One for the road...

Institutional Church - R.I.P..?

I am indebted to Fernando Gros' Being a missional gospel for the institutional church for the inspiration behind this post.  Fernando's post crystallised some of my thinking that has been influenced by a number of other emerging church esque posts that I have come across reacting against what has been labelled the institutional church, modern church, CEO/corporate church, and/or organised religion [I will refer to this as IC from now on].

In the emerging church I think, as I have advocated before, we need to apply the discipline of self examination to ourselves, critiquing ourselves and being critiqued.  It is with that in mind that I am writing what I envision will be a 3 part piece:

• Part 1 [below] will explore where I think as emergent christians we draw our reaction to the institutional church from and that maybe rather than adovocating the death of IC we should ask ourselves at the marco level are we really that different?
• Part 2 will  build on this and explore our commonality and shared heritage with with the IC and indeed with historically with all new forms of church; and
• Part 3 will explore the hand-me-up to the christian tradition that emerging church brings and how we can also benefit from the handed down traditions and pratices of the church.

An institutional death wish?

Why do we want the institutional church to die?  Ok, maybe we don't come right out and say that we really want it to die [although some people openly do], we'd like it to live, really we would,  but if it did go terminal well wouldn't we shed many tears over it? Would I? Would you?

But what do we mean by the institutional church?  What thoughts, images, feelings spring to mind?

Do we mean a  specific church that we know, maybe one we grew up in..? 

Maybe we mean a certain type of church with a particular style that never clicked for us, liturgy or angry sermons..?

Maybe it's broader than just a type of church or a particular strand but a reaction to a whole theological position -  maybe it's all that  evangelical rules base straight lacedness..? 

Maybe we just never got to ask questions or share doubts without feeling heretical - so a reaction to modernity as we find ourselves swimming in post-modern individualistic do what you want your way world..? 

Maybe its just any church, ever, full stop!  Burnt out or bummed out by how we have been treated by christians.  We can echo the words of Danny Archer, from the film Blood Diamond, but instead of Africa we are talking about our church experience:

"Sometimes I wonder... will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? Then I look around and I realise... God left this place a long time ago. "

I think however we define IC it will have a large element of personal experience and a reaction against that.  I speculate here but I think many people in the emerging church have a lot of that experience in common and thus have a broad common reaction where we can define what we are not by that which we have personally experienced and do not like/agree with etc.

Reactions speak louder than words

I am not trying to minimise anyone's pain or argue that there is is anything inherently bad about the origins of the emerging church coming out of the IC.  I think it is hopeful and encouraging that rather giving up on God and being a community that gathers, the emerging church are trying to find ways of still embodying that.  I do think we need to own our baggage and be clear that in the many ways how we are constructing our ecclesiology is based on a reaction to what we have encountered and experienced. 

The ongoing excellent serious the The People Formerly Known As is to my mind a very therapeutic example of this reaction, giving people a framework to react against what they have experienced in the IC.  In many ways the TPFKA is a coalition of the damaged, the disappointed and the downright disillusioned who like white blood cells are prepared to fight off the life killing experiences of the IC and purge it from the body to which they can see it having no beneficial part.

But what are we specifically reacting against?

Institutional madness?

"All national institutions of churches...appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolise power and profit."

So wrote Thomas Paine in 1794 showing that the fear of the institution, the modern machine, the power hungry juggernaut of programmes and products that crushes people is nothing new and not a recent invention of the Wachowski brothers - although they exploited this fear in the Matrix. 

Our reaction against the institution is seen in metaphors such as organic, an emphasis on the communal or a focus on less structure more free flowing forms of liquid church.  Whilst we may fear the term institution we need to look at what underlies this?  As Brian McLaren points out in A New Kind of Christian do we really not like organised religion so that we are advocating a disorganised irreligion?  Or are we voicing concerns about how the religion has been organised and practised such that the fruit we experience seems false or hypocritical with words not matching up with actions?

Then again do we need to take a reality check - do any of us ever fully live up to our professions or our intentions?  Are we just in danger here of expressing dislike for one form of institution only to be guilty of the same practises ourselves? 

Maybe worse are we in danger of loosing something where we become deliberately disorganised or de-institutionalised whilst still bearing all the marks of an institution?  Or if eschew structure for a claim of every space being sacred and church present do we risk actually having nothing, a liquid that has nothing to contain it flows away, do we so want to end up soaked into our culture that we become indistinguishable from it?

Ligaments rather than liquid institutions?

Perhaps we need to get past our fears and admit that even our new forms of churches are institutions - ones, like those that have gone before, that are trying to be shaped by a different rhythm and practise to the other institutions of our age? Where sacrament and the sacred exist and our shared across a common history? 

Without getting too idealistic maybe it would be helpful as McLaren suggests we need to consider religion in terms of its Latin roots -  around reconnection.  Institutions that are about reconnecting us to God and each other - binding us together? Religious institutions that are ligaments rather than liquid? 

Whilst some stretch and flexibility is needed within the ligament, which can play out in the need for churches to adapt to the conditions we find ourselves too much stretch of the ligament is ultimately damaging and leads to instability. 

