हाउ दो च्रिस्तिंस गेट अलोंग विथ ओथेर रेलिगिओंस?

As a follower of Jesus Christ I am compelled to treat others with dignity and respect. Mother Theresa of Calcutta,Francis of Assisi, and my grandpa Rev. Floyd White were just a few followers of Jesus Christ who were willing to go great extent to demonstrate the love of God in real time to those with whom they had nothing in common except their humanity. Mother Theresa said, Peace begins when we come to understand that we all belong to one another. I think the sermon on the mount lived out is the only peace that will work in the complexities of our modern age. The challenge for me is to become the person I believe. To allow God to lift me to a higher plane and love as Jesus has loved me. With grace, and patience. Through the power of his spirit. What an exciting life to live

व्हो गेट्स तो तेल उस वहत तो थिंक?

Issaiah Berlin began his book on Romanticism by asking a central question to all humanity. Who gets to tell us what to think? He goes on to discuss more pointedly who gets to tell us what to do. The issue of authority must be the beginning of any discussion in which different religions and philosphies begin to treat one another with respect and dignity.

Meta recession

Everyone has an idea on the current recession. President Reagan defined a recession as a time when your neighbor loses their job and a depression is a time when you lose yours. He followed by saying that a slow recovery is a time when President Carter is in office. That joke is funny for republicans and repugnant for fans of Jimmy Carter. But it demostrates that political oppinion plays a large role in economic theory. Marxist theory believes that a recession is a breakdown of capitalism. Socialist theory might say that a recession is crying out for government guidelines and directions. Convervative theory might argue that this is a necessary trimming of the fat from our captialistic system. I am surprised that with the stimulus plan neither John McCain or Barak Obama were very articulate in their description of what was going on. I expected better articulation of microeconomic theory but it was an election and a time for sound bites. George Will blames the recession on the american people and their debt. But that is a bunch of bull. Partially true and very sticky when you step in it but still bull. Don't forget unethical corporate banks, unrestricted stock market in which the value of companies were not tied to any sensible value of the company. A stock market that looked more like Las Vegas than ethical capitalism. Meta economics looks at the economy with a greater degree of abstraction than any entrenched theory. It is a search for truth. It forces one to applaud president Obama and yet be critical of bills with attached special interest spending. What is it going to take to eliminate pork barrel spending and a government that can spend money it doesn't have while preaching to a people to spend their way out of recession and yet ballance their own personal budgets. I call that bull. And yet I recognize that we need to get behind our president and make a plan work. But that is not going to help my friends who are unemployed pay their mortgage. I am going to have to have homeless live at my house. Share my hotwater. Give money to friends to make payments rather than take personal vacations. And think with faith how we can create business opportunities for those who need to learn a new career and compete in the world market. I do not shrink from this challenge. I am a dad, a pastor, a brother, a son, a neighbor and a friend. I am alive and I have work to do. I welcome the challenge to thoughtfully -honestly face this challenge with remorse for no particular theory but my BS detectors on full power because there is not time to waste in the present challenge.

There is no God but Allah and other conversations

The other day, I received an email from one of my muslim friends that was intended with all sincerity and I took it that way. He said, Pastor Tim, I there is something that you must know and that is there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet! In this statement he cut the core of his beliefs and the fact that he communicated it - I took it as a compliment to our growing friendship. At about the same time I received an email from another muslim friend who asked me to do something about a doctor in Pakistan who has disapeared and she believed that this doctor was kidnapped by our armed forces. She went on to say that she respected me but I must know that George Bush caused the Twin towers to fall not terrorists. She believed that everyone in the world knew this to be true. I replied to both of my friends thanking them for stating their beliefs but then giving them the same privilege of knowing where I disagreed with them. I tried to point out areas where we agreed. Other areas that I have enormous respect for their faith (Just as they had expressed to me). I share these two conversations, there are many more that I could have shared because I believe that it is so important that we begin to communicate and build friendships with people for whom we disagree. Communication is not enough. War is communication at the lowest level. Clear statement or persuasive argument is not enough because there is no where to go when our beliefs differ so greatly. No there must be friendships and respect that run deeper even than our differing ideas. I do this because I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe that he died for everyone including muslims. So I must respect everyone and treat them with the same kind of love that he has for them. Not a love that enables injustice or covers up hard truths but a love that builds friendships where hard truths can be shared and injustice uncovered. They treat me with respect because Mohammed respected Jesus Christ. Yes, I am reading a biography (which my muslim friends recomended to me and while their view of Jesus is different from mine they respect him. Let us look to our leaders - to our highest ideals and do the work that they began.

