Specifically, the challenge is not so much to go out and help the poor - the traditional reading, which assumes a distinction from the poor and a position of power from which to help them - but to be identified amongst and as the poor.

The really big question may be: who are we with? And who are we not with? And what blessing might we be missing out on?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O-OOoVASe_8&t=1439s&pp=ygUPY2FzY2FkZXMgY2h1cmNo&ra=m

This book is a beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, and urgent argument for a person-centered approach to understanding addiction and recovery.

Genuis, who is an emergency physician at St Paul’s Hospital in my city, addresses the pros and cons of the choice and disease models for addiction specifically, and finds them helpful in certain ways, but ultimately wanting.

He proposes instead a framework for gauging the truth and helpfulness of addiction and recovery approaches (which includes harm reduction, 12 step, and faith-based) that emphasizes hope and agency for each person - each image of God - who is battling addiction.

Laced through with heart-rending stories from the ER and my neighbourhood, the DTES, Genuis makes a compelling case for a person-centered approach to addictions which can help people towards hope and continence. He helpfully employs the philosophy of Aristotle to make his case, but that does not make this an academically inaccessible book. It is grounded in the actual lived experience of people, and the potential for the Church to meaningfully engage this issue.

This is a must-read book for anyone wanting to understand addictions and who wants to help be a part of the healing.

And if I may be so bold, I believe this book pairs extremely well with my book, Recovery. Genuis’ book focuses slightly more on medical aspects, mine slightly more on pastoral, but they definitely complement one another.

https://www.amazon.ca/Recovering-Brokenness-Addiction-Blessedness-Community/dp/154096082X/ref=asc_df_154096082X?mcid=5a9403e200f634bc9e8416bd16f65bcd&tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=706830265190&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11025942061237422793&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9198196&hvtargid=pla-924311672377&psc=1&hvocijid=11025942061237422793-154096082X-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1

Jesus Christ’s incarnation is one of the formational inspirations for early Salvation Army mission and ministry. The Salvation Army in its inception emphasised the importance of its soldiers and officers identifying with the poor, the oppressed, and other cultures as they ministered amongst them, and there are still Salvation Army ministries that operate in the same spirit today. There are, however, genuine theological and ethical concerns over the idea of incarnational ministry. Some theologians argue that it is impossible, unnecessary, or unwise for humans to imitate Christ’s incarnation. Others worry about the dangers of cultural appropriation, gentrification, paternalism and other harmful missional practices. There are also significant apprehensions about the inherent physical, emotional, and spiritual risks for missionaries living in dangerous areas. Advocates of incarnational ministry argue that these issues can be addressed by focusing on union with Christ instead of the imitation of Christ, which leads to an understanding of holiness and hospitality as participation in the life and mission of God. When incarnational ministry is thus properly contextualised, it is consistent with The Salvation Army’s theology, ethics, and history, and can be a powerfully effective approach to the Salvation Army mission.

The doctrine of Christ’s incarnation rests upon the idea that “in the person of Jesus Christ the Divine and human natures are united, so that he is truly and properly God, and truly and properly man.” (The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine) He was sent into the world by the Father, and later prayed to the Father: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world,” (John 17:18). Advocates of incarnational ministry see this as a commission for the Church to model mission after the incarnation of Christ. This means that believers should imitate the love that entered the world through Christ to reach those “caught in the snares of non-love and seduced by injustice, deceit and violence.” (Miroslav Volf)

The ecclesial, missional, and ethical activity of Christians should, in this view, be patterned after Jesus’ humility, self-sacrifice, and complete identification with humanity. Just as Christ took on the flesh and experiences of humanity, so too should the Church take on the cultural, political, and socio-economical experiences and concerns of the communities where they minister, particularly amongst the poor and suffering. Jesus embodied all the pain, temptation, sorrow, and conflict of humanity, and this should characterise the way the Church embraces and encounters men and women today. (Kathryn Tanner)

Incarnational ministers often highlight the importance of relocating to the abandoned places of the world as the first step towards modeling after Christ’s ministry. Abandoned places are defined as locations that have “no attraction for the ‘world of what’s happening now,’ and [are] therefore left alone by the political, economic and social powers that be.” (Sr. Margaret M. McKenna) The act of relocation “expresses conversion and commitment, the decision to resist imperial pressures and the pleasures and rewards of conformity to the way of all empires: pride, power, and reduction of all values to the ‘bottom line.’” (Ibid) The incarnational Church is to imitate Jesus in his rejection of the glory of this world, in his acceptance of self-denial, and in his “divine labor of love’s suffering and risk.” (Volf)

The Salvation Army, in its inception, endeavoured to put this suffering, risky, incarnational love into practice in many “abandoned places”. William Booth was not interested in disembodied and disengaged Bible scholarship, but rather wanted to translate Scripture “into the hearts and conduct of living men and women,” as he believed “it is of no use making correct translations of words if we cannot get the words translated into life.” (William Booth, cited in Roger J. Green) The innovation of The Salvation Army was this “marriage of belief and action, the holistic union of spiritual and social concern incarnated in the slums, the pubs, the mines, the street corners, and under the bridges.” (Aaron White) Once Salvationists had the message of the Bible imprinted upon their hearts, William Booth’s next advice for cross-cultural missionaries, officers and soldiers was to “Get into their skins!” (Paul Rader) The idea was to enter as fully as possible into the culture and conditions of the people one served, in imitation of Christ’s incarnation for humanity. One notable example of this incarnational effort is Frederick Booth-Tucker, an English Salvationist who moved to India, changed his name to Fakir Singh, adopted Indian dress, and conducted his ministry barefoot and begging for food. His efforts captured the imagination of Salvationists around the world, to the point where he had to set the following conditions for anyone who wished to join him:

Service will be a matter not merely of being willing to go anywhere, but of wishing to live and die for the particular race to which you are sent. You will be absolutely alone and under close scrutiny. It will be essential to learn at least one Indian language. You must leave entirely and forever behind you all your English dress and habits. Officers will be barefoot. You will avoid the English quarter, but will always live among natives – sometimes in a cave, a shady tree, or someone’s veranda – or in a mud hut 16 by 10 feet. You will cook as they do, and wash your clothes in the stream with them. You have nothing to fear from the climate. The people are different and intensely religious. Find out what their thoughts are before you share yours. And if you are planning to return, don’t go. We would not think of sending anyone out who did not plan to make it a life work. (St. John G. Ervine)

Incarnation also became a staple of The Salvation Army’s slum ministry: “No Salvation Army slum post could do its work…either from the pedestal of patronage or without the sympathy bred by a personal twenty-four-hours-a-day experience of slum life.” (Hugh Redwood) The Salvation Army’s continual presence in the slums helped it to understand the complex problems besetting the people living there. Regular house-to-house visitation in East London, Salvationists reported, “brought to light an amount of vice and misery that we could not have conceived of.” (Catherine Booth) By 1889, sixty British Salvation Army officers had responded to the call to move into the slums to minister, and the program later expanded to America under the name “The Garret, Dive and Tenement Brigade.” There, the War Cry reported, “in the midst of the squalor, misery and sin of one of the worst neighbourhoods of the great city of New York…two officers are commencing the Saviour-like work of visiting, helping, and reclaiming the lost,” by moving into the neighbourhood. (Redwood) Most of the officers who made such a move were women, leading to the nickname “Slum Sisters” or “Slum Angels.” These officers regularly scheduled three hours a day for visitation, sometimes managing thirty visits a day per officer, and focused on meeting practical needs, minding children while parents worked, praying with families, and witnessing through Bible studies and preaching. (Ibid) It was believed that the Army in the 1890’s “had an almost unequalled knowledge of the conditions and needs of the lower classes” because of its “officers’ identification with the masses in terms of origin and aim as well as continuing residence.” (Magnuson) Officers living and working “just where slum conditions are at their most difficult” provided the Army with both insight and motivation, and led to the conclusion that “the problem of the slums can effectively be grappled with only from the inside. (Redwood) The slum brigades were a deeply practical response to the desperate urban poverty of the late 19^th century, but they also involved theological reflection, as evidenced in the statement offered by one high-ranking officer: “God had one son, and He was a slummer.” (Ibid)

God’s son may have been a “slummer”, but that does not mean anyone can or should attempt to copy him. A theological danger of an incarnational model for ministry is the temptation to minimize the vast gulf between God and his creation that could only be bridged by Jesus himself. Christ’s incarnation was unique and unrepeatable, leading some theologians to reject the idea that it could ever be a model for Christians to copy. (J. Todd Billings) The best that we can do is point to Christ’s incarnation as a saving event, something that God did for us, and not something we can or should try to replicate. It is also debatable whether it is feasible or appropriate for Christians to attempt incarnational ministry by means of cultural identification. (Ibid) However noble the intentions, Christians cannot fully take on the flesh of another culture in the same way that Jesus assumed humanity, and there are serious ethical dangers involved in trying to do so. Billings notes that “missionaries can find it impossible, practically speaking, to become ‘one’ with the people they are ministering to.” (Ibid) General Shaw Clifton illustrates this difficulty in his discussion of cultural differences throughout The Salvation Army world. Issues ranging from abortion, pre-marital sex, and bribery, to men holding hands in public or a Western husband allowing his wife to walk ahead of him in the bazaar are all culturally-conditioned to such a degree that the best a foreign missionary might hope to do is “behave well”. (Shaw Clifton) Even the most ardent supporter of incarnational ministry would likely not advocate injecting drugs in order to “get into the skin” of an addict, nor committing heinous crimes in order to authentically share the experiences of a convict.

This boundary stands in some tension with William Booth’s original instructions to his officers on the matter of incarnating into other cultures: “I say to my officer who is going to Holland: ‘Can you be a Dutchman?’ To the man who is going to Zululand: ‘Can you be a Zulu?’ To the one going to India: “Can you be an Indian?’ If you cannot, you must not go at all.” Booth’s call to “get into their skins” might now be perceived as a form of cultural appropriation, which involves the use or adoption of another culture for one’s own purposes. This typically occurs when a dominant culture attempts to copy the dress, habits, language and customs of a minority culture. Frederick Booth-Tucker could be suspected of cultural assimilation when he, an Englishman, adopted dress, customs and name from the Indian sub-continent where he was sent to minister. It is reasonable to question how genuine and complete this cultural incarnation could have been from the perspective of the local Indians, irrespective of Booth-Tucker’s noble and sacrificial intent. It is highly unlikely that a Salvationist from India could have “incarnated” into English society in the same way, given the difference in power dynamics between the two cultures. Though the purpose of incarnation may be evangelism and identification, the result could be an unintentional reinforcing of cultural imperialism. Incarnational ministry could be characterised as the preserve of the privileged as they relinquish position and power to communicate with cultures that are socially and economically less dominant. This same critique could be leveled at the “Slum Sisters”, and it is likewise legitimate to question how deeply these missionaries could identify with families living in generational poverty and oppression, unless they themselves came from that socio-economic background. No amount of study and effort can reproduce lifetimes or generations of cultural experience, and suggesting that one can fully adopt another person’s worldview, history, hope and suffering risks belittling the host culture, or reducing it to leverage in evangelistic efforts. Additionally, one may ask if the host cultures have any option to resist this incarnation and assimilation, or if they are required to be passive recipients of this downwards social movement.

Gentrification and paternalism are two other potentially harmful consequences of incarnational ministry. There has recently been a surge of interest in young, missional Christians moving back into the city, and much accompanying work has been done by theologians and pastors to develop incarnational urban theologies. These theologies tend to “talk a lot about moving in and contributing to the flourishing of a city, but say little on the negative disruption that these moves can make in the existing community.” (DL Mayfield) New Christian missions and Church plants can make huge impacts – and not always positive - on existing Church-life, neighbourhood dynamics, the price of housing, and the types of businesses that flourish. Read notes that even when there is a positive desire to bring transformation to an environment, “so many schemes of social reform patronize and objectify or pity the objects of their reform-mindedness; they reduce human beings to statistics, and predicate the value of their interventions on a demonstration of their efficiency.” (James Read) Incarnational church plants may begin with the desire to get into the skin of the neighbourhood, but they often default into an attempt to bring the neighbourhood up to the societal standards with which they are comfortable. (Mayfield) This is damaging to the social fabric of a neighbourhood, and can lead to socio-economic displacement of families and residents who have been there for generations. This approach may even undermine the already existing local Church expression, as “the unspoken assumption in the books, sermons, and conferences targeting missional-minded evangelicals is that the city—prior to white, hip church planters—is a foreign mission field, pristine and untouched by the work of the Lord.” (Ibid) Nate J. Lee explains,

any kind of language that implies that God’s work or God’s plan starts when we arrive … is indicative not only of terrible theology, but of white Christian exceptionalism, the oppressive belief that the correct kind salvation and healing can only be facilitated through us, on our terms with our methods—and us always happens to be white missionaries, white pastors, and white churches.

