Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Tonight, Reservoir Church celebrates our first ever Ash Wednesday service. Our spin on the ancient church season of Lent – what we call our 40 Days of Faith – tends to start the Sunday six weeks before Easter.

But this year, we honor the traditional beginning for those interested, a Wednesday in which we remember our own mortality and God’s grace in loving us – limited as we are – and in carrying our lives and all of human history and everything else that is too big for us.

One of our pastors, Cate, found this poem, which I wanted to pass on for you all as well.

Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

–Jan Richardson

Stories Jesus Told, Part III

We’ve started a winter series at Reservoir, “Stories Jesus Told.” As I shared in our first talk, the idea is that the most striking thing about Jesus as a teacher is that he mainly taught by telling stories. I reminded us that of the many stories Jesus may have told, his four original biographers passed down 45 to us. And quoting my friend Carl Medearis, I mentioned that these 45 stories that Jesus told are stories we might want to listen to, to know, to tell to other people.

The second thing that might strike us is how odd and at the same time commonplace these stories are. Drawn from everyday working and family and social and situations, they seem to indicate that God doesn’t want to draw us out of our lives to a higher plane but to engage us in our ordinary lives with how we think and relate and manage them. The stories aren’t always clear, but they are ultimately pretty intriguing.

And maybe that’s the point – to intrigue us, to get us asking questions of ourselves and our community and God, to engage with Jesus as a teacher and to see what we learn as we do so.

In that spirit, I’ve taken quite a few liberties and rewritten Jesus’ stories in 140 character or less form. They’re going up daily on twitter, but in digest form, here are the second bunch. For the first batch, go here. The second bunch are here.

Stories About Returning Authority Figures

Boss w/ 2 workers leaves town-1 does all well,1 goes ape-sh*t. Boss comes back w/punishments and rewards. Who can God trust? (Luke 12:42-48)

Groom delayed til midnight.5 bridesmaids brought flashlights!Other 5 wanna share,but no luck-they’re lost and locked out. (Matthew 25:1-13)

Guy asks 3 people to manage,invest his assets. 2 risk much, win big: huge rewards. 1-paralyzed by fear-does nothing:fired. (Luke 19:12-27)

Some of you are good to the nobodies, some of you ignore ’em. Here’s the catch:I’m with the nobodies. This really matters! (Matthew 25:21-46)

Stories About Unexpectedly Good News

Two dudes owe a bank, one owes $1K, one $10K. The bank forgives both loans – who loves that bank more? It’s like this with me. (Luke 7:41-43)

A good shepherd does all for the life of his many sheep – they know his voice&listen. The rest are thieves&liars.

PS I’m not just the shepherd, but the gate – taking the sheep into safety & freedom and & the good places they want to go. (John 10:1-18)

A sheepowner is always happier about the one lost sheep found than the 99 milling about, safe and sound. Just like God. (Matthew 18:12-14)

Shepherd has 99 perfectly fine sheep,but just has to find that one he lost-then he’s happy. God and heaven work this way. (Luke 15:3-7)

That woman who stays up looking for her lost coin, then calls her friends at 2am to celebrate-God’s just like that. (Luke 15:8-10)

One dad, two kids. Kid 2 scandalizes with badness, dad scandalizes with goodness, kid 1 scandalizes with bitterness. (Luke 15:11-32)

Laborers hired for different jobs,all paid days wage,then argue about fairness. Boss says:don’t hate me when I’m generous. (Matthew 20:1-16)

Two people pray.Religious one thanks God for his own awesomeness.Irreligious one asks for mercy. God’s listening to #2. (Luke 18:9-14)

Stories Jesus Told, Part II

And maybe that’s the point – to intrigue us, to get us asking questions of ourselves and our community and God, to engage with Jesus as a teacher and to see what we learn as we do so.

God’s land is a woman tucking yeast into her dough and working it all the way through. And Jesus always talked like this. (Matthew 13:33, Luke 13:20-21)

Wheat and weeds grow together in my field. I’ll take care of it later; there’s nothing you can do about it. Let it be. (Matthew 13:25-30)

God’s land: like a net, bulging with fish. The fishers collect the good, throw out the bad. So will the angels at the end. (Matthew 13:47-50)

Don’t fall asleep on the job. Your boss is watching and might show up at any moment! Stay awake! (Mark 13:32-37)

No one knows when Jesus’ll show up. People’ll be working and eating, and -boom- Jesus will show up and change everything! (Matthew 24:36-44)

Your boss could show up at any moment, like a nighttime thief. Be ready, because he wants to get on his knees and serve you! (Luke 12:35-40)

Again, follow me on twitter for these every day for a few weeks.

