the word at the barricades...

Darn! Look at that!

I don't know whether to be happy or not. There I have been ranting on about what I call 'guerrilla preaching' (when I am allowed) a form of radical political street preaching, with people looking at me as I have talked feeling sorry that I am delusional - which is worrying since I have spent the last few years trying to make the case for it through research referring not least to the actions of Billy Talen - see recent post for picture.

And then - front cover of Sojourners magazine this month an article by renowned OT scholar Walter Brueggeman all about...yes... Billy Talen...guerrilla theatre...and prophetic preaching - oh aye, because Brueggemann says it everyone will be happy now...I guess I should be pleased...but now everyone will think I copied Brueggeman - as if...eh...! Put him in a footnote that is what I will do.

See article at: http://www.revbilly.com/media/detail.php?id=152

Gloves are off on this reaserch now I will tell you......Rev MacLeod Scottish Gothic Street preacher is about to take to the streets....

Odder still...

Thanks for various comments on yesterdays post and to those today who listened to me go on about it and offered philosophical, biblical and pastoral help! Behind this question lies quite a quirky but serious reason - I am seeking to create a Street Preaching persona to embody my guerrilla preaching idea and pursue my theory on open-air preaching as radical street theatre. I think that such a persona should in some senses both connect with and subvert traditional ideas of a preacher (picture is of an actor called Billy Talen - the Rev Billy doing just that preaching for his Church of the anti-consumer) not simply in what is said (although that is a big part of it) but in the dress worn. In some ways this has to be pretty stark - because this is the street we are talking about where the art has to be direct and unsubtle.  Accordingly I think that there should be some sort of traditional clerical garb - for whether liked or not people get that it represents a minister - but that in turn should be then subverted - at the moment I like the idea of a somewhat Gothic take on the whole thing. That I think could present yet challenge norms without making what is being done simply 'acting' a part. But the point is to play with understood ideas and images in order to 'odd' them so that frames of reference are held in balance enough to then be shattered.

Right where do you order a clerical collar in this day and age...???????????and where do you buy those brilliant big Goth boots????????????????

Making Meaning as an Itinerant Preacher

Continue to do a lot of reflection on topic of preaching at moment - both in terms of PhD, seeking to teach others, but especially with reference to my own personal practice.

With respect to the latter and in terms of the spirituality of the preacher have reflected much recently on the importance of having a correct attitude towards the congregation.

I am also increasingly aware of the difference between preaching to a settled and known congregation and itinerant preaching - and despite the possibility that you can indeed repeat and re-use (I hope creatively improvise and not merely repeat) material in a variety of settings, as it is likely that Jesus also did (he was an itinerant preacher) - there are distinct difficulties in this sort of preaching.

With respect to preaching in general, clearly there are issues of good content and good delivery.

With respect to itinerant preaching, more and more I feel that for the sake of communication, that is the act of creating meaning in the transaction between preacher and congregation ( not the mechanical sender receiver model you may note) that one has to be content with doing less in the time available than would be possible in the context of a congregational setting where a number of the 'codes' of meaning and language are already shared and known between preacher and congregation.

So I think that my four pages of oral script (about 20 minutes worth excluding Scripture reading) will need to aim to communicate less, that is allow for a 'slower' pace of meaning making through the event, than I have been trying of late.

Various...

Preached this morning, first go at a sermon on 'hope' encouraged by Radcliffe's work, felt a bit unprepared, and that as a consequence things were a little disjointed but okay I think and folks were gracious in their responses...

Saw Graham for a while and was reminded that blogging does not beat face to face conversation over a coffee...

Back to College tomorrow after two week holiday (no we don't get the whole Summer!) although going to Greenbelt at end of the week and looking forward to that a lot.

A few pretty busy but interesting months ahead so I think blogging in moderation will be the order of the day...

