NT Wright – This Saturday in Greenwich CT – Be There!

Click Here to see N.T. Wright on  The Colbert Report N.T. “Tom” Wright is the former Bishop of Durham with the Church of England and current Professor of the New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Andrews University in Scotland. He also taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Featured on ABC News, Dateline NBC, NPR’s Fresh Air, Time Magazine, and on The Colbert Report, N.T. Wright’s influence has reached far and wide. He is described as one of the top five theologians in the world today. Meet Tom Wright and enjoy a day full of interactive lecture & conversation. This is a not-to-be missed event!

N.T. WRIGHT World Renowned Theologian, New Testament Scholar, and Writer Sat, May 14, 2011 10am – 4:30pm A DAY OF DYNAMIC TEACHING & DISCUSSION Reading the Gospels for All They’re Worth   Session I: The Gospels: Have We Got It Wrong? Session II: The Gospels in Four Dimensions Session III: The Kingdom & the Cross Session IV: Praying, Preaching & Living the Gospels   Tickets: $65 (includes lunch) www.courageandfaith.org or Christ Church Greenwich bookstore “Tom Wright ranks among the  most distinguished New Testament scholars in the world” – Professor Ivor Davidson, St. Andrews University “Bishop Tom has given generously of his extraordinary gifts in the life of his diocese and the Church of England at large” – Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams Sun, May 15, 2011 9:30am, Guest Preacher at Christ Church Greenwich Worship Service The Shepherd and the Thief 10:30am, Talk, Book Signing & Piano Performance Virtue: The Radical Alternative Christ Church Greenwich Parish Hall Christ Church Greenwich 254 E. Putnam Avenue Greenwich, CT 203-869-6600

Ian Cron/Chasing Francis Recap

For those who have been enjoying our interview with Ian Cron on Chasing Francis, but might have missed some of the original posts, here’s a recap:

Part One – Why Won’t This Book Go Away?
Part Two – Would Francis be Medicated Today?
Part Three – Mystics and Prophets
Part Four: Does Orthodoxy Have to be Static?
Part Five: Chasing Francis: The Sleeping Giant
Part Six: Influences & Aspirations

You can keep up with Ian on his blog at IanCron.com and on Twitter @iancron. And I suggest you do – he’s just getting warmed up!

Ian Cron: Influences and Aspirations

This is the final installment of my interview with Ian Cron. To recap: A novel he wrote over three years ago, Chasing Francis, has been steadily gathering a devoted and enthusiastic reader base. He’s even received new endorsements, something rather unheard of in the publishing world. This includes Archbishop of Catnerbury Rowan Williams saying “I’ve now read it twice and found it equally compelling both times. It’s a remarkable book” and Marcus Borg relating “I was powerfully and wonderfully moved by this story of the conversion of an evangelical pastor to a broader vista of God’s passion for the world.” In this post I ask Ian “What’s next after Francis..?”

Mike Morrell: So you’re no longer pastor at Trinity. What’s next for you?

Ian Cron: We’re living in Nashville as of this month. I have two books to write for Thomas Nelson. I also curate this speaking series called Conversations on Courage and Faith through a very big Episcopal parish in Connecticut called Christ Church. Last year we had Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle, Pete Rollins; the artist Mako Fujimura. We commissioned an orchestral and choral piece that was composed and performed by Rob Mathes and the Irish poetMicheal O’Siadhail. It was an extraordinary night. In June we finished up the series with Desmond Tutu. NT Wright and Marcus Borg will be here this year.Tony Campolo is also coming. We’re working on getting a couple of other folks as well.

MM: Those lightweights..?

IC: My own speaking ministry is getting busier as well. What I’m working on right now is a night called, “Bread, Song, and Story”, where I’ll do some readings from my new spiritual memoir, interspersed with original songs and then we close the night with the Eucharist. It’ll be a great night.

MM: So you’re a priest? Somehow that was lost on me. I figured you started this non-denominational church, but…….

IC: Yes, I did start a non-denominational church, but I am a priest. Right now I’m not on a church staff. I’m adjunct clergy at Christ Church in Connecticut.

MM: So whose voices are really resonating with you right now? What are you into reading, listening, conversing with, etc.?

