The type of "waiting" described by the text above is not passive. Rather, Christians are to "strive" or struggle in their faith as a part of their expectation of God's final redemptive act. We are to experience and witness to the rough and tumble reality by living in this world as a disciple of Jesus, and do that by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Enter Women's Roller Derby (WRD).

Roller Derby is a contact sport that involves two teams skating in groups of five around the track while two other members (one from each team) try to break through the pack to score points. It originally started in the 1930s and has been experiencing resurgence in the past 11 years.

Since joining the Fresh Meat program (see #3 below) of the Charlottesville Derby Dames in October of this year, I've observed at least five characteristics of WRD that could help the Church teach its members how to strive and struggle while we grow in and live out our faith in expectation.

[Disclaimer: WRD is a sport with no link to any religious organizations and opinions in this piece do not reflect any official positions of WRD or the Charlottesville Derby Dames. Also, please note: there are some churches that do the stuff I talk about, so all generalizations do not necessarily apply to specific congregations.]

Drum roll please...

"Top 5 Things The Church Can Learn From Women's Roller Derby" by a Freshie Charlottesville Derby Dame.

5. Women Are Powerful and Successful, As Women

To be a member of WRD, you have to be strong, athletic, and basically hard-core. Additionally, there is within Derby this amazing grace which allows each woman to express herself through "Derby Dress" or "boutfits" and an individual persona. Generally this means 1) sexy clothes -- short skirts/shorts, tights, funky socks, decorated helmets and other flare and 2) cool punny names. Thus generating a bunch of  super-hot and sexy, totally cute and foxy, hard-core professional athletes. Your look and persona are not seen as limiting your strength, but rather are considered part of the whole package. Like Roller Derby, the Church should help women understand their inner God-given beauty, and to express it in healthy ways. Check out this video of a pastor who found this through Roller Derby, not the Church.

4. A Competition Focused on Improving Self, Not Bringing Down Others

One strong message I get from WRD is "Compete against yourself!" There is an emphasis on pushing ourselves to improve AND encouraging others to do the same. In this way our improvement is everyone's gain, and not an occasion to feel superior or inferior to those around us. This type of ethos that encourages me to improve myself, so I am better than I was yesterday is a model the Church could learn from as the expectant Church.

3. Shepherding the Fresh Meat

The Fresh Meat program trains all new skaters looking to become members of the team. It is led by Level II skaters and supported by "shepherds," or Level I skaters. All skaters (including skaters with no previous experience) are welcome, and then trained and tested to pass from one level to the next. The Church should refocus on shepherding or discipleship, and WRD has much to teach the Church on this front.

2. Family Friendly

The reality is that many participants in WRD are in their late 20s to middle age; many of us have families, which include children. Therefore it is mandatory that all public bouts and derby events are family friendly. This does not cut down on the sass factor, but it means that if you go to a derby event, you are in for some good, clean, sexy (but not trashy) fun for the whole family. By taking care to modify certain behaviors and broadcasting to the world that families are welcome, children become spectators of a sport that speaks to them as a part of the team. The Church could benefit from learning how to become BOTH family friendly AND fun, and from how to incorporate children in a way that makes them feel like part of the team of disciples and not just a group whose behavior needs to be managed.

1. Role Models For Girls and Young Women

For the #1 Thing the Church Can Learn from Women's Roller Derby, I share why I decided to join in the first place -- my daughter. My daughter is 3 and beautiful. I've resigned myself to the fact that she will be a cheerleader someday (my husband has not). At the first Roller Derby bout we went to as a family, my 3-year-old daughter ran out after the match, found the tallest woman on skates she could find and had Rox Ann Stones sign her program -- in crayon.

At that moment I made my decision.

In a world where girls and young women are bombarded by the media's portrayal of the perfect body -- where eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem characterize young women's lives -- there also exists Women's Roller Derby.

Whether or not my daughter remains my biggest fan, her little brain is being imprinted with the fact that women of all shapes, sizes and body types are beautiful, strong and can kick serious pompis (Spanish word for "rear end"). If only the Church could learn to do the same.

There really is so much more to say (in fact this list began as a Top Ten), and I am grateful that God finds a way to make these things happen somewhere. WRD is a sanctuary where hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of women develop and celebrate their confidence, strength and individuality.

Yet there is always hope for the Church to strive in its expectation, and as shown, WRD offers models from which to learn.

So, my Christian sisters and brothers, let us revive the struggle. Let us humbly learn what we can, so we can "be found by [God] at peace, without spot or blemish." This fabulous sport can be our guide as we strive this Advent season, expectantly awaiting the New Born King.

Posted originally on Huffington Post Religion

Thanks to Rebecca Levi for permission to use her drawing "Derby" for this post.

God's patience in this text has to do with a desire to draw all people to repentance and faith.

Just because certain Christians "get it" does not mean God's work is done, and this is not to be lamented, but rather celebrated. So, Christians who yearn for God's final promise to become reality, for the transformation of our lived reality into God's lived reality -- the new heaven and the new earth--must wait.

Yet this is not the twiddle-your-thumbs-and-sit-back-as-God-implements-God's-plan type of waiting.

This is a "striving" type of waiting -- a "struggle" type of waiting. John Wesley terms this as the process of sanctification, striving to develop a second nature that revels in praising God and truly desires God's will.