As well as Radcliffe's book I am 'slow' reading a book, very kindly gifted to me, called Interpretation and Preaching As Communal and Dialogical Practices: An Anabaptist Perspective by Leo Hartshore (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006). Here Hartshore argues with reference to 1 Corinthians 14 and Anabaptist texts that among early Anabaptists, preaching was a communal and dialogical practice and relates this to the wide range of contemporary literture on preaching that seeks to develop preaching along these lines. This book combines both of my interests in preaching and 'baptists'. Great!

See Margaret's comments on my post 'More on Size?' Margaret raises the question of 'learning' and of interaction and dialogue in preaching. Was this an approach adopted in the early Church? It was according to Hartshore a practice among Anabaptists flowing from their ecclessiology? Should it be a practice today? Simon speaks about exploring what I know he calls 'Cafe Church' (see his comment on More on Size?) and will do likewise myself in the future with some folks and have had a really good experience of this.

I warm to this approach but think that when we call such 'preaching' there are huge practical, biblical, theological, and contextual issues that need to be engaged with as to the nature of 'preaching' (have some questions here with respect to Hartshore's work). Perhaps we don't need to call it preaching at all - is this not anyway what happens in home groups, cell groups, small groups, house groups and is not always that satisfactory? How does the role of the pastor/teacher relate to all of this?

My own basic understanding of the NT is that there is a rich variety of form and styles that can be described as 'preaching' and that the actual forms and styles were in turn related to such things as context, content, purpose, and audience. The importance of such dynamics can be taught along with basic skills related to speaking in public (speak loud enough to be heard!!!!) and the associated spiritual disciplines required of preaching. This should lead to people being 'competent'. But it seems to me that without some latent ability and or spiritual gifting you cannot make a 'good' speaker and as for 'great' - training can develop and shape the spark of greatness but not create it.

In our contemporary situation there is also a question of (sometimes varied and unfair) congregational expectation (for in-church preaching) and questions of how a community learns to learn...but this post is now becoming tooooooooooooooooo long and I am away to watch Lewis on telly...last night of holiday entertainment...wey hey...but better not stay up too late to-night.

   

Page 161

Because I'm a dissenting non-conformist - or just grumpy - I usually don't do the being 'tagged' thing. But now that I have not been tagged by Brodie I want to play the random take your book, go to page 161 and blog the fifth sentence game...I want to play, I want to play...So, just started reading Guerilla Street Theatre, ed. by Henry Lensnick (New York: Avon Books, 1973) so here is the fifth sentence of page 161

'After each of the four episodes - the grabbing, the dividing, the judging and the Clorox - the chorus faces the spectators and sings one verse of the song:  It's to stop the communist menace, That's why we're in Vietnam'.

Thanks Brodie for not tagging me this time (I know and feel guilty that I have refused previous overtures) so that I could take part and keep conscience.

You know when I read the eclectic mixture of stuff that finds its way on to this blog I think that I might be MAD!

The 'Politics' of Preaching

Have just finished reading: Storytelling and Theatre: contemporary storytellers and their art by Michael Wilson as part of ongoing PhD reading. REALLY enjoyed it. This book demonstrates an awareness by storytellers of the 'Politics' of Performance. Politics in terms of: the content of the stories told, politics in terms of the relationship between storyteller and audience with respect to status and participation, and politics in the fact that storytelling is a somewhat counter cultural expression in contrast to sturation media technology. To be sure these storytellers recognise that different contexts will require different decisions about the nature and politics of performance: e.g. a platform storyteller will be less democratic in terms of their relationship with the audience than someone telling a story around a table in the pub when folks can interrupt and add their own bits etc. So with preaching different contexts will require different approaches. But what this book shows is that these performers are aware of these political issues and are responding to them. I wonder whether those of us who preach are. I notice Simon Jones talks about the kind of preaching in 'Cafe Church' (see Monday 25th June) as being more 'democratic'. I think all I am saying here is that we who 'perform' need to be aware of the 'politics' involved in the performances we are taking part in and seek in whatever context to do so with integrity.

On a totally different angle except because of the preaching as performance thing - in book on John Clifford came across a quote about the cost of preaching to those who allow their whole selves to be being communicated in the act, it said: 'Without the shedding of blood there can be no preaching'. This was contrasted with 'dental preaching' that is preaching which finds its origins no deeper in the person that behind their teeth.

