One thing that has surprised me is the way in which people will pigeonhole me based upon my appearance. The fact that I wear a beard and have dreadlocks (and often wear old ratty clothes) will cause some people to automatically stereotype me.
Now, granted, I expect to experience some of this stereotyping in society, and for many years I have chosen to embrace that. Knowing how superficial our society is, I have chosen to dress myself in ways that identify me with street-involved people. I think there is some benefit in doing this, although I must constantly ensure that my efforts to achieve solidarity with the street-involved extended will beyond such superficial or symbolic acts.
However, it does sadden me when I experience this stereotyping in Christian circles and, in particular, in Christian academic circles where things like one’s outward appearance are said to be adiaphora. So, for example, one of my profs (who is also a friend of mine) reminded me, after my recent chapel talk, that my image, and form of delivery, would make some people think that I was trying to be “Dan the Dreadlocked Prophet” out to stick it to the man… when in actuality, I’m just Dan the privileged Regent student trying to figure out how the hell we can live as Christians in today’s world. Thus, when I objected to my professor-friend and told him I would be sorely disappointed if those who were dedicated to Christian discipleship, not to mention academic ‘objectivity’, would be so superficial in their judgment of me, he simply responded that people do, in fact, judge and respond to people based on these things and that I needed to keep that in mind.
This then got me thinking about how we all say that outward appearances don’t matter — say the colour of one’s skin, the type of clothes one wears, one’s degree of cleanliness, one’s physical abilities or the lack thereof, and so on — and the chances are that we believe ourselves when we say this. However, the only way of knowing if we are faithful to our own beliefs is by being confronted by those who do look quite different than us, and reflecting upon how we respond.
For example, I would have never imagined that I was rascist — I grew up in a family that was ‘colour blind’ and had friends from various ethnic backgrounds. However, the dominant culture in which I lived and moved — both in my family, in my church, and with my street-involved friends — was white. Therefore, when I first began working with street-involved youth in Toronto, I came to the realisation that I naturally gravitated towards the white, gutter-punk kids, and was much more intimidated by, and distant from, the black gang-bangers or the hard-edged First Nations youth. I was afraid of them and, as I came to this realisation, I noticed that I was afraid of them for largely superficial reasons — like the colour of their skin or their different ways of presenting themselves. Thus, while I would verbally affirm that one’s appearance doesn’t matter, and while I genuinely believed that we are all equal, my fear betrayed the fact that I was actually unfaithful to my own beliefs. So, what did I do? I deliberately started spending more time with the kids who had intimidated me. In this way, I learned to get over my (irrational and racist) fears, and now I think I can say that I actually live in accordance with what I believe (at least in this regard).
Now, this takes me back to what I said in my chapel address about the importance of having some people like Ross (a homeless man) at a place like Regent (a graduate school). The presence of a Ross confronts us with somebody who is genuinely different than us… at least in his appearance. Therefore, a person like Ross forces us to see if we are, in fact, faithful to our own convictions. Unfortunately, a place like Regent — as it is currently structured — makes it altogether too easy for us to think we are faithful to a good many beliefs, without ever having to put those beliefs on the line and see if we can act them out.
Thus, we may say that we are concerned about the poor, but how do we actually react to the poor people whom we meet? Or, we may say that we do not judge by outward appearances but when we are walking down the street at night would our reaction to running into a group of preppie white kids differ from our reaction to a group of thugged out black kids? Or, we say that we have faith that God will take care of us, but have we ever deliberately put ourselves in a situation when we had nothing and nobody to fall back on except God? I’ve done that — put myself in a situation where I was forced to rely concretely and financially on God — and I quickly learned that my faith was almost non-existent! Like Peter seeing Jesus on the water, I had enough faith to get out of the boat, take a few steps… and then I began to drown. Would I have known that my faith was so small if I had never gotten out of the boat? No.
We only truly come to know ourselves, and we only truly discover what we in fact believe (and not just what we tell ourselves we believe) as we enter into relationships with others, and especially with others who are different than ourselves.  Just as we are not who we appear to be, we are also not who we think we are.  Who we are is contained in what we do.

