1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognized, but everybody has a script.
2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.
3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.
4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.
5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.
6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.
7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, too enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.
8. The task of descripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.
9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.
10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character – the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.
11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.
12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.
13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves – liberals and conservatives – in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so too debilitate the focus of the script.
14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, “do you renounce the dominant script?”
15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this illusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighboring of all kinds.
16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.
17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.
18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is equally present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of [the] old script and embrace of the new script.
19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one [see if that’s an overstatement]; there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, my God, what would happen if you took all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/25301.htm
http://soupiset.typepad.com/soupablog/Brueggemann_19_Theses.html
This will definitely be the last month that I can offer the book I wrote on prayer for free and January 31, 2012 will be the last day it is available as a free download. We are currently in the process of editing and expanding it. A lot has changed in our lives since I first wrote this book and we believe the new information will make it a much better book.
Expediency, Penn State and Joe Paterno
We live in a culture where the end frequently is seen to justify the means. As I write this post Joe Paterno, one of the most successful college football coaches in history, has just been fired. His dismissal is related to an apparent cover up of former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s possible involvement in child molestation while he served at Penn State. He was a very good defensive coordinator and Penn State enjoyed success during his employment. It should be noted that Joe Paterno is not charged with any crime but the trustee’s of the university felt strong enough about this error in judgment to dismiss not only Paterno but Graham Spanier, the current president of the school.
Now before you feel too sorry for the 84 year old Paterno, take note of the apparent fact, that one of the assistant coaches went to Joe Paterno to report that Sandusky was in the shower with a 10 year old boy. This whole incident in my opinion is a prime example of a culture steeped in expediency. This situation revolves around winning football games but I ask, at what cost?
Turning attention away from Joe Paterno and Penn State let me ask all of us a personal question. How often do we make decisions totally based upon our own self interest? Our prayer should be God help us all.
There was rioting in Happy Valley last night. From my experience with Penn State many of the participants were under the influence of booze or other substances. This does not excuse the fact that the going concern was probably not to change coaches during a winning season. Earlier today I heard two elderly women talking about this disturbance and one of them said, “It is just football for God’s sake”. For God’s sake indeed, I wonder how He feels about all of this. I know the Lord is not in favor of expediency at all cost. We all could stand some heart-felt soul searching to see how deeply we are infected with this ungodly attitude.