How Cognitive Generosity Makes You a Better Neighbor and Citizen

This is part three in an occasional series on being part of diverse communities. These blogs are meant to explore in brief some of the why of diverse community involvement – why such a thing is great for us, great for the broader worlds we live in, and even central to the story of what Jesus is doing on earth, as I understand it. It’s also meant to speak to some how’s – how we can be more effective in our participation and building of diverse communities, how this can go better and more enjoyably for us and others.

We’re starting by reviewing some of the key insights from the powerful book by Christena Cleveland, Disunity in Christ. Cleveland is a social psychologist and public theologian who thinks and writes and speaks about the things that keep people apart, and the work of justice, empathy, and reconciliation that can bring people together. I’ve found her book really helpful and hope these entries will entice you to read it yourself! She says far more far better than I ever will on this topic.

While she’s discussing how humans erect divisions between groups, Cleveland introduces one of the antidotes to these divisions, which she calls cognitive generosity. Cognitive generosity involves developing a more positive perception of other people and groups. We tend to think less generously of people and groups we are not familiar with, or who we perceive to be very different from us. Cognitive generosity intentionally reverses this process, helping us consciously think better – and so likely more honestly – about these same people and groups.

Let me illustrate.

I grew up in the last years of the Cold War. My childhood and teen years were still full of movies and media portraying Russians as cold-hearted enemies of the great American way.

But then, in the opportunity of a lifetime, I had the opportunity to travel to Russia during the waning days of the Soviet Empire. Along with a couple of dozen mates from my high school chorus, I sang in St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Leningrad. I stayed with a host family in the 1000-year old city of Yaroslavl. I made my first ever black market transaction, trading American blue jeans for an old Russian army uniform. I traveled to Estonia in the month they first flew their own country’s flag. And while touring an old watch factory in Uglich, I was abandoned by my group while hobbling on a sprained ankle, only to be helped down some long stairs by a Russian factory worker.

That single act of hospitality, alongside many others on that trip, taught teenage me that Russian people were… well… people. They weren’t a class of foreigners, or spies, or enemies, but men, women, children, parents, friends… human beings. And some of them were inclined to show tremendous kindness and hospitality to this non-Russian speaking, clueless American teenager who had stumbled into their country on a choral tour.

This led to an increase in cognitive generosity in my attitude toward Russians, which in turn led me to study Russian language and literature in college and take another trip to that country. I had moved past entry-level stereotypes of a whole people group and on to the capacity to think well of Russian culture as a whole as well as individuals within that culture.

Here’s the thing. Cultivating cognitive generosity takes reflection and positive exposure. Even progressively minded White Americans, for instance, tend to harbor negative racial stereotypes toward Black Americans. However, positive interactions with and even viewing positive images of Black Americans has tended to lower these stereotypes by producing cognitive generosity. White people with little opportunity for actual relationships with Black Americans can also read books and watch films that focus on reality based, humane, or even heroic portrayals of Black Americans.

Certainly for White people in America like myself, the cultivation of cognitive generosity is an important practice. Whether it be going to a multi-ethnic church, living in a diverse neighborhood, or working on a diverse team, looking for positive interactions with people different from us gives us the opportunity to develop more respectful, reality-based assumptions about cultures we are not part of.

For all of us, we might examine if there whole classes of people we’ve begun to view with any level of disdain. If so, we can consider how to regain cognitive generosity towards others, cultivating a positive view of them unless they deserve or prove otherwise.

You can find the first entry in this series here.

The second entry on the outgroup heterogeneity effect is here.

Stories Jesus Told, Part I

And maybe that’s the point – to intrigue us, to get us asking questions of ourselves and our community and God, to engage with Jesus as a teacher and to see what we learn as we do so.

In that spirit, I’ve taken quite a few liberties and rewritten Jesus’ stories in 140 character or less form. They’re going up daily on twitter, but in digest form, here are a few.

