Free for All (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Tim Conder

Description

Is our study of the Bible as pure as we think it is? In Free for All, Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes show how the way we read the Bible is held captive by the dominant culture in which we find ourselves. They aim to expose the cultural authorities that influence our understanding of the Bible and provide a way for communities to encounter the text as communities. This journey into community interpretation of the Bible not only honors the text and liberates its voice, but also catalyzes transformative practices of proclamation, hospitality, ethics, mission, and imagination.Church leaders, pastors, small group leaders, and those interested in the emerging church conversation will find Free for All an energizing resource to infuse their study of God's Word with new life.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 août 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441204523
• Langue: English

Extrait

This is as clear and thought provoking a statement as I have seen yet of a theology of Scripture for emergence Christianity. Conversational in tone, these pages are filled with the practical implications of the possibilities and ideas being presented. As cofounders of Emmaus Way, Conder and Rhodes speak with the authority of lived experience as well as out of their own deep faith.
Phyllis Tickle , author, The Great Emergence
The Bible is the product of the believing community, and it is meant to be read in community. Solitary reading of Scripture has gotten us into all manner of difficulties. Now Tim Conder and Dan Rhodes discover the fruitfulness of reading the Bible together. This book is a wonderful exercise in biblical hermeneutics by two of the best representatives of a younger generation of pastor-scholars. Weaving in popular culture, well-informed Christian theological insight, and excitement for the Bible as uniquely revelatory, Conder and Rhodes lead us into a fresh new encounter with Scripture-the church s book-speaking anew to the church for the salvation of the world.
Will Willimon , bishop, the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church; author, Conversations with Barth on Preaching
With profound pastoral care, sensitivity, and wisdom, Conder and Rhodes disclose a communal hermeneutic that arises out of the real-life struggles of reading Scripture in the midst of the Emmaus Way community. In this rich and suggestive book, we are called beyond the culture of ideological, political, and spiritual fear, and beyond a homogenizing and dogmatically absolutistic biblical interpretation into the liberated imagination of the counterstory of Jesus. There is, in this book, good news for those of us who are passionate about Scripture, deeply committed to community, and longing to experience the power of both with candor and openness in the midst of our pain, confusions, and disappointments. Never falling to the temptation of writing a how-to book, Conder and Rhodes simply bear witness to their experience of creative reading and living of Scripture in a particular communal context. And they do so with generosity and grace.
Brian J. Walsh , coauthor, Colossians Remixed and Beyond Homelessness
It s not easy to make the familiar odd, but Conder and Rhodes accomplish that feat by helping us recover what it means to read Scripture in communion. This is not another book that recommends a communal interpretation of Scripture, but it is a book that exhibits such readings by close analysis of texts. This book will be widely read in congregations and classrooms.
Stanley Hauerwas , Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School
This is an excellent guide to recovering the place of the Bible in the life of Christian communities. In a lively and informative way, it reminds us that biblical interpretation is not the province of a few who tell the rest of us what the Bible means, but it is instead a profoundly interactive communal activity that involves everyone. Following the wisdom found in these pages can help unleash the transforming power of the Bible in the church and in the lives of those who read it.
John R. Franke , Clemens Professor of Missional Theology, Biblical Seminary
Free for All
mersion
Emergent Village resources for communities of faith
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones (April 2007)
Organic Community Joseph R. Myers (May 2007)
Signs of Emergence Kester Brewin (July 2007)
Justice in the Burbs Will and Lisa Samson (August 2007)
Intuitive Leadership Tim Keel (October 2007)
The Great Emergence Phyllis Tickle (October 2008)
Make Poverty Personal Ash Barker (February 2009)
The Justice Project edited by Brian McLaren, Elisa Padilla, and Ashley Bunting Seeber (September 2009)
Thy Kingdom Connected Dwight J. Friesen (November 2009)
Formational Children s Ministry Ivy Beckwith (January 2010)
www.emersionbooks.com
Free for All
Rediscovering the Bible in Community
Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes
2009 by Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conder, Tim. Free for all : rediscovering the Bible in community / Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8010-7147-8 (pbk.)
1. Bible-Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible-Study and teaching. 3. Bible- Hermeneutics. 4. Small groups. 5. Church group work. I. Rhodes, Daniel, 1976- II. Title.
BS511.3.C654 2009 220.071-dc22 2009012942
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NEB is taken from The New English Bible . Copyright 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture marked NRSV is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked TNIV is taken from the Holy Bible, Today s New International Version Copyright 2001 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Emergent Village resources for communities of faith
mersion is a partnership between Baker Books and Emergent Village, a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The emersion line is intended for professional and lay leaders like you who are meeting the challenges of a changing culture with vision and hope for the future. These books will encourage you and your community to live into God s kingdom here and now.
Free for All is the perfect book for this endeavor. The emersion line of books is all about conversation between people, between faith traditions, and, as this book shows, between our communities of faith and the Bible. Free for All will certainly make us think-and think all the better-about the role of the Bible in our faith and the role of our traditions in the reading of it.
This book will introduce a conversation about the Bible that is new for some, and for others will bring to the forefront a long-awaited conversation. And all of us will find our communities of faith strengthened, invigorated, and deepened by the call to develop a communal understanding of the Bible.
mersion
This book is dedicated to the Emmaus Way community-a fellowship of faithful friends who have inspired and compelled us to continually read the text of God s revelation with mystery and confidence, penitence and peace, lament and laughter, and an unquenchable hope in the completion of God s grace and redemption.
Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Embracing the Text
1. Boundaries and Biases: The Lenses of Interpretation
2. Recovering the Word in the Bible: A Living Word
3. Let the Chaos Begin: The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood
Part 2: Turning to the Text
4. An Interpreting Community
5. The Word in the Obscure-Genesis 34: The Rape of Dinah
6. The Word in Pain and Joy-Psalm 22: The Cry of Dereliction and a Song of Deliverance
7. The Word in the Familiar- The Gossman Passion : An Artistic Engagement
8. The Word in Controversy-Romans 1: Asking and Telling in the Church
Part 3: The Intersection of Text and Community
9. Proclamation: The Liberation of Our Voices
10. Ethics: Practicing New Creation
11. Hospitality: Setting a Subversive Table
12. Mission: From Defense to Offense
13. Imagination: Exploding the Bounded Set of Our Minds
Notes
Introduction
Free-for-all is a description that we often reserve for the likes of hockey fights, wrestling on TV, fraternity boys around a tapped keg, the hungry (and impolite!) around a full table, or an argument without boundaries. What good can come of it? One might secretly enjoy a bloody cage match on TV, but this is a guilty pleasure rarely admitted in polite or sophisticated society. Such melees are to be meticulously and persistently avoided rather than recommended. But this is a book that recommends, in a way, a melee that many faithful persons strive to avoid or even impede. One can understandably be fascinated by the destructive aftermath of a great storm, but this admiration surely exists without wishing for the storm to occur. This is a book that openly solicits the approach of a storm.
Naturally our fears of chaos should be exponentially compounded when applied to the Bible. For many of our readers, and certainly for us, the Bible is revelation from God and a trustworthy guide to a life in the way of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It seems only appropriate to respond to this record of God s gracious speech with great respect, diligent study, and prayerful contemplation. The Bible-by virtue of its sacred content, its long history of interpretation by the church, and the development of sophisticated theological systems-should certainly be above and safe from chaotic meddling and unrestrained interpretation by the masses! Shouldn t the Scriptures be the sacred domain of scholars and well-trained pastors with the faithful operating within the boundaries well marked by these experts?
Despite this apparent wisdom, we passionately beckon the storm that comes with placing the Bible in the hands of the great and diverse community of those seeking the good news of Christ and those faithfu