IC: As far as writers go Thomas Merton is my anchor and the place I always return to in my life. He is just extraordinary. I’ve been reading New Seeds of Contemplation and Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander again which for me are his masterpieces. I have been getting ready for Borg and Wright to come to my speaker series so I have been reading them as well.

Because I’ve been writing a memoir I’ve also read a lot of memoirs in the last year from Mary Carr to Frederick Buechner’s works. I’ve been reading Dave Tomlinson’s Reenchanting Christianity. And because of my doctorate program I’ve been reading tons of material on the contemplative life–lots of material from the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner.

MM: So, any music?

IC: Broken Bells. Mumford & Sons. The classical composer Eric Whitacre is someone I really like a lot. I’ve been kind of going back in time and listening to old Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown. People with that sense of groove should be arrested. I’m a big fan of Duncan Sheik, Foy Vance, as well. But the majority of the music I listen to is 13th, 14th, and 15th century choral music, just because I love the almost mathematical purity of it.

MM: I’m unfamiliar with about half of that – I’ll have to check it out! The book is Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale. It’s an story of one man’s spiritual journey into both the premodern world and the postmodern world through the lens of an extraordinary person named Francis of Assisi. Check it out!

This concludes our interview with Ian. Here it is in case you missed it:

Part One – Why Won’t This Book Go Away?
Part Two – Would Francis be Medicated Today?
Part Three – Mystics and Prophets
Part Four: Does Orthodoxy Have to be Static?
Part Five: Chasing Francis: The Sleeping Giant

The Chasing Francis interview is now concluded! You can keep up with Ian on his blog at IanCron.com and on Twitter @iancron.

Chasing Francis, the Sleeping Giant

Mike Morrell: Chasing Francis is a book that just keeps on going. It’s been three years since it’s publication and I still hear about people discovering it for the first time. The terms “slow burn hit” and “long tail” come to mind. What do you think about that?

Ian Cron: You ever listen to old Neil Young records? Musically, they still hold up, you know? You listen to something like Saturday Night Fever …not so much! I think the book is holding up over time. I think the things Chase learns and talks about still really matter. Again, there are lots of ideas in it that are not original to me. I just organized them into a story and made a book out of them. I think there is truths in it that continue vibrating in our current context, and maybe more loudly when they did when the book first came out. There is an increasing upsurge of people saying, “You know, there’s just got to be something else”.

MM: Indulge me a moment. Here are some endorsements that have only come out in the last 3-6 months.

“I’ve now read it twice and found it equally compelling both times. It’s a remarkable book.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. Dr. Rowan Williams

“Chasing Francis is absolutely seductive. This one is a feast for the soul as well as a great, churning, joyful romp for the spirit!”

Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why

“Cron provides us with a deeply moving account of loss and discovery. It bears witness to the ability of Francis of Assisi, to speak with a full voice to contemporary seekers and persons of faith.”

Frank T. Griswold, Twenty-Fifth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

“A powerful and wonderful book! I was deeply moved by this story of the conversion of an evangelical pastor to a much broader vista of God’s passion for the world.”

Dr. Marcus J. Borg, author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions

These are some heady endorsements, especially coming three years after the book was released!

IC: Heh – yeah, where were these people three years ago? Seriously, its pretty humbling to get these responses from people I admire so much. I’m praying they help the book get some wind under its wings. It would be great if it would just take off!

MM: Earlier in our conversation we spoke about contemplative spirituality – it amazes me the variety of responses it evokes. It’s all the rage in some circles while many others have never heard of it, even now in 2010. Centering prayer, spiritual direction, lectio divina, and labyrinths…these have ardent supporters in many mainline and emergent and progressive Catholic circles, but then sadly, I think contemplative spirituality is dismissed in other places. It’s seen as “liberal” and “un-biblical.” Could you share your perspective on the importance of contemplative spirituality for the church as well as maybe touching on its biblical and historical roots?

IC: Well, its historical roots go back 1,700 years to the desert mothers and fathers. Then later the language of the contemplative was lost in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, for all of the obvious reasons. Since the Reformation I think that we over-privileged rationalization and under-privileged the transformative power at coming to understand Jesus and truths about the spiritual life through other, more experiential, mediums. At Augustine once said, the human heart particularly delights in truth that comes to it sideways, or in indirect ways. I think that’s what the contemplative life is in many ways about.