I have to say that since my experience in Cambridge, England at the University of Cambridge Interfaith Summer School Programme, I actually covet on some small level the benefits of state supported religion. Let us, for our purpose here, refer to the “religious state” as a state in which the religious practices of the religious majority are supported institutionally - for example, through ministries, other political institutions, or houses of worship. Don’t get me wrong, in general religious states make me very uneasy, especially since some religious states are more tolerant and supportive of minority religious practice than others.

The point of my reflection, and the rest of this post, is not to endorse any religious state nor even the concept of a religious state, but rather to try and get a glimpse of what people within religious states value about their particular context. In other words, I appreciate having a chance to see through the eyes of people who value a particular formative experience made possible by institutionalized support of their particular religious practice.

To give you a sense of what I mean, I've asked two friends of mine to share a bit about their experience of this phenomenon. Omar Kassab, fellow State of Formation Contributing Scholar and a Masters student in Comparative and International Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, also participated in the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and made a recent visit to Oman to see our new friends from that program.  Deborah Galaski, a PhD candidate from University of Virginia, is studying this year in Israel.

Omar reflects focusing on Salah, the performance of five daily prayers in Islamic faith...

From my personal point of view the religious state provides Muslims with public space to perform the five daily prayers, a central pillar to our religion.

As a Muslim, it is when I am praying that I find myself at peace.

“Verily, man was created impatient, irritable when evil touches him and ungenerous when good touches him. Except for those devoted to prayer those who remain constant in their prayers” (Quran 70:19-23).

From my experience, it is quite hard to remain constant in your prayers when you live as a Muslim in Germany, or, more generally, in an environment that does not necessarily provide you with space for your prayers. When you don’t find a mosque or prayer room around every corner; when you start praying in empty classrooms and between library shelves (hoping that no one passes by); when praying in public requires a lot of confidence, then praying at the right time might easily turn into a challenge.

Religious states, as we conceptualize them here, make your life quite easy when it comes to performing your prayers. My brother and I spent a few days of this year’s Ramadan in Oman, for example, where the muezzin calls to prayer, Muslims gather in mosques, and minarets define the skyline. When we prayed in Oman, we became part of the mainstream. Praying in a Muslim majority country felt like a routine: it was so normal.

Now, if we look at it a different way, regarding the waiting for God’s promise as a “struggle,” then, does a religious state really facilitate the struggle by making it easier to pray? Is it not, the one who struggles to find the space for this prayer struggling more than the one who can just enter the mosque around the corner?

One of Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) Hadiths says “Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings to the strangers.” For me, as a Muslim in a “non-prayer-supporting” state, this Hadith is what supports me, and what strengthens me as a “prayer-stranger” in my daily environment.

Deborah narrates her first experience of Erev Yom Kippur in Israel...

Walking out of my house on Erev Yom Kippur, Jerusalem has been taken over by silence. There is not a car in sight – even the 24-hour convenience store that stays open on Shabbat is closed. I walk down the middle of the road, accompanied by small clusters of people also on their way to shul (synagogue). Many, like myself, are dressed completely in white.  I am struck by a great sense of unity. We are all doing the same thing, at the same time, in the same place. We are all going to daven (pray) in Jerusalem on the last of the Days of Awe.

Walking out of shul that evening, the atmosphere has transformed from somber to festive.  I find it jarring – this is a fast day, a day of atonement – yet that strange sense of unity remains. I join the crowds, chatting with friends almost as if it were a normal Friday night. As I weave my way home through the throngs, hiloni (secular) teenagers hold bicycle races in the streets. This is my experience of Jerusalem, my first experience living in a majority Jewish culture. Although the population tends to be more religiously observant than much of Israel, it is still a city of contradictions. Yet, for me, these contradictions help to cohere my daily patterns into one that is meaningfully Jewish.

I am not sure that having a state religion is required to create this kind of Jewish environment, and honestly, I am uncomfortable with the idea of state-sponsored religion on the whole. And yet, the holidays here were the first time I have experienced such sense of Jewish community and unity. Whether we did it through prayer services or bicycle races, on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem I had the sense that everyone was marking out the difference and importance of that day.

All of our reflections demonstrate ambivalence about religious states, yet these states do permit a certain type of freedom. A freedom perhaps that those in most monasteries know as well, a freedom from restricted religious practice and a freedom to follow obligated rites without worrying about logistics. I think Omar brings up a good point that relates to my faith as well. The struggle to practice one’s religion as a stranger in “non-prayer-supporting” states is in itself a formative experience. Yet the relief he also expresses when praying in Oman and the vivid images of unity and celebration of identity shared by Deborah, continue to nag at me.

I hope this inter-Abrahamic refection serves to complicate our stance on some very touchy topics... to humanize them just a bit... and to realize that at the base of the most difficult conflicts are real people with real desires to struggle and strive so as to be at peace when we encounter the divine.

Photo courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAdventsljusstake_med_tre_brinnande_ljus.JPG

Three events in the Greater Charlottesville, Virginia area:

#1 About two years ago. Setting: majority White United Methodist Church.

Scene:  I sit in the hallway outside of the sanctuary during worship, breastfeeding my nine-month old daughter, who happens to be 1/2 White, 1/2 Black, 1/2 Boricua. (I must say that was the best Census form I had ever filled out). Then, a woman comes up to me and says: "Wow, she's beautiful! Is she adopted?"

