Rogue Reverend

The Wikingdom of God (a sermon)

Tao Te Ching

~translated (or perpetrated) by Ron Hogan

If you toss compliments around freely,
people will waste your time
trying to impress you.
If you give things too much value,
you’re going to get ripped off.
If you try to please people,
you’ll just make them pissed.

The Master leads
by clearing the crap
out of people’s heads
and opening their hearts.
He lowers their aspirations
and makes them suck in their guts.

He shows you how to forget
what you know and what you want,
so nobody can push you around.
If you think you’ve got the answers,
he’ll mess with your head.

Stop doing stuff all the time,
and watch what happens.

Mark 9:30-37

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been listening to a lot of TED talks, Technology, Entertainment and Design, these 18 minute (or so) talks about interesting things. My favorite for a while has been about the economics of open source.

But before I tell you about the talk, I thought I’d better explain open source:

From Wikipedia: “Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software’s source code.” In other words, software code is provided to any developer to modify or write code off of, not for money, but generally just for good will. Then the software is generally offered to the world free.

Microsoft Office is not open source. In fact, they work really hard to NOT be open source. They pay developers to write their software, they hire those people, pay benefits, taxes, insurance, vacation time, all that stuff. Open Office, an open source product similar to Microsoft Office (which, by the way, works with Microsoft Office) is worked on by non-employees, bugs are fixed by a person here or there, most people just like the idea that they are working on something meaningful, and the product is free. There are other examples of open source: Wikipedia, for example. Or music sites where you can download music for free. Google books is another example of open source. You see where this is leading? And now there’s open source movement in politics, business, ethics, media, education, the arts. What’s an example of Open Source art? Collage, of course.

Now on to the Ted talk: Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In his Ted talk, he talks about the new open source economics.

Yochai posits first that we have had an information economy for a hundred and fifty years, since the newspaper first made its rounds. But to receive technology, you had to have an influx of capital, then the paper was printed, then paid for. He says, “Those who were producing information had to have a way of raising money to pay,” meaning they were market based.

Then another thing happened. Benkler continues:

Around June 2002, the world of supercomputers had a bombshell. The Japanese had for the first time created the fastest supercomputer — the NEC Earth Simulator… IBM Gene Blue has just edged ahead of the NEC Earth Simulator. All of this completely ignores the fact that throughout this period, there’s another supercomputer running in the world — SETI@Home — four and a half million users around the world, contributing their leftover computer cycles, whenever their computer isn’t working, by running a screen saver, and together sharing their resources to create a massive supercomputer that NASA harnesses to analyze the data coming from radio telescopes.

Benkler interprets this:

What this picture suggests to us is that we’ve got a radical change in the way information production and exchange is capitalized. Not that it’s become less capital intensive that there’s less money that’s required—but that the ownership of this capital, the way the capitalization happens, is radically distributed.

It’s open source!

Benkler goes on:

The story that most people know is the story of free or open-source software. This is market share of Apache Web server — one of the critical applications in Web-based communications. In 1995, two groups of people said, “Wow, this is really important, the Web! We need a much better Web server!” One was a motley collection of volunteers who just decided, you know, we really need this, we should write one, and what are we going to do with what — well, we’re gonna share it! And other people will be able to develop it. The other was Microsoft.

Now, if I told you that 10 years later, the motley crew of people who didn’t control anything that they produced acquired 20 percent of the market and was the red line, it would be amazing! Right? But in fact, of course, the story is it’s the 70 percent, including the major e-commerce site — 70 percent of a critical application on which web based communications and applications work is produced in this form in direct competition with Microsoft, not in a side issue — in a central strategic decision to try to capture a component of the net.

Benkler finishes here:

So essentially what we’re seeing is the emergence of a fourth transactional framework. It used to be that there were two primary dimensions along which you could divide things. They could be market based, or non-market based; they could be decentralized, or centralized. The price system was a market-based and decentralized system. If things worked better because you actually had somebody organizing them, you had firms if you wanted to be in the market — or you had governments or sometimes larger non-profits in the non-market. It was too expensive to have decentralized social production, to have decentralized action in society — that was not about society itself. It was in fact economic.

But what we’re seeing now is the emergence of this fourth system of social sharing and exchange. Not that it’s the first time that we do nice things to each other, or for each other, as social beings. We do it all the time. It’s that it’s the first time that it’s having major economic impact. What characterizes them is decentralized authority. You don’t have to ask permission, as you do in a property-based system. May I do this? It’s open for anyone to create and innovate and share, if they want to, by themselves or with others, because property is one mechanism of coordination. But it’s not the only one.

This is where it starts, “You have a belief: stuff will flow out of connected human beings.”

What if the Kingdom of God is Open Source?

Oh, my God, I think my head might implode.

What would it mean, if the Kingdom of God is actually the Wikingdom of God?

If the Kingdom of God, the manifestation of the Church in THIS age is actually the Wiki-ngdom of God, what changes? How do we reframe it?

First, it’s a radical departure from hierarchies. Decentralization is key. (Could this mean no denominations?)

Second, it is open for anyone to create and innovate and share, if they want to. (Could this mean that we’d be more inclusive, less dogmatic?)

Third, we share in the capitalization of it. We fund it. But we don’t gain monetarily like we would if we were to capitalize it. (Could this mean that we let go of property?)