[What follows is the transcript of the talk I gave today at the weekly chapel service held by my school.]

In the summer of 2004, when I first came to Regent, there was a homeless man named Ross who used to visit the college. Sometimes he would be sleeping on one of the couches. Other times he could be found asking people for change as they emerged from chapel services like this one.

The administration at Regent didn’t appear to be too fond of Ross. Several times I watched as he was kicked out and told not to come back again.

However, there were others of us at Regent who developed relationships with Ross – we got to know him and we were befriended by him. Ross was a gentle giant without a violent bone in his body. A fellow with a wonderful sense of mischief.

Thus, although the administration of Regent may have been relieved, a small group of us were thrown into mourning when, in July of 2005, Ross was struck and killed by a drunk driver.

After Ross died, Regent began implementing its recently completed building program. I watched as workers took the big old comfy couches out of the Atrium and replaced them with smaller, less inviting couches. Couches that wouldn’t tempt homeless fellows to sneak in for a nap. I don’t know if they did this deliberately, but deliberate or not, Regent has become a place that is less and less inviting for those on the margins who often frequent the grounds of UBC.

Thus, I would argue that the loss of Ross has left Regent with an open wound. The poor are no longer with us, and I can’t help but wonder if the absence of the poor signals an absence of the Spirit of the God who is found in and amongst the poor. Watching the homeless vanish from Regent, I am reminded of Ezekiel watching the Shekinah depart from the Temple. An equally symbolic event, signalling what happens when the people of God pursue trajectories that are counter to God’s desires. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this is, in fact, the case. I’m just wondering if it is.

Because, you see, Regent likes to brand itself as a sort of radical Christian institution. It has the reputation for being on the cutting-edge of living ‘missionally’ or ‘incarnationally’ (or whatever) in the world. Regent brands itself as an institution concerned with helping Christians to be agents of God’s new creation and, inevitably, this means that it has a reputation for being more concerned with issues related to love and justice than other academic institutions.

However, when I look at how Regent actually embodies its own rhetoric, I am fairly disappointed. What I seem to observe at Regent is a focus on justice that is about guilt-free consumption, and not any sort of justice that is driven by God’s call to solidarity with the abandoned and the marginalised.

Thus, for example, Regent spends millions of dollars building a wind tower so that we don’t feel guilty about the energy we consume. Or, to provide another example, Regent students hold miniature farmers’ markets in the Atrium so that we don’t feel guilty about the food we consume. Or, to provide a third example, we have an artist construct a tree out of paper cups and place it in the Atrium, so that we are reminded to recycle and don’t feel guilty about the ‘fairtrade’ coffee we consume. And so on and so forth. The point being that all of these things are things that brand Regent as a ‘radical’ institution with an emphasis upon justice issues.

However, to me this focus upon just-consumption seems like it is still a long way away from the sort of justice that Scripture tells us should define the people of God. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good start, but it is far from being ‘radical’ (if we even care to use that language) and it is a far cry from what the Lord requires.

Of course, that Regent should go this road isn’t too surprising as the Eco-justice and so-called ‘counter-cultural’ movements are increasingly trendy these days, and are especially popular in a city like Vancouver. Furthermore, for Evangelicals, who were often raised with an other-worldly and fragmented spirituality, a restoration of a focus upon creation, and the just care thereof, is important. I get that.

However, it is worth asking ourselves why Regent, and others in our culture, are so eager to jump onto the Eco-Justice bandwagon, while simultaneously neglecting other fundamental elements of justice which are focused upon the broken bodies, hearts, and minds of our abandoned neighbours – say the poor in the two-thirds world, or the HIV+ folk in the downtown eastside, or the binners just around the corner from us.

Personally, I suspect that Eco-Justice is so much more hip than other forms of justice because it requires little of us but offers us a lot in return. Thus, it costs me nothing to to throw my paper cup in a recycling bin instead of a garbage can, but the pay-off is that I can then feel righteous (i.e. just) about what I did. In fact, I can even feel superior to others by acting in this way – and what is true of individuals at Regent, is true of Regent as an institution. Pursuing Eco-Justice is a relatively easy thing to do, but it pays off big in the boost that it gives to Regent’s brand status.