Not wanting to stretch this metaphor much further I still think we should recognise that the institutional church across the age is connected to each other and to try and tear or sever that link would be to impair our own being and interaction.  Whilst we may wish to deny our institutional nature I wonder how effective we can be as churches if we do not remain as such - yes that brings with it a tension, how to be an institution without being impersonal but it is not something that we can deny.

In search of the perfect church?

We can also react against our experience of church and use that reaction to create churches that are different by eradicating all the experiences that we disliked. 

When I got married my father-in-law gave a great speech part of which was about how his first born beautiful daughter did not come with an instruction manual and no way of putting her back.  In facing how to be a parent he admitted that their was a choice of either doing what their parents had done because they liked it as children or doing the total opposite because they disliked it growing up.   In the same way we can get all idealistic about church, our constructions are reaction to our modern IC parent that we didn't like so we will do the opposite - does that make our form better? Maybe for us but not universally so?  Does it mean that the IC that we come from is dying because it didn't work for us - probably not!

Creating blueprint churches are not going to lead us to better churches, just different ones.  We need recognise that the church is an institution that is full of failed people who are struggling together as well as a beautiful bride loved by Christ.  We are the good, the bad and the ugly all mixed in together and any form of gathering we have will display these attributes.  To quote from the song everyone is free to wear sunscreen

"Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasise
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders... Respect your elders."

We may want to reverse that process and see the IC as corrupt and broken and our new forms of church as free from this stain but this kind of inverse nostalgia is only that.

More so we may dislike certain practises of the IC but we need to ask ourselves where we draw our own models from?  For example we may react to the CEO model of doing church, a top down tight command and control model as being just an accommodation to business driven structures.  But in advocating team based, creative, open, flat structures are we advocating anything different from the current models advocated by current business practitioners?  Or we may dislike the consumer driven mentality, the McChurch model and instead find ourselves advocating a more niche, independent coffee shop esque structure - both of which models are drawn from the consumer market place - just reflect differing consumer preferences of our own.

In fact I go as far as to ask myself how much of the emerging church is a me-centric driven experience rich process - we may abandon attractional models but are we instead seeking to have God experiences in a church that we want to go to, filled with people who we would want to hang out with, who think and talk the same way we do? A place of people like us who we like rather than a people like them who we don't?

Christianity is churchianity?

How much do our churches provide us as places to detox from the consumer culture me centric around us and to reconnect to the counter culture of christianity? 

Do we ever stop to think that without the church there would be no christians?

That the practise of gathering together in small groups with whom we do/share life with and bigger groups to share and declare ourselves in God's story rather than God in ours, is a practise of the church since its inception right up till now?

We may choose to wish to disassociate ourselves from people who we see as being about church and rather position ourselves as people who are about the kingdom of god but in doing so we cannot dismiss the fact that the church, the body, the gathering, the community is the means where we express and embody this.  An understanding of the other centred tri-une God models for us how we are individually created but it is in other centred community that we learn character and find our purpose and affirm the purposes of others.

We may advocate that church should be modelled so that we can belong before we believe but if we do not create a separate space from our culture are we not in danger of allowing people to continue to belong in other things (even in part)?

Let's be realistic about this in our awareness - it is clear to me that I belong to many other things other than the church - whilst it suits my consumer mindset to reduce my ownership to just me and God or me and people is it to, quote Jesus, any different from what anyone one else in the world does? 

What distinguishes christianity? For Jesus it is the love that such a diverse and individual group of people show each other when they are gathered in their churchianity- which to the world looks like insanity!  That is because in our world as we know such diversity and individuality leads to selfish grabs at happiness at the expense of others.  Of course some of that still happens in church - we are after all detoxing, we are still consumer addicts and likely to fall off the waggon and back to our back stabbing ways at the slightest hint of personal happiness and fulfilment where our needs will get met on some else's expense tab!

Where are we going to learn the practises and models that will help us detox from culture and at the same time transform it - are they not within our common heritage and history as a church?  The emphasis on spiritual practises and disciplines are not new inventions but date back to when the tri-une God first called a people to be their image bearers.  We must be careful not to strip mine church history for experiences that we can exploit for ourselves  to connect to God whilst damming the IC that has used them for centuries.  Instead we must set these practises in their context, aware of the dangers that to do other wise of a form of pastiche or nostalgic church.

The same goes for the reality of  of counter cultural veiled practises, ones that are not available to be consumed/bought such as communion and baptism.  These are rites and rituals that are again shared across history and church form. 

Your thoughts?

I have painted with a broad brush because I want to show that our in our reaction to the IC we still have as many if different inconsistencies and double standards.  I have also painted myself into the picture my critique as someone who enjoys, appreciates and benefits from the emerging church conversation.  I value your thoughts/feelings, particularly:

• what do you agree with?
• what do you disagree with?
• how would you paint the picture?
• where would you paint yourself in it?

The struggle with pain that makes us better not bitter

I came across these thoughts by Brian McLaren in response to the tragic shooting at Virgina Tech which both challenges my need to blame to make me feel better and comfronts me how this is not about me but about us - how in the process of walking out our pain , as followers of Jesus, we can be comfort, hope, healing for each other ...

"When tragedies like the Virginia Tech massacre occur, we all share certain questions.

Why did this happen? How could this happen? Should anyone be blamed? Should someone be punished?