Finally, in addition to the concerns around cultural assimilation, gentrification, and paternalism, incarnational ministry exposes missionaries to certain physical, emotional and spiritual dangers. Jesus warns his disciples against being of the world even while they are in it (John 17:14-15) and James advises that true religion includes keeping oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:26-27). One of the dangers of incarnational ministry is becoming so focused on adopting the host culture that you fail to see aspects within it that must be challenged by the Gospel. This can lead to compromise or syncretism. When Jesus took on human flesh he perfectly identified and communed with us, but he also overcame sin and brought us to redemption. (Billings) The humanity that Jesus assumed was “suffering from fear and distress, conflict with others, anxiety before death, betrayal and isolation, separation from God—all the qualities of death-infused, sin-corrupted life that require remedy,” but he did not surrender his holiness in the face of this challenge. (Tanner) Human ministers may not be capable of such resiliency. These qualities of suffering and oppressive humanity, so dangerous to the spiritual life of the incarnational minister, are also dangerous to the emotional and physical life of the incarnational minister. Eliza Shirley and another young female officer were tasked in 1879 to lead a Corps in Bishop Auckland, and after moving into the neighbourhood were faced with regular verbal and physical threats, and had to survive by eating the food that was thrown at them during open-air meetings. (Robert Sandall) Missionaries who cross cultures or who move into impoverished urban environments are often subject to higher levels of loneliness, emotional hardship, and physical hazards, and these dangers extend to their children as well. For these reasons, it could be considered unethical to subject Salvation Army officers, soldiers, and families to the extra difficulties of incarnational ministry.

For incarnational ministry to be considered theologically meaningful and ethically responsible, these various critiques must be addressed. Though Christ’s unique incarnation is not an action that can be copied or repeated by the Church, the union between Christ and his Church can still serve as the basis for incarnational ministry. 2 Peter 1:4 claims that believers can “become partakers of the divine nature,” an idea that inspired Orthodox theologians to depict salvation as the “transformation of believers into the likeness of God.” (Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov) Protestants tend to be nervous about all the implications of this theology, but have developed similar concepts in their exploration of holiness and entire sanctification. John Wesley argued that in Christ we share “all the mind which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked,” and can know “a renewal of the heart in the whole image of God, enabling us to walk in the full likeness of Him that created it.” (Charles W Carter) This is the experience that General William Booth describes as being “saved to the uttermost! Saved now and every day!” and that results in “the condition of the perpetual indwelling of God,” which is essential for a sustained holy life and ministry. In the same spirit, General Clifton describes holiness as the process by which believers are “changed into Christ’s person.” All humans, he avers, are made in “the image of God…to which we owe all honour and love,” but this applies particularly to Christians “because in them that image of God, marred and distorted by the Fall, has been renewed and restored by the Spirit of Christ.” The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine states that “by His incarnation and atonement Jesus so identified Himself with men [sic] that He is one with those who receive his saving grace,” and that the life of holiness means “becoming like Christ who is the true image of God…Holiness is Christlikeness.” If Christians can live in this restored likeness of Christ, having been changed into the very person of Christ through the uniting of humanity and divinity in his own flesh, then incarnational ministry may be seen as a divinely-mandated participation in the life of Christ, rather than a human-initiated attempt to copy the actions of Christ. This takes the onus off the ability of Christians to imitate Christ, and places it on Christ’s real and active presence in the midst of his people. The Church, of which The Salvation Army is a part, can be likened to a sacrament of Christ, a physical manifestation of the “real, eschatologically triumphant and irrevocably established presence of Christ in the world.” (Karl Rahner) Volf declares that the one

who went to the cross in the power of the Spirit, now dispenses the same Spirit to empower his followers to participate in the downward movement of God’s love which forgives sins and creates a community of joy in the midst of suffering (John 20:19-23).

This means that as the Church makes itself present in the pain, poverty and suffering of the world, it is appropriate to say that Christ is present with his message of temporal and eternal salvation. This is the work of Christ, the Missio Dei, in which the people of God participate but do not seek to imitate or initiate.

For William Booth, Jesus was an example of how to live, but even more so he was the saviour who empowered his people to live. Though Booth increased his emphasis upon social work in the model of Jesus’ incarnation, he never allowed “Christ as teacher of ethics, as a model for men [sic],” to replace “Christ as the way toward salvation.” (Ann M Woodall) In this Booth managed to combine “the theology of the Atonement with the social conscience of the Incarnation.” (Ibid) It is therefore in and through Christ’s salvation and self-giving incarnation into the world that The Salvation Army may genuinely engage in incarnational ministry. God cannot be fully grasped, and neither can the painful and conflicted reality of the world, but both may be fully engaged from within, through the incarnate person of Jesus. (Karen Kilby) That is, Jesus invites his people both into the life of the Trinity, and into the life of the broken world, because he knows both those realities firsthand. This means that The Salvation Army should seek to find God through prayer, worship, community, and devotion to the word, but also in the daily suffering and hope of human existence, an incarnational attitude that helps The Salvation Army resist the temptations towards dualism that beset the Church. It does this by emphasising God’s care for the physical and relational as well as the spiritual, which is a hallmark of The Salvation Army’s commitment to social holiness. Read highlights this commitment as a fundamental motivation for the socio-political scheme laid out in “The Darkest England Scheme”, and advances it as justification for adopting a rights-based discourse that treats human beings as if their whole lives, and not just their immortal souls, actually matter. Phil Needham likewise asserts that “while God was fully incarnate in Jesus Christ, he is also incarnate today. The ministry of health, healing and wholeness is a ministry ‘conducted in his name, in his power, by following his example, and by recognizing that ... [our] work is in his presence’.” This agrees with The Salvation Army’s anti-dualistic doctrines ten and eleven, which state that “it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and that in addition to the immortality of the soul, The Salvation Army believes in “the resurrection of the body.” Incarnational ministry, properly pursued, embodies this belief in God’s concern for the whole human being, and all of human relationships.

It is this holistic pursuit of God in every sphere of life that can safeguard the Salvationist against syncretism, compromise, and the loss of spiritual vitality while still living in the world. The early Salvation Army understood the importance of prayer and worship, but they also knew that “the wonder-working presence of a real and loving God is to be found ‘not far from every one of us,’ but, beyond all question, in the slums.” (Redwood) If true union with Christ is the foundation of incarnational ministry, there should be no fear of being contaminated through immersion in the impure and sinful world; rather, “there is every reason to bring the sinful, the death-ridden, the impure, into direct contact with the holy: that is the very means of their sanctification.” (Tanner) Christ himself demonstrated this when he touched the bleeding woman (Luke 8:43-48) and the leprous man (Matthew 8:1-3). According to Law and custom, this contact should have made Jesus unclean, but his holiness was such that his cleanness infected those who were unclean, and not the other way around. If Salvationists are united with Christ; participating in his life; obedient to his direction; filled with his holiness; and empowered by his Spirit, then this should be our expectation as well. In this way, Salvationists can live out a sacramental life of holiness. The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine states: “Christ is the one true Sacrament, and sacramental living – Christ living in us and through us – is at the heart of Christian holiness and discipleship.” Needham expands on this, saying that “all of life is a sacrament of grace, a celebration of grace in the everyday…the Christian is to live his [sic] holiness in the world, avoid the dualism of sacred and secular, and seek the presence and grace of God everywhere.” It is in this way, Needham states, that “the Lord’s table was moved from the sanctuary to the streets.”

It is by linking this theology of sacramental holiness to the ancient Christian practice of giving and receiving hospitality that the obstacles of assimilation, gentrification, paternalism, and fear of danger can truly be overcome. Christ’s instructions to his missionaries in Luke 10:1-23 was not to begin by preaching, by enacting a justice project, or even by offering hospitality, but by receiving hospitality. Just as the incarnate Jesus was received into the world, in some cases with welcome, in other cases with hostility, Jesus’ followers are to experience the welcome or hostility of the world as they carry the presence of Jesus into cities, towns, neighbourhoods, and cultures. When Salvationists are welcomed by people of peace they are truly engaging in the work of incarnational evangelism, because Jesus promises that “the one who hears you hears me,” (Luke 23:16a). The posture of relying upon the hospitality of one’s neighbours requires humility, self-emptying, vulnerability, and gratitude. It is the opposite of the privileged and paternalistic approach which assumes that God is just waiting for us to arrive before he begins to work in a culture. It means that Salvationists must accept the welcome that is offered by the host culture, and not the welcome they might find most comfortable (Luke 10:7). It does not automatically seek to alter the socio-economic relationships of a neighbourhood or culture, but begins by participating in these relationships, at the lowest possible level, and causing the least amount of disruption. This helps to guard against the dangers of gentrification. All of this puts our neighbours into the enviable position of being “sheep” who, even unknowingly, welcome Jesus as they offer hospitality to us, the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:31-46). This approach also allows for the possibility of rejection. When Salvationists face the rejection of the world, they experience the rejection Christ faced from his own: “the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me,” (Luke 23:16b). Incarnational presence must not be forced on a culture or community, and Jesus instructs his followers to either find people of peace, or to shake the dust off their feet. If there are aspects of the culture that need to be challenged by the Gospel, this should begin from within the household and by the authority of those who already know and embody the culture, and who have accepted and applied the message of Jesus in their own lives. Applying these principles to the example of Booth-Tucker, although he could never truly become Indian, he did display a Christ-like humility, a desire to listen and learn from the culture, and a commitment to share the Gospel from a lowly posture. He participated socio-economically at the “lowest level” available to him, and he attempted first to receive hospitality rather than making assumptions and immediately working for societal change. The power dynamics inherent in British colonial imperialism, as well as the natural obstacles of human finitude and sin, necessarily limited his ability to incarnate. Nevertheless, the spirit with which Booth-Tucker approached cross-cultural, incarnational mission is a worthy model for Salvationists to study today.

Once the Salvationist has learned to receive hospitality, he or she can practice extending hospitality to others, and in so doing can learn to encounter Christ in a new way. Christine Pohl declares that when we open up our home, our space, our lives to others, we discover that “Jesus, the most desired guest, comes in the form of the vulnerable stranger. The possibility that hosts are welcoming Jesus can overcome resistance and fear.” (Christine Pohl) There is a great suspicion of neighbour in our world today, which is one of the reasons Salvation Army officers and soldiers are often taught to strictly separate their “home” life from their “ministry” life. The practice of hospitality, however, allows the Salvationist to find Christ in unexpected places. As Dr. Aimee Patterson puts it, the virtue of hospitality requires getting to know the stranger, learning how they think of themselves and their needs, and decreasing the “distance between host and guest.” (Aimee Patterson) As the host’s understanding of the Gospel is enriched by the perspective of the guest, it could be said that “the guest becomes the host…the stranger becomes the neighbour…and the neighbour becomes Christ. (Ibid) This takes seriously the notion that Christ is present in the guise of the stranger - particularly in the company of the poor - and recognises that the Lord’s Table is found wherever the people of God encounter the presence of Christ in the world.

Our experience of receiving and giving hospitality as an incarnational Salvation Army community in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside bears out this sacramental belief. Fully getting into the skin of people with vastly different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds is beyond us. However, we can be part of forming a community where a wide variety of people and cultures inform one another, offer hospitality to one another, and commit to worshipping the Lord and praying together. As we gather in homes, cafes, treatment centres, and community halls, we witness the Spirit of God drawing people together from every tribe, nation, tongue and background of our neighbourhood. We believe that in this we are being united to God through Christ, and to one another in the Spirit of Christ. Being welcomed into the homes of our neighbours is an act of evangelism, because we know that as they invite us in they are also in a real way inviting Christ. Welcoming our neighbours into our homes and lives is likewise an act of welcoming the image of God into our midst, and sharing God’s good gifts with one another. There is no ministry scenario where the safety of the ministers or their families can be guaranteed, but getting to know our neighbours well has significantly increased our sense of safety and community, and helps us to overcome the isolation that many people experience in our atomistic Western society. People in our neighbourhood are very protective over our children, and often warn us when dangerous situations are about to occur. We accept, however, that there will be some level of danger around us, because that is the daily reality of our neighbours, and we believe that Christians – Salvationists in particular – should be present for people in their moments of crisis. This allows us to truly rejoice when our neighbours rejoice, to mourn when they mourn, and to stand alongside them, lending our voices to theirs as they fight for justice and dignity, because we are in some measure experiencing the triumphs and struggles of the neighbourhood first hand. In all of this, we believe that we are not so much imitating Christ as being brought up into the life of God, and brought down into the life of the world, in and through Christ’s incarnation. The result is that The Salvation Army in the Downtown Eastside is not simply known as a good social service provider or Church, but as neighbours who try to live out the Gospel in the daily life, joy and pain of the community.

