SPECIAL ADDITION: Because I can, because I have time (you SO don’t have time to read this).

So, I am a binge reader and a verbal processor (which means I puke the things I have read all over the people around me). Unfortunately for you, literally everyone I know is either gone or busy this weekend which has led to an excessive binge read unlike any I have had since the days when I was learning to nurse Jude and I read everything I could get my hands on – including the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” So here I purge (because lucky Jarod is gone).
But first let me explain how and why I read… because I don’t think it is healthy. First, reading was very difficult for me as a child. I did not like to read but in early middle school, Jay, one of my handicapped brothers who cannot read nor count to 3, asked me if I liked to read.

I said, “no.”
He said, “You should.”
“Why.”
“Because you can.”
OOWWW

So, then I started reading… and slowly I grew to love it. By 8th grade I was staying up late on Fridays and waking up early on Saturdays to finish Jannett Oak books. I would get addicted and would sit inside on nice days – on busy days – with my head in a book. This was so NOT ok with my mom. Just like everything else done for pleasure, I learned from my mother that reading is something to be put off until, “everything else is done.” And since “EVERYTHING” is NEVER done, she packs 15 books she wants to read for any 2-day trip she goes on.

Since I am slightly obsessive-compulsive I either get addicted to reading or doing and one is always “interrupting” the other. To make a complicated situation worse, I am also a purger of things so every time we move I get rid of books. I also hate to buy thing and love the idea of the library – so I don’t have books at home just to “pick up when I get a chance.” However in the last two years Jude and Isabella have totally destroyed my ability to use a library since I spend 1 hour in the children’s department and then drag them “quietly” – for maybe like 3 minutes to the adult section. With one on each hand I attempt to judge the “New arrivals section” by the spines of the books – take 2 and run. This is a pathetic use of a library – I feel shame at the admittance.

So this week I grabbed 2 books. I can read. I had time to read. Even if what I read makes NO sense – this is how I got here in the last 72 hours.

I have been studying the word “kingdom” every time it is mentioned in the NT. I just worked through Matthew and it is mentioned a ton! And it is far more complicated than I thought but I am making some good notes.
And it is perfect that I am reading this because the first book I picked up is, Amish Grace. It is the perspective of 3 professors on why the Amish people were so quick to forgive after the 2006 school shooting. The reason the “Kingdom” study is so handy is because Amish theology leans heavily on Matthew and of their practical theology is lived out in a 2-kingdom paradigm. So, basically I totally have always wanted to be Amish even though I knew nothing about their doctrine I figured I would be kinda’ close. But Jarod was right… I can never be Amish – not because they speak Pennsylvania Dutch or because my kids would have to stop going to school in 8th grade but because I really can’t submit to their doctrine – at least how it was interpreted by these 3 professors. Ok but my “not Amish doctrine” has nothing to do with this…. There are parts of their doctrine I think are right on.

The second book I picked out is Globalization and Grace and it is like this really heady and boring theological treatment of how religions impact their cultures in an extreme way. I would so not be in it still if there were not so much food for thought on my current “Kingdom” binge.
So here basically how the weekend in my head has gone - my “mental map” as Max Stackhouse (the Globalization author) would put it. Jesus’ main message was the “kingdom of God.” Christians are supposed to be following Jesus, but most of us don’t even think about this “kingdom” much less realize, like the Amish, that we have switched “kingdoms”. And that by the grace of God this new citizenship should totally revolutionize who we are today. Instead we really like to focus on some future kingdom of God that we are not at all responsible for but that will just appear. Now I really agree with the common theological concept of the kingdom as “Here and not here – now and not yet.” But I really think we lose focus of the here and now part of it.
The Amish don’t and they have created a culture that accurately reflects a lot of the teachings of the Kingdom of God here on earth. Obviously, individualistic consumerist American culture does not. Now, Christians (and non-Christians alike) want to say that Christianity has not created our current culture – that it is secularized – but this Stackhouse guy is arguing (and I think pretty accurately) that it has and will continue to shape what our culture becomes. A lot of modern academics thought that as societies advanced “religions” would fade into the past but instead there seems to be resurgence in spiritual and religious fervor (which is scaring the pants off of some).
This is where the globalization part comes in. It is happening – no matter if we like it or not – this “new world order” or whatever you want to call it - is a culture in the making and the question is what forces are going to create and sustain this global culture?
We have seen on a small scale what a “here and now” practical kingdom theology among the Amish can do. It has created a culture in which forgiveness is placed over revenge and bitterness, community over self, love over hate, etc, etc, that even in the worst circumstances – which generally bring out the worst in us – their culture had prepared them to come out together in love and grace.
Then we see from history that the theology we follow creates the culture we inhabit today – and no one is really pumped about the culture of today. We have this chance in globalization to make a theological paradigm shift to a “Here and now” kingdom theology that could create a better culture. If Christians, if this Christian, embraces something that goes a little bit deeper … I won’t be perfect but maybe I could be a little more Amish. Well it just made me want to tell someone… and if you have any book suggestions (on anything) that would be great… ‘Cause I think I’ll go to the library tomorrow without any kids. Oh and if you are a Christian I suggest looking at the “kingdom” in Matthew…