Often these questions lead us to seek a kind of rational explanation - so that the irrational can be folded into our sense of order in the universe. Often these questions send us on a search for someone to blame - a person, a group, the devil, even God.

I have found that our understandable need for an explanation - often including the need to name someone to blame - springs not just from our rational minds, but also from our hearts, from levels we are barely conscious of.

We feel grief at the loss, pain for our neighbors who suffer, confusion at the irrationality, and anger at the injustice of it all. Sometimes all of these emotions seem to coalesce in a kind of vague rage that simmers inside us, building up like steam in a closed chamber.

We hope that the pressure can be released and the rage relieved by finding an outlet in explaining ... or in naming, blaming, and shaming someone for being at fault.

There is certainly a time for seeking explanations, including investigating fault.

But I find we make a mistake in believing that explaining and blaming will help us escape our pain. Pain in times like this, I believe, is not simply something to be escaped, resolved, fixed.

Instead, it is something to be suffered, something that must, in a sense, crash over us like a wave or knock us down like a fever, shake us so that we truly feel our feelings and name them; so that we can speak of them and share them and feel an exchange with others of sympathy, empathy, common grief, and common sorrow.

This kind of sorrow doesn't make us bitter; it makes us better. It doesn't make us smug at having an explanation; it makes us humble as we understand our shared vulnerability. It doesn't make us put up walls of blame; it tears down walls as we feel our common humanity. In so doing, it teaches us wisdom - wisdom that, in the scriptures, is often associated with pain and struggle. It softens us, makes us more sensitive to the pain that others suffer but we often ignore. It forms compassion in us.

We often are tempted to run from this softening process, which is understandable. But as we all share in this experience of tragedy, as we walk through the un-rushable process of feeling and then healing, may we allow the spirit of God to form us into more gracious, compassionate, and wise people. Doing so will raise other questions:

How can I help? Who around me needs to talk? What question can I ask that will allow my neighbors to share their pain, their fear, their anger, their sorrow? How can we open ourselves to the healing presence of God so we can walk together through "the valley of the shadow of death" - so that, even in great sadness, we "fear no evil?" (Psalm 23)

I found myself looking back today on other moments of shared sadness - the terrible assassinations of the 1960's, the loss of the space shuttle crews, the terrorist attacks of recent years, the outbreak of wars, the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina ... there have been many. I find myself now praying that our current shared sadness will do in us what it can and should. We're all in this - all of us, all of this - together. Lord, have mercy."

An exclusive inclusive Christ - is Jesus really the only way to God?

Is the christrian exclusive claim that Jesus is the only way to God an arrogant monopoly that is outdated in these inclusive and tolerant times?  Do not all religions lead to God?  Why then do we need to worry about Jesus then - is it just another sign of a power hungry, oppressive religion that can brook no competition enforced by arrogant believers who think their way is better than everyone else?   Christian who through out history has imposed on people for the 'greater good' this need to believe in Jesus, sadly  often by using the threat of violence, fear and intimidation whether in this life or in the after one, or both?

In chapter 8 of a New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren discusses other religions,  the character Neo says:

"Dan, when it comes to other religions, the challenge of modernity was to prove that we're right [christians] and they're wrong.  But I think we have a different challenge in postmodernity.  The question isn't so much whether we're right but whether we're good.  And it strikes me that goodness not rightnes, is what Jesus said the real issue was - you know, good trees produce good fruit.  If we christians would take all our energy we put into proving we're right and others are wrong and invested that in pursuing and doing good, somehow I think more people would believe we are right...

...I believe that he [Jesus] is truly the way, that if we believe in him and follow him, he will bring us to the Father.  Too often when we quote the verse about him being the way, it sounds like we're saying he's in the way - as if people are trying to come to God and Jesus is blocking the path, saying 'oh no, you don't! You have to get by me first.' I really don't think that's what he meant when he said he was the way...

...I really believe he is the truth. He is reality; he is authentic; he is genuine and real and not fake or false in any way.  And I really believe he is the life, that fullness of life is in him.  And I really believe that not one person will be in real contact with God the Father apart from the work, wisdom and love of Jesus.  If I didn't believe that, I don't think i could call myself a christian..."  p61 & p65

In other words christians often seem to portray all these religions as wrong, they cast doubt on whether they are seeking God unless they get a stamp from Jesus – he is the divine bouncer and we christians have become his heavy handed enforcers who if Jesus doesn’t have our name on his checklist then neither you are and I are not coming in!

I think it would be the ultimate act of hypocrisy if this image of Jesus is true – after all his fiercest criticism was aimed at the religious authorities of the day who were doing precisely that – in their bid for a sin free society they were doing so by firmly labelling people as insiders or outsiders – they defined if you were in or out.  Jesus modus operandi didn’t seem to be about trying to sweep sinners out of sight under the carpet of society/social conformity but instead offering them the opportunity to rethink how they were doing their life and to swap it instead for the life he had to offer, a life lived in the radical revolutionary redemptive reconciling kingdom of God.

If Jesus is not acting as a roadblock to God is there another way then that we can understand his words?  Not as a barrier but as door of opportunity, not as a limiter but as an unparallelled open invitation? 