Pacific Northwest - the none zone

I had the privilege of interviewing Patricia O'ConnelKillen who is professore of religion at Pacific Lutheran University and is acting provost. She is the author of Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest / The None Zone. This religious demographic study was published in cooperation with Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. I found Dr. Killen very knowledgeable about the history of religious life in the Northwest with some insightful ideas about the future of the church in the Northwest. Our conversation included Postmodernity, enviornmentalism, 21st century church direction in relation to hostile local government and the meta church. She suggested that she would be coming to visit washington Cathedral sometime this summer to study it more closely and she also asked me to talk with Dr. James K. Wellman Jr. who is the chairman of the department of religion at the University of Washington. Dr. Wellman has written The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto and th esoon to be published liberals verses evangelicals. I did spend an hour interviewing Dr. Wellman and found that time equally insightful into the mindset of those who are critical of church growth for church growth sake. He also seemed intrigued by the concept of Washington Cathedral and a counter enlightenment conversation. My demographic study of the area included not only of all the religious demographic studies that I could get my hands on but interviews with Dr. Rob Wall of Seattle Pacific University, Dr. Samuel McKinny of Mount Zion Baptist Church, King County chief executive Ron Simms, Redmond Mayor Marchione, past redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives, Pastor Casey Treat, Pastor Joe Fuiten, Pastor Fulton Buntain, Dr. Tom Sine, Psychiatrist Dr. Ray Vath, Pastor Mark Driscol, and I have several more to go. The single largest group in the Pacific Northwest is those people who do not identify with any religion. This is why the name the none zone. It has ramifications in the way the city and county create zoning laws for churches and faith institutions. I have written about their reasons and find them quite sincere and a compelling call for the church to serve people the way that Jesus would. I asked Ron Simms (who is a pastors kid raised in Eastern Washington like myself) what he would like to tell all pastors of mega churches. He said, "find Jesus!"
It is interesting that in the history of the United States there has never been a section of our country that has a higher percentage of people unaffiliated with any religion than presently in the Pacific Northwest. Even the native Americans has a religion. I have a lot to say about this but I guess you are going to have to read my book. I have a great title but I have not copywritten it yet so just keep following this blog for the exciting develpment of meta religion and the meta church.

pastor Tim White (wacathedral.org)