#2 This year. Setting: At the home of a woman who looks like a grandmother out of a Norman Rockwell painting in Central Virginia.
Scene I: (My daughter is away playing) Grandmother to me: "Your daughter is so beautiful. Her skin is sooo dark and her hair is soooo curly!"

Scene II: (My daughter is present) Grandmother to my daughter: "Wow, your skin is so dark and beautiful, I had a niece that came out the same color as you.... We have Indian blood in our family [wink wink]"

Scene III: (In the car on the way home) My three year old daughter throws her dark-skinned princess doll at the floor and says: "Mami, I don't want this! I'm not brown."

#3 Last week. Setting: One of Charlottesville's hot-spots for dancing, on a date with my husband, who happens to be a big Black Puerto Rican dude.
Scene: I am sitting at the bar; my husband is standing next to me.

Then two women approach him and say: "Do you know where the bathroom is?"

Then, they see me (if you can't tell from my picture, I am White), and say: "Oh. My. God. We are sooooooooooooo sorry. We thought you worked here."

(pictured above are my daughter's feet)

These events stick out in my mind; I carry them with me. And I know that as the White member of my family, I only experience a fraction of the racist moments that both my husband and daughter confront on a daily basis. Unfortunately, my own church denomination continues to be, for the most part, unable to fill its church pews and leadership positions with people who reflect the changing demographic of our society in the United States.

The UMC is implementing a new plan this year: A Call to Action. As with many main-line Protestant demonstrations, membership rolls have been on the decline since the 1960s. Unaware of this large-scale plan of implementation, I unwittingly wrote an article about Dashboard Dial Performance Measures, a prominent new feature of this plan coming to a UMC congregation near you.

Unfortunately, this "re-ordering" of the church, through the use of secular business models, will, in my opinion, do little to change the face, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASPy) face, of the UMC. So in the spirit of Paul, I wanted to offer my own call to action to all my fellow WASPy United Methodists... to die to their WASPy flesh and be born in Christ...

...even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the WASPy flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the WASPy flesh, I have more: born to a WASPy family, educated in the best WASPy private schools, a member of the WASPy UMC, a WASP born of WASPs; as to the WASPy church, a candidate for ordained ministry in the UMC for 10 years; as to zeal, a member of several UMC committees at district, conference and national levels; as to righteousness , ummmm.. well let's not get too carried away here.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from WASPy entitlement, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

My fellow United Methodist brothers and sisters, I believe the church is where God's kingdom--God's alternative culture--should be manifest. The reality is that in 2008, Whites made up 90% of our denomination, while making up only 74% of our country as a whole. As long as my daughter cannot see people and leaders of her color... and my color... and her Papi's color... AND hear people speak both of her languages, English and Spanish--ideally along with many other languages--I am afraid, at least here in Charlottesville (and in most places around the country) we are out of luck in terms of finding a United Methodist Church home.

Perhaps you think this call an impossible task, especially for the likes of Central Virginia. I testify to you that you are wrong. Fortunately, my family is blessed to worship together in Charlottesville, Virginia at Trinity Episcopal Church that has as its vision to be An Intentional Multicultural Christian Community of Reconciliation, Transformation and Love. Y por eso, damos muchas gracias a Dios.

Original post published on Huffington Post Religion.

As a participant in the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme (CIP) Summer School, I thank you and the other generous donors for making this program possible. You have done so without fanfare, but I feel it is important for the whole world to know that Oman has chosen to support some of the most cutting edge interfaith work I have ever encountered.

The man from Norway responsible for the deaths of over 90 people, most of them young and on a retreat this past week, would like for the rest of the world to blame Islam for his actions. As outrageous and illogical as I find this motivation, I fear that there are many who will be persuaded by it. I fear that the Islamophobia that both feeds and is fed by this act of terror is a force against which few are willing to struggle. Please, do not misunderstand: There are many who will sympathize with individual Muslims or agree that not all Muslims are terrorists. But, Your Majesty, in my country, many equate Islam with a violent religion. This almost unshakable belief and misconception funds the distrust and suspicion many people in the United States harbor, allows for hate crimes against the Islamic community to continue and decreases the possibility that even people sympathetic to the Muslim community would engage with them in any meaningful way. 

Truly, the barriers to authentic interfaith relationships and dialogue are great. But I write to let you know that Oman's investment in the CIP Summer School -- through funding and by sending 12 participants deeply engaged in ministries as imams, preachers, muftis and administrators in the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs -- is possibly one of the most creative and promising experiments in interfaith work.

The three week CIP Summer School, in short, has provided a safe place for holy struggle.

In Genesis 32:22-31 it says:

"Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, 'Let me go, for the day is breaking.' But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.' So he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob.' Then the man said, 'You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.' Then Jacob asked him, 'Please tell me your name.' But he said, 'Why is it that you ask my name?' And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.' The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip."

On July 11, 25 Jews, Christians and Muslims met for the first time outside of Madingly Hall near Cambridge, England.  Most of us left worship communities, families and normal routines behind to join each other on neutral territory. This neutral territory was a crucial starting point for people coming together from such diverse backgrounds. In a sense, like Jacob, each of us began this journey alone.