In the rest of this post i'd like to explore a way of trying to understand Jesus claim to be the way/truth/life in a way that views him as helping us as spirtual beings recover/express our full humanity rather than barring us from the divine.  I'd then like to do a follow up post on this tomorrow where by I expand in my own life of my own struggles in following Jesus and how his way/truth/life have been well life changing for me....

The dust off their feet [oh and some more thoughts this time inspired by chapter 7 of a new kind of christian]...

One of my quieter new yrs resolutions is try and start to re-engage with the bible.  Just to read it, enjoy it, be shaped by it and yeah let it read me...  It was one the great things about when I read the whole of the new testament in The Message paraphrase, it was alive, vibrant and it actually changed me - certain parts of the sermon on the mount, ephesians [love is about giving not getting] and Galations [power of grace] just blew me away and left me changed as a result...

But of late I feel I have only engaged with the bible when I want something, when it is something to support what I am saying/thinking - like calling up an old friend cos i'm after a favour and not cos i want to reconnect and renew our friendship/relationship.

Of course part of my problem is that old one of familarity breeds... well in this case arrogance, which is why the Message with its paraphrase was so shockingly good - it actually meant i read, listened, reflected, bathed in the words and wondered at possibility of what they suggested - somewhere a hunger woke up...

The bible is not the sole foundation of christian life/experience and it is more than just an answer book - infact when i go looking for answers i usually find i have already determined the answer when i let the bible read me i tend to find it throws up a whole lot of Qs about me and my life/experience.   It's an interesting dynamic that I am inspired/informed by christians, by theology, by experience and community and the bible - but the bible in turn inspires all these things... it awakens hunger for the things of God.

But with all hungers it dampened down, my life got different rythm, space got compacted and i went back to resting on bible laurels, don't read me i'll read you...

But now I'm back - i look at the morass on the inside of me and think yes I need God to be searching me, transforming me, shaping me - I need something to help me encounter God more, to inspire me,to challenge me, to bathe in, even to alter my brave waves the way a piece of music will - the flow of words, entwined with the Spirit.  And to help me I decided to pick something with a little structure - in my case: the dust off their feet.

The dust is a retelling of the book of Acts [ok Brian McLaren does that part] and the book has thoughts/insights/comments/reflections/view points etc to help make it an immersion rather than just a read... 

I've only just started so i'll let you know how it goes... if you've tried let me know what you think and if you have any other good recomendations of books that let the bible read you then i'd love to hear them...

polarised bare: thoughts on transcending the line inspired by chapter 6 of a New Kind of Christian

My way is the right way...

Maybe it is merely a human characteristic, to have THE right way/means/action/thought/expression  rather than just A way/means/action/thought/expression... maybe there is differening degrees of it that reflect not so much our philosphy but more our personality or social position, meaning some of us will insist on being right louder than others or have the means to be heard/listened too...

Post-modernity is meant to rejects this polarity, having lost confidence in THE next big idea/answer that will cure the worlds ills, delusioned by the fall of political systems, of social princples, of science and religion, now no one is believed to have the truth - like the boy who cried wolf, anyone who does may well be tolerated but one quick listen will hear many voices calling out their own version...

Life thru polorised lens

In that sense maybe even post-modernity is a polarised reaction, the idea that it is against something, that you can draw a line marked 'Truth' and have a sliding scale from it is possible to possess/know/have full truth on one end [maybe modernity in brackets] and lots of valid truths/impossible to fully know truth on the other [call it post-modernity].

Per wiki, in communications and psychology, polarization is the process whereby a social or political group is divided into two opposing sub-groups with fewer and fewer members of the group remaining neutral or holding an intermediate position.

So in the religious sense we may have...

catholics {pope}__________protestants {all popes}

conservatives____________liberals

church_________________post[no] church

est church______________emerging church

personal piety___________social action

paid clergy______________all clergy/voluntary

Faith__________________ works

etc...etc...etc :)

In fact the more i think about it the less christians disagree with what they believe is the core of faith and more about how it should be practiced, what it should look/sound like, the relative importance of different aspects/doctrines etc etc.  In other words we dig in somewhere on the line of an issue and that makes us for some things which are good but also sets us against other things which we might otherwise be for/fine with. 

Transcending the line...

For example, in chapter 6 of a New Kind of Christan, Brian McLaren talks about conservatives - who have done an excellent job to be faithful to the ancient traditions of the bible but have have failed to really translate it into 21st century and liberals who have done well on the translation part but often by forgetting the ancient of the bible where it makes such translation difficult.  Ignoring the crude stereotypes both sides of the line are doing something right but also both are doing something that is not helpful.  Brian talks about transceding the line and the character Neo draws a diagram a bit like this...

The line with the blue circles respresents a position that we choose to take on a particular issue, thus digging in/defining ourselves on/by what we are for and against.... or as the character Neo explains:

"Now, almost all debate in the church takes place on the line. The issue is where the right point on the line is.  So people pick and defend their points.  Each person's point becomes THE point in his or her mind.  Here's what I am suggesting: what if the point-defending approach is pointless.  What if the position God wants to take isn't on the line at all but somewhere up here? [the line with the green circle].

Dan then responds...

