talk."
On the other hand, I can honestly say that I laughed and cried multiple times in reading this book. In many ways, Pete's story and my story are very very similar. The questions he asks, the whimsical nature of his processing, the raw authenticity of his narrative, and the oh-so-often Meet the Parents kind of drama that occurs is sure to keep all readers waiting for what is next.
Check out Pete's book here. You can also pick it up from Amazon here.
Enjoy the read. And do give it a shot.
Joshua Case
Geneva, Switzerland
May 2008
Posted by joshuacase at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2008
Thoughts on Service, Farming and Intention
Here are a few thoughts I've been having lately:
By serving others we create space for faith by trusting that somehow by putting ourselves aside, we dismiss the power in the foolishness of today's predominant paradigm that says 'you are all that matters'. Yet, as we are each stewards of the mysteries of God, we serve not because by doing so we demonstrate that we have faith, but because it is our duty, our pleasure, our place as humans interconnected to a global ecosystem.
Acts of service are in many ways like acts of farming. For the most part, they are committed, and only small and momentary changes are experienced. For those who receive the service and aid of others, the relief is profound and often greatly appreciated. Yet longer are the days of service through which little seems moved, or through which the servant experiences the joy of transformation.
But who is to say which actually has had the most profound effect? Does not the harvest arrive after months of growth and watering and waiting? And a good film or book from months of hard work and editing?
Such it is with the movements of service in faith. That in their sowing, one intends that goodness should inhabit the space where injustice is present. That truth comes to life where deceit currently lives. That hope and peace will become alive where death and rupture dwell. But be not mistaken, these growths and hopeful transformations are not our doings, but our mere-intendings. What actually comes when they actually come, or how they come, are not merely up to the elements and the servants themselves, but also to the God of creation.
For in the space between planting, care-taking, watering, hoping, and waiting, Creator makes growth occur. For in the space between intentional action and harvested result exists ages of divine and natural interaction. Or maybe they are one in the same?!
What have you sown?
Where have you hoped?
For what do you wait?
How have you watered?
Trust. Wait. Act.
joshua case
Posted by joshuacase at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2008
Seriously Good Conversations
Here are a few good conversations, or conversation starters from this week.
There are three from the church and postmodern culture blog: Geuss on Rorty: Pragmatism and (as?) Americanism; Zizek, and the danger of Obama for the American church; Carl Raschke on Incarnational Ecclessiology
Pete Rollins 'More things Please'
Jonathan Stegall's 'Pentecostals and revival'
Fr. Geoffrey Hoare's 'Thoughts on Power'
And last but not least, thanks to the Diocese of Arizona for this link to the newest carbon footprint calculator at zerofootprint. DO take a moment to check out their "one minute calculator". It can be a bit shocking!
peace...
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2008
Carl Raschke on Incarnational "Ecclesiology"
Carl Raschke, author of The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity recently put up pretty good post over at the church and postmodern culture blog. I first came across Raschke via his fore-mentioned book. It was one the first pieces of theological exegesis concerning postmodernity that I found articulating well the transition in equitable terms; namely those terms which enabled evangelicals to be evangelical postmoderns.
Make sure to check out the comments being added by Jason Clark and others.
Here is the original post:
Incarnational "Ecclesiology" - From Third Space to Smooth Space
Much of the conversation in this location concerns theology and ecclesiology. By the latter I have in mind not the doctrine, but the theory of the church. Increasingly the theory of the church has outstripped the ensemble of faith-articulations that we know as the "theological" enterprise. A recent post by Jason Clark on this blog called for a revival of ecclesiology and offered the prospect of a "third space" as an alternative to the familiar private and public spaces that serve as the axis of tension in the postmodern world. Clark also makes the telling point (in a general manner of speaking) that so much of today’s “conversation” about the church, including what is “emerging” or “emergent”, or old-style “modern” versus revolutionary “postmodern”, has grown threadbare because it amounts to little more than an entropic process of making ever more rarefied distinctions within this specific axis of tension and articulation.
The design of this axis, which generates endless cultural and intellectual styles of signification, arises from the clash between Medieval corporatism and Lutheran cum Cartesian subjectivism at the time of the Reformation and the dawn of the modern era. “Public” and “private” represent interlocking and reciprocal protestations – hence the term Protestant - against the epistemic (in Foucault’s sense) configurations of the other. The collectivisms of the modern era from French republicanism to fascism to Marxism to Maoism culminating in Hardt and Negri’s “multitudinism” are but forms of ongoing “counterreformationism”, or effort s to reinscribe the sovereignty of the corporate - that is, in terms of a totalized symbology of the dynamic power of the collective - in increasingly this-worldly or immanent terms.