Stories About Something New Happening, and What it Might Be Like

Old and new don’t match when you’re patching clothes or storing wine. New things need new containers. (Mark 2:18-22, Matthew 9:17, Luke 5:33-39)

The teachers in God’s land are like a homeowner who keeps finding new treasures to share alongside old ones. (Matthew 13:52)

Farmer throws seeds everywhere – growth rates vary widely, from nothing to insanely large amounts. Think about that! (Matthew 13:3-23, Mark 4:1-9)

Light wants to travel and shine. Same with truth. There’s no permanent secret or hiding place – all will be known in time. (Luke 8:16-18)

How seed becomes life is a mystery. Same with God’s land. We’ve just got to spot the life and enjoy it! (Mark 4:26-29)

God’s land is a tiny seed that grows into a plant for food and spice and big bird-nested branches, just so beautiful. (Mark 4:30-32, Matthew 13:31-32, Luke 13:18-19)

Again, follow me on twitter for these every day for a few weeks.

One Reason You Want to Be in Diverse Communities

This past week, a number of us attended a Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) event called “Out of Many, One.” The inspiration was the United States founding motto, E Pluribus Unum, which translates as the title of this gathering. The founding fathers wrote this, envisioning a unity of the original 13 colonies, and also a united nation of people from various Western European ancestries. In the pledge introduced at this recent gathering, we had the opportunity to affirm the significance of this aspiration for all peoples of the United States. I gladly signed, as did many clergy and members of faith communities, as well as some prominent civic leaders.

This vision of one people emerging out of difference is core to the hope of the good news of Jesus as well. The first century faith entrepreneur, Paul of Tarsus, was animated by a vision of faith communities that brought previously separate and hostile cultures into a shared community of love. Paul wrote, “For he (Jesus) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14) The two groups Paul is referring to here are Jews and Gentiles, i.e. Roman non-Jews. Paul himself was both ethnic and religious Jew as well as Roman citizen, and so this Jewish/non-Jewish divide that was significant to the first century Roman empire was for him the great separator of human cultures. Throughout his letters, Paul argues for an end to such division, for communities to find common ground and practice mutual acceptance. This appears to be one transformation that will authenticate the good news of Jesus.

Two weeks ago, I wrote that community building across difference is one of the two big things I want to be part of and think God is doing at Reservoir Church in post-Trump-election America. Today, I’d like to follow-up on that post by introducing one of many tools from the powerful book by Christena Cleveland, Disunity in Christ. Cleveland is a social psychologist and public theologian who thinks and writes and speaks about the things that keep people apart, and the work of justice, empathy, and reconciliation that can bring people together.

In her book, Cleveland writes that “group separation and prejudice have a bidrectional relationship – that is, prejudice tends to result in division between groups and division between groups tends to result in prejudice.” (33) In other words, diversity isn’t window dressing. Being in diverse relationships and communities, or not, makes us different. When we’re around others more, we are less prejudiced, whereas when we’re around less diversity, we’re more prejudiced. Whether we want to be or not.

One reason for this, Cleveland explains, is a dynamic called the “outgroup homogeneity effect.” We tend to view groups we’re not part of as made up of people who are all similar to one another, while we tend to view members of our own group as unique.

For example, I was raised in an almost entirely White small suburb, with almost entirely White classmates, friends, neighbors, and family. I never thought that White people looked alike. I also knew several White people with various regional or national accents and different speech patterns and levels of education. I noticed these but never defined people by them. The people in my group were obviously all very different from one another.

When I went to university, I became best friends with a Chinese-American woman and started attending a large Chinese church in Boston. At first, I noticed that Chinese people looked more alike to me. It wasn’t as easy for me to pick someone I knew out of a crowd of hundreds of Chinese-Americans. Everyone, for instance, had black hair. After years of membership in this faith community, though, most of my friends and social acquaintances were Chinese-American, and it seemed ridiculous to think they looked alike. After all, most of the human race has black hair! This outgroup becoming part of my ingroup had changed my perceptions. (I’ve also had the reverse experience now, being part of a Chinese-American’s process of discovery that White people don’t all look and act and think alike!)

This is a relatively small example and wasn’t, in my case, tied to any particular damaging effects. We don’t have to look far, though, to realize how the outgroup homogeneity effect impoverishes the experience of people that hold it and harms those who are subject to its resulting skewed perceptions. When we stereotype others, we don’t benefit from their strengths and experiences and we are potentially suspicious of or hostile to them. And when we combine the outgroup homogeneity effect with imbalances of power and privilege, we get discrimination and injustice.

Clearly this is one reason (not the only reason, but one) that White men maintain such disproportionate power in our society. We (we for a minute being White men) see people like ourselves as unique and different, and we lump all others into the same category of “other”, people we are less likely to hire or mentor or promote or vote for. White men like myself make up less than a third of the United States population. But based on our representation in positions of power, you would never know that. Picking just two data points, over 90% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are White men and that the US Congress is overwhelmingly comprised of White men as well. There’s a hard but important phrase for the racial side of this dominance, which is White supremacy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to unity amidst difference and the outgroup homogeneity effect.

