benedson

Heaven and Earth Show

I'm going to be on the heaven and earth show on Sunday. They filmed me today at Nexus. I'm a bit nervous about it as I'm not sure how it'll come across. It's meant to be a bit polemical so hopefully that will come across well. It's a response to a piece by Terry Waite that'll appear in The Daily Mail on Saturday.

I'm also quite cautious about some of their camera shots...I may be seen as a bit wacky! I'm gonna be portrayed as the young crazy one and he'll be the institutional man.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, Heaven and Earth

Dialectical Logic

I've just come across this concept that i find profoundly helpful when helping to deal with my unanswered faith questions, and also when pastorally working with those people with existential questions. I think that is also helpful for those who have left church because church has not been a place where they have been able to articulate their questions without fear of being burnt as a heretic.

It seems that certain sectors within the Church place to much value on formal logic, i.e. analysing a range of factors in order to get a right answer - apologetics. Whereas dialectical logic - a concept of Klaus Riegal - ends up with a question rather than an answer. It demands the ability to be able to tolerate contradictions and by pondering the contradictions to discover more profound questions.
Life is therefore seen and experienced as too complicated and rich to be held within our thinking and in this way energises the thinking process.

Fascinating stuff, that also ties in with Fowlers stage 5 in the faith process...

Technorati Tags: churchless faith, Dialectic Logic

on being a man...

I am away with my ordination training at the moment, which is fun...not. I've met a fellow blogger Nigel Wright - it's always fascinating to meet people whom you have previously connected with via the blogosphere.

We've been exploring a variety of subjects based around human relationships and I've been struck by the lack of resources that are engaging holistically with masculine spirituality. I'm aware of things like men's breakfasts, dads and lads weekends etc. but to be honest I'm still to be convinced by any of these approaches. Partly, because I have a suspicion that they perpetuate the problem of gender identity being based on that which divides rather than that which unites.

However, i think that there is also a crisis in masculinity - you only need to look at the levels of male suicide to see that that there is something very wrong. Patriarchy was oppressive and destructive, but when do we stop seeking forgiving for our gender and move on to work on the process of reconciliation? Reconciliation is about working together for the common good, and unfortunately i think that too much is still based on the differences rather than the unity.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, masculinity, puppy, theology

Learning communities

I was at The Fresh Expressions Discipleship roundtable yesterday. There were some interesting ideas and thoughts, and a lot was centred on web based learning. There have been a couple of sites launched recently that have developed online discipleship programmes such as Foundations21.

I started think about two things, firstly how I learn online. My online learning doesn't involve going to one website, but involves about 20 or 30 blogs that come directly to my computer through an RSS feed. Therefore i construct my only learning community, there are some sites that i give more credibility to than others and some that I know i'll disagree with - but the point is that there is not one site, one point of view but a diversity of opinions and through this my online learning happens.

My other thought was that perhaps our discipleship has got to focused on the rights of the individual rather than creating a just society...i think that the individualistic turn in contemporary culture has meant that discipleship has become more and more individualistic. It's about getting my relationship right with God, my learning, my faith, etc. and then from that we hope to have a impact on society and make it more and more just. I think that discipleship should, perhaps, be focused on creating a just society first, and then from that the personal individual disciple grows.

Technorati Tags: Discipleship, Fresh Expressions, Just Society

Alan Hirsh starts to blog

Alan Hirsh has started to blog, I'm sure they'll be some interesting posts over the coming months, see here.

Technorati Tags: blogs, Alan Hirsch

What's in a name?

When I was 16 my entire immediate family changed our surname...We went from being called 'Pratt' to 'Edson' - I can't believe I'm telling you this! I also decided to use my middle name rather than my first name so I went from John Pratt to Ben Edson; life has improved from then! The reason that we changed our name was quite simply about first impressions, it gave a bad first impressions and for a teenager this was not what was wanted. So when we moved to Devon the whole family changed to Edson.

On the blah tour I was chatting with Jonny and Karen about how we introduce ourselves to people outside the Church without alienating the person that we're talking to? i(e calling yourself a missionary can alienate a lot of people). Jonny said that at MBS London he called himself a 'spiritual creative', Karen refers to herself as an 'abbess'. My job title is city centre missioner, my title in the church is 'Captain' - both are hideous - but it would have been worse if we'd not changed our surname...Captain Pratt!

I think that often the titles that the anglican church uses have overtones of power associated with them - Venerable, Reverend, Right Reverend etc. This is problematic as i think that ministry within the church should primarily be about serving the community that you are part of and none of these titles suggest a serving ministry.

So what should I call myself? A spiritual creative is ambiguous and this is one of the beauties of it! I usually say something like I'm a minister in Anglican church - but it's a bit non-descript and tends to close down a conversation rather than open one up...any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: mission, spirituality

Institution Racism?

