reading together
18 July 2007
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Our community has decided to read a book together. If you’re interested, we’ll be discussing the book on the first Sunday of every month. Right now, we’re attempting to decide between three books (we’re reading the first chapter of each):
Please leave us your thoughts on any of these in the comments. Thanks.
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I was just looking at Deep Economy at the bookstore the other day and it looked interesting. Let us know what you think of it.
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These is no other book greater for your context then the Hayes book. I don’t really know if that is true, but it is an absolute gold mine. I have never really enjoyed Kidd, and you can always read economy books later, but the Hayes book has the potential to transform the way you act (ethics) and read the NT.
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I started reading Deep Economy and it seems good, I have a feeling I haven’t got to the point he’s trying to make yet. Mostly stats right now. Thanks, Daniel.
Matthew, thanks for the input. Hays seems kinda heavy for a group discussion. But we’re checking it out. I’ve never read Kidd but I’m intrigued. Mostly because the majority of what most of us read is written by white guys. It would be good to read something from another perspective in my mind. Also, I wonder if a book on economy wouldn’t have the same effect you think Hays would(?). Sure, discussing ethics is one thing, but what we REALLY need in this era is ethics we are living and one of the ethical areas that needs revisiting, in my opinion, is economical ethics. So, McKibben may be a more practical discussion, resulting in the same thing: transformed ethics.
Thoughts?
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I am not a big fan of Monk’s theology, although I do like her fiction more than her non-fiction. The scope of books on the economy normally falls so far into the land of inconceivable, or enmeshment with the nation, that they are hard for me to read without abandoning my Anabaptist principles. Although I did just read the reviews of Deep Economy and it sounds interesting. If you guys decide on that one maybe you should also blog through it and what your group is thinking of it.
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I wish I could be around to process any of those books with y’all. I guess I need to pose the same question to our crew. Maybe that would give some structure for us to gather around. Let us know which one y’all settle on.
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Matthew,
You said, “he scope of books on the economy normally falls so far into the land of inconceivable, or enmeshment with the nation, that they are hard for me to read without abandoning my Anabaptist principles.”
Can you explain?
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My biggest problem with most books on the economy is that they have no concept of church (which is because very few in the church have done a good job of caring about this stuff). So they either deal with governments (like the End of Poverty) or the individual consumer (which is books like the ones I have picked up from patagonia) and they fail to deal with a counter community, because they don’t have a context for one. So they tell the story of how the nations will save the nations, or how the individual will save the world, and neither how a counter-community of Christ will reconcile the world. So we end hoping for more of governments to this work, which troubles the Anabaptist in me, or the individual consumer choices which is just too self-focused. But reading those books with a mind like Hays, or Bruggemann’s Prophetic Imagination, I think the church can begin to criticize and energize into that counter-community. The inconceivable part to me is expecting nations to care more about other than nations than about themselves. To me nations are not sacrificial so while I may agree about the end of poverty, the nation just has no narrative to do that. The church does, and the question becomes how do we live those things out.
But this books looks promising because it is about local communities doing something different. So bringing that into the context of what you guys are doing sounds excellent.
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Matt, it doesn’t seem to me that church has any idea or conviction to do what you are inclined to think it should. When I say “church” I’m referring to all of it. Not just Anabaptists. But the whole church, at least here in the west (I can’t really speak for the rest of the world since my experience has not been theirs) has by and large taken to a capitalist, consumer-oriented imagination that is completely contrary to the kind of embodied ‘hope of the world’ you are talking about. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that the church should in fact be a counter-community, providing a model for another way, which includes another way to deal with economics. But I just wonder, how are we going to recall that in our current context?
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I agree with about our current context, but I think what you guys are doing is recalling that in our current context. Some scholars who are looking at New Monasticism are commenting on how the church/nation at large is kind of in new ‘dark ages’ so in that context it the responsibility of churches like yours to remain faithful to vision of God, not matter how small, odd, and different it may seem. So that’s why I think people like Hays, Hauerwas, Yoder, etc. are so important for our context, because their theology revolves around the church being the church, rather than the church trying to save the nation/empire.
Hope that makes sense, and I enjoy the conversation.
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Point taken and I certainly hope we’re doing something right… we’ll see over time. And I must admit, I’ve been hugely impacted by Yoder and Hauerwas.
On a separate note since you brought it up, one thing that I’m finding problematic with the New Monasticism-type approach is that people from a middle class background, deciding to take vows of simplicity (poverty if they’re really radical) kind of add insult to injury to those that have not chosen poverty but were never given any other option but poverty. It also glamorizes poverty in a way that just isn’t real. I don’t doubt their motives. I know they intend good and some of it is simply semantics. But having become friends with some that grew up amidst abject poverty, I’m conflicted about this approach… or maybe just the language. Not sure.
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I think your problem isn’t with new-Monasticism but Monasticism in general. The vow to live that way comes from the example Jesus set in many different circumstances. It says to give your wealth to the poor, but other than that it doesn’t say much else. People who do it glamorize being poor have big issues, but I don’t see that with the people I have met. Solidarity with the poor and weak is just what we are caused to do whether people choose it or not. Something like the wounded healer concept, but if you Francis, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and other figures they found live with the poor to be a more full live. But I think your right in questioning this. I think it is motives thing and it does involve some recognition that God is egalitarian in the sense that not everything is equal for all people. We all have different choices and burdens and problems.
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