"So you are saying that we need to transcend the normal level of discourse.  That makes sense to me.  I mean, Jesus did that sort of thing all the time.  Like with the woman at the well  in John 4.  The big debate is over where people should worship, on this mountain or on that mountain.  Jesus doesn't choose one point or the other; he says that the answer is on this higher level, that what God wants is for us to worship him in spirit and truth, where ever we are.  Both mountains are good places to worship, so in that way both sides are right.  But where you worship isn't the point at all, so in that way both sides are wrong..."

Back to the will/wish of God

In that sense many things don't matter, as my bro said recently to me, most things in christianity just seem to be about pointless arguements that miss the point - Jesus.  He's a wise man! 

How often am I caught up in the scribbles about my way better when when what I should be doing is just being/doing/searching/seeking God's will - which may mean i needto spend less time on digging into my points and more time being generous, gracious and loving to those who I may disagree with.  It becomes less about my church ideal and more about an apprecition of deep church, of the whole body in all its many diverse expressions.  It becomes about thinking the best of people, of limiting my freedoms to help others and to reach out to those who are in need, not of THE answer but of an invitation that they are loved, valued and have a purpose and life beyond anything i can imagine for them...

And that excites me, an invitation to follow Jesus in the big picture of the good news story, both personal and public, both faith and works, both in the culture of my faith community and in all the communities i find myself in is worth a lil pain in weaning myself off my polarised, i'm right ways...

Soundtrack/playlist for this chapter

This week 2 REM choices:

• Near wild heaven
• Dragging the line

New Kind of Christian chapters 4 & 5: At the turn of the tides...

I have been summarising the chapters of Brian McLaren's book 'A new kind of Christian' which we are reading and discussing in the midweek home gathering that I belong too.  Here are my thoughts on chapters 4 & 5...

Chapters 4 & 5 are best read together and cover a lecture that Neo gives to some evangelical college students (chapter 4) and their Qs (chapter 5).

The crux of Neo’s lecture is that as with the change from the medieval period into the modern one that there are significant cultural, social, political, scientific and economic changes in both the 15th and 20th centuries that means the tide has changed in the west and a new phase of cultural identity is breaking upon us. 

As with the tide I would say  that we cannot be Canute’s and order it to turn back, nor on the other hand should we be swept out to sea, lost in the currents of societal change and transition.  We need to learn not only how to swim but to know the shore line, understand the new ocean and that can only come from transformation by the Spirit from within and his navigation without.

For one excellent discussion on area raised with regard to chapter four may I recommend to this post and discussion by my friend and fellow small group member, Mark.

Practical Qs explored...

Are focus on chapter 5 was to move away from the theoretical for a moment and ask the question what does this mean for us and for our church…

Post modern - like learning a new language?

I suggested the metaphor of a learning a new language –we often read it as modernity and anti-modernity instead of post-modernity. Post doesn’t mean bad but what comes after and of course that means its built on a foundation of modernity.

I think we need to discover the joys of being bilingual - our children can do it I am sure but I think we struggle at the moment to be fluent in postmodernity - we keep switching back to modernity, translating it and then putting into a postmodernity style.

My wife who is a better linguist than I am tells me that you know you are fluent in another language when you can think in it without translating it back to your first tongue, so I have a long way to go.

I think it is why we react against modernity sometimes and yet struggle with postmodernity - the language of modernity is not adequate and yet we are not fluent enough to express what we mean in a postmodern context either…

lol, it’s is exciting but also frustrating at the same time, why structure and imagination are both good things - after all a language without a structure of how to write it called grammar would be a mare but without dreams, ideas, engagement to express using that language it would be very dull and technical… or in other words we read a great story and are inspired but we hardly notice the structure that allows us to enter in and participate across the pages…

What is cultural vineyard and what is post-modern about Vineyard Church Sutton?

This was an interesting discussion, in part having a perspective of experiencing a modern UK vineyard church and a more post modern one (thinking of the faith community that we belong to, Sutton Vineyard), a different experience from some folk who had come from a more traditional evangelical denomination.  I have put some musings below, which are my own rather than anything official/binding (click on table for larger image):

 

Passing on the story

One concern that was raised was about whether we miss out on something by not have a more expository style of preaching – are we in other words bible-lite and suffering for it in terms of not being shaped by the God of the book as the community of the book.  One thing I find fascinating about Jason is that he is super theologically minded (doctorate and all) but that his sermons are in the vineyard tradition of staring where people are in life rather than starting with a bible text.  To listen to Jason’s teaching, I think, when you are aware of the story of the book is to here it echoed, explained and put into a context we can not only understand but also apply, even when we don’t realise how often it is filtered through and steeped in the bible (for example see my thoughts on Jase's brill kingdom of God series). 

I have also reacted to the thought that we need more bible preached is often by those who know the bible well themselves and have experienced that style and enjoy that form of engagement – I am not sure we need more bible preached in the classic sense of the word but maybe more bible lived, internalising its truths and reproducing them in thought, word and deed.  One of the hard things about the modern approach to bible preaching for me is that we have used it judge the world rather than letting the God of the book judge us – so we wonder about the few remaining taboo areas like gays where we are hyper critical and all for a bible based bashing whereas we are super uncritical of issues equally destructive like gossip or holding a grudge against our brother/sister.