The contemplative life is just about waking up to what is. It’s about learning to pay attention. The world is suffused with the presence of God. As Ignatius of Loyola would say, “The whole point of the spiritual life is to see God in all things.” So now God is not just an idea, God is a living, humming reality in every moment. So to learn how to pay attention is learning to live mindfully in the moment, to experience God in everything; that’s the point. Now, the way you get there is through a rigorous life of meditation, prayer, and spiritual exercises -some that that go beyond or bypass the rational mind.

But this material does infuriate some people. I wrote an article for the Catalyst conference on the contemplative life – Everyday Mystics – and I talked about the fact that every Christian, at some level, whether they know it or not, is a mystic. People wrote in and killed me for it. “It’s not in the Bible,” they cried. Well what about Martha and Mary? Martha was modeling the Active Life and Mary the Contemplative life. Both are important but Jesus said Mary chose the better way.

MM: It’s interesting to observe, because I feel like if even self-proclaimed progressive and emergent Christians truly embrace the contemplative vision as you just described it, we could really give some of the more entrenched dead-tradition folks a run for their money in terms of taking seriously the idea that God is really real, present, changing, and alive.

IC: Yeah. Now that’s not to say that the spiritual life doesn’t have to be built on strong intellectual foundation. It does. But the intellectual life can only bring you to the edge of the wilderness of God; it can’t take you in. I think the mystics and contemplatives agree on this. Entering into the wilderness of God happens in a mystical, contemplative encounter with God. This is a gift of the Spirit and is something neither you nor I can manufacture. Look what happens to Aquinas. He gets to the end of his life. He’s written the Summa. Then he has this powerful, mystical experience and what does he do with all his academic material? He calls it “straw” and abandons it. All his life the academic had taken him to the edge of the Wild but it paled in comparison when he finally went through this mystical encounter.

MM: Oh that’s fascinating!

IC: When that contemplative or mystical moment happens, it is a gift. Some people do contemplative prayer for 30 or 40 years and wait for the 3 seconds of communion and they are never the same again. To give you another phrase, “the contemplative life is about a unitive knowledge of God”. It’s about union with God.

This concludes part five.

Part One – Why Won’t This Book Go Away?
Part Two – Would Francis be Medicated Today?
Part Three – Mystics and Prophets
Part Four: Does Orthodoxy Have to be Static?

The Chasing Francis interview is to be continued..! You can keep up with Ian on his blog at IanCron.com and on Twitter @iancron.

Ian Cron: Does Orthodoxy Have to be Static?

This is the fourth part of a multipart interview with Ian Cron about his novel, Chasing Francis, which after three years is garnering more acclaim than it did in year one! You can keep up with Ian on Twitter @iancron.

Mike Morrell: Chasing Francis features this protagonist Chase Falson, who starts Putnam Hill Community Church in New England. In the process of transitioning from a professionalized Evangelical persona, he rediscovers mystical and activist faith. Along the way he loses the congregation he started. So, you too, started a thriving congregation in New England and recently left the church you co-founded. Dare I ask, what are the parallels between you and Chase, and where do these similarities end?

Ian Cron: I once heard someone say that everybody’s first book is, to some degree, autobiographical. There are pieces of Chase that are definitely a part of my own personal narrative.  3 years before I started Trinity Church, I began to feel a great sense of dis-ease with the Evangelical culture I had been living in. I remember reading The Post Evangelical by Dave Tomlinson and nearly crying. About 3 years later Brian McLaren wrote A New Kind of Christian and the journey to something new really began for me.

There are definitely pieces of Chasing Francis that are autobiographical. Trinity, during my 10 years, however, was not anything like Putnam Hill, the church in the book. If anything it started off evangelical and became much more of a haven for orthodox progressives as we went on over time. I was thrilled at the kind of theological questions we were asking as a staff and as a community toward the end of my time there.

MM: Isn’t orthodox progressive a contradiction in terms though?

IC: I don’t think it has to be either/or.

MM: Do tell, because a lot of people out there seem to think it does.