When the focus of incarnational ministry is on receiving and giving hospitality instead of initiating programs; listening to neighbours instead of telling them what you think; and looking for where God is already present instead of assuming that you are beginning the work of the Kingdom; then concerns around cultural assimilation, paternalism, gentrification, and safety risks are significantly mitigated, though they are never entirely resolved. This allows The Salvation Army to partner with the people of peace in a neighbourhood, rather than pursuing its own agenda. This posture helps The Salvation Army to genuinely recognise the dignity of its neighbours, which is consistent with its belief that each person, made in the image of God, possesses “inherent dignity, and that each life is a gift from God to be cherished, nurtured and redeemed.” These sacred lives were created by God “for relationships and for those relationships to be expressed living in community.” Read reminds us that although every human being is in need of the redeeming and transforming work of Christ in their lives, our ministry and mission should also be motivated by “the simple, utter sacredness of each and every human being,” that should “make us stand in awe.” (Read) This posture of awe, love, respect and relational community can be powerfully engendered by a proper understanding of incarnational ministry, which comes about through the union and identification of Christ with his children. Incarnational ministry, which stands faithfully within The Salvation Army’s history and theology, can help position The Salvation Army to receive the Spirit’s guidance in behaving well within various cultures, and in translating supra-cultural truths so that “the gospel of new life in Jesus is constantly being renewed and made universally meaningful for all persons in all cultures in all periods of history.” (Clifton)

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Baker House Books, 1977.

Mayfield, D.L. “Church Planting and the Gospel of Gentrification: Are we seeking the ‘welfare of

the city,’ or just our own?” Sojourners. July 2017, https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2017/church-planting-and-gospel-gentrification.

McKenna, Sr. Margaret M. “Mark 1: Relocation to Abandoned Places of Empire.” In School(s)

for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, edited by The Rutba House. Eugene:

Cascade Books, 2005.

McGrath, Alister. E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Needham, Philip D. “’My life must be Christ’s broken bread,’: Non-practice of the Sacraments in

The Salvation Army: Re-considering the Decision 130 Years Later.” In Saved, Sanctified and Serving: Perspectives on Salvation Army Theology and Practice. Edited by Denis Metrustery. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2016.

Needham, Philip D. “The Theology: The Healing Gospel.” In Health, Healing and

Wholeness: Salvationist Perspectives, edited by Graham Calvert, 25–42 and 188. London: Salvation Army International Headquarters, 1997.

Patterson, Aimee. “Lecture Week 9: Internationalism and Multiculturalism.” Salvation Army and

Ethical Issues. Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Summer 2017.

Pohl, Christine D. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. Grand Rapids:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.

Rader, Paul. “Intercultural Ministry: The Army Perspective.” In Vision Splendid: Intercultural

Mission and The Salvation Army. Edited by Mal Davies. Wellington, NZ: Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory, Australia Southern Territory, and New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga Territory, nd.

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Theological Review 86:1 (Winter 2004): 35-56.

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Volf, Miroslav. “’The Trinity is Our Social Program’: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the

Shape of Social Engagement.” Modern Theology 14.3 (July 1998): 403-423.

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Sanctified and Serving: Perspectives on Salvation Army Theology and Practice, edited by Denis Metrustery. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2016.

Woodall, Ann M. “What Price the Poor: William Booth, Karl Marx, and the London Residuum.”

The Economic History Review, Vol 59 Issue 4 (November 2006): 853-854.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is a foundational Christian doctrine that affects every other aspect of Christian thought, Church life, and missional activity. Extensive theological work has been devoted throughout Christian history to understanding and explaining the method and the meaning of God taking on human flesh in Jesus’ incarnation. This article will focus on how Christ’s Incarnation is understood in terms of theosis, and whether the Incarnation is an appropriate model for Christian community and mission. I will argue that Jesus’ Incarnation is the bridge that allows Christians not to imitate but to participate in the life of God, and that through this union the Church may both receive and carry Jesus’ presence and mission into the world.

The doctrine of the incarnation, in its affirmation of the union between humanity and divinity in and through the person of Jesus, makes explicit that which was only implicit in previous belief structures.[1] Yet it took the Church more than four hundred years of theological reflection and wrangling to attain the “balanced definitions of Chalcedon (451)…for what was at stake was nothing short of the proper way of articulating the relation of God to God’s creation - manifested and dramatized in this singular event”.[2] These were not mere theoretical debates. Irenaeus, in his dispute with the gnostic rejection of the incarnation, understood that there could be “no emancipation without incarnation. Without the One become flesh, there is no hope in the flesh.”[3] Athanasius, likewise, in his struggle against the Arian denial of God’s embodiment in creaturely flesh, understood that “if the incarnate One was not the very flesh of God found in the contingencies and weaknesses of real human life, then our salvation was not real, but only a real possibility.”[4] Jesus is not simply an avatar of the divine; he is both Creator and human, the Word become flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). It was ultimately this “struggle to define the reality of the person of Jesus which unveiled the revelation of God as triune.”[5]

The incarnation not only helped define the nature of the Trinity, but also of humanity: “God broke through the borders of man’s (sic) definition of what is human, and gave a new, formative definition in Jesus.”[6] Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nazianzus, using 2 Peter 1:4’s claim that believers may “become partakers of the divine nature,” coined the term theosis to refer to the “transformation of believers into the likeness of God.”[7] This emphasis continues in modern Orthodox theology, with Vladimir Lossky stating that the Incarnation is “directly related to the ultimate goal of creatures: to know union with God.”[8] The methodology for this theosis or ‘deification’ is Christ’s assumption of humanity, which effects “the return of the human essence to the whole Trinity…a personification, a ‘dramatization’ of this…return of the Son to the Father.”[9] Symeon the New Theologian affirmed this idea in the tenth century: “So uniting with your body, I share in your nature, and I truly take as mine what is yours, uniting with your divinity.”[10]

Protestant believers have become more open to this concept in the last century, and have begun to recognise it in the work of many historical Protestant thinkers. John Wesley argued that we do not just have perfecting grace from Christ, but in Christ; we share “all the mind which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked,” and can know “a renewal of the heart in the whole image of God, enabling us to walk in the full likeness of Him that created it.”[11] T.F. Torrance presented a Reformed version of theosis, following Calvin in holding that “it is only through ‘real and substantial union’ with Christ in his human nature that we partake of all his benefits, and it is only in the incarnate Christ that we are really made to partake of the eternal life of God himself.”[12] Barth has similarly argued that “in incarnation and reconciliation in Jesus Christ, God and man live together in union and communion.”[13] John Millbank summarizes this way of thinking thusly: “God in the Incarnation gave his divinity to our humanity, so divinizing it that we in turn can truly give our humanity back to God.”[14] It must be admitted that much Protestant discussion of theosis involves a reinterpretation and reframing of older Orthodox themes; Orthodox theosis is the core meaning of salvation, while Protestants tend to see it as more akin to the process of sanctification that follows justification.[15] Nevertheless, all of these ideas draw from Biblical promises such as 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”

This view of Christ’s incarnation, and what it connotes for the union between God and humanity, has been advanced as a model for understanding the nature and mission of the Church. There are, of course, serious difficulties in making the jump from the divine to the human in terms of community praxis. Those who see the Trinity as a model for Christian community, for instance, tend to underestimate “the fundamental ontological gap between God and the created order.”[16] The mutual indwelling of the members of the Trinity is simply not analogous to human community and cannot be copied.[17] Yet perhaps Christ’s Incarnation has created the necessary analogous connection between God and humanity. If Jesus has joined humans and the divine together in his person, and has invited humanity into the very relations of the Trinity, then he may be both our perfect model for interacting with God, and our perfect model for interacting with one another and the world.[18] John 17 says that Christians may be made one as they share in Jesus’ relationship with his Father and his dedication to the Father’s mission.[19] Jesus, as the Incarnate Word, may therefore be seen as the access point for humans to be united through Christ with the divine; united in Christ with one another; and incorporated by the Spirit into “Christ’s own relation to the world.”[20]

The question that remains, then, is the extent to which it is appropriate to speak of the Church pursuing “incarnational ministry” in imitation of Christ’s Incarnation. Incarnational ministry is a term that encourages Christians to identify culturally, politically, and socio-economically with the people to whom and with whom they are ministering. Just as Christ took on the flesh and experiences of humanity, so too should the Church take on the flesh and experiences of the communities where they minister. Seventeenth century Jesuit missionary Pedro Claver is an example of one who “incarnated” amongst slaves, lepers, and those suffering from small pox in Colombia, and who eventually died in the same kind of filth and neglect that the slaves suffered during the Atlantic passage.[21] The nineteenth century Salvation Army “Slum Sisters” were young women who moved into poor housing estates to incarnate the Gospel and work for social and moral uplift amongst the residents who were otherwise unwelcome in Victorian churches. This embodied William Booth’s incarnational emphasis: “I want to see a new translation of the Bible into the hearts and conduct of living men and women….It is of no use making correct translations of words if we cannot get the words translated into life.”[22] A modern example of incarnate ministry is “Move-In”, a movement which encourages Christians to relocate into poor, unreached, urban neighbourhoods to practice hospitality, prayer, and presence evangelism. Incarnational ministry differs from other forms of mission in that it is not just the preached word that forms the heart of the witness, but the spiritual presence of God manifested through the physical presence of Christian believers.

The theological underpinnings for these efforts draw heavily upon Christ’s Incarnation. Each person created by God embodies “a human image of that divine image like (but not exactly like) the Word Incarnate to come, Jesus Christ.”[23] Wright asserts that “the image of God is not so much something we possess, as what we are. To be human is to be the image of God.”[24] It is this that causes us, according to John Damascene, to “adore one another…because we have been made in the image of God.”[25] Calvin argued that believers must be ready to welcome the stranger, because “the image of God, which recommends him (sic) to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions.”[26] In so doing believers may welcome Jesus, the most desired of all guests.[27] This often leads to an identification with the poor and suffering, in a desire to live out Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 25:40: “as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Incarnational ministry goes beyond simply recognising the image of God in each person however, as humans can only truly partake of the divine life through union with Christ.[28] Barth asserts that this happens “when by the Holy Spirit we are elevated to a new birth, reborn as members of Christ’s body, and in this relationship are able to be for others – in the image of God.”[29] Jesus took on human flesh in all its horror and pain in order to save it, and so the Church should not shrink back from encountering, embracing and evangelizing humanity in all of its conflict, anxiety, and suffering.[30] There is no fear of the holy being contaminated by the impure or sinful; rather, “there is every reason to bring the sinful, the death-ridden, the impure, into direct contact with the holy: that is the very means of their sanctification, as incarnation makes clear.”[31] Christians are therefore called and equipped to form diverse communities in Jesus’ image, as the Holy Spirit “incorporates us, in our variety and difference, into Christ.”[32]

Finally, Jesus prays to his Father: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18) Advocates of incarnational ministry see this as a commission for the Church to model mission after the Incarnation of Christ. Just as Jesus carried the message and presence of God in his own flesh, so the Church carries the mission and presence of Jesus into the world in its own flesh. Jennings notes that “the doctrine of the incarnation intercepts and informs the activity of ministry…at the sustaining of this fundamental trust in human flesh, rooted in Christ.”[33] This trust is undermined when the Church fails to imitate Jesus well in his love, clarity, discernment and strength.[34] Kathryn Tanner summarizes incarnational mission as the Church bearing and extending the influence of Christ’s character in the world through “the healing nature of Jesus’ interactions with others, his acceptance of sinners among his close associates, and practices of inclusive table fellowship.”[35]

This theology of incarnational ministry resonates with an ancient understanding of ecclesiology, based upon Ignatius of Antioch’s first century statement: “wherever Christ is, there is also the catholic church.”[36] The Church is portrayed like a sacrament of Christ, in that “she represents him…she really makes him present. She not only carries on his work, but she is his very continuation.”[37] Hans Urs von Balthasar locates the Church as the place where we “may be inserted into the reality of Christ…the place where God in Christ appears.”[38] Karl Rahner likewise views the Church as “the continuance, the contemporary presence of that real, eschatologically triumphant and irrevocably established presence of Christ in the world.”[39] Protestant theology tends rather to emphasize that Christ is present, by the Spirit, primarily through the preaching of the word and the sacraments. The Westminster Confession of Faith affirms that Christ makes the ministry, oracles and ordinances of the Church effective “by his own presence and Spirit.”[40]

There are, however, potential problems with the concept of incarnational ministry, particularly with regards to the human ability to imitate Christ in his Incarnation. Emphasizing the presence of the image of God in each person may minimize the corrupting influence of sin and the Fall, and cause some to assert that this imaging, or “natural revelation”, is sufficient for salvation even outside of Christ.[41] A pluralist theology of religion treats the Incarnation metaphorically, denying the particularity of Christ in favour of the natural revelation of God in each human.[42] Incarnational ministers run the risk of forgetting that Jesus came to redeem, and not just affirm, each tribe, nation and tongue. While God did enter “the most perfect communion” with suffering humanity through Jesus, he did not do so simply to be with humanity, but to “reconcile the world with Himself.”[44] Barth, who denies any sense of natural theology outside of Christ, asserts that Christ’s relationship with humanity “cannot be an analogy of being,” as if “God and humanity have something in common.”[45] Barth also expresses deep concerns that the emphasis on the divinization of human nature may lead to a “parallel de-divinization of [Christ’s] divinity,” which renders Christianity more anthropological than theological.[46]

The strongest critique of incarnational ministry highlights Christ’s Incarnation as “a unique and unrepeatable event,” making it incorrect to see the Incarnation as “an ‘ongoing process’ to be repeated or a ‘model’ to be copied in Christian ministry.” [47] The Church in this view is not the incarnation, nor the presence of Christ; it is only the witness to the Incarnation of Christ. This is meant to free us from the seemingly impossible task of “repeating the act of incarnation through cultural identification,” which the New Testament never tells us to attempt, and which is arguably not even possible or desirable.[48] Just as human community cannot replicate the indwelling of the Trinity, neither can Christians take on the flesh of another culture in the same way that Jesus assumed humanity.

