www.derekvreeland.com & dissertation update

My blogspot has now been pointed to my domain.

This means that my blog which is hosted by www.blogger.com can be accessed at www.derekvreeland.com. So if you have www.derekvreeland.blogspot.com bookmarked as my blog, you can change that to www.derekvreeland.com. You will still be able to access the blog from the blogspot.com page, but it looks much cooler when my blog is on my domain!

I am waiting for my dissertation to come back from the editor. When I get it back, I will edit it for the LAST TIME and then will have a .pdf copy online if you would like to read.

I am also sending out article proposals to a few magazines and journals to publish my findings. Pray for God to open doors!

Derek

Christ Pantocrator (Christ, Ruler of All)

I just ordered this icon...Christ Pantocrator (pronounced pan-toe-crah-tor).

I could have said, “I just ordered this picture or print.” But I said “icon” because that is what it is. The Eastern Orthodox tradition has used icons in their worship for years. The use of icons was one of the reasons for the Eastern Orthodox split from the Western Church (the Roman Catholic Church) in the 11th century.

My guess is that most protestants take offence, or at least have no interest in icons, because it seems too close to idol worship. For me, I have always thought that Christian art has a power to communicate what words alone cannot. Paintings in the Roman Catacombs show Christians praying with hands lifted up in a cruciform position. What a powerful image! Icons--and Eastern or Byzantine icons in particular--are making a comeback in the Church through the influence of postmodern/emerging styles of worship that want to reach back into the historical church and dust off some ancient practices that have long been forgotten.

Dusting off is exactly what happened with this icon…Christ Pantocrator.

It hangs in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Egypt. It was first believed to have been painted in the 12th century until some modern scholars discovered that it had been touched up in the middle ages. After it was cleaned of its top coat, they discovered that the icon is as old as the 6th century. This fact makes St. Catherine’s Christ Pantocrator, the oldest remaining icon in the Church.

“Pantocrator” comes from two Greek words, panto meaning “all” and kratos meaning “strength” or “power.” It is roughly translated “all powerful,” “all mighty,” or “Ruler of all.”

I ordered my copy of the icon from www.Skete.com/. The following is what they say about the artistry of the icon:

Christ is traditionally shown with a short beard and long dark hair parted in the middle, holding a jewel-studded Book of the Gospels in His left arm and blessing us with His right hand. Three fingers touch representing His Divinity, and two fingers are up to symbolize that He is fully God and fully Man, the forefinger bent for His Incarnation.

The Saviour has a serious and intent look, like the King of All looking upon His people. His face is not symmetrical but has a look of dignity and calmness on one side and a different look of arching of the eyebrows causing enlivenment on the other. These dissimilar but complimentary impressions strike a harmony between the Divine and Human Natures of Christ.

I first used this icon on my homepage (www.derekvreeland.com) before using this current blog template. I have always had some kind of attraction to the icon. It doesn't seem forign to me, even though it was painted 1500 years ago. There is something familar about it. Something comforting. Something significant. Something worshipful. Knowing the history and the meaning of the artistry, I appreciate it all the more and look forward to hanging it in my office where it can “preach” to me about the person of Christ.

Since I am in a historical and reflective mood, let me end this post with a prayer from Augustine. This prayer comes from the end of On the Trinity, Book 15, Chapter 28. In the prayer, Augustine reveals that the passion of his heart is to seek the face of God:

…so far as I have been able, so far as You have made me to be able, I have sought You, and have desired to see with my understanding what I believed; and I have argued and labored much.

O Lord my God, my one hope, listen to me, for I fear that through weariness I may be unwilling to seek You, but my desire is “that I may always ardently seek Your face.” Do give me strength to seek, you who have made me find You, and has given me the hope of finding You more and more.

Augustine, On the Trinity, 15:28:1
Adapted from www.newadvent.org/fathers/130115.htm

Dissertation Defended!

I am posting this blog from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. I am happy to report that I successfully defended my dissertation this morning. I have been working on the dissertation for over two years and the dissertation defense is that last big step before graduating. I have been researching and writing on the subject of spirituality and leadership, specifically I have been trying to understand how God shapes the hearts of leaders. In the defense, my committee of three asked me clarification questions on various parts of this dissertation. They have also asked me to make a few revisions to make the dissertation stronger. I have finished up the revisions this afternoon and plan on submitting it to the editor tomorrow for ONE MORE EDIT. The editor will send it back to me to for one final round of corrections and that is it.

I owe a lot to Dr. Steve Seamands, my faculty adviser. He has given my a lot of encouragement and pointed me to a lot of great resources. His Trinitarian vision of ministry helped to shape a lot of the ideas that have found their way into the dissertation. (If you want to read some of Steve’s work, I recommend his book Ministry In the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service.

I also owe a great deal of thanks to Jenni (the moopie). She has shared me with the seminary and the dissertation work. Without her support, I couldn’t have done any of this. She stayed home (and ate crap) a lot of days and weeks while I was off to class or interviews for the dissertation. I love you moopie!!!

For all the good there is to celebrate, there is just as much tragedy to mourn.

I turned on the TV this afternoon to take a little break from the dissertation revisions and I saw the report of the people that had been killed a Virginia Tech. The death toll is at 32 at the time of this posting. What a tragedy. Jesus said that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Last night, I finished hammering out some notes for the small group I am going to lead Wednesday night. The title is “A Brief History and the Final Defeat of Satan.” Our small group is studying spiritual warfare and I was asked to lead the study this Wednesday. I am not falling into the simplistic trap of saying “The devil did it....” but when I see evil and death, I see the works of the devil. What I learned in putting these notes together is that whenever the Bible talks about Satan (or the devil) it very often talks about his demise. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightening.” Then he said, “give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19 KJV).

