Kiva: A Non-Profit Designed to Change the World

Have you heard about Kiva? This is, we hope and trust, the way of the future. Kiva is a non-profit organization that helps network people in the Third World with those in the First World, offering loans on a person to person basis. It’s easy to get involved and you can loan as much or as little as you like. Kiva helps to facilitate the entrepreneurial spirit of people in the impoverished nations of Africa, South America and South East Asia. And check this: as of now, the loan re-payment rate is 100%.

Accountability is very much a part of the enterprise. Loans are given when a small business is well thought out and has already demonstrated some fruit. Believe it or not, the smallest of loans - we're talking as little as $100 can really help to forge a new future for these wonderful people. The loans given via Kiva are offered at a much lower interest rate than is available to people via banks and local money-lenders.

Wow- what a great idea! Empowering people to lift themselves, their families and their communities out of poverty. And all of this is facilitated via Internet connections rather than through international banks, miles of red tape and mountains of bureaucratic infrastructure. How does the system work? Well, according to the Kiva website:

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Talk about your win-win. Many people - my wife and I included - lend money, have it returned, and then send it off to someone else. Its perpetual justice. How sweet does that sound?

For more information check out Kiva.org.

Perspectives on the Emerging Church

Tony Jones (whose new book, the New Christians comes out in March) has recently blogged about the AAR panel discussion involving himself, Scot McKnight, and Diana Butler Bass. You can listen to the podcast of the event on the Emergent Village website. It’s definitely worth a listen.

What I found interesting was the degree to which there was some difference between the three speakers, both in terms of what they feel the emerging church is, and also what they perceive to be going on in various church traditions that fall under the umbrella of the EC.

One stark difference lay between Tony and Diana’s impression of mainline Christianity. While Tony sees stalwart commitment to a dying burocracy, Diana claims to see new vitality. Personally I think Diana is reaching a little bit- maybe a case of “I wish it were, I wish it were”? But, then again, I’m no expert on life within mainline circles.

There is one very interesting point in the discussion when the two (Tony and Diana) offer very different points regarding Marcus Borg’s theology. Tony quotes Marcus as saying that if he had to bet his life on it, he’d say the tomb of Jesus was NOT empty. Tony then goes on to say that this belief/perception is born out of the same modern mindset that leads a person like John Piper, on the very other end of the theological spectrum, to argue for hyper-reformed Calvinism.

Diana then takes Tony to task, suggesting that perhaps Tony failed to hear what Borg went on to say in the same event. Namely, that he (Borg) believes that Jesus still lives. So from Diana’s perspective, its really of no relevance that Borg sees the resurrection accounts as later church additions/editions, because the point is still that Jesus is not dead.

But this to me still misses the point. Or, perhaps I should say, still misses the point that Tony was trying to make. Borg might not be your typical, hyper-liberal theologian, but he still seems to operate with both feet firmly planted within the context of modernism. And the point is that such a perspective comes across as decidedly dated and irrelevant to a postmodern generation.

Speaking of dated and irrelevant, Scot McKnight had some very interesting things to say about his perception of the shift in concerns of the new generation of students, versus the students of yesteryear. Scot points out that, while boomers might have been interested in the pure historicity of various books of the Bible, the new generation is much more concerned with the moral questions that supersede that original discussion altogether (i.e. regardless of whether or not this is historical or not, it seems that this incident in the Bible involves rape, or abuse, or what have you). That’s a very interesting observation.

And this touches on what I think is the biggest misconception of the emerging church conversation. It is not primarily about offering different answers to old questions, it is about asking new questions in light of a new over-arching paradigm.

Strange Days: Living Between Paradigms

It’s an interesting time to be a western Christian. I say that because so many co-existing conceptions of various aspects of Christian faith are circling about now. Yes, to some extent that’s always been the case. Catholics and Protestants had different views at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Still, then there was much more similarity than might first be realized. After all, both groups were still formulating their understanding from within the same Christian worldview. Remember, Luther was trying to reform the Catholic Church, not deconstruct it and it's meta-perspective on the nature of reality.

Today, as we experience the shift from a dominant modern- to postmodern worldview, we’re seeing some incongruities that almost boggle the mind. In other words, not only are people formulating different answers, but, depending on which point on the modern/postmodern spectrum they are, they’re formulating different questions.

And that’s partly why you get so much heated debate right now. People can become incredulous when they see answers (and even questions) being put forward, that seem (within their conception of the Universe) to be blatantly false and "unfaithful". And that’s why we see so many accusations involving anti-christs, end-times false prophets, etc.

Notice that it is not usually the postmodernly-informed folks that are accusing emergents of being heretics, it’s the modernly-informed ones. And yes, this can be frustrating to those on the receiving end of the labeling. But we should remember that this is very much a sign of the times. And no, by that I don’t mean a sign of the “end times”. I mean a sign of a culture shifting between two dominant paradigms.

