The Great Controversy Story 1 (Campmeeting 2014)

I must begin by apologizing for the late posting.  I had the podcast ready to go on Thursday and simply forgot to post it yesterday.

Today we get to one of my favourite stories: The Great Controversy.  This isn't simply a book, this is a narrative of God's ongoing involvement with humanity and the universe, the rise of evil and the vindication of God's character (which is to say the investigation by created beings of whether or not God is worthy of our love and devotion).  The Adventist answer is that God is worthy, but this is not without some serious investigation yet to come.  Questions remain.

After all that, we don't begin with the story.  We begin with our own stories.  In this episode, interspersed with relevant discussion, we briefly share our personals stories of learning about God and why we appreciate the Great Controversy understanding.  Next week we get more into specifics of the story itself, but this week lays the groundwork for that discussion.

Enjoy!

The Great Controversy Story 1

Foundational Stories 3 (Campmeeting 2014)

This is the final piece of the discussion.  We finally got an audience mic, so this discussion features a number of voices other than our own.  They make some great contributions.  Among other things, we explore the difference between the Greek "Being" and the Hebrew "walking"--in terms of how God relates to humanity; the need for personal involvement; and the relationship between our evangelism and our picture of God.  Thanks to everyone who participated.  We're planning to present a new series at Campmeeting 2016, featuring more great discussion and shared exploration.  In the meantime, enjoy!

Foundational Stories 3

PS: There won't be a podcast next week because it will be Christmas.  In the new year, we'll continue with the next presentation.

Whose Community? Which Story? (WO) (Campmeeting 2015)

Today is the final episode we recorded at Campmeeting this summer.  It sounds a little different because we recorded at the bottom of half ledge after spending about ninety minutes rock climbing.  There are occasionally people passing by and background noise, as well as a few guests.  Don't worry, though, the mic picked us up loud and clear.

This time we focused on a major issue in contemporary Adventism--the vote about Women's Ordination at the 2015 General Conference.  While this is the main topic, our thematic focus is the question of "who decides which story to tell about our community?"  In turn, what does that story mean?  And, how is that decided?  These questions of community narrative and identity have much larger resonances than a single vote about how to include women in our community and impact on how we view our own relationships to the community in light of various stories being told.  The discussion is by no means finished within Adventism.

Thanks for listening and enjoy!

Whose Community? Which Story?

Community Discussion (Campmeeting 2015 Bonus)

Hey everybody.  I had the privilege of speaking in Comox Valley this weekend about loving our neighbours.  Unfortunately, in my focus on preparation, I forgot about posting another podcast.  Then Monday came, and I realized there were far more interesting things happening, at least in Canada.  So, I'm saving that podcast for this Friday.  In it, we talk about the conflict at the heart of community between telling a coherent narrative of our lives and identities and opening that narrative to change.

In the meantime, here's a recording I've been saving from the first of our Campmeeting podcasts.  After we finished recording the podcast, Community Questions, we spent time talking with some friends about various issues we had raised.  It's a little more raw than our regular discussions, but still quite interesting, I think.  Certainly not everyone in the world thinks like Dale or I, so you might appreciate hearing some different voices.

Enjoy!

Community Questions (Bonus)

Labels, Identity and Community (Campmeeting 2015)

On Wednesday at Campmeeting, we spent some time exploring one of the questions I've (David) been thinking about: What does it mean to say I am Adventist?  For some, this is seen as a hostile statement by which I separate myself from other people, particularly Christians.  But does it have to be so?  Who decides what the name "Adventist" means?  Can I provide meaning for it?  Or does it belong to "Adventists"?  Or does it belong to those I interact with?  Or is it something bigger than any of us?  Of course, this moves into a larger discussion of the stakes, risks and value of claiming identity with a particular group through the use of labels--in particular the recent case of Rachel Dolezal.

Our apologies for the background noise.  There seemed to be a lot of people coming and going when we were recording.

Again, thanks for listening and enjoy!

What Do Labels Mean?