Medieval Guerrilla Preachers

Wow listen to this...

'Political and social champions of the oppressed, reformers of abuses, distributers of news and popular knowledge, writers in prose and verse, jesters and story-tellers...'

So G. R. Owst - in a somewhat academic book on Preaching in Medieval England (1926)- describes medieval preachers, to be sure not them all, but those, perhaps only a few, who lived up to the calling, and in particular some of the preaching 'friars' who identified with the poor, rather than the 'monks' who had a cloistered life.

Wow, I think that we would go listen to such folk, indeed they would probably come to us.

I wonder if we contemporary preachers bear any resemblance to this, and whether indeed we are not more like monks 'clositered' in the safety of our evangelical sub-culture than we are like the 'friars' who would enter the world of competing attractions and seek to gain a hearing!

PS note the use of megaphone....Billy Talen...anti-globalization actor in Rev Billy persona!

Palm Sunday Political Street Theatre...

Reading: Matthew 21:1-11

Here is the text of the sermon I preached today - although the presence of a number of quite young children meant that I improvised a bit in terms of language and actions myself in order to draw them in.

For those who worry about sermon form (structure being the old word) it is a sermon that proceeded in a number of 'moves' which I have indicated.

(Move 1)

From the Mt of Olives, he comes. Jesus comes. Enters, stage left. Approaches, riding on a young donkey. First those with him, then those around him, get caught up in the spontaneous communitas of the moment. Singing begins. The waving of branches. Coats and foliage, like a carpret of welcome, are spread before him.

Dramatic...it is

         Stirring...it is

                 Disturbing...for some...it is.

(Move 2)

I don't know, but I am pretty sure, that at least some of you like me will have had a 'I wish I had been there moment'. Recently I was re-reading Ron Ferguson's biography of George MacLeod.  I came across Ron Ferguson's comments about MacLeod's address as Moderator, at the end of the Church of Scotland Assembly in May 1957...

Ferguson writes:

‘The full-blooded speech was not for the faint-hearted. It was no diplomatic chairman’s summing up of the current ecclesiastical consensus, sending the faithful out with good cheer into the warm glow of an Edinburgh evening, but the dividing word of the passionate, obsessive prophet who was convinced that the word welling up inside him and spilling out of the boundaries of human flesh was nothing other than a word from the Lord’ (Ferguson, MacLeod, p. 287).

Reading that...I wish I had been there. Perhaps you have said that. It could be with reference to a sporting event, a family occasion, or even in response to a bit of, well, ...gossip...'Really, I wish I had been there to see that!'.

Well, when I see the action, hear the singing, smell the vegitation, and sense the excitement of the event we refer to as 'The Triumphal Entry', I wish I had been there.

In saying that I do wonder whether I would have got it, I wonder...if I would have understood it, understood what was going on in these heady moments of action and procession.

Indeed, I wonder if anyone got it, anyone understood it, apart that is from the one who wrote the script, was directing the action, and was now presently playing the lead part of...King on an ass!

(Move 3)

Ched Myers suggests that the events which we call the 'Triumphal Entry' were in fact a brillaint performance of  'political street theatre' orchestrated by Jesus himself.

Street theatre of course is when and where performers take their dramatic use of props, words, actions, and skills, out of the confines and restrictions of a building into the public spaces of the streets.

By going out into the streets, however, there is more than a change of location, for the change of location actually means that several dividing walls associated with theatre are broken down...

the walls between:

art and entertainment

audience and performers (as observors become drawn in as participants)

performers and the social context they are addressing (as the performers begin actually to change that social context)

(Move 4)

Well here Jesus orchestrates the dramatic street theatre in his approach to Jerusalem. He controls his entry. We are told that Jesus approachers from the Mt of Olives. Such an approach was traditionally associated with the direction from which a conquering political and military messianic liberator for Jerusalem would come.

Indeed in the not so distant history of Israel political leaders offering liberation had indeed come into Jerusalem receiving acclamation in this way.