IC: I don’t think orthodoxy has to be static. I think orthodox progressives tend to have more theological fluidity and openness than other traditions. I think orthodox progressives recognize that we should always be self-criticizing our own theology, always interrogating our own assumptions, and when we do that, we’re going to make theological adjustments throughout the course of our lives and that’s OK.

MM: So, did you go on a pilgrimage to Italy yourself? I figured you’d almost have to have because of the way you describe the sights, the sounds, and especially the tastes and flavors of Italy.

IC: Yeah, I was there for 3 weeks on a pilgrimage with a group Franciscan nuns and friars. It was remarkable. A lot of them were elderly and had never been to Assisi before, so they were “coming home”, some of them at the end of their lives, to the place where their founder had lived. It was really moving because everywhere we went was such an “aha”, eye opening moment for them. It was very, very beautiful. It was a great experience.

This concludes part four.

Part One – Why Won’t This Book Go Away?
Part Two – Would Francis be Medicated Today?
Part Three – Mystics and Prophets

The Chasing Francis interview is to be continued..!

Ian Cron: Would St. Francis be Medicated Today?

This is the second part of a multipart interview with Ian Cron about his novel, Chasing Francis, which after three years is getting more buzz and not less. You can keep up with Ian on Twitter @iancron.

Mike Morrell: St. Francis seemed to have a wise way of living the change versus being a “protest person.” If you start giving all of your energy to criticizing something, you set your self up to become the mirror image of the very thing you’re critiquing.

Ian Cron: I think that’s right. Francis did so many things that were important for us to consider today, especially in the spirit in which he did them. I felt it was important for people unfamiliar with his life to hear about them. The fact that he was an artist versus an academic I thought was important as well. In fact he was suspicious of academics, and the Academy as a whole. He was reacting to the rise of scholasticism, and the birth of universities. I think what he was afraid of was that Jesus was going to become a theological abstraction versus a living reality.

MM: Indeed.

IC: Which, in part, is what’s happened! So many of us relate to Jesus in theological debates as if he is an interesting idea, something notional.

MM: Right. And you end up viewing theology as though Jesus is not in the room with you; as though God is not present with you.

IC: Exactly.

MM: The radical commitment to the poor, his being an artist versus an academic, creation theology, peacemaking, treating Jesus as though he’s really in the room – as I re-read Chasing Francis three years later, these are some of the things that make Francis relevant.

IC: By the way, his relationship with women was really unusual for the time as well. His relationship with Claire, and his saying “Look, let me help you start an order for women based on Franciscan ideals” was revolutionary for that period. There are other wonderful things about Francis I talk about in the book but this gives you a flavor of it.

MM: So, you said something interesting in the beginning, that Ronald Rolheiser and Richard Rohr said we need more Francis’s today. Why do you suppose we don’t have more Francis’s today, or do we, and we pay less attention to them?

IC: Well, I am going to give you one answer that is somewhat tongue-in-cheek but its not completely facetious. The first one is this: there may be Francis’ out there, but they might be psychiatrically medicated.

MM: Oh my! I could see that, though…

IC: I’m just being completely honest. Today Francis would be considered delusional. Freud wouldn’t come along for 600 more years. There were no medical models for treating mental illness. Today, he would be diagnosed as having Bipolar Disorder, Frontal Lobe Epilepsy or some other ailment. Today we would pathologize his spirituality and medicate it away. That’s true of so many of the saints. Can you imagine what would happen to St. Theresa? They would have her on Haldol or Lithium in a heartbeat.

MM: It’s true. It seems like our thinking about what is sane and what isn’t does keep out some true craziness but it also keeps out a lot of genius.

IC: I also think Francis we don’t have more Francis’ out there because its just too costly. He scares the hell out of most people, me included. For centuries he’s been called “The Last Christian”, for embodying the gospel in a way that ‘s unparalleled. Some called him the “Second Jesus.” Most of us have been so co-opted by the powers and principalities of materialism, of modernism, of fear, that it’s really difficult to get to this kind of place. I think there are some who have the spirit of Francis out there, but they are mostly unsung heroes.

This concludes part two. Part one is here. The Chasing Francis interview is to be continued..!