Community Questions (Campmeeting 2015)

It's been a long time since Dale and I have recorded together, but we finally sat down at Hope Campmeeting this year to explore some ideas we both been thinking about.  Our central focus is community--what is it?  how do we build it?  what are barriers to community (particularly within Adventism)?  More specifically, we focused on the connections between boundaries, identity and stories and how our conception of those can help or hinder deep and meaningful relationships.

For each of us, this discussion sprang out of significant personal experiences in the past year or so.  We start by talking about those experiences and the questions raised.  That discussion leads into a rather wide-ranging consideration of various themes and struggles in living together and relating to those with different stories.

As the week went on, we dove directly into specific questions raised in this opening discussion and got to share the experience with some friends who came along for the ride.  I will be posting those as I get time, over the next few weeks.  Thanks for listening and enjoy.

Community Questions (CM2015)

The Great Controversy: Biblical Basis

Aaand we're back.  Thanks for sticking around as we're transitioning.  Dale's moved away, so we're figuring out the logistics and technical details of recording in two places at once.  In the meantime, I will be trying to write more here.  But this week, enjoy a new podcast.

After our last podcast I was talking with a friend and listener about the value of the Great Controversy as a narrative framework for understanding God, the Bible and life.  She asked about the Biblical basis for the narrative--a good question.  Admittedly, for Dale and I, this story is so much a part of our thought and life (and has been for so long) that it's difficult to try to go back to the beginning, to figure out how one might put this all together from just the Bible.  So, this isn't a comprehensive Bible study, but more a general discussion of some key points and ideas and relevant Bible passages and ideas.  We'd love to hear if you have any insights to add to the discussion.

Enjoy.

The Great Controversy: Biblical Basis

Hopefully we'll be back with another podcast next week.

The Great Controversy: The Narrative - Part 2

This week we finish telling how we understand the Great Controversy.  What has happened in the past matters, but so does the ending.  Thus we continue on, talking about the various parties involved and tracing how the story has developed since Christ.  How does a story end when the point isn't power and control?  When domination can't be the means of resolution?

This podcast is a little shorter than usual, but some of you will appreciate that.

The Great Controversy Narrative 2

The Great Controversy: The Narrative - Part 1

This week, we're continuing our series on the Great Controversy.  We figured that before we dove into the implications of this narrative way of understanding the Bible, we should outline the basics of the narrative itself.  After that, we'll see what happens.  This podcast turned out a little bit long, so it's split into two parts.  Next week will be part two.

If you've ever wondered why the Biblical stories of God are so difficult to understand, hopefully this will help.  It has helped us make sense of a great many things related to the Bible, God, life, the universe, and everything.  Actually, it ran about 42 minutes... but anywayz.  Enjoy.

The Great Controversy Narrative 1

The Great Controversy: Lost in the Middle

Welcome back!  Hopefully your holidays were enjoyable and you were able to spend time with family and catching up on any podcasts you missed.  Dale has been busy tweaking links and file management on the website so the links are now standardized.  Eventually I intend to do some work as well, but I've been busy with PhD applications.

Anywayz, to kick off the new year, we have a multi-part series exploring a narrative (idea) that is central to our understanding of life, faith and history: The Great Controversy.  However, before we deal with details, we wanted to talk a little more about story.

This week, we explore the dilemma of interpretation in a different way.  How do you make narrative sense of anything when you arrive in the middle of the story?  What elements do you focus on and what difference does that make?  It all begins on a bus in a Mexican desert in 1996...


The Great Controversy - Part 1

Nietzsche, Paul, Story and Practice: Spectrum Review Part 3

This week we look at a few different things, continuing on the theme of language or story breaking down.  David briefly presents his experiences reading Nietzsche and how his writings kept taking him back to Paul, then we look at the question of how the way we live can be at odds with the stories we tell  We look at this question in the context of two of the other roundtable discussions from the Third Way Conference, on Adventist story-telling and on the history of pacifism within Adventism.  Both are examples of how the stories we tell, or forget to tell, can stand at odds with how we view the world based on our beliefs and lifestyle choices.

Specturm Conference Review Part 3

Our question this week - what are stories that you were told as a child that did not mesh with the way your family lived, or with the beliefs you were raised with?