It is possible some of these objections to incarnational ministry may be overcome if, rather than trying to imitate Jesus in his Incarnation, the Church sees itself as participating in the ministry of Christ through the kind of union described in theosis.

“If, however, this conformity to Christ is the final state to which we come, the way which leads to it…is not that of the imitation of Christ. The way which Christ, the divine Person, took, was that of a descent towards created persons, a taking upon Himself of our nature; the way of created persons, on the other hand, must be that of ascent, a rising up towards the divine nature by means of union with uncreated grace communicated by the Holy Spirit.” Lossky, 215 The Holy Spirit is “the giver of love…the source of love within us…He who enables us to participate in that supreme perfection of the common nature of the Holy Spirit.” Lossky, 213

In this light, humans do not become the perfect image of God by means of their creation or their sincere efforts in following Christ; as Tanner says, “there is no ontological continuum spanning the difference between God and creatures, one cannot hope to become the divine image, this perfect or proper image, by approximating divine qualities.”[49] Humans only receive the image of God “by clinging to what they are not – that divine image itself – in love.”[50] In so doing, we become an image of the image of God that is perfectly displayed in Jesus. The incomprehensibility of God is impressed upon us, not through our imitation of Christ, but through Christ’s assimilation of our humanity and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.[51] This is inspired by Colossians 1:15-23, where Christ is both “the image of the invisible God” and “the head of the body, the Church.” The Church must always proclaim the pre-eminence of Christ, but may also assert that in our union with him we become part of his newly formed and forming humanity. It is not then simply our ability to identify culturally that is inherently redemptive, but the new humanity in Christ that “overcomes the dividing walls between cultures, even as it displays a culturally diverse oneness in Christ.”[52] Because this new humanity is available to everyone through Christ, this still encourages the Church to take relational, cross-cultural ministry seriously as it seeks, in Christ, to be all things to all people.[53] Human effort is not disregarded, but is understood to be “always and in every respect empowered and corrected by God’s own action.”[54] Thus can Martin Luther Luther say:

The Christian lives not in himself [sic], but in Christ and in his neighbor…in Christ through faith, in the neighbor through love. Through faith he is rapt above himself into God, and by love he in turn flows beneath himself into the neighbor, remaining always in God and in His love.[55]

Emphasising union and participation with Christ lets the Church reach the same goals of incarnational ministry without losing sight of the uniqueness of the Incarnation. This connects with our experience of ministry amongst the poor and people with addiction in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Though we have moved into the neighbourhood there are limits to our ability to culturally identify with our neighbours. Instead, we seek union and identification with Christ through prayer and worship, preaching the word, resistance to the world, and offering and receiving radical hospitality. This union enables us to participate in Christ and our neighbours being found together. We welcome the image of God into our midst as we welcome our neighbours to our table, and we help our neighbours welcome Jesus as they offer hospitality to us, the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. By carrying the presence of Jesus in our flesh by the Holy Spirit, and by witnessing to the unique and saving act of Christ’s Incarnation, we invite our neighbours to become part of this expression of the renewed humanity that bears the very image of the Incarnate Redeemer. We have been blessed though this to witness the transformation of many lives, including our own, into the likeness of Christ.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billings, J. Todd. “Incarnational Ministry and Christology: A Reappropriation of the Way of

Lowliness,” Missiology: An International Review 32:2, (April 2004). Accessed April 6, 2017.http://jtoddbillings.com/2004/04/incarnational-ministry-and-christology-a-reappropriation-of-the-way-of-lowliness/.

Billings J. Todd. Union With Christ: Reframing Theolog and Ministry for the Church. Grand

Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011.

Burrell, David B. “Incarnation and Creation: The Hidden Dimension.” Modern Theology 12:2

(April 1996): 211-220.

Carter, Charles W. ed. A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology: Biblical, Systematic and Practical,

Vol 1. Grand Rapids: Asbury Press, 1983.

Finlan, Stephen and Kharlamov, Vladimir. eds. Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology.

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Gavrilyuk, Paul L. “The Retrieval of Deification: How a Once-Despised Archaism Became an

Ecumenical Desideratum.” Modern Theology 25:4 (October 2009): 647-659.

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Vol 2. Peabody: Prince Press, 2007.

Husbands, Mark. “The Trinity is Not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory of Nyssa and

Barth.” In Trinitarian Theology for the Church: Scripture, Community, Worship,

edited by Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press,

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Humanity.” Modern Theology 12:2 (April 1996): 239-255.

Kilby, Karen. “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity.”

New Blackfriars 81 (November 2000): 432-445.

Lossky, Vladimir. “Vladimir Lossky on Redemption as Deification.” In The Christian Theology

Reader, ed. Alister E. McGrath, 201-202. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

Marquart, Kurt E. “Luther and Theosis,” Concordia Theological Quarterly, Vol 64:3 (July 2000):

182-205.

McGrath, Alister. E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Milbank, John, Ward Graham, and Wyschogrod Edith. Theological Perspectives on God and

Beauty. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003.

Park, Sung W. “The Question of Deification in the Theology of John Calvin.” Verbum et

Ecclesia 38/1 (March2017) Accessed April6, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i1.1701.

Pedlar, James. Course Lectures, Systematic Theology I. Tyndale Seminary, Toronto. Fall 2016.

Pedlar, James. Course Lectures, Systematic Theology II. Tyndale Seminary, Toronto. Winter

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Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology,

edited by Robert J. Wozniak and Giulio Maspero. London: T & T Clark, 2012.

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Reader, ed. Alister E. McGrath, 272-273. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

Thompson, John. Modern Trinitarian Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Yoder, John Howard. The Politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing

Company, 1972.

[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol 2., (Peabody: Prince Press, 2007), 288.

[2] David B. Burrell, “Incarnation and Creation: The Hidden Dimension” in Modern Theology Vol 12:2 (April 1996): 213.

[3] William James Jennings, “’He Became Truly Human’”: Incarnation, Emancipation, and Authentic Humanity,” in Modern Theology Vol 12:2 (April 1996): 246.

[4] Jennings, “Truly Human,” 247.

[5] Burrell, “Incarnation,” 214.

[6] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), 101.

[7] Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, eds., Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2006), 1.

[8] Vladimir Lossky, “Vladimir Lossky on Redemption as Deification,” in Alister E. McGrath, ed., The Christian Theology Reader, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 201.

[9] John Milbank, “Beauty and the Soul,” in Theological Perspectives on God and Beauty, John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Edith Wyschogrod, (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003), 8; Kathryn Tanner, “Incarnation, Cross, and Sacrifice: A Feminist-Inspired Reappraisal,” Anglican Theological Review Vol 86:1, Winter 2004, 42.

[10] Symeon the New Theologian, cited in Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 353.

[11] Charles W. Carter, ed., A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology: Biblical, Systematic and Practical, Vol 1, (Grand Rapids: Asbury Press, 1983), 350.

[12] Finlan and Kharlamov, eds., Theosis, 153.

[13] John Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 111.

[14] Millbank, “Beauty,” 8.

[15] Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “The Retrieval of Deification: How a Once-Despised Archaism Became an Ecumenical Desideratum,” Modern Theology 25:4, (October 2009): 655; Sung W. Park, ‘The Question of Deification in the Theology of John Calvin’, Verbum et Ecclesia 38(1) (March 2017), https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i1.1701.

[16] Stephen Holmes, “Classical Trinity, Evangelical Perspective” in Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity, ed. Jason S. Sexton, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 33.

[17] Kathryn Tanner, “Social Trinitarianism and its Critics,” in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, eds. Robert J. Wozniak and Giulio Maspero (London: T & T Clark, 2012), 380; Karen Kilby, “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity,” New Blackfriars 81 (November 2000): 82.

[18] Tanner, “Social Trinitarianism,” 382.

[19] Tanner, “Social Trinitarianism,” 383-385.

[20] Mark Husbands, “The Trinity is Not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory of Nyssa and Barth,” in Trinitarian Theology for the Church: Scripture, Community, Worship, eds. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2009), 126; Kilby, “Trinity,” 85.

[21] Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 394.

[22] William Booth, cited in Roger J. Green, “A Permanent Mission to the ‘Whosever’: William Booth’s Theology of Redemption,” in Saved, Sanctified and Serving: Perspectives on Salvation Army Theology and Practice, ed. Denis Metrustery, (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2016), 55.

[23] Kathryn Tanner, “In the Image of the Invisible,” in Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality, ed. Catherine Keller, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 120.

[24] Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, (Downer’s Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 421.

[25] John Damascene, cited in Graham Ward, “The Beauty of God,” in Theological Perspectives on God and Beauty, John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Edith Wyschogrod, (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003), 41.

[26] John Calvin, cited in Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 64.

[27] Pohl, Making Room, 97.

[28] Park, “The Question of Deification”

[29] Karl Barth, cited in Thompson, Modern Trinitarian, 113.

[30] Tanner, “Incarnation,” 46.

[31] Tanner, “Incarnation,” 55.

[32] Kilby, “Trinity,” 86; Tanner, “Social Trinitarianism,” 385.

[33] Jennings, “Truly Human,” 249.

[34] Jennings, “Truly Human,” 249.

[35] Tanner, “Incarnation,” 38.

[36] Ignatius of Antioch, cited in McGrath, Christian Theology, 473.

[37] Henri de Lubac, cited in McGrath, Christian Theology, 474.

[38] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1955), 166.

[39] Karl Rahner, cited in McGrath, Christian Theology, 474.

[40] “The Westminster Confession of Faith on the Church,” in McGrath, Theology Reader, 272.

[41] James Pedlar, “Lecture 3D,” (Systematic Theology I, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Fall 2016), 1-4.

[42] James Pedlar, “Lecture 10C,” (Systematic Theology II, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Winter 2017), 4.

[43] Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 101.

[44] J. Todd Billings, “’Incarnational Ministry’ and Christology: A Reappropriation of the Way of Lowliness,” Missiology: An International Review 32:2, (April 2004), http://jtoddbillings.com/2004/04/incarnational-ministry-and-christology-a-reappropriation-of-the-way-of-lowliness/, accessed April 6, 2017.

[45] Thompson, Modern Trinitarian, 113.

[46] Gavrilyuk, “The Retrieval of Deification”, 647.

[47] J. Todd Billings, Union With Christ: Reframing Theolog and Ministry for the Church, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 124.

[48] Billings, Union, 13-14, 160.

[49] Tanner, “In the Image,” 127.

[50] Tanner, “In the Image,” 127.

[51] Tanner, “In the Image,” 134.

[52] Billings, Union, 173.

[53] Billings, Union, 173.

[54] Kathryn Tanner, “Eschatology and Ethics” in The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, eds. Gilbert Meilaender and William Werpehowski, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 42.

[55] Martin Luther, cited in Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” Concordia Theological Quarterly, Vol 64:3, (July 2000): 186.

Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, ³⁰ he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

³¹ Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. ³² You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

³³ Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird. Dan 4

Many have made the connection between what happened in the Daniel story to King Nebuchadnezzar, and what is happening - or what they hope to happen - to President Donald Trump.

Drunk on their own power, these leaders come to the point where they believe in their own infallibility, their own surpassing greatness, and are undone. Frankly, the boasting of Nebuchadnezzar seems somewhat subdued, almost quaint, compared to the daily braggadocio of the current US President. If the Babylonian ruler’s display of arrogance brought him that low, surely the same will come to pass in our day?

We obviously have to be careful about making one to one indentifications when it comes to Scriptural stories and our current circumstances. Trump is not, in fact, Nebuchadnezzar, nor is he Cyrus, and neither are the worms that ate Herod Agrippa’s body the same worms that are lodged in RFK Jr’s brain, making sweeping and profoundly dangerous health decisions.

But we should still learn from these cases. And it is hard not to see the fall of Nebuchadnezzar echoing in the rapid physical and mental descent of the President.

But there is a deeper - and truthfully, a more frightening - analysis and identification that could be done here. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. When we say, “This isn’t the America that I know…” it’s often because we haven’t listened to the people for whom this has always been the America they knew. Indigenous communities. The descendants of those brought to North America on slave ships. Nations around the world whose governments were toppled and who suffered at the hands of torturers trained by the School for the Americas. On and on.

But let’s go deeper. I am not American. I am Canadian (hold for applause).

But this does not remove the stain of what is happening from me. Canada has been absolutely complicit in the propagation of American hegemony. We have benefited from it, and are only elbowing up now because the power to our South is no longer demonstrably safe or sane. It never especially was, but in the past it had not directly threatened us. So we were sort of ok with it threatening others.