Ian Cron’s ‘Chasing Francis’: Why Won’t This Book Go Away?

I recently had the chance to catch up with Ian Cron to discuss his novel, Chasing Francis, which after three years on the market is only garnering more and more acclaim. This is the first of a multi-part interview. You can keep up with Ian on Twitter @iancron.

Mike Morrell: Chasing Francis. It’s this novel about a minister on a pilgrimage, rediscovering and in many ways reinventing who he is, based on his encounter with the living memory of St. Francis of Assisi. So: Why did you choose to write about Francis?

Ian Cron: I heard Ronald Rolheiser along with Richard Rohr at a conference, and the two of them agreed that what the church, both Catholic and Protestant, needs today more than anything else is a the emergence of a new St. Francis. Some would say the Catholic Church has been kept afloat by Francis’ charism for the last 500 years. That Franciscan vision revitalized and rescued the church in the 13^th c and I think it could do the same thing today. When I first read about St. Francis, I was awestruck at how important and prophetic a voice he was for the contemporary church. It’s like what the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in his speech “Changing the Landscape” He said there are so many people in the “postmodern emergent church world that think they are inventing something new, when in fact there were pre-modern people like Francis who were “emergent” long before we were, just in their own context. So, here’s this exemplar for us! We don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel. We can learn from the giants of our past.

MM: You call Francis the consummate postmodern saint. Why?

IC: There are so many compelling reasons for this. First he was the first environmentalist. Francis’ theology of creation was something I think we need to recapture. It’s all about getting in touch with the urgent immediacy of God in the natural order. We need more nature mystics; people who every time they go out into creation feel compelled to take their shoes off.

Second Francis is our first peace activist, in particular, with Muslims.

MM: Which is hugely relevant.

IC: Hugely relevant! You’ve read the book so you know that during the Crusades, Francis led a transcontinental peace delegation to extend an olive branch to Muslims and to try and persuade the Crusaders to repent and return home. That’s fairly amazing. It’s the first transcontinental peace delegation we know of in history.

MM: It is amazing, especially given the official stance of the church in his era.

IC: It was remarkably courageous. It could have cost him a visit to the stake.

MM: Probably not very good.

IC: Here’s another thing about Francis: he was radically committed to the poor at a time when the church had become garishly opulent and materialistic. It could be argued that it was the largest, most powerful investment bank in the history of the world.

MM: And what’s fascinating is that he did it without directly criticizing the church for its capitulating to culture.

IC: Now that’s fascinating, isn’t it? Here’s Francis’ strategy–if you want to critique something, just do it better. Don’t go off at the mouth criticizing everything that’s wrong with the Church. Just do it better. Let the excellence of your life be your highest form of protest.

This concludes part one. The Chasing Francis interview is to be continued..!

Why the Archbishop of Canterbury Thinks A New England Novel Can Change the Future of the Church

This crossed my desk this morning and I thought it would be of interest…

For Immediate Release

Archbishop of Canterbury Endorses Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale

Colorado Springs, CO (June 28, 2010)—More than 800 years ago St. Francis of Assisi single-handedly altered the spiritual and political climate of his time. Today, Chasing Francis, a captivating book that examines the lessons the saint can teach contemporary Christians, has received an endorsement from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams.

“I’ve now read it twice and found it equally compelling both times. It’s challenging, disarming and delightful, and the vision behind it is a serious one. It’s a remarkable book,” says Dr. Williams.

This significant endorsement has sparked a renewed interest in Chasing Francis, which is a creative and compelling hybrid of fiction, theology, and historical biography. The first book by Ian Morgan Cron, Chasing Francis masterfully weaves actual accounts of St. Francis’ radical impact on the world into the fictional story of a New England minister on a pilgrimage to regain his faith.

Listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams’ address at the “Fresh Expressions: Changing the Landscape” conference in which he summarizes the plot of Chasing Francis; discusses the five principles the book emphasizes for the church: transcendence, community, beauty, dignity, and meaning; and explains why he is strongly recommending it to others. (Begin at minute mark 23:00.)

***

Since its founding in 1975, NavPress has become known as a trusted ministry leader in discipleship and leadership development. The Navigators, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is an interdenominational, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people navigate spiritually.