Of course, our struggle was not physical. In fact, it could be argued that we have been treated as royalty, without need or want for three straight weeks. We were fed five times a day (each according to their faith's dietary laws) and every time I would come back to my room in the evening, the bed was made and the room tidy. The kitchen staff even came to indulge our evening ice cream cravings and would provide trays of coffee upon request. What type of struggle is this? It sounds more like hedonism.

Yet it is precisely this context, one in which we had no other worry or concern except to encounter the other participants in our group that holy struggle was made possible. By putting all 25 of us in one castle, which has since become our home, we have had to look at each other in the eye.

From this experience of staring my Jewish, Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters in the eye -- of studying our holy scriptures together, hearing their stories and perspectives; of walking, eating, arguing, laughing and talking with them -- l leave Madingly Hall both blessed and wounded.

Basically, what CIP Summer School has done for me is to concretize the fact that our lives are knit up together, our futures are inseparable. These participants have been etched in my heart and their faces, stories and lives are now present with me where ever I may go. This blessed etching that brings me great joy also functions as a literal wound. 

I can no longer walk around in the world feeling that I have no part with my Omani Muslim brothers or that I have no part with my Orthodox Jewish friends. Their lives are caught up in my life and now it is my duty to live and share this experience with those who doubt any such encounter is possible.

To sum it up, Your Majesty, at Madingly I feel that I have experienced a glimpse of heaven. In the Book of Revelation in the New Testament it is written that God will make all things new and that all the nations will gather in the new heaven and a new earth. In this vision, I do not believe that we will all necessarily agree; I believe that we will continue to have distinctions and nations and languages; I believe that it will be something like the experience of living together with my friends from CIP Summer School. Thank you for your part in making this possible; I believe if more people had the blessing of this experience the world would be a very different place. 

Peace,

Kelly West Figueroa-Ray

Originally posted on the Huffington Post Religion.

This is my first trip to Europe. I've had the chance to rent a bike and tour around the beautiful English countryside that surrounds Madingly, a small town (there is only a few homes, a pub, town hall and a church) right outside of Cambridge, England.

One day when biking I pulled off on a "public bridleway." This is a new and fascinating phenomenon for me as a person from the United States; these pathways criss-cross through otherwise private fields and property, connecting for the public small towns and roads that can be reached by foot and often by bike. After about 100 yards of bumping down the path, the bike refused to move any further.

As I inspected my bike, I realized that my wheels were covered in the dirt of the field. Upon closer investigation, I realized this was not just any dirt but the finest clay England's farmland had to offer. After carrying my bike back to a grassy patch, I spent about 20 minutes scraping the stuff off with my bare hands. As I felt the clay between my fingers, I realized something: Now I know the feel of England's dirt (at least the dirt near Madingly). It was sort of like the clay I have used in pottery class, the kind that comes in as a brick in a plastic bag -- brown, slippery, sticky and heavy.

In Madingly I've been participating in an intensive summer interfaith program hosted by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme. This program has brought together Jews, Muslims and Christians from the around the world, including 10 Ibadhi Muslims from Oman, most of whom had never met a Jewish person before this conference.

All 25 of us were dropped into "the princess castle," a designation ascribed to Madingly Hall of Cambridge University by my 3-year-old daughter during one of our late night FaceTime chats.

For us, this hall and its gorgeous gardens and grounds began as neutral territory; it has now become our home.

During the week, we attend lectures on the three faiths and practice Scriptural Reasoning. There are deep and sincere questions that are raised during these sessions: What does faith mean to Christians? Why do the Omani Muslims often wear hats? What does it mean to be a prophet in the Jewish faith?

But beyond questions are the connections forged across what seem to be uncrossable chasms. As a Christian woman, how can I relate to a strictly observant Omani Muslim, who just began learning English three months ago? From my Christian perspective, I would argue that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Where there seems to be no common ground, stepping stones appear and chasms are bridged.

One of my new friends is a preacher of Islam in Oman, who began as a shepherd of 40 sheep when he was 10 years old. He loved to read so much that he would fish books out of garbage cans near the schools and libraries of his village. At age 14, he began speaking about Islam on the radio. He did not see his wife's face and hair until after their separate wedding parties. I am a woman, and I don't cook. He shares his story and I show him a video of my husband teaching my daughter how to make muffins. We listen, learn and mostly we laugh.

From the sound of this some might say, "Well isn't that nice? A beautiful vacation in the English countryside, but what are you really accomplishing? Shouldn't you be working on the conflicts? What about Israel-Palestine? What about suicide bombing? What about Quran burning by Christians? What about blaming Jews for killing Jesus?"

To those who would ask such questions, I would say that it is true: We do not all agree and we will leave here with no plan that will fix problems caused or encountered by our respective religions. Instead, we will leave here with faces, stories, echoes of laughter, tales of struggle that automatically humanize and make complex the conflicts we face on a daily basis. These, my new brothers and sisters, through clear devotion to God's will, sincere questions, personal stories and joyous laughter, have etched themselves into my heart; their joy is my joy, and their sorrow is mine as well.