One thing that struck me though as we forge forward into a post-modern world is how do we communicate the stories of the bible to our children?  We who were shaped by systematic Sunday school classes and then systematic preaching had this laid out for us – church was designed to equip us with knowledge and to that end it succeeded well.  The post-modern milieu would seem to be allowing us to be generous/gracious but to maybe not so deeply immersed in the stories of the book and connecting that with our ongoing story today.

Playlist for chapters 4 & 5

1. What if  (Coldplay)
2. Comes a time (Nada Surf)
3. Desire (Ryan Adams)
4. Lost souls (Doves)
5. City of blinding lights (U2)

NKOC Chapter 3 summary – seeing with post modern eyes but interpreting with a modern mindset?

My friend Tim wrote these words to me in response to my summary post on chapter 2 of Brian McLaren's book: a New Kind of Christian…

“Just finished reading your article - there must be some way of combining all the stuff together and form a single cohesive thread. I still get the feeling we're missing the point though - we talk about being post-modern, but approach it in a modern way. I guess our generation is the last of the moderns; which is why we struggle to get the point, and our parents even more so…but really, its all missing the point. So I continue to feel guilty for not getting it (the point that is)….”

Summary chapter 3

In many ways these thoughts echo those of McLaren in chapter 3 as he reflects on how much the character of Dan has assimilated a modern mindset in which to read the bible.  For instance, Dan highlights the statement that God is control, to him that creates the idea of a divine engineer, in charge of a switch room of machinery, turning things on and off at will.  It is that mindset then that makes it hard to struggle with the Q of evil, why does such a divine engineer leave the evil switch on?  However, Dan thinks what if I go back to think of this through ancient eyes when control would maybe be similar to a farmer growing his crops or a parent raising their children.  Maybe God’s control is that sort of sense – instead of blaming the driver of the vehicle maybe it is more the case of parents raising their child who grows up, rejects their influence and does their own thing – would we still blame these parents if their child commits a crime?

Dan reflects how much of the church we know (both protestant and to a slightly lesser extant catholic) has been shaped by modernity from its institutions to its love of systematic theologies (cathedrals of modernity).  None of them are wrong in and of themselves but maybe post modern forms of Christian and expression will be very different from those of the modern age such that they will look like back sliding or even maybe heresy?

Dan suggests that maybe the modern period could be called post-medieval and that would highlight some of the major differences in thought, form and function of the Christian church that took place.  In other words we should not be surprised of the changes that form over time and it is only from our historical view point we can see how the church made the transition from medieval to modern.

The final thought is whether people’s hunger for mystery and spirituality means that they are looking to Christianity + to fill that gap, in the book the example of seeing someone with a cross and a dream catcher both hung from their car mirror is used. 

Or another illustration taken from my play list selection from this chapter, is the U2 song ‘I still haven’t found what I am looking for.’  When the song first came out at the end of the 80s there was a lot of discussions I took part in about how it showed how U2 were not a Christian band – they haven’t found what they want, what more is there.  Now, however, with post-modern eyes, I think it shows the hunger, that we have not found all that there is, that it is ok to be restless, to see life as a journey rather than arriving at that one destination – now I think it reflects my faith more than ever.

What is reflected in this chapter is the reprogramming (a modern illustration) that is going on with Dan, the deconstruction and reconstruction that is beginning to take place.  The struggle between what he has always believed and what feels like the truth/reality and should he follow that?  What if it leads him away from his faith?  On the other hand what if it leads him not to fall away but to fall into Jesus…

Play list for chapter 3:

Do it again (Nada Surf)
I still haven’t found what I am looking for (U2)
I love (Athlete)

Who is healthy and who is sick? Christianity and the 'gay cure'...

David, who is challenging his dear wife for the title 'blogger of the universe', has posted this great Q:

Do you think that because (Ted) Haggard was with a male prostitute he is seen as someone who needs a cure?

Would he be seen in the same light, if he was with a female prostitute?
I can only speculate, but I believe that if Haggard was with a woman, he'd be seen more as a horny middle aged man who wanted some excitement in life, whereas now he is seen as someone who, like an alcoholic, needs to be checked into rehab.

Should the responses be different because of the gender of his companion?

Here are my thoughts to the Q...

It's all too easy to say gay=sin therefore take the 'gay cure' and you'll be happy and hetrosexual - rather than conflicted and gay, or bisexual in the particular case that prompted David's thinking.

I have to say I have never really turned my thoughts to this area to do much in the way of study/reflection - theologically then I am at a weak point to say how this should inform our response as a church to homosexuality other than to treat people who are gay as Jesus would have done, which is to love them.

That in itself is a significant challenges as it asks the Q how do I love and the temptation to wrap the iron bar of 'truth' in a velvet glove of love and go out to do some bashing...

As I have posted here I have struggled with my sexual identity for yrs but then again I have been a christian for yrs so I at least knew something of the dynamic of the bible/church teaching vs my own sexuality. If I am in an environment where I did not have that then the natural thing would be to do what I was trying to do which is 'be me.'  I also know how personal my issues were, could I have taken a BDSM cure?  Would a one size fits all package work?  Or was it the divine intervention of revelation and healing in the face of my own honesty and brokeness shared  with, prayed for and encouraged onwards by loving christians?

Society is pretty clear about the need for people to be true to themselves, express the inner me, it's ok to be whatever you want etc and that of course is a powerful stuff to be exposed to. I think the church is seen as the opposite of that, don't be that, don't do that, don't have what you want etc and that is one reason why there is a disconnect.