Both reformationism and counterreformationism (terminology I myself have minted here), which express themselves in the ever more sophisticated ideologies of what Foucault named the “biopolitical”, define a never-ending metaphysical struggle within the realm of Western thought. Borrowing from Heidegger, we might term it the true “gigantomachy”, or titanic battle, within the metapolitics of the West. Mark C. Taylor in his most recent book After God (University of Chicago Press, 2007) characterizes such a struggle as the engine of secularization, the trajectory through the “death of God” to an ill-characterized age that comes “after God.” It is no accident that so-called “postmodern” theology has swung back and forth in an increasingly volatile manner between the radical reformationism of the early emergent church thinkers to the “left”-leaning counterreformationism (socialism with a sacramentalist heart and soul) of radical orthodoxy.
Źiźek’s observation that postmodernism amounts to little more than “late modernism” may be apt in this instance. It was Nietzsche’s implicit rhetorical point in his later writings – and it is the most telling ramification of the poignant parable of the madman - that a Christianity that needs to justify God really has lost God. In its effort to justify God what it is really seeking to legitimate is its own priestly, or “ecclesiastical”, Wille zur Macht. So is a “third space” simply the dialectical resolution of the conflict between assertions of these two congenitally modern spatialities? Or is it a space like no space we have yet envisioned? Theologies and ecclesiologies are nothing more, and nothing less, than elaborations or articulations of certain epochal “topologies,” the semiotic version of the Foucaultian episteme. These topologies can be characterized as “epochal” because they belong not to an era but to a vast range of time in which art, architecture, language, and modes of social and cultural organization are developed and go through their own life cycles in ways that express certain underlying, or indigenous, tendencies. Let us refer to such a topology as an inherent typology or “logic” of historical space. The space of Christendom and its secularized counterpart is both differential and dialectical.
The great “theologian” of secular Christendom, as Taylor observes, is Hegel. Hegelian dialectics are anchored in Chalcedonian metaphysics or ontology, where the paradox of two “natures” (physes) is held permanently in tension but ultimately “taken up” into a third space that reconciled rationality with reality. This third space Hegel calls the state. The Hegelian state is the secularized version of God on the cross. Hence Protestant reformationism comes to be manifested as the “spirit of capitalism”, embodied in Western liberal democracy and in the phase of late capitalism as Hardt and Negri’s “empire.” Corporatist counterreformationism undertakes a systematic critique of capitalism (the Hegelian “rational”) under the sign of a theory of fully productive labor and autonomous human desire (the Hegelian “real”) in quest of a new universal solidarity that expresses what is supposed to be truly human. But the secret of Chalcedonism is the “church visible”, while the secret of Hegelianism is the state, whether capitalist or collectivist.
Thus the third space of much contemporary ecclesiology, derived from dialectical theology, turns out to be either the imperial or territorial church where authority resides in its own magisterium which in turn has drawn its legitimacy ever since Constantine from the sovereignty of state, or it is the “voluntary association” of the Christian faithful – Luther’s priesthood of all believers – who act according to their own “sovereign” consciences, which is the basis of Madison’s “right” to the free exercise of religion. Both “spaces” in their own way sacralize the secular. The first sacralizes the earthly regime, or the communitarian political regime of social engineers and “experts”; the second sacralizes the Lockean “natural man” who pursues his or her own happiness. The Chalcedonian-Hegelian dialectic, which ultimately becomes a secular dialectic, finds its moment of incarnation in the state collective, which masquerades as “liberation” from previous regimes, but establishes its own regime and institutes a new form of the state apparatus.
But on a global scale we are witnessing the beginnings of a new kind of “incarnationalism” that is neither Chalcedonian nor Hegelian , but Antiochene. By “Antiochene” I refer not only to those arcane disputes of the fifth century in which the question of how the divine and the human were conjoined in Christ (the Antiochenes against what later became the “orthodox” position stressed the human as the “complete” expression of the divine), but also the post-Pentacost and “missional” dynamism of the early church, as idealized in Acts. Antiochene space was not a tertiary space, but a proto-space of incarnational and relational reality. To turn Hegel on his “ear,” the real is not rational but relational, and the relational is real. The living Spirit of the fast-growing body of Christians was the animating force of Pentacost.
enjoy the read...
jc
The space of the church is not yet “Roman” or ecclesiastical with its hierarchies, sacramental solemnities, enclosed basilicas, and doctrinal dicta, but “ecclesial” in the original sense of ekklesia, the “calling” together of those who empowered by the Spirit and responsive to Jesus’ “sending” (the Great Commission) of the spirit-led and spirit-driven to the ends of the earth It is the space of what Hugh Halter, with whom I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and partner with in the past few weeks, calls “the tangible kingdom” (cf. Hugh Halter, The Tangible Kingdom, Leadership Network Publications, 2008). The tangible kingdom is the incarnational kingdom of those who are involved in mission, whose “being” is both being-sent and being-in-relation. Halter is not a theologian. Nor is he an “ecclesiologian.” He is a true Antiochene church theorist who see “churches” not as places or communities, but as relational networks.