I've been on the blah... tout for this past week, it's been superb. Really good to connect with people and be able to share the story of Sanctus1 and to offer some theological reflections on it. At the end of each day we've been taking questions and the question that we've had each day is 'Is this just a movement for white, middle class people?' There is deep validity within this question, my response is to say that we need to ask the question to the wider church as well as the emerging one and then to comment that Sanctus1 reflects the place in which it is situated...However, I'm becoming more and more uncomfortable with my answer.

One of the nine practices that Ryan mentions in the book emerging churches is being welcoming. I think that this is where the challenge lies for emerging churches - yes, we are welcoming on the individual level, when a new person comes along we give them coffee, muffins, chat with them etc. However, I am wondering whether as an institution there are patterns and practices that make it harder for people who are 'not-like-me' to access the emerging church. In short has the emerging church unintentionally become institutionally racist? For example Is the music and film that we use sourced from a diversity of ethic and cultural backgrounds? If not then it will favour one ethnicity above another and these practices can exclude.

I'm pondering this one as I'm not sure - institutional racism maybe putting it too strongly, but i think that we need to reflect on our patterns and practices and ask the question corporately and individually.

Technorati Tags: emerging church

last nights blah...

it was superb...read these far more eloquent reports:

Jonny
Sanctus1
Mark
Lou
Malcolm

are there any I have missed?

Technorati Tags: Blah..., emerging church, mission

Spiritualities of Life, Religions of difference and Religions of humanity...

Since the MBS fair last week I've been thinking a bit about contemporary spirituality whilst reading 'Religion in Modern Times'. I'm trying to get my head around the process of sacralization and where the emerging church fits into the wider sociological framework.

Heelas and Woodhead identify three varieties of religion: Spiritualities of Life, Religions of Difference and Religions of humanity (these are then further divided down into a variety of sub-sections). Quite interestingly different stalls at the MBS fair would fall into all three categories but the majority would be 'Spiritualities of Life'.

This is an over simplification but:

• Within a Religion of Difference authority is attributed, first and foremost, not to human beings or nature but to the transcendent. Humanity is saved by a God outside rather than a god within.

• Within a Religion of Humanity great authority is attributed to humanity and the goodness of humans.

• Within a Spirituality of Life divinity is located within self and nature

Religions of Humanity are in decline whereas Spiritualities of Life and Religions of Difference are growing. Christianity falls into both Religions of Difference and Religions of Humanity - the Christian versions of Religions of Humanity are the ones which are struggling the most largely because they have sold out to a secular world-view that relocated God in the privatized realm.

There can be no doubt that the emerging church is a Religion of Difference (believing in a transcendent God) yet my perception would be there would be a rejection of the dualism within this thinking and also a positive view of humanity, hence we draw from Religions of Humanity. I think that we need to recognise the common ground with Spiritualities of Life, affirming the value of self and nature as being made in the image of God and yet affirming God's transcendence too.

At the MBS fair it is easy to walk around and unhelpfully spot 'heresy', however, I think that the missiological task is to recognise what God is doing in this context already and to work alongside God in his ongoing work. The next step is to attempt to explore what church looks like for people who follow a Spirituality of Life...I'm not yet aware of anyone who has established a Christian community with the MBS context...can anyone tell me otherwise as i'd love to chat with them!

Technorati Tags: mission, spirituality

Sect, Denomination or Church?

I was fascinated by kesters post a few days ago questioning whether the emerging church will ever become a denomination. It got me thinking about typologies of religion and particularly 'The Wallis Typology'.

Wallis helpfully uses an emic-etic model; emic being the perspective of the insider and etic that of the outside. He asks how members of an organisation how they understand it’s legitimacy, do they understand it as uniquely legitimate (ie the sole repository of truth) of pluralistically legitimate ( ie one of several legitimate paths to salvation). He comes up with this typology:

It helpfully places the church and denomination as respectable, and the cult and sect as deviant. However, I wonder what the relationship is between sect and denomination and whether the emerging church (whilst remaining within the Christian tradition) is a sect of denominationalism.

A sect usually forms when a person leaves an established religion and sets up another one which is perceived to be deviant. Christianity was first seen of as a sect of Judaism and I’m sure that through Christian history various respectable denominations have been seen as sects when they first started.

Charisma within the sect usually rest within an individual leader, a pioneer who has established it and who leads it. This is often unfortunately the case with the emerging church, a person will pioneer the church and the charisma lies with them and hence when the leader moves on there can be problems.

Within a denomination the charisma is relocated in an office, such as a priest or bishop. When new leaders come along they inherit the office and the charisma that goes with it. Weber refers to this as the routinization of charisma. Denominations and sects can be distinguished by the nature of their Charisma. In a sect it has often resided in a leader, with a denomination it is found in an office.

I think that the emerging church needs to move beyond these two models and relocated the charisma in the congregation. Yes, there do need to be certain offices, and some of these offices require training, external validation etc. but the congregation must own and inhabit the charisma rather that it being located within a person or an office.