The Third Way Conference Report Part 2

Welcome to the second part of our report on The Third Way Conference!  In this discussion we go over the second and third presentations, including our favourite part of the conference--the presentation of William Johnsson on his experiences building real connections with people of other faiths, and how that has informed his life.  It was an intensely personal presentation of his experiences that demanded a response on the part of the audience, and, well, here's ours.

Spectrum Conference Report Part 2

Look forward next week to a discussion of what we learned about ourselves by travelling to the States, as well as a bit of what we learnt about the States, which was equally fascinating (at least to us).

The Third Way Conference Report Part 1

This report has been a little while coming. We recorded it a week ago, then I (Dale) misplaced the recorder.  The recorder has been found, so it is now my privilege to present to you our attempt to report on some of what we learnt on our trip to the Adventist Forums Conference, aka the Spectrum Conference.

This first session introduces the main theme of the conference and Brian McLaren's first two presentations.  The chief question was: in a world with so many beliefs and so many differences, how do we engage in a way that is compassionate and caring without simply giving up our own beliefs?  Part of the answer we found is changing the paradigm with which we approach difference.  Do we operate out of fear (of losing our identity) or out of love (as our identity)?

Spectrum Conference Report Part 1

Open Theism with Steve Mirkovich

We're finally back with a new podcast.  It was great seeing many of you at BC Campmeeting and recording a few podcasts while we were at it.  We look forward to meeting more of you at the Adventist Forum Conference coming up in September.

This week we're happy to feature a guest: Pastor Stevan Mirkovich from Vancouver.  I've known Steve since we were in junior high together.  He has wrestled long and hard with his faith and grown much in the journey--which is certainly not over.  He is recently returned from the first Open Theism conference, so we asked him to share what "open theism" means and why it is important to him.

Steve, thanks for sharing with us.  And thank you to the staff of the Lodge at Camp Hope for graciously opening a space for us to record.

Open Theism with Steve Mirkovich

We'll be back next week with another podcast.

God as Other: Why so Complicated?

Well, in Dale's absence, I've managed to find a podcast we recorded a while back but haven't released yet.  I think this is a good time for it.  Our discussion starts with a question: "If God is real, why doesn't He make himself known in a way that is obvious and unmistakable?"  This ties back into our discussion about reading the Bible as non-fiction, "Made for the Story", and my thesis.  This is a common question grounded in some assumptions about God and language and faith that don't make a lot of sense.  God wants a relationship--as such, he approaches us in ways that allow us to ignore or reject him.  He does not force himself upon us, and he speaks and appears in ways that require a response, without dictating a particular response.  That responsibility is vital to faith and life.  Ultimately, God appears as the "Great Other" who challenges our self-conceptions and doesn't always act in ways that are either comprehensible or desirable from our perspective.  But that is the great difficulty of loving another rather than yourself--different choices, different actions, different words.

Enjoy.

God as Other: Why so Complicated?

Hopefully, next week we will continue our discussion of the Bible as Nonfiction with an exploration of practices of good interpretation.

Lines: How we travel - how we live

When I go out my door and begin travelling, how do I view what I am doing? I can be starting a journey from point A to point B, or going for a walk, or a drive, or maybe even both. According to Tim Ingold, in his book "Lines: A Brief History", the way in which we view these journeys can correspond to the way in which we view many other aspects of our life, as well as how we live and remember our lives.

In this podcast, David and I tell stories about our own experiences with lines, and present, discuss, and argue about the question of transport versus wayfaring, or put another way, how we conceive of lines, and how that impacts our lives.  We also relate the question to our own lives, and to questions we encounter as Christians, or as simply humans.

So how do you view your daily commute, or your walk to work? And what does this viewpoint tell you about the rest of your life?

Lines: How we travel - how we live

This podcast ties in to, and builds on the ideas begun with our podcasts "The Truth about Stories" Part 1 and  Part 2. 

You can listen to this podcast on Spreaker as well at this link.