The tangible kingdom is the ongoing and global incarnation of God in the mundus, the world. It does not represent the secularization of the church, but the Christification – not to be confused with the Christianization or “churchification”of the saeculum. He calls the congealing of these relational networks into effective nerve centers of outreach and benevolence as “communities of blessing.” They are not a “third space”, which is still an institutional space, but the spatialization and semiotic articulation on its myriad planes of the soma Christou. As Deleuze would say, such a soma is not codified into the mutual Platonic reflectivity of eternity and time, or of heaven and earth, but emerges as the “rhizomic” spreading and sending forth of intensities that radiate in all directions, what I in my new book call the GloboChrist.
The rhizomic community of blessing therefore constitutes the radicalization of the incarnate Christ in the relational and immanent reality of de-territorialized humanity we know as “globalization.” It is not a third space, but (again citing Deleuze) the “smooth space” of the new global and local (“glocal”) Christianity. Theology must not become anthropology, as Feuerbach sketching the secularist project once proclaimed. Theology must become a Deleuzian Christian nomadology, the nomadology that the Letter to the Hebrews foreshadows. It is the postmodern turn that the Great Commission is now taking.
Posted by joshuacase at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2008
More Obama
Well, as predicted, Obama didn't win West Virginia, and he will not win Kentucky either. At least not this time around;)
In case you missed his speech last week after the North Carolina primary victory, I suggest you watch this one. Again, another one of the good ones that he will be remembered for. Rhetoric and vision, passion and inclusion that I am sure will return in the campaigns to come!
joshua case for Obama.
Posted by joshuacase at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2008
Good Ol' Georgia!
Well, there are a few reasons to look forward to moving to Georgia. Signs, be they on churches or bars are just one of them. Say the funny one above for instance. You can read the whole story here, including the bit about the below t-shirt for sale which the owner of the store thought was cute, and not racist at all. This is one of the reasons to not look forward to the move!
what a country...
jc
ps.
in case you missed it, 'OJ' is referring to OJ Simpson who was accused and acquitted of killing his wife. However, there is still a large percentage of the American population who believe he did kill her and got away with it.
Posted by joshuacase at 06:48 PM | Comments (1)
Tuesday is for Thomas
Merton wrote:
It is like an English summer day, cool and cloudy, with deep green grass all around the hermitage and trees heavy with foliage. Occasional slow bursts of gentle sunlight that imperceptibly pass by. Shafts of light and great rooms of shadow in the tall tree-church beyond the cedar cross. The path of creek gravel leads into the shadows and beyond them to the monastery, out of sight, down the hill, across the fields and a road and a dirty stream. All such things as roads and sewers are far from this place.
Knowing when you do not need any more. Acting just enough. Saying enough. Stopping when there is enough. Some may be wasted, nature is prodigal. Harmony is not bought with pasimoniousness.
Yet stopping is "going on". To cling to something and want more of it, to use it more, to squeeze enjoyment out of it. This is to "stop" and not "go on." But to leave it alone at the right time, this is the right stopping, the right going on. To leave a thing alone before you have had anything to do with it, if it is for your use, to leave it without use, is not "stopping," it is not even beginning. Use it to go on.
To be great is to go on.
To go on is to be far.
To be far is to return.
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good stuff....
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2008
Happy Birthday, and what a fun weekend!!!
Over the last few days Laura and I have been completing one of the last big events for our time here in Geneva. Taking a group of about 30 around Lake Geneva by bike in support of Voix Libres, we had quite the weekend. If you haven't already, you ought to check them out!
Roughly based on MTV's Road Rules, several teams competed in events as they cycled around the lake together. If you are on Facebook, you can see a host of photos here. If not, sorry.
Also on the weekend, Laura celebrated her birthday! As we reflected on it, it was interesting to think that this will be the last birthday to be celebrated abroad for a while. Sounds sad, but then we began to reflect on the other good bits about celebrating birthdays in America. You know, things like Chucky Cheese Pizza and of course, the proximity of family. Not that the two even remotely compare, but that's kind of the upside.
So, in case you wondered, that's what I've been up to. It has been a great and beautiful weekend here in Geneva. Post this week will include: Thoughts on Service and Farming; My Beautiful Idol: A Book Review; The Indian Taxi Fund: An Update; and other misc posts. Hope this lets you know what to look forward to.
Have a wonderful week!
joshua
ps.
And just in case you wondered, Barack Obama will lose West Virginia and most likely Kentucky as well; however, he has for the first time tied about to take the super delegate lead!
Posted by joshuacase at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2008
A confession and a moratorium...
I have to come out on something. It may not be popular. I am taking a moratorium on Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I know I know. The guy is a bit out there, and he has not done much good for my friend Obama, but I think its ok for me to withhold judgement.