One simple way we can be part of a more just society is to be part of more diverse communities. By being a robustly multi-ethnic community, Reservoir Church gives our members the opportunity to be in relationship with many people who are not like ourselves. In doing so, we benefit from the riches of human culture that we weren’t born into, and we also stop assuming that people who aren’t like us are all the same. “They” become part of “us”, non-uniform, interesting people God loves and that we might as well.

Christmas Talks I Won’t Give (Yet)

I’m not preaching this Sunday, but I’ll speak a bit at two different services around Christmas Sunday. Letting my mind warm up a bit to the task, and inspired by one of our band leader’s desire to play a Rolling Stone song at our candlelight Christmas Eve service, here are three talk ideas I’m pretty sure I’ll never use.

Title #1: How to Think About Stupid Bureaucratic Requirements

Bible Verses: And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (Luke 2:1)

Line from the Stones song Luke Suggested:

“When I’m drivin’ in my car, and the man come on the radio
He’s tellin’ me more and more about some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination”

Aspect of Christmas Story: Jesus was born in Bethlehem, fulfilling prophecy that he be a child of the city of David and heir to the expansion of David’s good rule over all the earth. This only occurs, though, through a bureaucratic fiat of a Roman emperor, that people return to their hometowns to comply with a census.

Theological Idea: God can work through all manner of human actions – regardless of their original intentions – to advance God’s good purposes,

Take-Home Thought: Stick it to the man… or just do what the man says… maybe it doesn’t always matter. Bullies don’t always win in the long run.

Title #2: When Life Gives You Lemons…

Bible Verses: And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:7)

Line from the Stones song Luke Suggested*:

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need”

Aspect of Christmas Story: Mary and Joseph travel to his hometown of Bethlehem, but find no first-class hospitality. Instead, they stay in the animal barn side of a neighbor’s home, and Jesus’ first bed isn’t a bassinet or crib, but a cow’s feeding trough.

Theological Idea: God’s child is born into the world into filthy conditions, the dirty Christmas baby underscoring that God joined the human race to be with us in all things.

Take-Home Thought: When life gives you lemons… remember that Jesus sucked on some pretty sour fruit himself. God can be with you in any circumstance.

Title #3: Sex is Complicated

Bible Verses: When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, ²⁵but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1:24-25)

Line from the Stones song Luke Suggested*:

“I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no girl reaction”

Aspect of Christmas Story: The virgin birth – as a teenager, engaged via arranged marriage to her future husband Joseph, Mary conceives the God-child not through conventional means, but by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Joseph and Mary refrain from sexual relations until after Jesus is born. It’s sort of the original “Jane the Virgin” story of first-time sex after childbirth.

Theological Idea: God can do anything. Also, Jesus is fully human and fully divine, and the first sign of this is the rather unusual method of his conception.

Take-Home Thought: If you’re engaged to a woman who’s experienced immaculate conception, be patient; it’s worth it. (Or maybe God does weird things now and then. Or something.)

^{*So technically, this is the song Luke suggested, and my first and third excerpts are from a different, even less suitable Stones song, but since this whole post is a joke, whatever…}

Faith and the City

At the invitation of a Reservoir member, I bopped across the river today to Boston University for an interesting event, called Faith and the City. It was hosted by BU’s interesting Initiative on Cities, founded in part by Boston’s former mayor, Tom Menino.

BU’s Dean of Marsh Chapel led a panel of clergy that have been associated with three of Boston’s more prominent religious institutions – Trinity Church, Charles St. A.M.E. Church, and the Islamic Society of Boston Cutlural Center. Rev. Rainey Dankel, Shaykh Yusif Fahmy, and Rev. Dr. Theodore Hickman-Maynard all discussed their experiences in leading faith communities that seek to be of relevance and service to their cities. They talked about the complexities of owning buildings in cities, serving communities from positions of both poverty and privilege, and the role they see their congregations playing at their best.

I came away with both thanks and questions.

I was so grateful for Reservoir Church as Rev. Hickman-Maynard talked about the challenges of churches in their old buildings. He described situations where churches own buildings they can’t properly fill and have to spend a quarter to a third of their budget simply maintaining the property. He described other situations where churches overspend on their facilities, assuming they are still the communal center of their city, when they no longer have that role in society.