What I’m saying is that the arrogance here doesn’t not belong just to Trump. He may be the most arrogant and ignorant man who ever lived, but he is propped up - even created - by a system that itself marinates in arrogance and ignorance.

And I’d suggest that it is this system, our vaunted and “sacred” democratic, economic, Judeo-Christian values-driven colonial project, that is Nebuchadnezzar.

It is not just Trump who believes he cannot fail. We all know he will soon die. But we don’t quite believe that our systems, our society, our culture could die. I suspect we believe in what we have built, even on the backs of the poor and oppressed and victims of horrific injustice, and that we hold it to be, if not eternal, then pretty darn close. People are still pinning their hopes on the next election cycle to bring everything back to normal. And yes, I certainly want this cabal of criminals out of power. But I do not believe the next government is going to suddenly redress the generations-long injustices that have been committed.

I suspect, instead, that we are seeing now the first fruits of the grass-eating to come.

The daily humiliations of Trump’s public adventures produce some lovely schadenfreude for those of us who believe we are better than him and his supporters. Maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe it should cause us to reflect on the worth of a system, society and culture that could produce such indignities.

And maybe we should recognize that this insanity and cruelty is just being performed openly now, with full permission. That is undeniably bad, but it is also revelatory. The horrors aren’t new. Trump and his cabinet did not invent racism, misogyny, transphobia, grift, corruption, the abuse of children, imperialistic wars, jingoism and Christian Nationalism. They are just more shameless about all of it than we are used to in the last 40 years or so.

It is possible, maybe even likely, that “the West” is now Nebuchadnezzar, and we are quickly descending into the fields to munch on grass.

Lord have mercy.

I did not think that a new Pratchett book - and I have read all the Pratchett books - could cause me to love Terry Pratchett more than I already did. But this one succeeded.

This is an official auto/biography, a compilation of Terry’s memories - some of which should probably be trusted, others, perhaps not! - and the memories of friends and family, told in the voice of his longtime personal assistant, Rob Wilkins. Wilkins spent years working for and with Pratchett, including taking dictation on dozens of books, and I will say this about his writing style: it is Pratchett-esque, and I can think of no higher compliment.

The book is thoughtful, revealing, terrifically sad (I wept more than once), honest, and above all, very very funny. Which is vital for any book associated with Terry Pratchett, whom I consider one of the greatest humourists in the English language.

The best thing about the book, IMO, is the way it humanizes Terry. He was, as all humans are, filled with ambiguities and contradictions. A firm atheist, he funded the repair of local churches and wondered if God was tempting him to believe as he was dying of Alzheimer’s; absurdly generous, he also knew the importance of money as a measuring rod, while also also likely being mostly unaware of the vastness of his fortune; incredibly class conscious, he also accepted a knighthood from the Queen; one of the hardest working writers ever, he was also capable of great swaths of Arsing About; deeply sensitive to slights both real and perceived, he seemed largely oblivious to the possibility of hurt feelings in others; a fierce proponent for kindness and humanism, he could also descend into incandescent rage at the banalities of life and the failures of others to do their jobs or appreciate his actual genius.

In other words, Terry Pratchett was a human being, one taken far too soon from us, but who left the great gift of his life’s work. I for one and deeply thankful.

I remember the morning a friend texted me to let me know Terry Pratchett had died. She just wrote: “Terry Pratchett”. And I knew. And I wept that morning.

I wept again when I read the last words of his final book to my children.

The Discworld series, (which I will now read again), is easily one of the funniest collections of stories ever written. But they aren’t just funny. They shine a light - often critical, always perceptive and challenging - on the fullness of human endeavour, belief, societal structure, bigotry, foolishness and wisdom. They also happen to contain some of the best, grounded theology I have ever read (coming often from the mouths of witches, or even an atheist Golem). I have read many of them aloud to my children and it certainly haloed shape their sense of humour as well as their sense of compassion.

Thank you, Sir Terry. GNU.

Would love your thoughts!

consequences of answered prayer

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ChLIYiVbM&t=44s&pp=ygUPY2FzY2FkZXMgY2h1cmNo&ra=m

• Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us About Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength, by Kat Armas

  A truly beautiful, powerful and timely book of theology that takes seriously the vital, foundational contributions of Abuelitas, of black and brown women, of under represented female characters in the biblical account, of the voices that have been pushed aside in the seminaries but which actually form us in the everyday. Armas weaves her excellent theological work in and through her own story and that of her family, which had to migrate from Cuba after the revolution. This is a work of deep honouring, and of revealing the wisdom that we are frequently in danger of missing. A must-read.

• Felicity, Mary Oliver

  Love poems to life, the world, God, self, and a lover from the inimitable Mary Oliver. Delightful, simple, joy-affirming.

• A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Becky Chambers

  Book two in the Monk and Robot series, this story carries on the journey of Sibling Dex, a human tea monk, and Mosscap, a robot who is making first contact with humans after generations apart. Mosscap wants to ask the humans what they want or need, in order to help robots understand how the humans are doing after the robots left. But it’s not as straightforward as that. Humanity is complex and weird and unpredictable. This series is gentle and wonderful, but still deep and important. It presents a narrative that flows more with questions and curiosity than conflict and crisis. And it asks of everyone a very deep question: what do you need? And what if you believe something is true and helpful, but not for you?

• The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, P. Djèlí Clark

  In the city of Tal Abisi, located in a reality where magic effects everything and gods and goddesses sometimes show up, there is a guild of undead assassins who serve as acolytes of Aeril, goddess of assassination, knives, and chefs. Even the Eviscerator is one of these assassins, and she is given a sacred contract to kill someone’s she truly cannot kill. So the trouble begins. This novella is not quite as sharp as Clark’s Ring Shout, but it is good fun, pretty funny, inventive and dark.

• Him Standing, Richard Wagamese

  A spiritual thriller of a novella, with Wagamese’s signature style, wisdom and grace. A young Ojibway man inherits the carving skill of his grandfather, but not the spiritual foundations he needs to deal with a dark shaman who contracts him to carve a mask of power that will bring his master back from the dream world.

• mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling, edited by Neal Mcleod

  A series of short stories by Indigenous authors in the sci-fi and speculative genre. Funny, scary, creative, and piercing, these stories fulfill the best function of sci-fi and spiritual realism - they tell the truth about the world and our shaky place within it.

• Don’t Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones

  Book two in the Indian Lake trilogy, a slasher/horror story that will make little sense if you haven’t read the first one, or if you aren’t intimately familiar with the slasher movie genre. Which I am not. So I was a little lost at sea at points in this story, which details Jade Daniels’ return to Proofrock Idaho after being cleared of the Independence Day massacre from years before. Daniels is, or was, a slasher movie expert, but she has put all that begins her now. Or she thought she had, until she arrives back in town at the same time as a serial killer. Or maybe more than one. There seem to be at least three serial killers in this story, perhaps four, some of whom are supernatural, and at least one super creepy history teacher. It all gets pretty convoluted, as I imagine the best slashers do, and it also gets very bloody indeed.

• Traplines, Eden Robinson

  Three short stories based on the west coast, some in Vancouver, some in indigenous villages. The stories are truthful, raw, brutal and spare, slices of life from young people dealing with things they should not have to be dealing with. It’s such an authentic voice that it is difficult to read at times, because the pain is very real.

• Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality, Brad Warner

  A book about punk, sort of, but really about Buddhism is the best and also a sham. Warner tries to communicate truth about reality through his own autobiography, which includes stints in punk bands, working in Japan for a monster movie studio, and becoming a “Zen master”. I disagree with some of his fundamental thoughts - as he encourages his readers to - particularly with reference to souls and God. But there is much that is also very helpful here, and I learned a lot about Warner’s understanding of Soto Zen Buddhism. I say it that way because I don’t trust that he speaks authoritatively for Soto, Zen or Buddhism, and I think he would agree, though he speaks as if one with Authority. I do know that when he speaks about other faiths and religions - as he does a fair amount, to demonstrate why they suck and why Buddhism is better - he only ever really addresses the surface-level, the loudest and dumbest versions of those faiths. Those versions are of course eminently critiquable, but they do not represent the thought of the faiths as a whole. That aspect of the book was very disappointing, and suggested a serious lack of understanding. I expect his understanding of Soto Zen Buddhism is more profound however, and I found his writing entertaining and accessible, and at times challenging in a helpful way.

A word on the importance of Intercessory Prayer, and on how we do Intercessory Prayer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d4wKngJ45dY&t=1462s&ra=m

I know that phrasing makes it sound like these were akin to natural disasters or wars. They weren’t, but they did cause major disruption.

In the lead up to the Olympics I was part of a movement of many thousands of activists who were very concerned about what would happen to the homeless population when the world came to play, and especially when the world’s media came to record it and would inevitably discover the humanitarian crisis occurring blocks from the ice rink where Canada would win hockey gold.

We trained in Neutral Observation, we planned out tent cities with security, hospitality, medical tents, etc…and we kept careful tabs on our friends to make sure they didn’t go missing. There were marches and protests, and it was all righteous and good.

But we actually missed something.

The Olympics were FUN.

For all their nonsense and the evil of the IOC and the billion dollars spent on security and the ticketing of homeless people - the Olympics still managed to be a big world party in our little city.

It is a difficult tension that in many ways rests at the very heart of our human experience - there is profound goodness, joy and beauty that is nestled within quite a lot of evil and injustice and greed.

The IOC is BAD. The Olympics are GOOD.

The same is true of FIFA and the World Cup. I can think of few organizations that are more overtly corrupt and criminal than FIFA. They always have been, but now their profiteering and bribe-making are just naked and unafraid. Partnered with the openly corrupt US Administration they have formed a super team of grift, bias, greed and deception.

And they organize the World Cup, which is so, so great.

Soccer is beautiful. The expanded tournament with the likes of Cabo Verde, DRC, Caracao, Norway, and more is utterly delightful, a staggering success.

The experience in Vancouver has been an exuberant. Street parties, music, people playing soccer in the streets, women with snakes walking around on Granville, hordes of drunk Australians singing songs and not breaking stuff, Brazilians being loud and lovely, thousands of people gathering in public to watch France v Panama(!) - it’s been wonderful.

The World Cup is GOOD. FIFA is BAD.

We live in this creational tension always. We have been made GOOD. But we are still living within things that are not good. There is a reason for Justice activists - they aren’t only kill joys, they are trying to honour the humanity of kin and neighbour.

But the danger of Justice work - and I know this first hand - is the tendency to miss the joy.

I don’t have any answers for how to do this well, how to strike the balance. But I do know it’s a balance we need to try to strike somehow.

The Sacrifice is famed Russian director Tarkovsky’s last movie, filmed as he was dying of cancer, and dedicated to his son.

This is a haunting movie, set in Sweden, concerning the threat of nuclear exchange at the advent of World War Three. The main character, Alexander, begins with a series of monologues, questioning the meaning of existence and telling cryptic stories to his young son, known as Little Man. At one point he complains, along with Hamlet, about “words, words, words.” He then says, “If only we could shut up and do something.” This never prevents him from issuing forth with a never-ending font of words throughout the movie, but it also foreshadows his decisive act later on.

It is his birthday and friends are gathering at his and his wife’s cottage for a celebration, but suddenly a thunderous sound is heard: the beginning of thermo-nuclear war appears to break out. At almost exactly the half-way point of the movie Alexander looks upwards at camera and prays the Lord’s Prayer, begging God - of whom he earlier said he had no real relationship - to remove the crisis and return things to the way they were. He offers, in exchange, to sacrifice everything that he has - his house, his family, even his young son.

There seems to be a representation of Europe in the characters - the doubter who turns to prayer and sacrifice in the moment of despair; the esoteric Otto who is a collector of unexplainable experiences, like a theosophist; Maria, the icelandic “witch” representing pagan Europe; the doctor whose solution is to numb the women with drugs. This notion is reinforced by the 16th century map of Europe that Otto gives Alexander for his birthday - to which Alexander says, “It would be pleasant if we could still see Europe in this way.”

After Alexander’s vow to God to sacrifice everything (perhaps reminiscent of Jephthah’s rash vow in Judges 11?), Otto lets him know that he can put everything back to normal if he prevails upon Maria, who is a witch in every good sense of the word. All he has to do is sleep with her. In contrast to Rublev in one of Tarkovsky’s other masterpieces, Alexander does not withstand this temptation to join with pagan power through sexual entanglement (though the scene feels more like manipulation on Alexander’s part than any pagan seduction from Maria). It seems to be this mixing of systems that accomplishes what he was hoping/praying for, but is this good? There is at the least a leap of faith involved, and it seems to be in tension with the self-destructiveness of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, the greatest of all burdens, which is evoked in speech, in the waves standing perfectly still, and the repetition of certain actions. History appears to be too heavy, or else meaningless, as in Ecclesiastes, and it requires a desperate final sacrificial act - a literal holocaust offering to God - to wrest any hope or meaning out of the chaos.

All of this is underscored by a liberal dose of magical realism, which makes one wonder how much of what the characters are experiencing is real or not. A triumph of film, but one that resists rational explanation, which is probably the point.