Speaking of Regent’s brand status, it is worth exploring another strategic marketing claim that Regent makes. Regent advertises itself as an ‘international’ school – hence, it’s obessession with flying flags at various events throughout the year. However, when you actually examine the demographics of Regent’s students, staff, and faculty, you quickly learn that Regent is, in fact, a ‘Western’ school. Therefore, given that the vast majority (70%) of Christians today live in the two-thirds world, and given that the vast majority of Christians at Regent are from the West, we must ask ourselves: is this just? Further, is it just for Regent to make the claim that is is serving the international body of Christ?

Unfortunately, a wholistic approach to justice isn’t nearly so easy as all of the acts of self-branding described above. Now, let me be clear, of what we are speaking about here. Fundamentally, the Christian approach to justice is about restoring right relationships – between people and God, between people and people, and between people and things – within the reign of God. However, lest we lose perspective, the Scriptures are adament that our approach to these things must be one that prioritises the disempowered, the marginalised, the abandoned and the oppressed. Hence, the Deuteronomic focus upon widows, orphans, and resident aliens; hence, the protest of the prophets against those who grind the faces of the poor; hence, Jesus’ liberating practice of exorcism and healing which restored people into right relationships within their communities; hence, Paul’s own movement into marginality based upon the vision of Christ in Phil 2, and the centrality he gives to an international collection on behalf of the poor in Jerusalem; hence James’ definition of true religion; hence, John’s condemnation of an empire that feeds off of the blood of weaker nations (much like Canada, the United States, and the other Western nations so well represented at Regent). Do you get my point? What I am speaking about today is not simply my personal soapbox; rather, it is a call that runs through the entire biblical narrative – a call to all members of the people of God.

And this is hard work. Trying to move into solidarity with the marginalised and the abandoned, as agents of God’s new creation, is a very difficult and costly thing to do. So, for the most part, we don’t do it. Instead, we at Regent employ the rhetoric of justice and radicality, even as we continue to live the lives of privileged students and tenured professors. In this way, our ideology blinds us to the fact that, for the most part, we as individuals and as an institution, are just as apathetic, and just as complicit in the structures of sin and oppression, as everybody else. In this way, the rhetoric of justice is perverted and placed in the service of the unjust status quo – which, by the way, is ruled over by the joint Powers of Sin and Death.

Of course, as those who proclaim the Lordship of Jesus, this should trouble us a great deal. We are, after all, those who are called out from the service of Sin and Death, and called into the kingdom of God with its concomitant practices of love justice, hospitality, generosity, and the downward mobility which defines the Way of Jesus Christ.

What, then, are we at Regent to do?

I reckon we could begin by repenting – both in word and in deed – because the kingdom of God is at hand, and has been at hand for quite some time.

I reckon, as a part of our repentance we could begin to focus less on our brand status, and more on what it means to actually live as members of the global body of Christ.

I reckon, as a part of our repentance, we also could re-evaluate our values, and re-examine the deployment of our resources. Does it make sense to spend millions on building expansions while charging students $1200 per course? Doesn’t this limit the student body to a wealthy minority of Christians or, alternatively, drive a good many students into debt? Is encouraging our student body to participate in societal cycles of debt and bondage consistent with the notion of equipping Christians to live as members of God’s new creation?

I reckon, as a part of our repentence, we could also begin a series of conversations at Regent – conversations between students, staff, faculty, board members, and donors – that explore these things and ask the questions: “How do we live Christianly as an academic institution in today’s world?” and “What does genuine Christian education look like?”

Or we could walk away from this chapel – as individuals and as an institution – and not do anything. It’s up to us. This service is simply issuing an invitation to conversion. It is up to all of us to choose what we will do with that invitation. Will we continue to take our place amongst the wealthy and privileged members of wealthy and privileged societies, or will we choose to root ourselves in the communion of the Saints – that great cloud of witnesses who have abandoned all things in order to faithfully follow Jesus into the groaning places of the world?