If you like, the Mt of Olives is stage left. It is the place from which we expect a messianic political leader to arrive in might and power.

By chosing this place of approach Jesus plays upon and builds the expectation and anticipation of who he is and how he will act.

And so he comes, stage left from the Mt of Olives, but as he apperas as it were from behind the curtain we are confused:

Where is the horse...(a sign of his leadership and power)?

     Where are the soldiers...?

            Where are the demonstrations of military might...?

Instead he appears with his own specially chosen prop...a young donkey. What is going on here? This is not the expected script. We are confused and unsettled even as we begin to cheer and sing. Yes, yes, there is a memory, but even of this we are not sure. A memory that proclaimed ...'See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey'. Yes, yes, we rember this but this cannot be right...but still we sing confused and uncertain by what is taking place...it is not all that it should be...this theatre is confusing.

(Move 5)

According to those who study street theatre. It can have a number of functions. One of these, particularly if it is political street theatre is to provoke. That is its purpose is to challenge, mock, lampoon (strange word that!), but yes lampoon, and call into question the way things are and the way in which people look at things.

Here this is what Jesus does. He takes the original idea...military and political King entering stage left, and turns the ideas on their head...calling into question, actually lampooning, mocking and exposing as false the dominant idea that somehow God's ways can be established and achieved and sustained by the use of such as political force and miltary might and power.

I don't know if any of you have ever seen the picture of  a tank with a flower placed in its gun barrel. In that picture, the flower, for all of its insignificance, and seeming out of place actually functions to make the tank look stupid! It exposes its pretentions and limitations.

Here in approaching Jerusalem, Jesus as King on an ass, exposes the futility and falsehood of the thinking that things like peace and hope and forgiveness and reconciliation can actually be achieved by brutality, might, and power. He holds these ideas up to public ridicule.

Street Theatre provokes as it exposes the way things are, but it also seeks to communicate a message. Communicating a message is trickier for street theatre because it needs people to give time to it for the story to be told and for them not to pass by too quickly. Indeed, this approach to Jerusalem is only one act in an unfolding drama and if we want to see not simply the provocation but hear the message we need to follow the story through. If we do that, then we see that Jesus not only shows the foolishness of trying to establish God's Kingdom by might and power but we see that he also communicates that the only way for this to be achieved is by the way of self-giving, self-emptying, service and sacrifice. Yes, if we follow the story through we will see that Jesus communicates that the way of God in the world is the way of the Cross.

(Move 6)

I said I wish I had been there but would I have got it? I don't know...but in a few moments time we will participate together in the drama of sharing bread and wine in memory of Jesus Christ. As we do this, as we participate in this performance of words and actions we are actually claiming that we have got it! No, not that we have got it all together. But that we understand. We appreciate. We believe. We confess. That God's way of his Kingdom, of peace, of forgiveness, of hope, of reconciliation is the way of the donkey not of the horse. That it is the way of sacrifical serving, not of the exertion of might and power. That it is the way, yes the way, of the Cross. Do we get that? Do we get it? Do we...?

Resurrected Living Against Trident and other institutions of death

On the 9th March I blogged about preaching the Cross against Trident. Brodie, Jim and Andy, in their own ways all raised the question of what the nature and purpose of actions against Trident should be, Jim referred to this in terms of resurrection living. Andy also linked his comments to my interest in 'guerrilla preaching'.

I want to offer some response to this now in terms of space where for me, the bible, theology, preaching, and performance (shown doing) meet - that is at the concept and action of 'witness'.

Witness of course is a key, especially post-resurrection, term. It is an idea that has been developed theologically by 'baptist' theologian James McClendon. It is a significant model that has been offered in order to understand preaching. It is also a concept that some radical street performers (guerrilla performers) have used to express their actions. (I want now to write a paper on, 'A Performance Theology for Guerrilla Preaching: Witness' - any publishers out there...)

For here...

