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Look Who's Gathering
Registration for "Crossing the Divide"
We've had online
registration open for a month, but so
far only 16 people have used it to sign up for
Gathering 2008. A few others have registered by
emailing
me (Brent Laytham) directly. I admit I'm
starting to worry that many of you aren't coming this
year. So
please read the following carefully.
First, we really need you to register as soon as
possible. So we'll bribe you. Everyone
registered by
June 1 will be eligible for a drawing to receive a $100
book voucher from one of our booksellers.
We'll
have at least 2 (perhaps even 3) lucky winners.
Second, to register online, you need to be logged into
our website (that's just how it works). If you don't want
to log in or find that you cannot, please email me to
get registered.
Third, some of you are
waiting to
register because you don't want to send the deposit
yet. At this point, I'd rather have you register now and
send the deposit later.
So who is coming? Here's the list, and if you think your
name should be on it but don't find it here, let me hear
from you.
Beth Newman, Brent Laytham, Debra Dean Murphy,
Gabriel Alejandro Santos, Heather Bunce, James
Lewis, Joel James Shuman, Jon Stock, Kelly
Johnson, M. Therese Lysaught, Michael Joe Bowling,
Monica Laytham, Nancy Bullock, Jeff Bullock, Philip D.
Kenneson,
Ryan Bunce, Stan Wilson, Chris Broussard.
Congregational Formation Initiative Round 2 Set to Launch
We are hoping to launch a second cohort of
congregations on their journey through the
Congregational Formation Initiative (CFI)
this fall.
Toward that end we will be holding a one-day
orientation session in connection with the
summer
gathering in July. If you believe your
congregation
might be interested in being part of that
cohort, please
email CFI director Phil
Kenneson as soon as possible for further
information (or call 423-461-8797).
"Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love"
Normally, a reviewer should finish the work
reviewed before recommending it. Forget that.
I'm currently in the middle of reading
David Ford's fascinating new book,
Christian
Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in
Love (Cambridge, 2007). Opening with
a look at "wisdom crying" in the text of
Luke- Acts and moving forward using Job as
the core wisdom text of the book, Ford
explores a Christian way of uniting love of
wisdom with wisdom in love. Does he pull it
off? I'll let you know when I finish, but the
book has proven insightful and provocative.
Here is a sample: "Desire is in many
ways the
embracing mood of a life immersed in history
and oriented towards the fulfillment of God's
purposes. In desire the indicatives,
imperatives, interrogatives and subjunctives
are taken up into a dynamic that orders them
towards their fulfillment yet without
pretending that we are there yet. This guards
against allowing any of them to dominate
inappropriately: whether a literalist
dogmatism of 'This is so!' or a moral
absolutism of 'Do this!' or an openness of
questioning, doubt, and confusion without any
definiteness; or an endlessly experimental
exploration of attractive possibilities."
"This has important consequences for
theology. Theology desires a wisdom that is
true to God and God's desires; that lives in
the midst of life while hoping in God's
future; that takes as its main guide the
scriptures interpreted in the Spirit and in
community with Christians and with others who
seek wisdom; and that seeks to ring true to
the great cries that arise in scripture and
in life. Theology is called to be ceaselessly
attentive to these cries and to exercise
discernment while being gripped by
them."
Reviewed by Jon
Stock
editor's note: Jon, this is easily the
most expensive book ever reviewed in the EP
newsletter!
Friends of EP
Conferences and Courses
Join our confreres for conferences and courses
this summer:
The Jesus Radicals will be hosting
their annual conference Swords
into Plowshares: Anarchism, Christianity and
Principles of Peace, August 10-11, 2007
at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
The New Monasticism folks now offer a
Sc
hool
for Conversion, theological education and
practical formation for the sake of
conversion into a new way of life.
Bridgefolk's summer conference
entitled "Holiness
the Road: Saints and the Spirituality that
Sustains Them" will be at St. John's
Abbey in Collegeville, MN, July 25-27,
2008.
If you have news that you'd like us to share
with EPers, please email Brent
Laytham.
Notes from your editor
John McFadden
After Fox News sliced and diced 36 years of
faithful preaching by my UCC colleague,
Jeremiah Wright, into a 25 second sound bite,
I had lunch with the senior pastor of the
Appleton Alliance church. I asked: "Dennis,
how many
of your sermons would I need to review before
I found something that made you look like a
complete fool?" He pondered the question a
moment before replying: "three, at most."
It is fair to guess that Dennis and Jeremiah
would agree on very little beyond the
goodness of God and the Lordship of Christ,
but certainly they both understand that a
faithful sermon attempts to bring God's Word
to a particular congregation on a specific
day: very few sermons travel well, nor are
they meant to be broken down into
fifteen-second sound bites. Here in the
YouTube era, preachers -and the Gospel they
serve - have become vulnerable to distortion
and abuse.
I suspect that when we come together at the
Gathering to ponder "Race, Racism and the
Body of Christ" there will be much
conversation about this incident, and about
the prophetic witness of the African-American
pulpit. Meanwhile, Randy Cooper points us to
another important dimension of this
"incident" in his thoughtful piece on bLOGOS,
which can be read he
re.
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