The fact of the matter is this: if we walk away from this chapel feeling as though we, or Regent, are committed to justice, simply because we attended a chapel Regent hosted on the theme of justice, then today will have done more harm than good. Such a response would reduce this chapel to a pornographic event wherein stimulation takes the place of genuine participation in real, and loving, action. Let us not confuse talking about justice with the actions and type of being that the God of justice requires.

Furthermore, this chapel could be interpreted as a presentation composed by special interest groups at Regent, suggesting that ‘social justice’ is something that the rest of us are free to walk away from. This is not the case, and such a response would reduce this chapel to a voyeuristic event, wherein observation takes the place of genuine participation in real, and loving, action.

The truth is that we are all called to partake in the work of God’s restorative justice within the world. That each new generation of Christians needs to (re)learn this lesson, simply shows how deeply immersed we are in structures of sin and selfishness. Thankfully, it also shows that God’s gracious and liberating invitation to us is new every morning. Therefore, it is better to think of today as a time when seed has been scattered. Some has probably fallen on stony soil; some has probably fallen on amongst thorns; but I hope that some has fallen into the soil that produces fruit.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us, sinners. Amen.

Well, I have three or four speaking engagements scheduled in the near future, and so the organisers of these events have been getting in touch with me and asking for information they can use when they introduce me.  I’ve always struggled with this, and so, after careful consideration, this was the last self-description I emailed to an organiser:
Dan O. is smarter than you, better in bed than you, more socially active than you, and he is not afraid to kiss your woman and kick your ass.
Of course, I’m just having a laugh (although I’m not sure if the person I emailed this to will find it funny…), but is this really all that different than what is said when we are introduced at these kinds of events?  Don’t we just find more socially acceptable ways to talk about how awesome we are?  In particular, aren’t we expected to describe ourselves as ‘experts’ or as somehow superior to the people who will be attending the event?  (The assumption being that people wouldn’t bother listening to somebody who is a non-expert, or to somebody whom they perceive of as inferior.)
Of course, the point of an introduction is twofold.  An introduction is intended to (1) give the audience some insight into who the speaker actually is; and (2) explain how the speaker is connected to the topic at hand.
However, the problem with this is that the more connected the speaker is to the topic, the less connected the speaker becomes with the audience.  I am not saying that this makes the speaker less exciting, but I am saying that it makes it less likely that what the speaker says will have a significant impact beyond the event itself.
Thus, for example, when I am asked to speak at an event, it is usually somehow related to some combination of biblical theology and community activism or social justice concerns, or whatever you want to call it.  However, should I be introduced with a list of things I’ve done related to these things (thereby establishing my connection with the topic), then a divide will have been created between me and those in attendance.  Consequently, the foundation is laid for people to respond to my talk by saying, “Wow, that’s really interesting!” while simultaneously failing to connect the talk to their own daily practices — because, you know, the introduction makes me look like I’m some sort of ‘radical’, while the rest of them are just average Christians trying to make the best of it… or something like that.
So, my increasing concern with introductions is not how to establish my connection with the topic, nor is it with defending my expertise.  Increasingly, I want to be introduced in ways that connect me, personally, with the people with whom I am speaking.  Then maybe people will be enabled to start making the connections between the topic at hand and their own daily lives.
Any thoughts on this?

So, I think I’ve finally settled on a working title for my thesis:
“Apocalyptic Eschatology and the Subversion of Empires: Reading Paul in New Creation Communities”.
Damn, that sounds good to me!  Who wouldn’t want to read something with that title?

In response to my last post, the urbanmonk asked me how I reconcile the problem of suffering (with my faith in the Christian God).  The fact of the matter is that I don’t.  I can’t.  The presence of suffering and evil in the world is utterly baffling to me.  I cannot make any sense of it, nor can I find any satisfactory explanation of it.  All I can do is resist it.  Perhaps being unable to explain it away is part of that resistance.
Naturally, the subsequent question is why, then, I persist in believing in the Christian God.  The simply, albeit unsatisfying (at least for others), answer to this question is that I believe in God because God has come out to meet me.  I believe that I have been met by God in Jesus Christ, so it is impossible for me not to have faith in this God.  Apologists and intellectuals may be uncomfortable with such and experiential response but, as far as I am concerned, such an experience is the sole foundation for persistent faith in God.  Apart from being met by God, it makes no sense to believe in God.  Indeed, even after one has been met by God it may still make no sense to believe in God… but it is impossible not to believe in God after such an event.