Jesus is alive.
Jesus is the king.
Jesus rules over all.

Spirituality and Eugene Peterson

The internet and the blogging phenomena has opened up new doors of communication for the church. Theological dialogues are no longer held in the hollowed halls of seminaries and Christian colleges and a thesis no longer needs to be nailed to a door to start a theological debate. For all the good blogging has done to promote ecumenical dialogue and Christian unity, it has equally opened the door for just about everyone to be attacked.

I have been reading Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading and I am reminded how good of a writer Peterson is. I have also been surprised to see Peterson on some of the “Christian discernment” websites. I am not going to name the sites. Google Peterson’s name and you will find them. These so-called discernment websites are alarmed at what they see as the influence of the New Age Movement into the evangelical church. Their primary targets are the writers in the area of spiritual formation/spiritual disciplines. It seems that these guys are alarmed anytime any Christian talks about spirituality. It seems that any reference to meditation, contemplation or spirituality causes them to hit the “NEW AGE ALARM.”

The church has nothing to fear from a Christian emphasis on spirituality. The Christian faith is much more of a spirituality than a religion. Some studies have shown that 1 out of 5 Americans claim to be “spiritual, but not religious” (See Robert Fuller, Spiritual, but Not Religious, Oxford Press, 2001). The move towards spirituality in American cultural is a positive for the church, because we are proclaiming a God who is active and involved and who is inviting us to know him. Jesus said that this is eternal life that we might know God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent (John 17:3). The Greek word “know” is gignosko, which means knowledge by personal encounter. The Christian faith is a spirituality; it is a way of walking in the Holy Spirit.

Gordon Fee says that there is no biblical concept of spirituality, or anything spiritual, without referencing the Holy Spirit. According to Fee, the Holy Spirit is God’s “agent” upon the earth, teaching, convicting, leading, indwelling, filling, and empowering human hearts and wooing them into a love relationship with the triune God. Christian spirituality is nothing more than a picture of a life lived in the Holy Spirit, a life that those of us in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition have been emphasizing for the last 100 years. The charismatic expression of the Christian faith is not extraordinary but normative. Christian spirituality is not for the few mystics in the church it is the normal expression of the Christian faith.

Christian spirituality also raises the value of the human soul. I love what Dallas Willard says about the spiritual discipline of silence. In a lecture on Spirituality and Leadership at Regent College, Willard said that the first thing you recognize when you practice silence and solitude is that “YOU HAVE A SOUL.” How true! Peterson says these about spirituality in Eat This Book:

“Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers, and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. But there is far more to us than our usefulness and our reputation, where we’ve been and who we know; there is the unique, irreproducible, eternal, image-of-God me. A vigorous assertion of personal dignity is foundation to spirituality.”

Eugene Peterson
Eat this Book, Pg. 23

Preach it Eugene! Preach it! Too many times I have lived my life as a PRODUCER and a PERFORMER, living as if my value is wrapped up in what I can produce.

For futher reading on the subject of spirituality, check out Brian Zahnd’s comments on Christian mysticism.

Also read anything that Peterson writes. He is a great writer and a prophetic voice to those of us who serve as pastors.

"Saving Grace" by Bob Dylan--A Holy Week Meditation

I have been listening to this song all day.

It caught my attention, because it has the word resurrection in it. As I listned to it, time and again, I thought this song makes a great meditation for the Holy Week. It is a passionate declaration of redemption and resurrection. The song is moving, but the lyrics are powerful as they are written. Let this be a part of your Holy Week reflections....

Saving Grace
Bob Dylan
Saved
1980

If You find it in Your heart, can I be forgiven?
Guess I owe You some kind of apology.
I've escaped death so many times, I know I'm only living
By the saving grace that's over me.

By this time I'd-a thought I would be sleeping
In a pine box for all eternity.
My faith keeps me alive, but I still be weeping
For the saving grace that's over me.

Well, the death of life, then come the resurrection,
Wherever I am welcome is where I'll be.
I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection
Is the saving grace that's over me.

Well, the devil's shining light, it can be most blinding,
But to search for love, that ain't no more than vanity.
As I look around this world all that I'm finding
Is the saving grace that's over me.

The wicked know no peace and you just can't fake it,
There's only one road and it leads to Calvary.
It gets discouraging at times, but I know I'll make it
By the saving grace that's over me.

Copyright © 1980 Special Rider Music


By the way, if you would like to hear a rare LIVE recording of Dylan's "I Believe in You" check out Ben Myers' Faith and Theology Blog. Thanks Ben for the post!

Back Home

I am now back home in Americus, Georgia. We had some problems getting home. Flight delays from India, caused us to miss our connecting flight on Saturday. We had to stay over night in Newark, NJ, but were able to fly standby and catch a flight out Sunday morning. I returned home about 4:00 pm yesterday.

It was a great trip, minus the travel problems, but I have picked up a bug. I have a slight fever and some stomach problems, but life goes on. I am starting to teach a class twice a week at South Georgia Tech. Class begins Tuesday night. We have Good Friday and Easter this week and I have one week to get my dissertation ready for my dissertation defense in two weeks. Pray for me as I have a lot on my plate.

I always look forward to the Holy Week, the week in which we celebrate the cross and resurrection. Friday night I will preach on the cross and then Sunday morning I will preach on the resurrection. Some have asked why we have a Good Friday service. We normally don’t have a church on Friday night and many non-denominational churches don’t have Good Friday services. I think it is important for this reason: You cannot experience the joy of the resurrection without experiencing the sorrow of the cross.

May you expereince both this week!