Just the other night a group of us were watching some of Bill Moyers Interview with him, and while there have been quite a few sound bytes taken out of context about Rev. Wright, a good bit of what he is addressing I think is so unpopular because it flies in the face of the mainstream.
As many of you may very well be aware, he is a black liberation theologian. At its best, liberation theology changes things at every level of a society on behalf of justice. At its worst, its gets labeled as that liberal jargon that just does social action stuff because its lost its evangelical heart, or wants to take over power from those who have it.
A couple of practical bits that reflect the liberation theology of Wright are below. Yes, admittedly they fly in the face of the mainstream, but are they really that wrong? Or are they just too close for comfort?
Rev. Wright from a sermon in 2003:
"Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!
BILL MOYERS: What did you mean when you said that?
REVEREND WRIGHT: When you start confusing God and government, your allegiances to government -a particular government and not to God, that you're in serious trouble because governments fail people. And governments change. And governments lie. And those three points of the sermon. And that is the context in which I was illustrating how the governments biblically and the governments since biblical times, up to our time, changed, how they failed, and how they lie. And when we start talking about my government right or wrong, I don't think that goes. That is consistent with what the will of God says or the word of God says that governments don't say right or wrong. That governments that wanna kill innocents are not consistent with the will of God. And that you are made in the image of God, you're not made in the image of any particular government. We have the freedom here in this country to talk about that publicly, whereas some other places, you're dead if say the wrong thing about your government."
Rev. Wright about in the words of his first sermon after September 11th:
"In fact, September 11th, I was in Newark. September 11th, I was trapped in Newark 'cause when they shut down the air system I couldn't get back to Chicago. September 11th, I looked out the window and saw the second plane hit from my hotel window. Alright, I had members who lost loved ones both at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center. So, I know the pain. And I had to preach to them Sunday. I had to preach. They came to church wanting to know where is God in this. And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.
REVEREND WRIGHT (SERMON TAPE): The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies . "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.
I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out. You see him John? A white man he pointed out -an Ambassador! He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y'all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised--"
-------
Again, I am not saying I endorse the guy completely or even partially, but I am saying that the kind of pro-testifying (as Marcus Borg would call it) to the practice and place of applied theology to context is deeply important to look at. If for no other reason, to understand where he is coming from. Again, he is probably hurt Obama in many ways, for me this is quite sad, but I am taking a moratorium on the man.
am I silly?
jc
oh, and by the way, he had connections to Billy as well;)
Posted by joshuacase at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2008
Something sick and something funny
So, I was looking for a video about this crazy story where someone left a dead deer at a petrol station in the US with a sign that read: 'lower gas prices, the humans are taking it out on us'. Pretty sick stuff.
Then, I found this. I'm sorry, but it is funny! And the two guys who did the prank, host a show called, The Man Show. On the whole, not the most wholesome of tv shows. Well, not even really in part. But, when your slot is 3am, what can you expect. Check this out.
did you laugh? at least at some parts?
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2008
Can Atheists Be Religious? Are there Religious Atheists?
This was an interesting article posted of at About.com.
"Religion and Atheism Are Not Contradictory Or Opposites
Question:
Can atheists be religious?
Response:
Atheism and religion are often portrayed and treated as polar opposites; although there is a strong correlation between being an atheist and being irreligious, there is no necessary and inherent connection between the two. Atheism is not the same as being irreligious; theism is not the same as being religious. Atheists in the West tend not to belong to any religion, but atheism is quite compatible with religion. Theists in the West tend to be religious, but theism is compatible with irreligion."
To see the rest of the article, visit here.
enjoy...
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:40 AM | Comments (1)
May 04, 2008
Old Adverts..
Nick offered a few old adverts like this one that a re crazy. Check the others out at his blog.
crazy..
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 03:33 PM | Comments (1)
May 03, 2008
Seriously Good Conversations
Here are a few SGC's:
Firstly, let me highlight this Blogalogue between NT Wright and Bart Ehrman concerning pain and suffering. Is our pain God’s problem? If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow so much suffering? These kinds of questions—sometimes called the problem of theodicy—have long bothered believers (in Christianity) and nonbelievers (of Christianity) alike. These questions are especially pressing now as we face the AIDS pandemic, widespread hunger, and environmental degradation—not to mention the grief that humans can cause one another. Make sure to check it out here.
Paul Mayer's 'Jesus- the stud of God...'
Mental Floss' 'Why can't your tickle yourself'
Justice and Compassion's 'Does Anyone Want to Hear?'
Common Grounds Online 'The Church and Social Reform'
You may be aware that there is a major food crisis going on around the world. Mike Todd has been keeping things updated on his blog. I know there are lots of others blogging about it. But Mike is a trustworthy source with a reflection on what we can do to make a difference.
enjoy this weekend.
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 03:02 PM | Comments (1)