Fourth, we have no control over it. (and we give up the illusion of control, too)

Fifth, we do our part and let the Spirit go from there.

The biggest argument to me about the nature of who Jesus was is this: he came to turn the world upside down. The world’s understanding of how things work and how things are, and how things are best.

And his disciples, walking with him, were dolt-ish about the whole thing.

I can just envision this scene. The disciples are chatting together, and Jesus walks up and they all get quiet. “Whatcha’ talking about?” Jesus asks. “Nuthin.” The disciples shift nervously. Finally, they confess, “We’re drawing straws for who is going to be first in heaven.”

He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

The Kingdom is not what we suppose.

What Is To Come

What is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good—was good to show,
Better to hide, and best of all to bear.
We are the masters of the days that were;
We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered…even so.

Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow?
Life was our friend? Now, if it be our foe—
Dear, though it spoil and break us! —need we care
What is to come?

Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow,
Or the gold weather round us mellow slow;
We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare
And we can conquer, though we may not share
In the rich quiet of the afterglow
What is to come.
~William Ernest Henley (1892)

On October 5, 2009, a group of ministers, religious educators, theologians, church folk, and a Christian futurist will gather online to talk about What Is To Come. Predicated on the idea that the church is just now responding to issues that she should have responded to 35-40 years ago, I like to think about it as answering the question, “What will the Church have to apologize for in 40 years?”

Haven’t you noticed that the Church is struggling with issues that the “real world” settled years ago? Are you aware that while the church struggles with racism, academia is talking about class? While the church is hung up on issues around homosexuality, Time magazine says that polyamory is the new frontier of the sexual revolution? While the church is arguing about worship styles, people are actually approaching the world in a different way?

What Is To Come is a think tank where we’ll identify the real issues facing the church. We’re not going to teach you! This will be a conversation. You already know what’s happening in the Church and in the world, we’re just putting great minds together to discuss it.

Here are the details:

We’ll start October 5th and go for four weeks.
We’re limited to 20 people.
Most of the discussion will be done through Blackboard, graciously contributed by the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond and the School of Christian Ministry.
We’ll identify the trends. Small groups will discuss each issue and create a handout about each one. Our product will be 1-5 pages in a .pdf format, discussing the trend, with key information and a bibliography.
We’ll focus more on trends in culture, not in church, and focus on how those trends will affect church.
It will be work, and we ask that you be willing to commit to it. We don’t know how long it will require each week, but we do think this will be a time commitment!
It’s FREE!

The trends we’ll discuss may include sexualities, economics, families, church and US politics, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism (worldwide). The actual list will be determined by the participants. You’ll be able to pick the trends you want to study and discuss.

If you would like to join What Is to Come, contact me as soon as you can. It’s going to be GREAT!

Only Notice (a sermon)

I think I have mentioned to you all the Ted talks that I’ve been listening to… TED talks are 18 minute talks about technology, entertainment, and design, and they are people who are tops in their fields.

Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence gave a talk on compassion. He tells the story of a group of divinity students were given a practice sermon. Half of them were to preach on the story of the Good Samaritan. The other half on some other text. As they went from one building to another to give their sermon, they saw a man bent over in pain. The experiment was to see if they would stop to help the person.

Did it make a difference if the people were preaching on the Good Samaritan text? Nope.

Social Neuroscientists have found that our default wiring is to help. “If we attend to the other person, we automatically feel with them.” So, why don’t we help?

They were in a hurry.
They were worried about what was coming up next.
More »

How Can I Keep from Singing?

Yesterday at church, one of our artists, Renee King, had hung a fabulous new piece, so beautiful that I could not stop staring. It literally made my heart sing.

My Heart Sings

Being Enmeshed (with God)

I’ve been getting my fill of enmeshed relationships lately. You know what I mean by enmeshed? Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla (really?) define enmeshed relationships as overdependency. Dr. Drew says:

Dr Drew: Anytime you need somebody in order to be complete, you’re overdependent. Anytime you get in a situation where you lose yourself in a relationship, you’re too dependent. If you’re in a situation where you can’t get out because there’s something about what that person has that you can’t do without, you’re in trouble.

To the extent that your feelings become another person’s, that’s too much. On the other hand, to be overly independent with no concern for the feelings of others is not right either; that heads toward a narcissistic relationship. You should be independent. You should be a separate person who comes together in a relationship, not one who blends into a relationship. It’s not like a puzzle where two pieces have to be together in order to fit or to complete one another. It’s more two separate entities creating a new entity when they’re together.

Ever since I went to the church with the “Jesus is my boyfriend” music, I’ve realized that the religion we’re encouraged to have is enmeshed! Think of some of the things we say, “I want people to see only Jesus in me.” And, “Not me, but Christ in me.” And, “I am nothing without God.” This is what we teach our newest members in our churches.

And the opposite side of the coin of enmeshment is “cutoff.” A cutoff relationship is “where two individuals have no contact at all, characterized by extreme disengagement and emotional intensity where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness.”

Isn’t that how we “recover” from our too-close relationship with God? We create a cutoff?

God wants us to be differentiated, not enmeshed. God wants us to be close, not cutoff. Intimate, not consumed. Together, but separate.