Speaking of these of inter-paradigm interactions, I recently dialogued with someone along these very lines. I thought I’d post it here for interest’s sake. Notice the frustration and animosity in this fellow’s points. It’s very clear that he thinks we emergents are denying what appears to him to be self-evident truth. Of course, this self-evidence is only so within his particular meta-narrative. But of course, even if he knew what the term meta-narrative meant (I’m not trying to be mean here, just accurate) I doubt he would acknowledge such a thing. Anyway, here is the interaction between me and a guy named Grant:

GRANT:

I think it’s funny that people say that the Bible isn’t true. John 17:17 “...thy Word is truth” and those very people live by it. So you guys who don’t believe that you can understand it, you’re basically living a lie. A conversation never changed anyone’s life, only the Gospel did. Romans 1:16

And Darren you need to read your Bible. There’s hundreds of references to hell in the Old Testament.  (**By the way, here Grant is making reference to a point I made earlier that the Christian concept of Hell was pretty much non-existent in the Ancient Jewish world.**)

You guys are saying that we need to understand each others views and all that jazz, and all that screams to me is ONE WORLD RELIGION, spoken of in Revelation. Also, in John 15:18-the world hated Jesus as Jesus said it would hate us, so if the whole world is happy with us “Christians”, something is wrong. And James 4:4 says that anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.


MY RESPONSE:


Oh boy,

Grant, there are so many misconceptions, modern assumptions, and examples of circular reasoning in your post that it’s hard to know where to begin. I certainly don’t want to embarrass you so I’ll just make a couple of points.

1.) Friend, the Bible was not written yesterday. That being the case, to understand it correctly, you have to read it in the context of the original hearers. Anachronistically applying 20th century ideas to concepts first introduced thousands of years ago is, well, foolish.

2.) When you read your Bible (in an English translation) and come across the word “Hell”, you have to understand that this translation is often a broad one- covering numerous terms/ideas. The Ancient Hebrew world’s concept of “the place of the dead” is NOT the equivalent to the Christian concept of Hell. It would be naive to assume anything otherwise.

3.) When you say the Bible is easy to understand, I’m afraid that all you’re doing is running in circles. You are taking your preconceived notions and reading them INTO every book and genre of Scripture. This is NOT evidence that the Bible is easy to understand, or that your understanding is correct. This is just evidence demonstrating how easy it is to perform subjective, hermeneutical gymnastics to “see what you want to see”. But, my friend, wishing just doesn’t make it so.

When you read such dialogue its not difficult to see how things can quickly spiral out of control. Dialogue is difficult when you're dealing with different conceptions of reality- not simply different conceptions of Christian faith.

These are strange days indeed.

The Pope on Hope: A New Encyclical Mirrors Themes of the EC Conversation

It’s an interesting experience being “post” or “neo” so many things. Coming from a decidedly evangelical (though now decidedly post-evangelical) perspective, I find – simultaneously – so many things I agree, and disagree with, in terms of evangelical conceptions of the Faith.

And this doesn’t only apply to my evangelical roots. I also have ties to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox conceptions of faith, church, and reality. Of course, journeying on the emerging continuum, I often find deficiencies (or shall we say- oversights?) in one Christian tradition, covered in another. In other words, the emerging journey is as much about rediscovery as it is about venturing into truly unknown territory.

So, that being said, its very common-sensical (at least according to my faith journey) to simultaneously touch upon events happening in a variety of Christian spheres- be that evangelical Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox. True enough, I don’t very often touch upon mainline perspectives, but that’s largely due to the fact that it’s not part of my own religious/spiritual history; though recent relationships with Presbyterian friends here in Central Oregon are beginning to change that!

People sometimes write in to Precipice expressing surprise (laced sometimes with delight, sometimes with disgust) that they can read one article about Eastern Orthodoxy, and then leap right into another about a figure such as Dallas Willard or Brian McLaren. I guess people often expect to have to go to different sources to get this kind of “coverage”. But again, for me, it’s just common-sensical. And not only because a variety of traditions have informed my own faith, but also because I am not beholden to any particular one. In other words, I have no vested interest in “proving the rightness” of the evangelical perspective over the Eastern Orthodox- or vice versa.

So, speaking of my ventures into various Christian camps, I was interested to hear that Pope Benedict’s new encyclical (the second of two he’s written as Pope), titled, Saved by Hope, has been published to fairly widespread praise. Interestingly enough, from the coverage I’ve read about this work, many of the subjects discussed could have come right out of an emergent cohort meeting.

Some of the topics touched upon by the Pope in Saved by Hope include: the over-confidence and insufficiency of the Enlightenment experiment, the overly narrow, individualistic focus of modern Christianity, and the dangers of marching scientific, technological progress without the aid of moral, ethical boundaries. I personally appreciated the way Pope Benedict seems to simultaneously take responsibility for horrors done in the name of religion, while accurately assessing the even more dangerous path of a world without a faith in God.

Pope Benedict writes that while Atheism may be the somewhat logical consequence of some people’s confrontation with evil and suffering, a world conceived apart from God “has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice”; ultimately, that “a world without God is a world without hope.” The Pope touches upon the creation of Atomic Bomb and the Marxist Revolution as examples of man’s attempt to move forward without the aid of God-consciousness.

Again, it is very interesting to me that so many of the issues addressed here, and thus understood as of paramount importance in the 21st century, are straight out of the emerging conversation- or vice versa. Such examples of congruence – even amongst such historically incongruent Christian groups – gives one hope that a new realization is dawning upon the faithful, all the world over. 

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