This made me so glad for the blessing of our property. We own one of the largest church properties in the city of Cambridge, a property that takes considerable resources to maintain. But we share its use with the Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School, whose 350 students and their teachers and families use the space throughout the week. The Banneker gets a well-maintained property and an attentive and supportive landlord at a fair and reasonable price. And the church receives rent, which covers the majority of our facility costs. Both institutions and our city as a whole benefit from this shared space use. It’s really a great partnership.

I’m grateful too for our work as Reservoir in the City. For a dozen years now, we’ve been building relationships with the people who live and work in our neighborhood and we continue to build sustainable and mutually-edifying partnerships with individuals and organizations throughout the City of Cambridge. We are widely recognized as a church that loves our neighbors, and we partner with the public schools, the police, and our neighbors to sponsor events and meet needs in North Cambridge. We desire to serve and receive from our neighborhood in a spirit of joyful reciprocity, joining people and organizations that are doing great work in our community, and empowering our neighbors to become partners in projects that we work on together.

I’m so grateful for community potlucks, interfaith dinners, free soccer clinics, block parties, leadership development programs, and church-school partnerships that Reservoir participates in. Last week, I visited some of our elderly Muslim neighbors in their home. We ate together and exchanged gifts, they provided some religious instruction to my sons from the Quran. I prayed for their ailments in the name of Jesus. We left after much embracing. Another moment of the treasure it is for a faith community to share life in a city.

But today’s event left me with questions as well.

-In an era of decreasing participation in faith communities, do our communities still have resources to be vital participants in the life of our cities?

-In a time when religious institutions have often rightfully been seen as contributors to national and global problems, how can we be excellent civic partners in the flourishing our our communities?

-And in a time of enormous civic division and disconnectedness, could the cultivating of healthy and diverse community be one of the greatest balms a church can offer our times, while also one of the greatest displays of spiritual power we can offer?

I’m excited about some of the theological and missiological work Reservoir’s been part of in response to these questions. I’m also excited about our membership in the Christian Community Development Association and a growing partnership with Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, that will help us not to answer these questions alone.

Two Big, Hard, Exciting Things Jesus Wants to Help Us Do

I’ve mentioned that there are two things that God’s been leading me to think about as the year comes to close.

The first is our public sphere. After the most fear-driven, divisive, and utterly insane election season most of us ever remember, we’re both exhausted and compelled by our public sphere – what’s happening in the world we share, beyond our own personal day-to-day affairs.

This year’s public sphere – not just the presidential election, but all kinds of things out there in the big world – has for me renewed my commitment to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. If that sounds sort of familiar or at least a bit more poetic than you’d expect from me, it’s because it’s a (translated) line of poetry from the Bible.

The prophet Micah, somewhere late in the 7th century B.C., was inspired to say that this is what God wants out of people: for us to do justice, to love mercy and to talk humbly with God. He said this to people who were beleaguered and confused and troubled in ways that would feel familiar to you and me in its essence, if not in in detail.

This is probably the closest thing I have to a “life verse”, a single line in the Bible that motivates and inspires me to live as I hope to live.

Who’d argue that our public world couldn’t use more mercy and justice and walking with God that is both devout and humble. I could say a lot about each of these phrases, but for now, I’ll just state that all three of these qualities seem patently in too short supply – in our churches, out politics, our leaders, our followers, our business people, our educators, and, well, everyone and all our institutions. Mercy, justice, and walking humbly with God are frankly often enough lacking in my own heart and actions.

But to be those and to advocate those is where God’s leading me.

The second thing is to be engaged in community building.

We continue to discover just how divided and fractured the United States is, let alone just how divided we are from the rest of the world we alternatively sell things to, and give things to, and bomb, and bless, and ignore.

The rest of the world aside, though, our country is more racist, less hospitable, more judgmental, less united, and angrier than may of us thought it was. From all corners, really.

On this second work of community building, I expect I’ll do some more blogging in the days ahead on insights from the powerful, insightful book Disunity in Christ, by the social psychologist and Christian leader Christena Cleveland. It’s really an extraordinary book that you’ll want to read, but I’ll at least share a few of its insights and applications with you.

Mercy, justice, and a humble walk with God.

Diverse community building of empathy and love.

Both of these things seem counter-evolutionary to me, contrary to our nature. We evolved to be tribal people, to protect our own. Our tendencies to hive off are shared with most of the animal kingdom and serve well to protect us against external threats.