In other words, this program is comparable to my experience of feeling the English clay -- the clay actually slipped and slid between my fingers. No one can take that experience away from me. I have a certain knowledge about English clay that now is a part of me forever, not a technical or conceptual knowledge, but a knowledge that comes only with encounter. The kind of encounter that makes your bike get stuck, that makes your assumptions about how the world works malfunction. So that you have to take your bare hands, scrape at the clay and feel for yourself in order to know it.

The fact that this question could be asked OUT LOUD to a GUEST of a Christian Church demonstrates a deep and pervasive understanding, in the status quo culture of the United States, that expressions of Islamophobia are not taboo, but actually to be expected.

This is a situation that becomes more clear with a quick perusal of situations across the country involving the discrimination and humiliation of individual Muslims. One high school teacher in Texas felt comfortable enough to address his ninth grade student during class saying:  "I bet that you're grieving..." the day after Osama bin Laden's death. Jim Scharnagel in Gainsville, FL felt justified in congratulating the pilots who refused to fly a plane while two Muslim leaders were aboard in his letter to the editor to the Gainesville Times on May 13th, 2011: "There's no way to tell which Muslims seek to do us harm". Scharnagel offers his solution to protect us (by us he means...?) from terrorism:  "we have to... get the Muslims out of the U.S."

Some might argue that these are isolated incidents of ignorance and hate, I think they are signs of a much greater and gracious acceptance of an underlying tendency of many in the United States to see Islam as a violent religion.  Affiliates of said violent religion, therefore, at the very least should be interrogated about whose side they are on (if they are good or bad Muslims) and possibly be asked to leave (or eradicated?) from American soil... in order to keep us (again us who?) safe.

But I have to say, on the other side of the spectrum.... I've also been irritated at a recent certain form of Christian moralistic discourse surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden -- basically asking the question: "What Would Jesus Do - dance on bin Laden's grave or not?" There have been several blog posts and tweets urging restraint with regard to such celebration. Many express a definitiveness about what God has to say about the subject and condemn those who have different reactions. I do not want to make this another post about bin Laden except to say... enough with, what Rob Rynders calls, Practicing a Fashionable Peace and let's get to work doing peace, as C. Nikole Saulsberry calls us to do in her post.

For those Christians with an interest in going beyond platitudes and doing peace... I find that often when we are faced with such a difficult task--like fighting Islamophobia in the United States, for example, can be overwhelming and even paralyzing. That's why it is often much easier to sum up how we feel in tweets or blog posts, but then never actually do much to change the current situation. May I suggest to you, and to those of our Muslim and Jewish counterparts, the practice of Scriptural Reasoning as a starting point towards possible peace and making a safe place for all (note: not 'us').

Scriptural Reasoning, as I wrote about in a previous post, is a practice that depends on one of the central particularities of these faiths -- their scriptures -- as a starting point of dialogue. The invitation to read and discuss each others sacred text unites participants not as people who have the same beliefs, but rather, as people who are in relationship. This type of peace building is slow, but effective.  It helps to tear down assumptions we have been fed by society and replaces them with actual conversations and debates had between flesh-and-blood human beings.

In order to practice Scriptural Reasoning one must go through training. This training is a sort of discipleship into a new habit of dialogue, a new practice of peace. For three days participants do Scriptural Reasoning with the help of a seasoned facilitator. The next training for Scirptural Reasoning is being held at the University of Virginia on Saturday, June 25, 2011 - Tuesday, June 28, 2011. Please click here for more information about the training and how to register.

Perhaps many Christians would not ask a Muslim visitor if he or she was a good or bad Muslim, but it should be our Christian duty not only to be polite to those who differ from us, but to love them as Christ loved us.  This type of love does not get expressed through silence, cold tolerance or even friendly sentiments, but through active engagement and dialogue.  The scriptures document that in the early Christian church this love shone through in the way the community lived:

All who believed were together and had all things in common;they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds-to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home-and ate their food with glad and generous-hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

I do not advocate that we mimic some romanticized version of the early Christian Church, instead I advocate that whatever it is we do as Christians that we do it... praising God and having the good will of all the people. Let us continue in this tradition by taking up practices that demonstrate God's love for the world... not through judgement or control but through incarnational engagement and relationship. For it is only through intentional practices, such as Scriptural Reasoning, that evils such as Islamophobia will be eradicated... and interrogation, even in jest, of Muslim guests in Christian spaces will be made unthinkable.

In a post this week, Taylor Burton-Edwards, Director of Worship Resources of the General Board of Discipleship -- a national organization of the United Methodist Church charged with helping local churches by "equipping world changing disciples" -- asked what "missional Methodists" should do in the face of our church's newest digital report card toy -- dashboards.

To see an example of this nifty gadget click here.

Notice you can find out weekly information about churches that have the biggest gain or loss in membership and attendance, baptisms and professions of faith (you can even click on a link to those naughty churches that have not turned in their weekly numbers yet ... tisk, tisk).

In the end, Burton-Edwards, although he criticizes this form of documenting "maintenance discipleship", advises pastors to fill out the forms and then go beyond them ... (I mean he does work for the church after all and some conferences actually take the data into consideration when assigning pastors to particular churches) So, my pastor friends out there, if they ask for your Saturdays -- four days a month -- to fill out paperwork, give them at least five days. Turn in monthly reports, in addition to your weekly ones! Detail the spiritual growth and document the amazing evidence of discipleship ... go beyond ... go beyond.

