Jason Clark

Trying to make safe spaces for diverse and healthy conversations about church, culture, mission, theology and motorbikes

Beyond the shore of space: The Annunciation #dmingml

Maggi Dawn gave our DMin GML students the background to her stunning new book (an exploration of the Christianity embedded in so much of art and culture that most people are unaware of), before taking us through an exploration of the Annunciation.

What would have been a series of strange paintings, and poems that I might have appreciated for their beauty and colour, and use of language, came alive, as I was able to read/de-code/re-code and enter into the art.

By the time we got to the poem below by Edwin Muir, I was moved to tears.  The possibility of an Angel who may have come to Mary after many others had said no, with all of creation and heaven hushed and listening for Mary's answer was palpable for me.  And when Mary said yes, the creator of the universe, by the Spirit forming Christ in Mary, a cosmic and eternal event, in the space of the womb of an unknown peasant girl....moved me to worship, and felt myself translated for a moment into a story of the fabric of creation .

There are two pieces of art in this post. One makes me feel the immediacy and intimacy of Gabriel in with Mary, the other furnishes my imagination my love of science, of what the Annunciation might have looked like from a galactic perspective.

The angel and the girl are met, Edwin Muir (1887-1959)

                                 Earth was the only meeting place. 
                                   For the embodied never yet
                               Travelled beyond the shore of space. 
                                 The eternal spirits in freedom go. 

                                See, they have come together, see, 
                                While the destroying minutes flow, 
                                   Each reflects the other's face
                                 Till heaven in hers and earth in his
                                Shine steady there. He's come to her
                                 From far beyond the farthest star, 
                                Feathered through time. Immediacy
                                Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
                              That from their limbs all movement takes. 
                                 Yet the increasing rapture brings
                                 So great a wonder that it makess
                                 Each feather tremble on his wings

                                 Outside the window footsteps fall
                                      Into the ordinary day
                                  And with the sun along the wall
                                   Pursue their unreturning way
                                  Sound's perpetual roundabout
                                  Rolls its numbered octaves out
                                And hoarsely grinds its battered tune

                                 But through the endless afternoon
                              These neither speak nor movement make. 
                                But stare into their deepening trance
                                As if their grace would never break

 

   
Click here to download:
Beyond_the_shore_of_space_The_.zip (545 KB)

My talk that encapsulates so much of my thinking

My teaching yesterday was one of those times when I laid bare my deepest thoughts and reflections. It seemed to sum up much of what I feel my life and mission is about.

The talk was on genesis 2&3 dated 1st august and is here.

Superb blog on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith: http://www.greenflame.org/

Stephen Garner is a friend, but we've never met in person.  He's in New Zealand, and we've spoken on and off for several years via each other's blogs and on email.

Within that I am still amazed at how technology has extended and enabled relationships in my life.

Stephen lectures in practical theology, and has a special interest in relationships of theology and religion with science, technology and media. He's also interested in the interaction of spirituality with technology, and social justice issues relating to technology and the environment.

You can read more about him here, and catch his blog here.

Stanley Hauerwas in Conversation with John Milbank & Luke Bretherton, Kings College London, 18th October, 5:30pm

Put Monday 18th October, 5:30pm in your diaries for this event at Kings College, London.

Advice for theological students: ten steps to a brilliant career

 I'm late to this, and my friend Sivin Kit put me onto this tongue in cheek post that gives advice on getting post graduate theology qualifications.  I wish I had read this a few years ago ;-)

 1. As a theological student, your aim is to accumulate opinions – as many as you can, and as fast as possible. (Exceptional students may acquire all their opinions within the first few weeks; others require an entire semester.) One of the best ways to collect opinions is to choose your theological group (“I shall be progressive,” or “I will be evangelical,” or “I am a Barthian”), then sign up to all the opinions usually associated with that social group. If at first you don’t feel much conviction for these new opinions, just be patient: within twelve months you will be a staunch advocate, and you’ll even be able to help new students acquire the same opinions.
 
2. At the earliest possible opportunity you should also form an opinion about your favourite theological discipline: that is, you should choose your specialisation. To communicate this choice to others, you should dismiss as trivial or irrelevant all other disciplines: the systematic theologian should teach herself to utter humorous remarks about the worth of “practical” theology, while the New Testament student should learn to hold forth emphatically on the dangers of systematic theology; and so on.
 