The final line of the film - a quote from John 1, and the only words uttered by Little Man - and the final imagery of the tree strongly evoke the Passion of Christ.

St. Francis’ The Rule of the Friars Minor, finally affirmed on Nov 29, 1223, attempts to foster obedience to an ideal of simple Gospel living by prescribing and enabling a high level of freedom for its adherents. It is notable not simply for the boundaries it sets to free friars from wealth, sin and disunity, but also for its pragmatic balances to those boundaries, and for the liberty it gives in the areas of work, mission, and conscience. The Rule, whether through restrictions, practicalities or allowances, seems designed to help friars overcome those things considered to be obstacles in their imitation of Jesus and attainment of eternal life.  

The Rule’s boundaries purport to offer freedom from entanglements with wealth, sin and schism. The Rule begins with an injunction to follow Jesus’ teaching and example in humility and renunciation. Postulants are expected to distribute their possessions amongst the poor, and friars may have only the most basic clothing.  All are to take the name Friars Minor, with none standing above another by assuming the title of Prior. Friars must always consider themselves inferior to others, and are to avoid serving as stewards, cellarers or chamberlains in another’s house, so as to avoid association with position and wealth. They are never to handle money, shunning wealth and considering coins as worthless as stones, because valuing money risks losing the Kingdom of God. They should be content carrying nothing but food and covering on their way through the world, and may not ride or use animals. In order to stay free from sin friars are to watch over and correct one another carefully. They are to live in chastity, keeping their distance from temptation and avoiding lust and fornication, and they must not become puffed up by eloquent words or by any good that God does through them.

Finally, obedience to the Church and order is expected. All the heads of the order promise to revere and obey the Pope, while all Friars Minor vow to obey the head of the order. No postulant may be received into the order “contrary to the form prescribed by Holy Church”, and no member of the order may preach without permission or in a way that is contrary to the form and rules of the Church.  All friars are to live as Catholics and to avoid sinning against the Church, lest they be cast out of the order.

These rules appear restrictive, but the “Exhortation to the Friars” and the final prayer at the end of the Rule reveal their liberating purpose. The goal of friars’ lives is to “have but one desire and one will, one pleasure and one delight: to love and enjoy only our Creator....” Total primacy is given to following the Lord; any other pleasure or advantage could cause the friars to “lose all and turn [their] mind and heart away from God.” This is why they should wear patched, poor clothing in this world, so that they “may be clothed with glory in the kingdom of heaven.” They should rejoice when found amongst the weak, poor and despised, living on alms as Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the disciples are said to have done, and should be thankful to those who persecute and martyr them, because these humiliations and restrictions enable them to hate their sinful and carnal living which leads them to hell, and help them to renounce the world and gain eternal life.

The staunch allegiance to the Catholic Church, meanwhile, keeps the friars safe from heresy and schism, and frees them from worrying about what to teach and preach. The Rule therefore likens the Friars Minor to seeds sown on good soil (Matthew 13:19-23), allowed to bear good fruit far from the dangers of the devil and the concerns of the world. These boundaries in the Rule are not simply arbitrary, but are designed to liberate the friars to live and preach the simple Gospel without unnecessary distractions and complications.  

The Rule establishes boundaries for the sake of freedom, but even within these restrictions there are stipulations that point towards greater practical liberty. In the area of wealth, friars are forbidden from interfering in any way with the finances of postulants, who ultimately need only have “the spiritual will to relinquish” their possessions if they encounter difficulties. Postulants must also have the order’s manner of life fully explained to them before they join. These rules emphasise the voluntary, informed, and above all pragmatic nature of renunciation and admission into the order.

This spirit carries on once friars are accepted. In times of necessity or infirmity, they may ride on animals. They may not receive money for work or when seeking alms, but may receive needful things in exchange for their labour or begging. Even the prohibition on handling money is removed in the case of caring for the sick, again displaying a fundamental practicality in the Rule. This is reinforced in the regulations around food, as the friars, when not fasting, may eat whatever is put before them, so that like the early Christian missionaries they would not be hindered by dietary restrictions. In times of deep need they are instructed to communicate their legitimate needs to one another, at which point they are allowed to arrange matters however God inspires them, “for necessity has no law.”

In the area of sin, the Rule provides balance by offering practical instructions on coming spiritually to the aid of the sinner.  Correction should be given with humility, gentleness and love, including three opportunities to repent.  Friars having a hard time observing life in the order may bring their problems to a minister to seek direction.  The Rule affirms that the friars’ only possession is their sins and vices, so they should rejoice when exposed to temptations and tribulations as these will lead to true mortification, humility and simplicity. Thus, even the sins and weaknesses of those in the order will increase the glory of God, because the friars will become less in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. The Rule does not by this condone sin, but it does try to create an atmosphere that allows the opportunity to find restoration and freedom.

In terms of restrictions around structure and doctrine the Rule teaches the friars to regard ministers as their masters in all matters of the soul, unless they are teaching that which is considered contrary to their religion. They must make confession to priests for absolution, but if they cannot find one, they should confess their sins to another friar and then find a priest later. Once again, the practical needs of the friars to confess sin expediently are considered and liberally provided for in the Rule. All of this demonstrates the overall theme of freedom in the Rule from entanglements, but also a freedom to live practically and kindly within certain boundaries, so that the Gospel may be uninhibited.

In addition to using boundaries to free followers from hindrances, the Rule also contains positive examples of liberty in work, mission and conscience. In contrast to monastic rules that emphasised stability and uniformity, Francis’ Rule allows friars to pursue whatever work is healthy for the soul, be it praying or continuing in former trades if convenient. They may undertake any office they wish, so long as it does not contradict the rule or include begging for money.  

This freedom applies to the mission field as well.  Ministers are instructed to allow any friar who feels divinely inspired to go preach to the Saracens.  The friars are given very simple instructions on what kind of exhortations to use, and are told merely to avoid quarrelling, to subject themselves to all others, and when it is pleasing to God to preach and baptize.  This level of freedom is permitted because the friars have already given themselves completely to God and may be trusted to rejoice even when exposed to persecution and martyrdom in foreign lands.  

Finally, the Rule allows surprising liberty in the area of conscience.  Friars are to submit themselves to obedience, but only if the commands are not contrary to the Rule or to conscience. The conduct of ministers should be watched carefully, and if sin or error is discerned the friars are not bound to obey their orders. Ministers and friars owe their full and unconditional obedience ultimately to Jesus, and must mutually obey Jesus’ commands to avoid arrogance and domineering and to treat others as one would wish to be treated.  The Rule thus allows pragmatic liberties to further enable the imitation of Christ without unreasonable constraints.

When eternal joy in the presence of God is set as the overriding purpose of life, as it is in The Rule of the Friars Minor, then accepting restrictions and liberties that help achieve that purpose makes sense. When that overriding purpose and vision is lost, however, restrictions or liberties may become ends in and of themselves. Some may be uncomfortable with the degree of liberty espoused and permitted in Francis’ Rule. Giving the friars permission to question a minister’s orders onthe basis of sin or error threatens to undermine the monastic ideal of submission to authority.  Freedom to make choices in work and mission could lead to a loss of the notions of unity and stability.  The movement toward a more conditional obedience and submission to authority in the Rule, particularly when divorced from its goal of enabling greater devotion to the Lord, could be seen to prefigure the idea of the individual as sovereign.  This may have been a startling idea to a thirteenth century monastic mind, but it is a basic tenet of a modern and post-modern worldview.  Indeed, the different types of freedom offered in the Rule would still be considered restrictive in our present North American culture. From the perspective of valuing individual freedom as the highest good, Francis’ Rule does not go far enough in the granting of liberties. It might be characterised as inching towards progress, but still dangerously repressive in its teachings on women, fornication, possessions, obedience to the Church and the submission of the individual’s will to another.  

To understand the value of Francis’ Rule, Christians today must focus neither on the restrictions nor on the allowances as ends in themselves.  Even if they disagree with the specific requirements, they should seek to understand how the Rule triesto help its followers find the best way to “love, honour, adore, serve, praise and bless glorify, exalt, magnify and thank the Most High” with their lives.  Modern readers in agreement with this goal can then discern which areas within their own lives and cultures may require careful boundaries, and which may require practical liberties, in order to promote the greatest possible freedom to pursue an authentic Gospel lifestyle.

This is a phenomenal new book of theological and biblical engagement from two Choctaw and a Cree-Anishinaabe/Metis scholars. They help unlock Turtle Island hermeneutics which take seriously Indigenous worldviews, approaches to nature and harmony, visions and dreams and ancestors, the trauma of colonizing forces, the possibility of (re)conciliation, and ways of supporting and celebrating Indigenous ceremonies and traditions. It is a book that is deeply faithful to Jesus, and also deeply faithful to the knowledge and experience of Indigenous communities, an approach that always should have been the norm but tragically wasn’t. This is a must-read.

A Quality of Light, Richard Wagamese

I am a very big fan of all of Wagamese’s work, and this novel in particular is an extraordinarily beautiful meditation on childhood, faith, spirituality, culture, baseball, family, and what it means to be a warrior. The character arc that both Josh and Johnny take is subtle and mature - cliched takes are eschewed here for a more complex, nuanced development that defies easy expectations. The central conflict in the novel involves a white kid from a disastrous, untethered home who dreams of being an “Indian Warrior”, and an Ojibway boy who was adopted into a loving, stable, white farming family who has to learn what it means to be Indigenous. The story is filled with grace and truth, and lands on the light that we shine for those who are to come after us. Wagamese has left such a light with this book.

My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones

Jade is the world’s biggest slasher fan, a graduating high schooler who takes solace in her encyclopedic knowledge of the horror genre. When events begin conspiring towards a slasher cycle in her hated home town of Proofrock, Idaho, Jade is excited and horrified. It’s not just a game anymore. This is a page turner, obviously great if you are familiar with the genre, but also very good if you aren’t and want to follow Jade down into both personal and societal trauma. The ending is…messy.

The Lesser Blessed, Richard Van Camp

Van Camp’s debut novel is a northern Outsiders, a bleak, funny, raw and raunchy re-telling of adolescence. The voice is exceedingly authentic - Larry thinks and talks like a messed up, hurting, horny, searching kid. His friendship with Johnny, his longing for Juliet, his battles with Darcy and Jazz, his fraught but loving relationship with his mom and her boyfriend Jed all hit right. It is a story of tragedy, but also life and hope. (June)

Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein

An extremely well-written description of a militarized future society in which voluntary military service is the only way to become a citizen. Johnny Rico is a privileged student who joins up against his parents’ wishes, and we get a detailed description of his infantry boot camp experience, drawn no doubt from Heinlein’s own history. Then Earth finds itself at war with the Bugs, and Rico works his way from cap trooper to Lieutenant - each stage carefully and engagingly narrated, along with philosophical poli-sci discussions of why this type of militaristic society is the only kind that actually works. It is a worryingly effective argument.

The Art of Simple Living, 100 Daily Practices from a Zen Monk for a Lifetime of Calm and Joy, Shunmyo Masuno

Just what it says in the description. One page for each piece of advice, and the advice is simple, straightforward, practical and immediately applicable. I have begun incorporating those things which I was not already practicing and they have been helpful.

Zen Poetry, collected by Peter Harris

What if I walk, but only to walk? Sit, simply to sit? Eat, just to eat? Pray, to pray? Sleep, sleep? Is it enough?

Ireland’s Forgotten Past: A History of the overlooked and Disremembered, Turtle Bunbury

A fun and informative series of chapters detailing underreported aspects of Ireland’s past, ranging from its geological history, the various people groups that inhabited the island, the tribes and chiefs and political machinations that shaped its social history, and into more modern times following the Easter Rising and Home Rule.

The Illustrated Al

A graphic novel with illustrations of a number of Weird Al songs throughout the years that never got videos to accompany them. Trip down memory lane for me.

This is insane.

Much has been written about the ignorance - both scriptural and social - that grounds this decision. Much has also been written about the 2022 Guidepost Solutions Report that identified 700 clergy or church-affiliated workers accused of abuse between 2000-2019. Church officials have covered up these cases for years.

It is far, far easier for an accused male abuser to be a pastor, preacher or teacher within the SBC than it is for a woman to be in those roles.

Again, insane.

I want to highlight a few essential resources we have helped to create through the Boundless Network that equip and empower us in the face of this insanity to do better; to honour, listen to and learn from women; to protect abuse victims; to be the Church that Jesus wants us to be.

1. Need to Know: Empowering Female Leadership and Why it’s Essential for the Future of the Church

Need to Know draws on the perspectives of twenty-one authors—a diverse company of predominantly female voices who impart personal experience, theological analysis, and historical study. They challenge the prevailing structures, examine the benefits of empowering leadership, and envision a future where women and men lead together. This book is an essential resource for every church leader to create a more equitable and thriving church.

