Introducing crossRhodes

Weeklyish reflections from Rhodes at the intersection of Scripture and our world

Welcome to crossRhodes, a weeklyish reflection at the intersection of Scripture and a few of the powerful, puzzling parts of our world: justice, discipleship, politics, church, mission, worship, and more. In this first post, I want to apologize for the pun in the title and explain why I hope you’ll stick around.

1. Why this, why now, why you?

CrossRhodes draws on two of the great privileges of my life. First, for the last 17 years, I’ve had the privilege of living, working, and worshipping in culturally diverse, economically marginalized communities in Kenya, South Memphis, and (currently), South Auckland. Trying to follow Jesus in these contexts has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, but it has also raised all sorts of bewildering complications and unexpected questions.

And that leads to the second great privilege: the privilege of getting to take those complications and questions back to Scripture. I never really expected to be a “professional” Bible teacher. But the questions that emerged from our context drove me back to graduate school, and, eventually, my role as Lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College. By the grace of God and the generosity of God’s church, I now get paid to spend time wrestling with the bizarre, explosive book we call the Bible, and then imagining what the Bible might mean for disciples of Jesus called to follow him in this messy, beautiful world that He so loves.

I get to explore the intersections between Scripture and justice, economics, politics, mission, worship, the church, and more in Carey’s classrooms. Sometimes I get to write stuff exploring the intersection between Scripture and some aspect of discipleship: for instance, Practicing the King’s Economy (on economics and discipleship), Formative Feasting (on the transforming power of meals in discipleship), and Just Discipleship (on what Scripture says about how disciples become just).

There’re more on the way, as well. I’m currently working on a book about political discipleship, and editing a collection of essays from a conference I helped organize here in Aotearoa/New Zealand about how the Psalms can shape contextualized worship and witness around the world. Oh, and I’m also working on a series of articles on biblical sea dragons and why they should change the way we think about creation (seriously).

I’ve got the best job in the world.

Worship led by Te Hira and Anameka Paenga at Carey’s 2024 Psalms Conference

2. Ok, but you still haven’t explained why this?

So why a weeklyish reflection? Basically because I constantly feel grateful to be able to give time to wrestling with Scripture and what it means for our world, and feel an obligation to share what I’m learning as broadly as possible. Too much of academia never gets out of the library, and given that people are reading fewer books these days, simply writing more books doesn’t solve the problem.

I want to create a space where I can invite others into my reflections “on the way,” as it were. So about once a week I’ll be sharing relatively short reflections on what I’m reading, wrestling with, wondering over, or writing about concerning this adventure of discipleship to which Scripture calls us. In the weeks ahead, I look forward to sharing how the Psalms invite us to imagine contextualized worship in the mother tongues and heart cultures of all God’s people, how Scripture raises warnings about concentrated political power, wrestle with what Ecclesiastes and Proverbs suggest about justice, wisdom, and political responsibility, and reflect on the conflict between Herod’s table and Christ’s in the gospels. And that’s just to get started. I may even get round to sharing about those sea dragons.

3. Why Substack?

In the past I’ve tried to share my research and reflections more broadly on social media, and especially Facebook and Twitter. But I’m increasingly concerned that these platforms aren’t the best places for the kind of conversation I believe God’s people need to be having, and can sometimes even be counterproductive.

For instance, Scripture’s political teaching warns us about the danger of getting coopted by partisan political forces. The example of Daniel demonstrates that God’s people must be proactive in criticizing their political allies, as well as their political adversaries.

But in our world today, partisan division is on the rise. Michael Wear points out in The Spirit of our Politics that more than 20 million Americans across both parties believe “America would be better off if large members of their opposition died,” and more than “42 percent of Americans view people in the opposing party as ‘downright evil.’” And as Miranda Cruz points out in her excellent book Faithful Politics, affiliating with a party often leads to “unreflective partisan alignment.” There are powerful forces at work here; “political science research suggests we will uncritically align with our party on issues that are not our top priorities.” We start adopting positions because of our party rather than our party based on our positions. And to bring this all back to Facebook and Twitter, research suggests their algorithms just make all this worse; “studies have shown that social media heightens political polarization,” Cruz argues, and “disengagement reduces polarization.”

All of which brings us back to crossRhodes. I’m hoping these weekly reflections offer nuanced, on-the-way musings on how the explosive message of Scripture opens up intersections between Christian faith and the complexities of our world.

So that’s what crossRhodes is all about. I hope you’ll sign up and share this post with friends and family who you think may be interested in joining the conversation.

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