I'm sure that there is something good that comes from all that reporting, but in general, as I shared in a previous post, I am pretty unimpressed with how the church I love, the United Methodist Church, is going beyond its majority-white, status-quo supporting self to minister to ... the world.

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, was quoted as saying: "The world is my parish." He did not say "the people that show up to this particular building on a Sunday are my parish." The United Methodist Church has become a cushy institution, banking on performance measures kept by fancy gadget dials to help save it from the fate towards which all mainline denominations seem to be heading -- slow death.

And yet, I believe there is hope for the United Methodist Church.

One such locus of hope centers in on the phenomenon of "church plants". Although I do not believe this move toward church planting is the 'silver bullet' that will save our denomination, I do know of at least three church plant congregations that take seriously Wesley's charge to make the world their parish:

Mosaic Brooklyn Park, Minnesota

Hope.Gate.Way Portland, Maine

Urban Village Church Chicago, Illinois

For lack of space, I will detail the one I know best -- Mosaic in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Mosaic's pastor, Rev. Rachel McIver Morey, was my roommate in seminary. She was the one who always finished every single page of reading before class and proofread all of my last-minute writing assignments (the ones she had already finished the day before). She read a chapter of the Bible every morning (i.e. she had read it in its entirety over 5 times). She made plans and kept them; she was efficient and would have probably made whatever conference leadership extremely happy with her dashboard-dial-reporting skills.

But then at least two things happened ... first she was called to plant a multicultural church (where none had existed before) and second she became a mother.

It is this second thing, motherhood that has prepared her for the first ... church planting, and especially church planting a multicultural church. There is something about rocking a colicky baby for hours on end that gives a person a new outlook on life. Not only is not being in control of a situation 100 percent tangible (I literally watched Rachel rock her son for an hour while he writhed with stomach pain she could not fix), but the only thing left to do is be present in the midst of it. The peace that exuded from her being as she rocked her screaming baby was nothing like the anxiety-ridden seminary intern who had to make sure every aspect of the church service went off without a hitch.

Rachel and her husband, Jerad, have discovered that multicultural church planting is a colicky baby whose occasional smiles are all the reward they will see at first. It is is not a well behaved child that adheres exactly to all the developmental milestones all the books say should be there. God's peace came to Rachel in the rocking chair, and it is what gives Rachel and the Mosaic team the strength to do the street level ministry with real people that they are called to do.

Unlike a normal church appointment, Rachel and other church planters must build up their congregations from scratch. They build up networks of interested people (this means a lot of coffee dates, covered lunches, community activities, etc), raise funds (preach in the pulpits of churches who take up offerings, reach out to potential donors, etc.) and launch four preview services. Whether or not Rachel continues in this project, in part, depends on the amount of people that attend these preview services. Here is a description of their most recent preview service:

On Saturday, March 12th, Mosaic gathered at Odyssey Academy in Brooklyn Park to make sandwiches for Simpson shelter -- which, with all hands on deck, ended up taking twenty minutes even with a break to go buy more bread! -- and collect canned goods for our local food shelf. At five o'clock, we chimed the gong and began worship. Our worship was a new format using table conversation and fellowship alongside music from Paraguay, the U.S., and Indonesia. We closed with a celebration of communion and each had a bologna sandwich in communion and community with the Simpson Shelter guests who would be eating them for lunch the next day.

Not your typical Sunday Service ... Praise God. It's not that I hate liturgy (in fact I worship in an Episcopal church at the moment, which is much more formal than most United Methodist congregations), but I love that Mosaic takes the liturgy out into the world.

In the book of 1st Samuel chapter 16 begins, "The Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you grieve over Saul?' I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons." In this text, the prophet Samuel has been ordered by God to go anoint a new king, while the old king, whom Samuel had also anointed, is still around. Samuel goes to do what he is told, has all of the sons of Jesse pass before him, but not one is the king God has chosen. Samuel asks "Are all your sons here?" And Jesse replies ... "There remains the yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep." This youngest son, David, would eventually become the most revered and loved king of Israel.

The United Methodist Church needs to look out among these young pastors -- the ones who are out tending the sheep. They, not the ones best at keeping score on dashboard dials, make the world their parish and change the world through discipleship. They could be a part of a new era of Methodism ... so my Methodist brothers and sisters, how long will you grieve over the loss of your past glory? God has rejected it and moved on ... and we should too.

Many years ago I had a friend who thought Christian faith did not have much to do with other religions. For this friend, the main activity of Christians involved telling or demonstrating to the world, all the world, that the saving love of God was available to them through Jesus Christ. Recently, after many years, we met at a coffee shop to catch up and share life stories. My friend had moved on from working in a big successful main-line church and had become involved with international development projects.

After settling into our comfy cafe chairs, my friend said, " Kelly, you were right. Inter-faith relationships are a matter of life and death. They really do matter."

The photo above illustrates this point perhaps better than any words written in a blog. A chain made up of Christians protects Muslim protesters in the midst of prayer. Life and death decisions. Muslims deciding to pray in the midst of protest... a decisive sign of vulnerability and faith, and Christians, commanded by Jesus to "go and do likewise" as had done the Good Samaritan, protect the vulnerable by guarding them with their own bodies.