But they’re contrary to the thing that Jesus seems to long to do in human story – to break down dividing walls with love and forgiveness; to establish societies of justice and mercy; to teach us to walk humbly with God; to restore all things.

This is purely speculative, of course, but I can picture God looking at our pale blue dot of a planet, seeing the human society that he created through physical and chemical and evolutionary processes set into motion billions of years ago, and thinking it’s too bad about the underbelly of all that worked out.

The story of my faith tradition, though, is that in Jesus, God has entered into human history to redeem the sin of the world and to reunite humanity to God.

I’ve got to think some of the fruit of this is a maturation of human society toward justice and peace and mercy, and the creation of communities of unity and love. Much of the New Testament of the Bible is a testament to the spiritual power Jesus has to move cooperating people and community toward these ends.

That’s what I’m leading in toward Jesus for as well.

It’s what I invite you to as well in this Christmas season.

When people lean in toward mercy and justice and a humble walk with God, and when people – as individuals and with the institutions we are part of – when people love as God loves, Jesus is there.

Freedom in Talking Theology, and an Amazing Talk on that Front

This is a longish post to introduce you to a stunner of a longish talk at the recent Blue Ocean summit. If my writing bores you and you want to get straight to Emily Swan’s fascinating talk, then have it.

Now for the introduction:

I was listening in on three of my friends having kind of a crazy conversation recently. They were having it in public, over on the Blue Ocean podcast, so I wasn’t eavesdropping. And my friend Tom told a story that captured something that I’ve been thinking about, and apparently something a bunch of my pastor friends have been thinking about as well.

Tom talked about a time when he gave a talk about evolution and Jesus and what a freeing experience that was for him. As a psychiatrist whose work interacts significantly with evolutionary genetics, Tom is rarely asked to talk about Jesus. And with his part-time hobby as preacher and pastor, Tom had rarely found his work and thinking on evolution to be welcome. In fact, his interest in science and career as a scientist was often viewed suspiciously.

So how freeing it was for Tom to be invited to give a talk on Jesus and evolution, in which he could think and speak freely, without fear that he would be censored or perceived as a threat.

I’ve been thinking recently about how rare this freedom it is when it comes to public talk about God, faith, and meaning in life.

Academia prides itself on cultivating a free and rigorous life of the mind pursuit. Researchers and thinkers try on new ideas and explore new perspectives and data, and see where it takes them. The process of research and peer-reviewed publishing and after-session chats at conferences helps people explore new intellectual territory that sometimes eventually shapes us all.

The business marketplace often rewards this kind of adventuresome thinking as well. Entrepreneurs and innovators are encouraged to try new ideas and methodologies and are often rewarded, rather than stigmatized, for failure, if said failed ventures were big and bold in its aspirations.

When it comes to people that talk about God and faith for a living, though, there’s an awful lot of fear and censorship. I’ve known pastors who tried out a novel idea in a sermon and were fired within a month or two. Many theological institutions, particularly our more conservative ones, encourage writing and scholarship only to the degree it arrives at pre-set conclusions about the Bible, or aspects of God’s nature or how God works in the world.

All of this means leads to a climate of fear around our deepest questions related to faith. Pastors fear sharing their true thoughts with churchgoers. Churchgoers fear sharing their real doubts or asking their thorniest questions. And no one learns anything new.

I’m incredibly glad to pastor and teach at a church where this isn’t true. Where people don’t assume I have to teach with supreme confidence or an infallible set of views on things. And I’m glad to be part of a faith network where people can freely explore big, bold views on spiritual issues.

All this to say, when a hundred or so folks gathered for the recent Blue Ocean Summit, this year held in Iowa City, Emily Swan gave the talk of the conference when she spoke about the theology of Rene Girard. Girard was a literary critic and deep thinker who came to the Bible and the Christian faith later in life and then never left either.

He is notoriously hard to read, a reputation I can agree with after reading one of his books on the Bible. He also has a theory of everything. He purports to explain the origins of human society, the nature of evil in the world, the message of the Bible, the meaning of most ancient literature, the unique and abiding power of the death of Jesus, and much more! So there’s a lot to take in. And – of course – as with all big ideas, he may not have it all right.

But Emily gives us a way in to Girard’s thoughts about what’s wrong with the world and what Jesus does about it that is deep, fascinating, vulnerable, and powerful.

I hope you enjoy this talk nearly as much as I did:

2016 Blue Ocean Summit Talk: Introducing René Girard, by Emily Swan