I think personally the church needs to try and talk about liberation, of being our true selves, of finding out who we really are, which is more than a slogan on a t-shirt, or what the latest tv series portrays as the ideal life.

Not just talk about it but tell stories, encourage honest expression and move beyond we have the cure for your pediliction to we are a place where together we can explore who we are and what we have been created to be. If people feel they are gay then it to come for a cure for who they are is a big turn off - but what if they can share this, explore why they are gay and indeed reach out to the gay community as somone trying to follow christ who is gay? What about people who have followed christ for yrs who are gay - hearing their stories, were they cured, do they struggle with who they are, have they found something beyond their sexuality, how have they changed and not changed?

And what about the rest of the church, why focus in on this one sin, apart from it impacts on a minority group and it is easy to point a finger at a particular obviously identifiable group, it's much easier to spot 2 gals holding hands than it is to spot greed, pride, self-rightousness, selfishness etc

What if we instead focus on the sins of the majority, honest about our own failings and struggles, a process that is not all/nothing but a lifetime journey of transformation? What if this issue of homosexuality is not so much one of what the right anser is but how can we show love, mercy, grace, compassion, social, economic, environmental justice? To act on what we say and not just say... We also need to look ourselves in the eye and ask ourselves how much are we to blame for what happened with Ted Haggard, something I have reflected on here.

I recently read Jane Czyzselska's gay about town column in The London Paper, who begins her article thus...

"It’s funny that a lot of my hate mail is from Christians. That puts many of them in a bad light. My mum’s a Christian and she’s a trooper. What’s more I know that there are hundreds of happy lesbian Christians..."

My first thought is what are Christians doing writing anyone hate mail?  My second thought is what a generous response from someone who has received hate mail.  My third repsonse was how good is it that Jane has experience of Christians who do not hate her and infact love and care for her.  My fourth response was to send Jane an email apologising for the hate mail she has received from us Christians and asking her whether she has anything that she would like to say to us?

So my question/challenge for us who claim to follow Christ is this - what if we grow in those greater areas of love, mercy, grace first and point to ourselves first as examples of brokeness, selfishness, injustice, hate etc? 

It is something that Brian McLaren reflects on far more eloquently than me in this article although not everyone agrees with him which is healthy as it promotes conversation as in McLaren's response.

Maybe when we as christians live the cure, reflect the cure, embrace the cure until we are transformed and changed by Christ in such a way that we reflect/embody/act out his love and grace we will be in a position to suggest we have the cure for anyone else?

The trial of trials...

My friend is writing a song about the Lord’s Prayer and since he wants to make it an excellent song he asked some people to critique it – unfortunately I am one of those the people he asked.  Seriously it is a song that moves me and engages me with God and I know for those of you with a musical bent I am being a real tease telling you all this…

Fortunately my gift is not in the art of crafting a good tune so I have not been able to mess with that but it has triggered off a good conversation on trials.  The song contains the lyric…

“…spare us from all trials”

Now I should clarify certain things before I proceed:

• This is a song based on the prayer and therefore inspired by it;
• The song is also inspired by the paraphrase in the Message and the writings of McLaren and Dallas Willard;
• I am no way in the same intellectual prowess of the last 3 writers;
• Oh and trials, Christian shorthand for those hard things in life, those things which are beyond us, involve suffering, generally not fun, testing etc

Did I say it was a great song?

Anywho the conversation that has arisen is on whether or not we should pray that God spares us from all trials or not – my thoughts on this tug of trials are below but do please read and join in with what you think?

Spare us from all trials….

At first hand it sounds like a no brainer, unless you are a extremely masochistic spiritual Rambo sort, shouting bring it on God, I can take -  then who of us wants trials?  Who of us wants to experience those churning times of doubts, that sick feeling of being alone, of misery, pain, sickness – where are world is shattered and that which we hold much dear is ripped from our grasp.  Who wants to feel powerless, helpless in the face of the careering juggernaut of trials driven by intoxicated fate/circumstance/destiny?

Is it not then eminently sensible to pray to God asking him to spare us from trials a concept that my friend did not make up himself but was inspired by the writings of Dallas Willard?

Is it not us being honest before God in admitting that we are not that tough as we like to make out? Is it also an admission that we are not as independent as we like to make out as well?   Is it not a confession of a reality beyond our own where God has some form/degree of influence, person and place shaping role, one that far exceeds our own influence?

Save us in our trials…

Forget spiritual Rambo’s is the other extreme that we are so soft that trials of any description knock our faith, erode it, how could a loving God let this happen to me, does he not care about my happiness, well being etc?  Are we so consumed with pain avoidance that to face pain sends us into denial, either of the circumstances with a God will make it all ok if I just believe hard enough (a sort of fingers in the ears, eyes tight shut na na na approach…) or by a rejection of our faith as one that does not care for me, if God can’t save me then I’m outta here to find something or someone who will…

The narrative of the bible is often one of people of God facing trouble, trials, suffering and their reaction to that – in fact some of the NT writers almost seem to love the idea of trials – consider it pure joy says James, but then again he sounds like he is echoing the words of Jesus himself – rejoice when persecuted… and we will have troubles.