Likewise, Muslims protect Christians: "The fact that only a few weeks after the Alexandria attack, Egyptian Copts could hold public prayers in the streets of Cairo, in an overwhelmingly Muslim crowd of protesters, protected by ranks of volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood at the entrances to the square, may indicate a shift in the atmosphere in Egypt."

What does it look like for those of us on this side of the world, not in the midst of revolution fraught with the possibly of dangerous religious strife, to make life and death decisions about inter-religious dialogue and relationships? What sort of risks should we take even if protecting each other with our bodies might not seem like an option here in the United States? One of many possible answers to these questions includes the practice of Scriptural Reasoning (SR).

"Scriptural Reasoning" was first established as a method for shared scriptural study among a small group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars of religion—scholars of scripture, of the traditions of scriptural interpretation, of theology, and of philosophy. These scholars have tended to work in small groups of about twenty members, meeting together several times and year and joining together both for study, discussion, and for various writing projects.

Working out of universities and seminaries, scholars of Scriptural Reasoning have shared their methods of study with students and colleagues, with religious leaders in neighboring cities, and with members of local congregations and some peace groups. Through such contact, more public forms of scriptural reasoning study have appeared, including student study circles in the Abrahamic traditions, circles of religious leaders and teachers, and circles of congregants. The SR scholars also established groups like the Children of Abraham Institute to foster grass-roots study circles among members of the Abrahamic traditions and communities.

SR requires at least three chairs, three scriptural texts and one table. The primary assumption in this context is that each tradition is particular.  Instead of assuming similarities, the goal is simply to create a space of dialogue around what some might consider the highest sign of particularity between religious faiths – scripture.  Perhaps out of dialogue comes discoveries of analogous beliefs or understandings between traditions, but primarily what comes out of the interaction are relationships, new understanding of one another, and of the particularity of our own particular traditions. This act of forming relationships, of debate and dialogue is in itself a sign of peace and love in practice. This of course does not replace all other forms of inter-religious dialogue. Instead it adds to the various initiatives at inter-religious dialogue an episodic (monthly, annual...) and temporary (2 hours, day-long,...) meeting space where those shaped by a tradition can open a temporary space of hospitable, respectful and mutual learning through dialogue.

This may seem pretty tame compared to guarding people with our bodies, but I believe sharing our sacred texts through respectful dialogue is more radical than one might first suppose. It requires entering a vulnerable space, in which all are open to listening to the other even if it means hearing your sacred text interpreted from the point of view of another faith tradition. This type of dialogue disrupts hegemonic tendencies...  it allows for those who have been entrenched in their own tradition to see their sacred text from the point of view of another -- without insisting on one dogmatic interpretation of meaning.

For those of my fellow Christians out there who doubt the efficacy of a non-proselytizing form of scripture-sharing consider part of this excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew "...if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?" Jesus pushes his disciples to love even their enemies and those that persecute them... I would say in our context, one in which Christians are more likely to persecute and less likely to be persecuted, we are called to radically know the other and invite the other tell us how they see us through their eyes. God commands: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself"; let us build up courage to protect each other with our bodies by doing what God commands and learning from what Egyptian protesters practice. Let us invite and accept the invitation to read each others' sacred texts together.

This type of dialogue, although simple in form, requires certified training in order to be termed "Scriptural Reasoning". If you are interested in holding a training session in your community or university, you may leave a note in the comments below or find information through the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning Forum.

Featured Photo: Taken by @NevineZaki in Cairo, Egypt: http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj

"Their paradoxes made me feel inadequate, for it seemed that on a daily basis I could name at least one instance where I was doing and being exactly the opposite."

Gohn then reflects on various periods in her life of suffering, loss and humiliation that gave her a different perspective on these teachings, turning them from a judgment, to an invitation into transformation:

"The Beatitudes are meant to shape and form us—like "be attitudes," the way that Jesus wants us to be. The Beatitudes give us choices to deliberately "be more" than minimalists or skimmers of the surface of life. They dare us to believe in the necessity of being a blessing now in exchange for a blessing yet unseen."

As a privileged person, I appreciate the challenge to give up power and participate in the blessed life promised by the Beatitudes. Gohn gives me hope, that yes, I too have a place in the Reign of God if I choose to be shaped by the teachings of Jesus.

But what about those people who do not have a choice?

What about those who are made to give up power or are reminded of their powerlessness on daily basis?

Homosexuals whose spirits are broken by bullying... Undocumented Immigrants mourning the disintegrated dead bodies of their loved ones in the desert... Egyptian Citizens cut-off from communicating with the world to silence their voice...  Young Women working themselves to death in sweatshops for non-living wages to support their families...

It seems to me that it is for such as these that Jesus speaks these words.

At times I feel like an eavesdropper... amazed that I too can graft myself on to their pain... to join in with them, stand with them. What an undeserved privilege, a gift of grace that they would allow me a place at their table... those of them who do must be full of mercy, purity of heart and peacemaking skills. Otherwise, how could they stand to have me, someone who studies for a living (free to suffer or not... almost at will), around?