3. As far as possible, you should try to avoid all non-theological interests or pursuits. All your time and energy should be invested in reading important books and discussing important ideas. (Novels in particular should be avoided, as they are a notorious time-waster, and they furnish you with no new opinions.)

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My top 20 books

I had a great afternoon yesterday at the London School of Theology, with about 20 canadian baptist pastors.  Anna Robins asked me to present/input around the topic of Emerging Church.

 
At the end of the session, Anna asked if I could email her my top 10 book suggestions including the ones I had already mentioned during the conversation.  Now I've sat in my office early this morning pondering how on earth to come up with a list of 10 books and instead landed on 22.
 
So here are the 22 most influential books in my life, some that are popular level, some slightly academic, some academic, some Christian, some not.  As I looked at my book shelves I asked myself, which books had shaped and inspired my thinking and practice of church, as it relates to issues of church and culture.
 
So here they are.  What would your top 10 be?
(download)

Listen to Rowan Williams, David Ford, Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf: Holy Spirit in the World Today conference

How on earth did I miss this event!  I read about it from my kiwi friend Paul Fromont, who provides links to the online talks here.

Capitalism, Imagination and Desire

Here is an event on 7th June, that I wish I had known about earlier, and would have loved to attend.

Capitalism, Imagination and Desire

Mark Sampson, with the LICC team

Monday June 7

Capitalism shapes us, even disciples us. Our imagination and desires are formed through the forces of our culture. Capitalism profoundly affects our communities, our marriages, our vocation and our education.

The recent financial crisis has been a catalyst for economists and politicians to rethink the fundamental basis of our capitalist economy, provoking a conversation about what sort of market economy is best suited to our society.

But what has capitalism cost our churches, our theology and our discipleship?

This evening lecture and discussion will explore how the values, desires and logic of capitalism impact all of life, and will begin to craft the outlines of possible practical responses, rooted in a biblical and theological imagination.

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Evangelicalism: Dispensing religious goods and services?

I have a short blog piece/article on the Fuller Seminary blog, about a new D.Min course they have asked me to teach.  Text is also below, FYI.

Thomas Taylor (1738–1816) was appointed by John Wesley in 1761 (and is one of the few people who had an itinerant career longer than Wesley), travelling extensively over several decades, throughout Wales, Scotland, and England. He was able to observe evangelical faith in relation to a myriad of engagements, physical, cultural, political, psychological, ecclesial, within the emerging middles classes and the birth of market society. In all those engagements with faith, Taylor observed that ‘evangelical religion spread best where trade was growing’.

Taylor was able to observe not only the beginnings of the evangelical tradition, but also its nascent relationship to the rise and development of the market society. He was also well placed to discern the possibilities and captivities of that relationship in its intrinsic nature.

More recently, John Milbank has diagnosed the current relationship of evangelicalism to the market as being ‘quite simply a new mutation of Protestantism in its mutually constitutive relationship with capitalism’. Or, perhaps more crudely, we might combine and paraphrase Thomas Taylor and John Milbank using the words of Dan Kimball that the modern Protestant evangelical church has all too often become about the ‘dispensing of religious goods and services’ to Christian consumers.

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Re-imagining evangelicalism?

The next series that we are planning to explore at http://www.deepchurch.org.uk is on Evangelicalism.

We'll be taking some time with our guest authors to plan that series, and I hope it will start at the beginning of September.  Some of the initial questions I am asking as we plan that series are below.  What ones would you want to add, ask?

1.  What is evangelicalism?
2.  Why would anyone still want to be evangelical?
3.  Does evangelicalism have its own tradition to draw on for renewal?
4.  What might be being lost in the post-evangelical move?
5.  What has gone wrong with Evangelicalism?
6.  Is Evangelicalism just a passing fad of the last 200 years?
7.  Is Evangelicalism inimical to capitalism?
8.  Can Evangelicalism be renewed, should it be renewed?
9.  What understanding does Evangelicalism have of being 'Church?'
10. How might Evangelicalism be connected to the 'Great Tradition' of the Church?