Trials, troubles, sufferings seem then to be a part of our reality and therefore rather than being taken out of the world or granted some special protection as Christians it would seem that deciding to follow Christ can infact lead to increased troubles, pains and heart aches…

Now you might be seeing where my sensitivities lie in this debate, I am sure my bias is blatant above but if you are in any doubt I think that we need a theology and an expression of that which allows us to follow God in face of trials and sufferings – rather than to be spared from them (or maybe asking to be spared the excesses of them would be a fairer interpretation) that we are saved even in our trials – that we grow with Jesus, deepen our relationship and our faith…

Here are some thoughts:

1. Jesus the suffering servant – in Jesus we have the model of compassionate suffering, someone who rather than avoided/ran away from pain and trials, ran towards them and in his nailed spread arms on the cross embraced them…who provides for us a way through the cross to follow him in the face of disappointment, betrayal, pain, injustice, rejection, suffering and even death.  If we are a people of love we are going to suffer, we can not be about relationship without experiencing all the pains of that connection, in Jesus we have the inspiration and model.  Jesus was no Rambo though – in Gethsemane  he prayed three times for the cup to be passed from him, he went in with his eyes open and for me that expresses an even greater love, a deliberate choice to follow God even in the face of suffering.

2. Character – God might  be concerned with something more than just my happiness and that is my character.  It seems to me that all those spiritual ‘fruits’ we read of in the bible e.g. love, patience, kindness, mercy, generosity, self control, forgiveness, to name but a few, seem to develop more in me when I am going through a hard time.   I think precisely cos I am out of my comfort zone, I see how shallow and limited my own resources are.   Sometimes it even makes me turn to God, usually when my other coping mechanisms have run out.  Two examples:

• I remember the day when I lost my future in the company I worked for, I knew that the head honcho had just written me off as he told me – all my career high flying dreams gone in that moment and I remember just crying in the toilet repeating over and over ‘I tried so hard…’  A little later it struck me that I had tried so hard, given it all and failed and I felt a lil like the prodigal son in the story thinking maybe I’d be better off heading back to my heavenly father…

• the other story is learning in my marriage that love is about giving not getting, which was fine to say until Debs had post natal depression and then it was a real hard thing to actually live out – suddenly I found out just how selfish I am and how much I needed to grow my capacity to love as part of my dependence on God.

3. Community – I think that trials teaches us something else, that we can’t do life alone.  We need a place where we can be honest, where we can be seen at our best and worst and do life together.  More than that it is about me caring for others even as I go through my own trials – not waiting til I am all sorted but realising as part of the body of Christ I need to reach out as much as others are reaching out to me.

4. Mission – I think being blindsided on a wet Tuesday afternoon by the trials of life is not a uniquely Christian experience.   Look at the world we see disaster, injustice, acts of natural disaster and man made – does my faith crumple in the face of that or do I see again the mission of the suffering servant – of reaching out with Christ to embrace the hurt of the world, with Christ to have something of the healing – I don’t think there is a good apologetic for suffering but I do think we can share suffering, we can allow suffering to motivate us to bring out good, for prayer and action. 

Following Christ into a suffering world is the motivation for mission and indeed can lead to trials increasing in our own life as we are inconvenience, put upon, stretched, heart broken and mocked… It is in mission where we see the need for a community that shares and supports in suffering, it is in mission where the story of our transforming character and the hope we have in Christ gets told and encourages others in turn.

From here to post-modernity - summary and playlist for chapter 2 of a New Kind of Christian

Following on from my summay of chapter 1 of a New Kind of Christian, here is my summary of chapter 2:

NB the Mayflower = name of the ship that took pilgrims to the New World

Packing a suitcase for a place none of us has ever been

As Bob Dylan sung ‘the times, they are a changing” and one reason for the changes is that we are leaving modernity behind and journeying into something after that, something post modernity.

We are pilgrims of history, on our own generational mayflower, crossing the ocean of change, leaving behind modern world, one foot already in the new world…

We are not anti modern.  We have been steeped and shaped by modernity, grown through it and now find ourselves growing beyond it.  This change is not universal; many people are content with their world view and a faith that makes sense in that world. We wish such folk well, accepting of them, envious of their certainty even as we embrace our doubts, questions, frustrations arising out of our own search for a faith that fits our changing world and a world that fits our forming faith.

Many of us have no idea why or how got to this place where it felt that we no longer belonged; we woke up one day and we found ourselves with our feet already on this road, the journey already long begun. 

Many of us want to know exactly where we are going and what it will feel like when we get there.  Different is the word most commonly used, different but it will feel righter, will make more sense somehow, match more what we feel now then the place where we left. 

The navigators of the future seem to be in some disagreement as to how to read the map,  no one seems sure whar it is exactly this post-modern world will be called, let alone how long it will take us to get there.  So we try and define these changes more by what it is not rather than what it is.  For each of us how this forming post-modern world differs from the modern one that we are leaving behind is likely to be in some ways different in some ways the same. 

This journey we are making together feels that it is a once and for all voyage and that there is no stopping or going back. We carry a world view within us, that has forever changed for us and we in turn seek a faith that makes sense that will connect and shape this forming world we now inhabit…

For my playlist for Chapter 2, see below:

Bob Dylan - The times they are a changing

U2- Walk On