The Truth About Stories, Part 1

One of the most influential books for me, giving shape to how I view the world, was Tom King's book The Truth about Stories - which he gave as the 2003 Massey lectures.  In his book he starts with a creation story, looking at how the story impacts how we view the world, and how the story shapes how we view stories themselves.  Among everything else in this wonderful book,  he states that "the truth about stories is that that's all we are." In other words, what we are as people, is the nexus of all the stories that we live in, our relationships, and our developing ideas.  In part 1 of this two-part podcast David and I try to explain how this idea impacts our thinking, starting an exploration of what the stories of our culture are, and some of the implications for how we give meaning to our lives.

The truth about stories discussion, part 1

And if you prefer, the same, but on "Spreaker"

If you enjoyed this discussion, we return to it from a different angle in The Truth About Stories Part.

Made for the Story?

One of the ways to start talking about something is to, well, start talking about it.  To that end, here is the first in a long series of podcasts! Unfortunately I pulled out the mic when we were already a little bit into the conversation, so here's an intro.

We were talking about Jacques Ellul's book On Freedom, Love, and Power in the context of a discussion about how we use stories, especially in a culture where we have stories that can tell us what to do in every decision.  Do we view our myths and stories as boundaries, boxes, that we must live in, or do are they less boundaries and more guides?  Do we have a mixture of the two?  Our discussion is here:

     Were we made for the story, or the story made for us?

     And a second link via Spreaker with it's own forum for comments

And an addendum - here are links and citations to some of the texts and stories referenced in the course of the the discussion.

     Brown, Wendy. States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Vol. 120. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

     As it Happens interview with Tariq Ali on the death of Hugo Chavez

     Ellul, Jacques. On Freedom, Love, and Power. University of Toronto Press, 2010.

     Ingold, Tim. Lines:: A Brief History. Routledge, 2007.

     Selmanovic, Samir. It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian. Jossey-Bass, 2009.

     The Hebrew Yeshua versus the Greek Jesus, a presentation by Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew

     Choice: a podcast from Radiolab.

Many of the other stories referenced, The Bible, Rambo, The Shawshank Redemption, The Hurt Locker, and The Hobbit you'll have to find for yourself, as well as the two works by Joss Whedon referenced, Firefly and Angel.

Why this forum?

Over the past good while myself and a a friend have been in the process of writing a book - or to be more accurate co-writing.  To be more accurate still would be to say that we've spent several hours each weak discussing everything that we want to write about, but very rarely writing.  This blog will be a way of giving us a forum to write in, to post some of our discussions, and to give others a chance to tell us how ridiculous we are.

The subject matter will vary across a few disciplines, but will always be linked back to one question - why?  If that's too broad, I could narrow it to the domains of critical theory, religion, love, narrative, story, friendship, language, and hiking.  Even narrower, subject matter will almost always be relevant to our own lives, and the stories that we interact with regularly - urban vs rural, academia vs "normal", Adventism, the outdoors, television, gaming, and board games. If that's too broad, you'll have to either read later things that I've written, or listen to the podcasts that I think we'll be posting in the near future.

Finally - the title of this blog.  I originally wanted to go with -ee-apachitayaan ninagataweyihchigan, which translates as "as I am using my mind" and is in the Michif language, one of the unifying tropes I use across my blogs.  On second thought (after being reminded that it's not really that easy to remember [only 14 syllables!]) I went with Taanshi, meaning Hey! or How's it going?, also in Michif, but roughly twelve syllables shorter.

The main reason I chose it here is because it seems that most blogs dealing with this sort of subject matter go for Latin names referring to some sort of religious concept, and I think it's silly.  Unfortunately the convention is so well established that I can't really think of an English title that I could use! So my act of rebellion has been to reject Latin in favour of a language that is the beautiful bastard child of French and Nehiyawewin, preserving many of the strengths of both, and differing most significantly from Latin in that it is not friendly to metaphysics of any kind, as in its syntax, morphology and culture it tends to ground discussion in bodily action, and concrete implementation.  I'll probably talk about this at some point.

Finally, please interact! If you post interesting questions here, and we find them interesting, we'll probably try to find our own answers to them and post them either as posts or as podcasts.

update: we have a new title! "Storying Life" so although I still love "taanshi", it's going to be the url, not the title from here on in.