And yet, as Gohn expresses in her post, this text speaks to those of us with the power to choose as well. The judgment some of us may feel when reading the Beatitudes, I would argue, is actually a blessing. A call on our hearts to realize something is a-miss... something is broken and in need of repair. The amazing thing about this cry from the scriptures is the hope alive within the very cry itself: the hope that someone not only will hear the cry, but will also respond to it with compassionate action. A cry in this case is nothing more than the guilt or perhaps loneliness we feel when we read something that clearly was not written for us who do not suffer on a regular basis. Why aren't we blessed... for completing all of our academic goals for the semester or for taking care of our kids or for paying our bills? Shouldn't all of our hard work be recognized? Don't we deserve a pat on the back? Don't we deserve to be blessed too?

But there the scripture stands, both patiently and impatiently, crying against our self-centered whine-y natures, hoping for us to respond with compassionate action; calling us to a transformation of sorts, a reorientation of our logical habits from concern for our own well being (worrying about what we need/deserve and why) to the concern for the well being and flourishing of others. The question is will we, who have the privilege to choose, respond? Or instead will we just write off Jesus’s teachings as naive and antiquated? What would it mean for us to choose mercy? to choose to be pure in heart? to choose to be peacemakers?  None of these choices guarantee our own well-being. In fact, it is more likely if we practice these choices on a daily basis that we will experience what it means to be ‘poor in spirit’, to ‘mourn’, to be ‘meek’, and to ‘thirst for righteousness’. These of course are not the goals I was taught to aspire to when growing up in the United States in upper middle class white culture; in fact they seem to be the opposite. Perhaps I can describe them as up-side-down. For it's not as if I have abandoned my life's work... I'm still an academic, I'm still privileged, and I'm still struggling with these texts. Yet perhaps a partial answer I can point to a period of my formation, years of difficult discipleship  in multicultural settings. Through that experience now I aspire to be in relationship with others… laughing when they laugh and crying when they cry, instead of making sure everyone knows I am right, smart and God's gift to their lives (this is just an aspiration... I mean I am siemprechipil after all). Also I aspire to have a seat set for me at the banquet table of the blessed, not because I deserve it or even because I'm Christian, but because those seated around the table have become my family.

So my first thought is that most inter-religious interaction is either violent or ridiculous.

I will not go into the violent aspects of inter-religious interaction, because this blog post would be too long and depressing. Instead I opt for the more light-hearted and only slightly less depressing reality of inter-religious dialogue in general...

Exhibit 1: Coffee shop holiday sign the University of Virginia Religious Studies Department

I admit that I must have stood in line by this sign at least 10 times without noticing it. It wasn't until Rebecca Levi, a cynically amused Jewish friend and colleague of mine, posted a version of this picture on Facebook entitled "Religious Studies Fail" that this fabulous example of inter-religious life came to my attention. As you can see Christmas is the main theme: the colors, the Santa's boot, the half eaten cookies, the tree lights, and the punny allusion to a Christmas song, the star of David, a menorah... wait a minute. I wonder... were these standard additions in many major coffee shops? or did the context of a Religious Studies Department call for a couple of Jewish symbols to be added to this Christmas theme? Notice also not even a nod to Kwanzaa... no comment (at least not on this post). Also, a Santa's boot? really? Is this what Christmas has come to?

Surprising? No. A little depressing? Yes. A inter-religious reality? Most definitely.

At the University of California at Berkeley when I was an undergraduate in mid-to-late 90s my experience of inter-faith dialogue mainly consisted of groups or programs that brought people from different faiths together to find common ground. Most of these discussions focused on the commonalities of the faiths involved in the dialogue with the underlying assumption that ultimately all religious traditions are about love and peace, just manifested in a diversity of practices and beliefs.  While studying at Wesley Theology Seminary I spent an entire summer at a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program under the guidance of an Interfaith minister. First let me say I am indebted to that minister for her insights, patience and guidance on my journey of self-awareness. I learned much from the confrontational program focused on behavioral transformation, but much of the interfaith interaction and dialogue was just plain shallow and safe. Most Christians were apologetic or silent about being Christian  and/or claimed Christianity as their faith while denying its basic tenets. Other traditions were represented romantically by those who did not practice the particular faith (or were showcased by one practitioner) and all were boiled down to "universal" truths. These universal truths, such as love and compassion, were also applied to the "true" meaning of Christianity.

Nothing annoys me more than "universal" concepts. All the concepts I utter are informed by my formation as a United Methodist Christian. When we begin a dialogue with others who have been formed by different religious doctrines I do not expect compassion, love, justice, salvation, etc. to look the same and to assume that they are is condescending and hegemonic.

In my case, "love", "compassion", "justice", "salvation", etc. are concepts that are Jesus Christ-shaped:

Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.  You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-- he is Lord of all...   how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him... They put him to death by hanging him on a tree;  but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear... he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

For me as a United Methodist Christian love, compassion, justice, salvation, etc. have to do with God's incarnation in the flesh of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit; with Jesus's good works, teachings, healing and miracles; with Jesus's suffering and death; with God's resurrection of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit; and with the commission to tell everyone about God's love in Jesus so that all might have salvation from sin (both personal and structural) and manifest God's kingdom of justice here on earth.

For me, inter-religious dialogue begins when we ground universal (read meaningless) concepts in the traditions and assumptions from which we speak. Otherwise inter-religious dialogue is no better or worse than this sign; it becomes a few token symbols thrown together... an earnest yet ineffective attempt at inclusiveness and community.