1. Game Changer: Need to Know

Game Changer: Need to Know, is the first step towards radically changing your team and culture for the better. It is a course designed by Danielle Strickland and Alan Hirsch to help "change your mind" as you prepare to walk through a challenging, transformative journey towards gender equity with your team, your church, your board, your denomination, or any group you choose. Curated and facilitated by expert leaders in this field, Game Changer is a can't miss course to help your team become what the world needs right now.

1. The Liberating Move of God

Key women in the exodus story are our guides as we explore the liberating movement of God toward life, justice, and freedom for all people. Join us over four weeks as we reach between Bible times and now, the exodus story and the gospels, and explore how ordinary people have always been the ones to set great liberating movements of God in motion.

1. Sexual Abuse and the Church: A Pastoral Guide for Responding to Sexual Abuse or Assault Disclosure

This course is designed to equip you with the knowledge and tools to respond to disclosures of sexual abuse and assault with care, respect, and sensitivity. While no two situations are identical, there are key principles that can guide your actions and decisions.

These are just a few of the many, many incredible resources out there that reveal not just the insanity of the SBC’s position, but always ways to resist it and overcome.

Remember, change requires us.

It gets a little spicy, but happily the church helps out with the application in this one.

The Spirit Filled Community

• Spiritual Writings, Leo Tolstoy

A helpful introduction by Charles E Moore sets the stage for these precise, elegant hammer blows of spiritual challenge. Tolstoy was unsparing of society, government, the Church, but most especially of himself. He saw true and sought to live for truth, and these writings will confront you in that way. They are good, though they are not light and easy, and there is not much room left for any kind of illusion, self-comfort, or maybe even grace.

• The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel

A fascinating book that meanders, warps and weaves through several different lives and a few different storylines, but all somewhat centered around an improbable hotel, a dirty financial scheme, the corruptibility of our nature and conscience, and the different worlds people live in. One key theme is the idea that people live in different countries - the country of wealth, the country of shadows (the underbelly of the American Dream), the country of fantasy, the country of self-delusion. These are all entirely different realities which sometimes but not always intertwine, and people put on different faces to fit into each of them. Mandel is a wonderful writer who pulls the reader deeply into each character’s interior thoughts, and makes you feel their stress, their confusion, their hope, their solitude. This story is also connected - perhaps spiritually? - with her other works in a strange sort of sequel nature; there are common events that happen in the multiple stories, though these also take place across vast spans of time so it's unclear exactly how they connect.

• This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

A wonderfully inventive, creative, and complex story of two agents - one of Garden, the other of The Agency - locked in a multi-dimensional time war to shift history and the future towards their side’s goals. But one of them, Blue, leaves a letter for the other, Red. And they begin a correspondence across time and battlefields which slowly and inexorably leads to love.

• Gather: On the Joy of Storytelling, Richard Van Camp

Indigenous storyteller extraordinaire Richard Van Camp gives a comprehensive guide to telling good stories, complete with ideas of how to gather stories, how to set up spaces for gathering, how to connect with neighbours and community, how to honour storytellers, and how to present your stories in the best possible way. A joy to read with lots of good ideas, and some great stories to boot.

• Mapping the Interior, Stephen Graham Jones

Oh geez. Jones is an expert horror writer, and this short book has a horrifying story at the centre of it. A 12 year old indigenous boy is starting to see his father’s ghost at night. His father seems to be coming back - maybe to heal his brother’s sudden seizures? Or maybe for something more sinister? This is a disturbing examination of generational trauma, frustrated hopes, and the ways the sins of the father are visited upon the son.

• Earthdivers: Kill Columbus, Vol 1, Stephen Graham Jones

A bloody graphic novel about some Indigenous survivors in post-apocalyptic America, who find a time travel cave and decide to send one of them back to kill Columbus and prevent the “Age of Discovery” and its subsequent horrors. Compelling stuff, though I did get confused by some of the side plots and extraneous characters who never seemed to be properly introduced - maybe that gets further explained in the next volumes.

• The Justice of Jesus, Joash Thomas

A phenomenally helpful, wise and gracious book that will help steer the Church into the necessary and difficult waters of Jesus’ justice. Thomas speaks from deep theological rigour, wide cultural and historical perspective (his platforming of the Indian St Thomas tradition alone is worth the price of admission), and powerful personal experience as an advocate, lobbyist, priest, and Global South Christian. He uses all of these tools and more to help guide the reader into an understanding of decolonization, and how to apply this essential practice to pulpits, budgets, mission, theology. I am assigning this book for my students this year, in part because Thomas excels in an area where I have great misgivings. He loves the Church and has incredible grace and patience in trying to help her navigate the systems and structures that exist, both ecclesiastically and governmentally. Where I have nearly thrown in the towel on institutions, Thomas gives a sure guide on how to baby-step transform these institutions in the way of justice. I’m not sure it can be done, to be honest, but if it can - and if you are likewise committed to the Church - this is a vital book for you.

• Jesus and the Victory of God, NT Wright

An epic masterpiece that helps me navigate many tricky biblical conundrums.

What three fictional characters do you most resonate with, and why?

This isn’t just idle wondering. The characters we are drawn to likely embody traits we think we have, or would like to have.

I did the experiment and very quickly came up with three characters with whom I deeply resonate:

• Gandalf the Grey

• Puddleglum the Marshwiggle

• Kermit the Frog

Upon some reflection I noticed some interesting commonalities in these three characters, and how these traits line up with my own ideals and practices.

• Gandalf the Grey

Notice that I do not say Gandalf the White, my last name notwithstanding. Gandalf the White, his re-incarnation after the epic battle with the Balrog, is not a very accessible character. He is more powerful, more obviously divine, less “human” than before. He is still essentially Gandalf, but a glorified Gandalf, unloosed from certain restrictions and thus able to confront the Witch King in open power.

Gandalf the Grey, though, is the Pilgrim, the hidden encourager, the veiled left-handed power. He isn’t the head of the White Council; he isn’t always welcome in the places he comes to give counsel; he gets tired; he is sassy; he loses his temper with hobbits and dwarves; he makes delightful fireworks; he enjoys a nice pipe and a beer.

His main role is opposing the gathering dark by fanning into flame the dying embers of hope in humans, elves, dwarves and hobbits. He knows that it’s a fool’s hope, yet he persists. His great strength is paying attention to the little things, the overlooked and disregarded (hobbits, moths, Thorin’s company). He believes in the secret potential that people hold, and he uses every trick and tool in his arsenal to bring it out of them. He does get impatient with the circus and the monkeys that surround him, but they are HIS circus and monkeys, and he will fight and even die for them. He likes to call people fools, but he still puts his life and hope in their hands.

• Puddleglum the Marshwiggle

As a child, reading The Silver Chair, Puddleglum was a comic character, hilariously morose and pessimistic. Reading it again to my kids they also found him funny, but I found myself relating to him to a fascinating degree.

Marshwiggles are a species in Narnia who are notoriously sober, dour, realistic to the point of eschewing anything that could be seen as delusional hope. Puddleglum is sent on the mission with Eustace and Jill as a guide because he is considered unhealthily optimistic and flighty in the Marshwiggle culture. The expedition is considered an opportunity for Puddleglum to learn realism and to stop being so wildly hopeful and unserious.

On the expedition, Puddleglum relentlessly points out all the things that could and probably will go wrong, but is also entirely faithful to the children and to the mission. He is the only one who remembers the instructions and urges obedience to them. And in the big moment, it is Puddleglum who defies the witch’s illusions, affirms his possibly delusional belief in Aslan in the face of all evidence, and stomps on the magical fire. Both his realism and his faithful hopefulness save the day.

• Kermit the Frog

Kermit is a consummate professional in an insane world. He is a performer, artistic and musical, but ultimately his job is to manage the totally unhinged chaos of the Muppet Show. He is way over his head, all the time, and everything is always just on the brink of collapse, failure, bankruptcy and disaster. But he manages to hold it together through his love and care for his nuthouse troupe, and also commitment to his audience and his overall vision.

Everybody knows Kermit, and people often presume upon his time, his energy, his resources and patience. He is at the epicentre of every emergency, trying to put out the fire, or at least make it entertaining. He is the recipient of scathing criticism and bad reviews, and not just from the old men in the balcony. Very few people ask about his needs, and he doesn’t typically make them known as he has so much else that requires his attention. Most of his issues are ultimately resolved through a song, a road trip, and getting the community back together. Even though everything continually falls apart, people love Kermit well enough - and trust enough in his love for them - to try it one more time.

Perhaps you can see some throughlines of these three characters:

• Encouragers

• Gatherers of community

• Bearers of responsibility, possibly to a fault

• Known, but not always welcome, as they are often the bearers of hard news

• Patient

• Hopeful, yet deeply realistic (to the point where some would call it pessimism)

• Leaders, but not of the imposing kind

• Prone to bouts of depression, or at least rank irritability

• Yet happy to serve

• Persevering

• Not super comfortable sharing their needs

• Surrounded by chaos monkeys

• Existing perpetually on the brink of disaster

• Faithful and enduring in the face of repeated failure

• Willing to take long journeys, but very tired

• Trusting of others, even when that burns them

These are the character traits that speak resonantly to me, that I see, even imperfectly, in my life. I’d love to be a Pippen, a Gonzo, even a Eustace or a Jill. I’d love to be optimistic, carefree, silly and chaotic all the time.

But I’m not that. I don’t feel the release to be that. I feel the weight of responsibility, of trying to hold certain things together, of encouraging others (though I often feel profoundly discouraged, which I don’t like sharing). I can be hopeful even in the face of death, but I also think many of our hopes are delusional and wildly optimistic. I have a ton of chaos monkeys around me all the time, and I love them, and they love me, and they also majorly wear down my patience. I’m exhausted, but I still want to fan into flame the wavering faith of others. I trust that God ultimately arranges all things for good, though I don’t think that means we won’t experience catastrophic failure and sorrow in this present time.

Singing helps. I don’t smoke, but maybe a pipe would help as well, or a pint at the Green Dragon. Or whatever a Marshwiggle does to blow off steam.

Curious which fictional characters you resonate with, and why?

I remember sitting with Evee, aged 12 or 13, on a field at Camp Sunrise, as a few of us ditched the main talk so we could talk about other stuff.

She asked about the Spirit of God. The Spirit who hovered over creation, described as Counsellor, Advocate, Wisdom in her name Sophia.

Evee welcomed that Spirit into her life on that grass at that camp on that day, and the Spirit never left her. Still hasn’t.

Today on the remembrance of Pentecost - the day the Spirit descended upon a small group of people and moved them to inclusion, sacrifice, sharing, others-preferring love, breaking bread - we remembered Evee’s life.

She knew hardship, more than most. Yet she still carried life, joy, hope, advocacy and comfort in herself for the blessing of others.

Our last time together she asked me why I was trying to help her, why did I care? I just said she was precious, she was worth it, I remembered her. I didn’t need anything from her, I just really wanted her to be well. She hugged me unusually long at the corner of Main and Hastings, and then we parted.

A few weeks later I heard that her pain had taken her.

I mourned, grievously. But I also dared to be comforted, knowing that she is now in full freedom, comfort and love. Pain and sorrow are gone. She is with the Spirit now.

Thank you for your life, Evee. You are precious and beloved, remembered.

“Though your days here were brief,

Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.”

- John O’Donohue

I have read 44 of these novels, and there are many others on the list I am aiming to read soon. I thought I’d give my attempt at listing 100 great novels to me - that is, books I consider objectively great which also had a significant impact on me when I read them.

These lists are impossibly subjective, but perhaps a recommendation and a brief plug for each of them might arouse your interest. They are not necessarily in order, though the top 20 or so are the books I personally consider “the greatest” novels that have read (and I’ve limited myself to one work for author).

I’d be interested in which books you consider great, either that are covered here or that you think I’ve missed?

1. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky’s piercing psychological and spiritual insights are at their best and deepest here.

2. Middlemarch - George Eliot. Eliot weaves profound philosophy, theology, and morality into her epic story of the daily lives and relationships of a Provincial area.

3. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe. The first novel in the staggering Africa Trilogy, detailing life for an Igbo tribe in Nigeria in the time of colonialism.

4. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson. A long letter from a dying minister father to his young son about philosophy, theology and confession.

5. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien. My favourite novel.

6. Silence - Shusaku Endo. A devastating examination of faith in the face of extreme hardship, oppression and doubt.

7. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens. My favourite Dickens. Made me laugh and weep out loud.

8. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo. I love the side quests into the sewers, the Bishop’s finances, the nunnery, and the Napoleonic battle. Plus the whole grace vs law thing.

9. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

10. 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The intergenerational saga of the Colombian Buendia family, a classic of magical realism.

11. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf. A revelation of the spiritual/mental/emotional depths lurking underneath the surfaces of our everyday experiences.

12. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Read this at 17 on my breaks working in a homeless shelter. The story of one relatively good but still brutal day in a Soviet gulag.

13. Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler. This might be the most prescient book I have ever read, eerily so. Butler invents a new faith to counter MAGA, years before it was born.

14. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison. A masterpiece of existential writing. Ellison puts the reader into the invisible skin of a young black man from the South who moves to Harlem in the 1930’s.

15. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin. Genly Ai is on the planet of Winter, trying to convince the genderless inhabitants to accept his mission. A powerful take on humanity, sexuality, duality, nationalism, colonialism, and love.

16. Go Tell it On the Mountain - James Baldwin. Baldwin is a superlative writer, a prophet, a swordsman with words, and this is a semi-autobiographical work that utterly upends the tables in the temple of race in America.

17. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Historical fiction centered around 1960’s Nigeria, the time when the Igbo people sought to form the independent republic of Biafra.

18. The Color Purple - Alice Walker. A beautiful, challenging gut-punch of a novel, telling the story of Celie, a black woman in the South in the early to mid 20th century.

19. 1984 - George Orwell. I think his memoir Homage to Catalonia is his best book, but 1984 is his most powerful and prescient novel.

20. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston. An amazing story of fight, liberation, and love, told in the language of people Hurston knew very well.

21. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller. Hilarious, absurd, dark. The first book where I truly noticed and was stunned by what the author was doing.

22. Moby Dick - Herman Melville. A sprawling epic of sea tale, marine biology, metaphor, nature, and tragedy. It is impossible, ludicrous, and majestic.

23. Dr Zhivago - Boris Pasternak. A poet and doctor who seeks to love and be free amidst the disaster of Revolution and War in Russia.

24. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. A life-changing book about climate and economic ruin, and the ways humans try to survive them.

25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon. A clever and moving whodunnit mystery from the perspective of an autistic boy.

26. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L’Engle. The whole quintet is fantastic, but it’s the first one that really gets the ball rolling. Faith and quantum physics together at last.

27. Medicine Walk - Richard Wagamese. A teenager tries to fulfill his father’s wish to be buried according to Ojibway tradition.

28. Round House - Louise Erdrich. A vicious assault on the edge of a reserve brings up issues of land, law, and accountability.

29. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. A disturbing 2005 sci-fi book about a group of people who grew up together in an isolated school, but things aren’t what they seem.

30. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco. You may need a companion guide to go along with this book, which is filled densely with allusions woven around an intricate medieval plot.

31. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry. Dickensian in its epic description of rural and urban poverty in India, following one family’s harsh journey.

32. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini. A multi-generational mother-daughter story set in Afghanistan and Pakistan between the 1960s and early 2000s.

33. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy. Twins in Kerala, India in the 60s have their lives and family wrecked upon the rocks of societal taboos.

34. A Confederacy of Dunces - John O’Toole. One of the funniest and most tragic books ever written.

35. Small Gods - Terry Pratchett. Really the whole Discworld series, and Good Omens (minus Neil Gaiman). Pure British hilarity and truth.

36. The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton. A mysterious spiritual thriller and allegory.

37. Phantastes - George MacDonald. One of those books that stops you in your tracks and makes you think you may be dreaming, or in fairyland.

38. The Prophet - Khalil Gibran. A series of fables of prophetic wisdom concerning humanity.

39. The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin. A phenomenal new fantasy universe, powerful and creative, and one that doesn’t draw from European myth or history.

40. Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis. Lewis’s best work, a re-telling of Cupid and Psyche.

41. Laurus - Eugene Vodolazkin. The spiritual realist story of a Russian man in the 15th and 16th centuries who essentially lives several lives in one life, that of a saint and healer, a healer, a holy fool, a pilgrim.

42. Moon of the Crusted Snow - Waubgeshig Rice. A powerful story, woven throughout with the Anishinaabe words and traditions. It is not only a dark, chilling tale of survival, but also part of a cultural reclamation of story and language.

43. Split Tooth - Tanya Tagaq. Magical or spiritual realism of the rawest form. A story that is autobiography, poetry, and spirituality wrapped up with a solid dose of horror.

44. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell. A sci-fi, character-driven story about the discovery of an alien civilization and the ultimately disastrous attempt by Jesuits to visit it.

45. The Road - Cormac McCarthy. A dystopian novel that plumbs the love of a father for his son.

46. Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons. Epic, operatic, literate science fiction that will freak you out and make you weep.

47. Binti - Nnedi Okorafor. The story of a young Himba girl who is the first of her people to be admitted to an off-planet, multi-race university. Her people do not like outsiders and do not leave the planet, so her journey is a terrible risk.

48. The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay. Imagine a world that is the genesis of all the stories that weave throughout the multi-verse, and then try to save that world.

49. Anil’s Ghost - Michael Ondaajte. A Sri Lankan forensic pathologist uncovers a political murder.

50. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote. Sure, it’s true crime, but it is also, I swear, a sharp, searing novel.

51. Frankenstein - Mary Shelly. A remarkable achievement in speculative fiction, the first of its kind and still capable of evoking horror and deep thought.

52. Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry. A story of an ordinary life, in an ordinary town, by an ordinary man, working as a barber in a farming community. Yet it goes deep into the spirit, into love, into the tragic decline of community.

53. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess. Ultraviolence, milk bars, and a whole new slang to learn.

54. The Stand - Stephen King. My first Stephen King book. I think he is one of the great spiritual writers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

55. The Secret History - Donna Tartt. Some students try to summon Dionysius. They succeed. It goes badly.

56. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Montgomery. Smart, beautiful, simple and hilarious.

57. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver. A beautiful, painful book about the disaster of a family led by a disaster of a father trying to bring his disastrous understanding of the Gospel to a village in the Congo.

58. The Maytrees - Annie Dillard. Dillard has a way of pulling the strings of a story together at the end to create an absolute blowing of the mind.

59. Little Women - Louise Alcott. How dare she make me cry my own tears about Beth??

60. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Remarque. A visceral book about the insanity of war and the living death of even those who survive.

61. A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O’Connor. Her compilation of stories are laconic, witty, perceptive, and descriptive of a culture and time that is alien to me.

62. My Antonia - Willa Cathers. Antonia represents the mostly lost beauty, freedom, spirit, opportunity and hardship of the immigrant experience in late 19th century America.

63. Nine Tailors - Dorothy Sayers. One of the best murder mysteries ever, starring Lord Peter Wimsey and some Church bells.

64. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov. A fever dream of an epic tale critiquing the Soviet Union from within.

65. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka. A hilariously dark and disturbing tale of a poor man in a poor family who wakes up one morning as a giant beetle.

66. A Psalm for the Wild-Born - Becky Chambers. A tea monk travels into the wild in search of a ruined monastery and there encounters a wild-built robot. Wonder and difficulty ensues.

67. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams. Absurdist sci-fi British comedy of the very finest sort.

68. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley. A different type of terrifying prediction than 1984, but no less true.

69. Life of Pi - Yann Martel. Wonderfully creative magical realism involving a boat, a boy and a tiger. Maybe.

70. Dune - Frank Herbert. Religious fanaticism, humans vs AI, giant sandworms - Herbert knew what was coming.

71. The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill. Fictionalised history, but built on the horrific truth that unbelievably strong and resilient people went through in the slave trade.

72. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood. Dystopian misogyny, and fairly descriptive of the MAGA playbook.

73. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee. Justice for Boo.

74. The Book of the Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin Jr. A magnificent spiritual thriller involving farm animals.

75. Zorba the Greek - Nicholas Katzanakas. Ancient wildness meets modernity and it doesn’t go great.

76. The Overstory - Richard Powers. An incredible story where trees are the main characters.

77. The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu. A hard-science detective case which weaves in China’s Cultural Revolution, extraterrestrial intelligence, the theoretical Three Body Problem, and the history and possible ending of all human scientific progress.

78. The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen. A revolutionary mole is nestled into the South Vietnamese high command during the War, and afterwards with Vietnamese refugees living in the USA.

79. Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi. A story of faith and losing faith in the face of disaster; opioid addiction, mental health, neuroscience and migrant family realities.

80. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou. Yes, an autobiography, but reads as a brilliant novel.

81. Oreo - Fran Ross. A hilarious and subversive tale in the style of the Greek myth of Theseus’ journey, but written by and starring a Jewish-African-American woman in the 70’s.

82. Swing Time - Zadie Smith. A meditation on various forms of Black and African cultures, set amidst working class London and traditional West African communities.

83. Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel. A lovely weaving together of interconnected lives and moments from 1912, 1918, 1990, 2008, 2020, 2203, and 2401.

84. Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander. An assistant pig-farmer has to grow up and take responsibility.

85. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clark. Maybe the most realistic magical realism I’ve read.

86. The Perfect Nine - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. The founding stories of the Gikuyu people of Kenya presented by Kenya’s current preeminent novelist.

87. Legends of Vancouver - E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake). A series of tales told to Takahionwake by Squamish Chief Joe Capilano, about the history and legends surrounding my beloved city.

88. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut. The horror, absurdity and comedy of war, and aliens.

89. A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter Miller Jr. A post-apocalyptic monk finds ancient manuscripts, leading to the rediscovery of 20th century scientific knowledge, for good and for ill.

90. Lamb - Christopher Moore. A fictional, hilarious and raunchy take on the unreported childhood of Christ, from his friend Biff.

91. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway. It can be read in an afternoon, and is maybe the best thing I have read from Hemingway, which is saying something.

92. Friday Black - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The author draws from his own experience as a retail worker and a black man in America, with the extremes pushed into the fantastical.

93. This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Two opposing agents in a eons-spanning time war fall in love through secret letters.

94. Men in the Sun - Ghassan Kanafani. Three Palestinian men try to smuggle themselves across a border in a water truck.

95. The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker. Two immigrant communities in turn-of-the-century New York bring their traditions and legends to life in this historical magical realism.

96. Descent Into Hell - Charles Williams. A spiritual thriller and as terrifying a vision of hell as you’re likely to encounter.

97. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami. What we mostly get in the novel are a young man’s slowly maturing thoughts - his growing awareness that other people exist, and have feelings that he is capable of hurting.

98. Shikasta - Doris Lessing. An attempt to retell the entire story of creation, the fall, human history in all its depravity, and redemption, but as a science fiction epic.

99. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens. A gripping story of abandonment, loss, heartache and loneliness, but also survival, ingenuity, and guile.

100. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lawycka. A clever little book about a Ukrainian family in the UK, dealing with the history of the oppression of their people and the complicated state of affairs for immigrants and families in general.

For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:13

To plunge beneath the waves of God’s mercy is to join Jesus in what J.R.R. Tolkien called “The Long Defeat.” Tolkien believed that the greatest and truest stories involve people fighting what they know to be a losing battle. There can be no legitimate hope of victory through sheer force of arms, wit, strategy or any other reasonable means. Yet you carry on with faith, though you face defeat at every turn. This allows for what Tolkien described as the eucatastrophe, the opposite of catastrophe, the unlooked for hope and salvation. This help from the outside does not mean the actions of the characters are unimportant. Characters put themselves in the position to receive the eucatastrophe by remaining steadfast, courageous, and good.

Consider the following dialogue between Frodo and Gandalf, in the Mines of Moria, where hope seems dim. Frodo laments that his uncle Bilbo once showed mercy to the creature Gollum, who now tracks them:

Frodo: ‘It’s a pity Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance.’

Gandalf: ‘Pity? It’s pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.’

Frodo: ‘I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.’

Gandalf: ‘So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

Any who have read The Lord of the Rings or watched the movies will know that Gollum finally brings about the destruction of the evil Ring of Power when Frodo’s own strength of will fails. Tolkien wrote an epic story with mercy right at the heart, because he believed that mercy is right at the heart of the epic human story.

Judgment is real, as is the experience of the Long Defeat. Yet Tolkien, like the biblical author James before him, believed that mercy triumphs over judgement. Mercy is not without cost. There are times when we believe it would be better, and certainly quicker, to judge, to kill, to act without mercy. In business, relationships, culture and politics we are often told there is no place for mercy, that mercy isn’t realistic, effective, or even possible. We risk looking foolish, naive, unsafe, weak. But mercy puts us in the position to receive the eucatastrophe of Jesus, the help unlooked for but hoped for.

The resurrection is the greatest eucatastrophe in history, the most powerful and costly offer of mercy imaginable. The cross and the resurrection are the ultimate posture of generosity. Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” He is inviting us into his merciful heart, and into the triumph of mercy over judgment that rests at the heart of our Long Defeat.

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ALMSGIVING

¹⁶ We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

¹⁸ Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. - 1 John 3:16-18

This short passage beautifully sums up the foundation of Christian generosity (Jesus lays his life down for us), and the ethical behaviour that should flow out of that foundation (help a brother or sister who is in need, not just in words but in deeds). In the midst of it, John asks the piercing question: how can God’s love abide in our hearts if we close our hearts to our brothers and sisters?

Do you know a brother or sister who is in need right now? Do you have access to material resources? Can you help someone, not just in words but in deeds? Don’t overthink it, don’t imagine reasons not to do it. Offer help to a brother or sister in need today.

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PRAYER
Pray the Lord’s Prayer, considering each phrase as you pray it. Does anything jump out to you today from the prayer?

Think especially of the phrase “Deliver us from evil.” Jesus, by laying down his life, has shown us the meaning of love and mercy. How can we participate in that love and mercy today?