Metachurch 2008

I am writing my dissertation on the metachurch. It is for Fuller Theological Seminary but the project has been a life long project for me. We describe Washington Cathedral in the Puget Sound Area as a meta church. Meta is the greek preposition for similar but not the same. It is a very common term used in the New Testament. The classic verse is in Luke when the angel asked the woman why do you look for the living among (meta) the dead. It is also used as a prefix in important words such as metanoia. But even sophocles used it as a preposition when he said, why do you look for the living among (meta) the dead. Sounds familiar. Today, meta is a very popular term in meta analysis, meta physics, meta data, meta programing, etc. It is outside the box thinking. It is an abstraction as Simolian pointed out in his article Anything you can do I can do meta. He envisioned a meta programer which would revolutionize computer programing. As most people know every computer program is built upon old programs. MS Dos still exists in windows or windows xp etc. Each program is a greater abstraction using all that they can in the previous foundational programing language. Since, innovation in high tech industry is absolutely necessary for survival than no organizaiton can afford to remain heirarchical styfling the creativity and gifts of each of its innovative teams. Simolian dreamed of a meta programer which would direct this process so that it would not spend so much energy with instituional entropy or useless energy. The mtea programer would be so abstract and see the big picture that he would allow the teams to work towards a common higher goal while minimizing conflict and maximizing innovation and effeciency.
We chose the word meta because it is biblical. It represents the kind of spirit led church which avoids the chains of institutionalism and allows for constant innovation to incarnate the gospel of the kingdom of God. We choose not to think of our church as post modern because this is a divisive term on almost every issue modernist verses post modnernist. And it is heavily dependent on the inspiration of the phenomenologists. We think of ourselves as more counter enlightenment in the tradition of Isaiah Berlin and Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt school. Not because we agree with all their philosphies but we agree that the enlightenment needs a second look. Not to be thrown off but to be understood with a new humility that utopianism and absolutism are dangerous. Not because everyting is relative we believe there is an absolute truth that can be proven by the scientific method we just don't think anyone has that theory completely deveoloped except God. Or as Stephen Hawkings refers to the Theory of Everything. So we approach our beliefs with humility fearing hubris because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutly. We do this as followers of Jesus Christ because he taught us humility. Because of this humility we treat others with dignity and believe that conversation with them is very - very important. In this age of polarization if the church cannot be a place of conversation than where can people who disagree find friendshp, love, forgiveness and respect? At Washington Cathedral meta church means collaborative methodology, teamwork management, diversity, servanthood, non manipulative christianity. We don't believe that we can convert anyone . This is our salvific theology. Only God can help someone to become a follower of christ. We don't want people to conform or surrender their authenticity. Only God can convert. In our own lives none of us were converted by a great sermon, an emotional song or because we were argued into the kingdom of God. We became followers of Jesus Christ because we experienced a miracle (an equation which did not work without God in the formula). If we accept that we cannot convert others than our job is to love them as mother Theresa said, because we see the face of Jesus in each person we serve. We love because he first loved us. These are some of my random ideas about the meta church. It is not a small church group although its basic element is a collection of Tiny Little Church. It is nto an organization in fact we believe that no one knows the limits of the bride of Christ except Christ. Statisitcs may be a snap shot but are really a pretty poor description. No one can control the real family of God except God therefore all the control freaks that love to take over organizations and battle out their neurotic ambitions are very frustrated in a meta church. Humility must lead the way if we have any authenticity at all. Since no one reads my blog I will tell you a secret. Washington Cathedral is building a 20 million dollar recreation center with an office for me that sings of hubris. I am not going to move in. I am going to find a more humble office not because I am humble but because I am hubris scares the hell out of me. And i can feel it course through my veins when I stand in that office. I think of myself as a pastor of maintenence. I started in ministry as a janitor that is where I want to stay. So with much opposition I am appointing a lead pastor, a cathedral cannon, a chief operating officer so I can go on being myself and I can remember and remind others that none of us owns the church. That is an organism not an organizaiton.

Christmas and other religions

Yesterday, a friend of a muslim told me this story about Christmas. This devout muslim said, that they respected Christmas more than many Christians. They told a story, that they were at a office Christmas party and people were openly disrespecting Jesus Christ and the story of Christmas. The muslim asked 3 times if the Christians would quit because they looked upon Jesus as a great prophet. After the third time they left because in their religion they would not tollerate such mistreatment of the memory of a prophet.
Many times we forget that other religions respect Christmas also. Think of all the wars that have experienced a lull because of christmas. Aren't we happy when another religion decides to slow down its agression because of a holy day that we don't understand. For many Christians it goes way beyond that we find ways to be a blessing to people of all faiths and even those who have no faith. I believe Christmas transends religion. And I believe it happens all over the globe every single year. What are your thoughts?