(Developing my recent post on the parousia and divine crucifomity.)
(1) If, in the beginning, the character of God compels God to allow the existence of evil (i.e. out of respect for the free agency of his creation, or whatever), then this implies that, in the end, God is compelled by God’s character to allow evil to persist (i.e. God cannot put a forceful end to evil, since God couldn’t forcefully prevent evil in the first place).
(2) If, however, the character of God does not compel God to allow the existence of evil, if God simply chooses to allow evil to come into being, then God could forcefully overthrow evil in the end.  However, this alternative is equally problematic because it means God could have chosen to prevent evil in the beginning but chose not to.
(3) The final(?) alternative is that evil is somehow an eternal force or being that has existed alongside of God, and exists apart from what God chooses or what God is compelled to allow based upon God’s character.  Naturally, from a Christian perspective which affirms God’s uniqueness and sovereignty, this is even more problematical than the first two positions I’ve outlined.
Thus, we are left with three equally troubling options: either God’s character prevents him from stopping evil (and so evil will endure ad infinitum) or God simply chooses to allow evil (thereby making God appear to be fairly evil) or God and evil are like competing deities (thereby leading to an Eastern sort of philosophy or polytheism).
Consequently, I continue to think that the problem of evil (and suffering) is the great challenge to faith.  I have not yet read any satisfactory response to this challenge.

Awhile ago, Roger Mugs started a ‘Big Sin Meme‘, asking bloggers: ‘If you were to be taken out by one sin (or a couple, whatever) what would it be?’
Not surprisingly, the big three (money, sex, power) showed up frequently in the responses of various bloggers. However, as I’ve thought about this question on-and-off for the last few weeks, I think those answers are a bit of a cop-out.
I mean, sure, most anybody has the potential to be taken out by any combination of these three things, but I’m more interested in asking what sin is there in my life that is already acting as an obstacle and has the potential to do future damage? Thus, rather than positing some hypothetical scenario that may or may not occur in the future, I’m more interested in asking myself, ‘What is the big sin in my life that is already ‘taking me out’?’
The answer? I am convinced that my desire for recognition from others is the ‘big sin’ in my life that does take me out, and has the potential to totally do me in, in the future. That is to say, it is the search for (increased) status that I think could be very devastating in my own life.
Now, I don’t think that I’m alone in my struggle with this sin. In fact, in a world dominated by capitalism, in what Guy Debord refers to the ‘Society of the Spectacle’, the ubiquity and force of brands, and the process of branding, tends to reduce us to self-disciplining, self-branding individuals. Hence, each one of us is driven to advance our own personal brand status. There are many seemingly contradictory ways of pursuing this — increasing my own brand status as a competent businessperson, increasingly my own brand status as a committed clergy member, increasingly my own brand status as a radical Christian — but the contradictions between these paths are often more apparent than actual. In one way or another, we become enmeshed in the pursuit of status and the marketing of Me™.
Now, there are a few things that make this search for status especially insidious. First of all, is the observation that branding is primarily about image. We advance our own brands not by being a certain way, or by doing certain things but, first and foremost, by appearing in certain ways. Hence, I affirm Debord’s observation that in the Society of the Spectacle — wherein social relationships between people are mediated by images — social being has devolved from being (pre-capitalism), through having (early capitalism), to appearing (contemporary or ‘late’ capitalism). This means that we are all inclined to desire to appear to be a certain way, and are not accustomed to thinking about whether or not who we actually are aligns with this appearance — or, rather, we are used to thinking that we are who we appear to be, when this is usually not the case. (This, by the way, is why Žižek can refer to ‘culture’ as ‘the name for all those things we practice without really believing in them, without “taking them seriously.”‘  This then, Žižek argues, is why we treat fundamentalists as a barbaric threat to our culture — ‘they dare to take their beliefs seriously’.)
Thus, I can’t help but ask myself: am I truly living as a person committed to the Way of Jesus Christ, or am I simply manifesting a simulacrum thereof (NB: the notion of simulacra is how Jean Baudrillard develops Debord’s reflections on the Spectacle)? The simulacrum part comes fairly easily — it’s low-cost and carries a high pay-off. Let me give a few examples:

1. I work with street-involved youth and have spent quite a bit of time with sex workers. This gains me a lot of ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars. But, really, it’s a job, and I get paid to do it. It’s a far cry from solidarity with the marginalised or that sort of thing.
2. I spent a couple of years living in the poorest urban neighbourhood in Canada (Oooo! Ahhh!) in an ‘intentional community’. However, I found it very easy to live in that neighbourhood but not really engage the community or become known by our neighbours. Again, I gain a lot of ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars, but the cost, for me, is quite low — a far cry from the costly discipleship we are called to in Christ.
3. I have a blog (with a picture of one of the alleys in Vancouver’s downtown eastside!) which I use to talk about issues of justice, solidarity, cruciformity and so on. This also gains me ‘Christian radical’ respect dollars, but it costs me pretty much nothing. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about things like solidarity, but that talk is a far cry from actually practising solidarity.

So, I don’t know if the search for (brand) status will take me out in the future, but it’s already doing a number on me now!
Secondly, this search for status is insidious because it necessarily produces hypocrisy. Here it is important to precisely define what the bible means when it speaks of ‘hypocrisy’. In particular, the bible doesn’t usually mean what we think it means — people who just play a role and ‘fake’ being good or whatever. Rather, according the the bible, ‘hypocrisy’ describes ‘a person whose conduct is not determined by God and is thus ‘godless.” (I’m indebted to Joel B. Green’s commentary on Luke for this understanding). Hence, hypocrites are not ‘play-actors’ but those who are ‘misdirected in their fundamental understanding of God’s purpose and, therefore, incapable of discerning the authentic meaning of Scripture and, therefore, unable to present anything other than the impression of piety’ (Green again).
Therefore, when we act out of the desire to advance our own brand status, we are acting as hypocrites because our focus is on ourselves, not upon God’s purposes (even if we talk a lot about those). We are acting as godless people and all of our (highly praised!) actions are simply impressions of piety — simulacra of piety.
Again, applying this to myself and to the whole notion of ‘Christian radicals’, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus’ criticisms of the Pharisees are more directly aimed at me, and others in this bracket, and not at the figureheads of the type of Christianity that dominated modernity (I reckon Jesus’ words to the Sadducees are more convicting for that lot!).
Thirdly, this search for status is insidious because it is self-destructive. This is true across the board but is, perhaps, most easily observed in the search for respect one finds in street-culture. ‘Respect’ (i.e. status) is one of the dominant themes in street-culture. Thus, for example, people are willing to beat, torture, and kill others, if they feel disrespected — even in very small ways (say you look at a person wrong, you make the wrong joke at the wrong time, etc.). Yet this desire for respect then develops into a downward spiral, as Philippe Bourgois notes in In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio: ‘although street culture emerges from a personal search for dignity and a rejection of racism and subjugation, it ultimately becomes an active agent in personal degradation and community ruin’. The same is true of other more acceptable or middle-class efforts to attain respect and status.
Thus, to once again apply this to myself, by simply posing as a person who loves others in ‘radical’ ways, I am in fact doing no good and thereby contribute to the ongoing oppression of the poor and the maintenance of the status quo wherein all of us are dehumanised.
In conclusion, I find it particularly interesting that the New Testament voices, especially the voices of Jesus and Paul, are united in an unrelenting campaign against social ways of being that are driven by the notion of status. It is interesting how, in the world of contemporary capitalism (wherein social relationships are mediated by the process of branding) we find ourselves in a situation that has some amazing parallels to the Graeco-Roman world in the first-century CE. Both of these cultures were and are dominated by the desire for status, and both of these cultures were and are confronted with a Gospel that overthrows this desire and replaces it with a call to show unconditional hospitality, serve all people, and (tangibly) love even our enemies. Rather than being motivated by notions of status, we are called to disregard such issues and humiliate ourselves in the service of others.