To bear witness is to make public that which one has experienced. To be sure one hopes that others will agree, but the primary concern is to make it known and so to refuse to allow silence or alternative versions to reign unchallenged.Therefore, while others may not accept or agree the primary responsibility of a witness is to make something known. It is in the Christian tradition a God honouring, Christ centred, Spirit empowered act. Witness is an English translation of a Greek word from which we get the word martyr. And witness is an act that involves a willingness to make oneself vulnerable. This concept of witness as martyr also means that for me it communicates the idea of embodied vulnerablity that will accept the risks of violence but will not offer violence.

The strategy of witness as performance is threefold, accordingly it will involve: 1. 'theatre', that is living according to demonstrated alternative patterns of behaviour that are contrary to the powers of death and destruction, 2. 'agit-prop', that is confrontation and direct action against falsehood and evil, 3. 'celebration', that is a rejoicing in life and the good which denies the bad its power and mocks its claims of dominace.

Accordingly against Trident and other institutions of death at times the witness of the resurrected life will involve: 1. Christian practices, such as the practice of prayer as a practised alternative to the idea that we as humans can fix everything in our own power and strength, 2. protest, shouting, lying in the road, writing to MP's as direct action response against evil, 3. celebration, feasting, rejoicing, dancing, and singing with thanks for the good that is in the world refusing to allow the depression of decay hold sway.

I do not think that these different actions should be seen in tension with one another but actually all should be seen as parts of the one performance of witness to the fact that death is not the end, the stone was moved, God acted in power through weakness, evil is not all powerful, and in the end all will be well!!!

To be sure as this requires communal action some witness may require first to be done in the church as Andy suggests, on the other hand perhaps as the ones and two's pray, protest and celebrate then others will see and hear and join.

So that is my first attempt to express how in fact I think that preaching the Cross against Trident is to be accompanied by incarnational, Resurrected living against Trident and indeed other institutions and powers of death and destruction.

Preaching the Cross...Against Trident

'Preaching this Cross'

From my evangelical background and evangelical practice I understand this phrase to mean...communicating the saving significance of the death of Jesus Christ. An action through which people come to faith.

During the times of the Crusades, however, in Medieval Europe, the phrase 'preaching the cross' (negotium crucis) referred to issuing the call to people to 'take up their cross' and to engage in the support of the Crusades personally and financially. Essentially it became a call to arms in support of Christianity as defined by the ruling power.

What the Crusade preaching could be said to have had over Evangelical preaching is an understanding that 'the cross' as an 'motif' to be proclaimed is not only about an event that happened and a doctrine to be accepted, but it is about a lifestyle to be lived.

This said, the error of the Crusade preaching, was to issue a call to a 'cross' lifestyle, that was disassociated from the life and lifestyle of the one whose first 'Cross' in doctrine and discipleship is definitive - Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, who spoke of love for enemies.

Some 'baptist' thinking emphases, in addition to the centrality of the Cross as a definitive event of salvation, that it is the definitive pattern for discipleship. Contra the crusade preaching, however, what is meant by 'taking up the cross' is understood in the light of the life, teaching, and life-style of the Christ of the Cross. Accordingly in this approach, in the way of Christ, to take up 'the cross' involves a committment to a non-violent, God trusting, love bringing, walk through the world.

This 'baptist' approach is clearly not the theology of the Crusade, (thanks be to God) but it does extend evangelical preaching of the Cross, to concrete life-style and practice in the way of the Christ of the Cross.

This approach does not diminish the Cross of Christ as an all sufficient event, but applies its implications into concrete discipleship lifestyle, but does so (contra the Crusades) by allowing the 'Cross' to be its own interpreter of what a 'cross' carrying, Christ-like, life-style will look like.

You see, therefore, it is because of  my evangelical 'baptist' understanding of the Cross, that I cannot support the renewal of Trident. For the Crusades which such weapons will be used to achieve will be the crusades of the ruling principalities and powers of this world, not of Christ, who would lay his life down trusting in the vindication of God, rather than call the forces of heaven to his aid. To take up the 'cross' is this 'Cross' or it is not a 'cross' at all.