Urbanphile

Blogging at a new site

2009-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

To any readers of my blog, I am shifting to a new location: http://urbanphile.wordpress.com/

On good news-ing: John Stott is always good for a quote

2009-09-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

John Stott observes:

When we contrast much contemporary evangelism with Paul's, its shallowness is immediately shown up. Our evangelism tends to be too ecclesiastical (inviting people to church) whereas Paul also took the gospel out into the secular world; too emotional (appeals for decision without an adequate base of understanding), whereas Paul taught, reasoned and tried to persuade; and too superficial (making brief encounters and expecting quick results), whereas Paul stayed in Corinth and Ephesus for five years, faithfully sowing gospel seed and in due time reaping a harvest. (Stott, 314)

Salvation means more

2009-06-08T01:07:00.001-07:00

Regarding Ephesians 2, New Testament scholar, Ernest Best, remarks:

Salvation is more than believers receiving forgiveness of their sins, deliverance from the grip of the powers, adoption as children of God, and union with Christ in resurrection and exaltation. Salvation means union with one another. (Best, Ephesians: A Shorter Commentary, 88-89)

Not to be served, but to serve: American Christianity

2009-06-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

A good post related to the plight of American Christianity by Mike Stroope is here.

Here is a quote from the post:

History shows that the people of God usually do not voluntarily move
toward service. Rather, service is forced on us via humiliation, loss,
and exile. Quite possibly the American church is at the brink of such
loss. The Christendom arrangement within the American context
(particularly in the South) has run its course, and Christianity
is being disestablished in school, by government, in polite society,
and within the wider popular culture. Many Christian leaders act as
though it is still 1950 and that society still cares about what they
have to say or is looking for them to determine what is right or
wrong. However, the year is 2009 and society is not listening, nor
does it care what we think. At best, the wider culture only wants
to manipulate and corrupt Christianity for its ends.

Reflections on the church/state issue

2009-05-29T03:00:00.001-07:00

On facebook recently i was asked to join two groups. One was to "remind President Obama that we are a Christian nation". The other one was to put Christ back in our schools. This mentality is frustrating and disturbing for me. It is rooted in a mindset of the majority. We only think this is an appropriate move because we consider Christians to be in the majority and any kind of suppression of Christian activity or knock against Judeo-Christian ethics feels like an attack.

But my perspective is different, in part, because i have lived as a follower of Jesus in place where Christianity is in a minority. Everything in society operates in connection to the majority faith. There is prayer in schools, but i would not want my kids to go to those schools. In fact, Christian families have little choice but to send their kids to private Christian schools so that their kids aren't subjected to prayer and religious teaching (even kids aren't forced to participate, the peer pressure from other kids is difficult for children). Is this what we want for children of families that adhere to a different faith? What is more, what about townships and counties where Christians are not in the majority? The prayers in those schools would naturally be different.

Unfortunately, the issue is larger than prayer in schools. There is a tendency for the majority to presume privilege and power, and this is something evidenced throughout history and throughout the world, regardless of the majority faith or ideology. It is a subtle transition that the majority faith presumes their practices and ethics as normal.

Just today someone alerted me to an article about a Bible study in a private home in San Diego, California. Reportedly, they have been told that it is illegal for them to continue to meet in their home for religious purposes. If you are like me, your first reaction is incensed anger. A private gathering of a few people practicing their spirituality quietly in their private home should not be illegal. As you can expect, there were a lot comments, most of which expressed their displeasure over this event. But the reasoning often cited was disturbing to me. There were comments about our "Christian" founding fathers and the United States being a Christian nation. These comments betray a mindset that a Christian majority deserves privileges that others may not deserve. I would have much preferred the reasoning to be applicable to all citizens of the United States, that people have the right to practice their spirituality as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights. While some argued their point in this way, I was discouraged to see so many appealing to a Christendom that still controls the nation.

Another reaction to the event as reported in the article is that the minority faiths and ideologies are not so minor anymore and are somewhat bitter about how Christendom behaved as the majority. This is to be expected. We must admit that we, as Christians, have not always treated those unlike ourselves with the love and perpetual forgiveness modeled by Christ. Too many examples come to mind to even begin listing the offenses we have caused to others in our nation.

The bottom line in this is that we need to reevaluate what it means to be both a citizen of God's kingdom and a citizen of the United States. Which one takes precedence? Are these two citizenships compatible? What are our obligations as citizens of each?

But what we need to be absolutely clear about is they are not the same thing and our language needs to reflect that distinction.

A Change in Thinking

2009-05-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

I wonder if this isn't true today, particularly in the Christian community:

"Scholasticism, with which the theology of the Church had been closely associated, was decaying. It still dominated the universities and the monastic orders, including the Franciscans and Dominicans, but the main new currents of intellectual life were flowing in other channels. This seemed to augur ill of Christianity and the Church." (Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity: Volume I, 604)

What are the channels of intellectual life today?

Free citation and bibliographic program

2009-05-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at different software to help me manage all of my bibliographic references and sort them by topic when needed. Most of the programs out there are kinda pricey. Then I found Zotero. Zotero is connected with Mozilla Firefox web browser does this service for absolutely free! It is a pretty cool program that will automatically pull down bibliographic information from a website, coded PDF file or most published books. It does not seem to be able to do all that some of those expensive programs can do. But it is free! If you are connected to the academic world, check it out.

Observations from a UN Report on Urbanization

2009-05-04T00:29:00.001-07:00

The following observations are from "An Overview of Urbanization, Internal Migration, Population Distribution and Development in the World," from the UN Population Division. WARNING: Lots of boring statistics ahead!

Noteworthy (to me) observations:

Urbanization followed industrialization. Thus rates of industrialization in a region also show the rates of urbanization. (3)
Most commerce happens in the cities. 80% of the world's GDP is produced by urban areas. (3)
Urbanization resulted from both a push and pull effect. Increased job opportunities have pulled people to the cities. Mechanization of the agricultural industry has reduced the labor market in rural settings. (3)
Most R&D happens in the cities. 81% of patents are filed by urban dwellers in OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. (3)
Urbanization linked to development- "Countries that have undergone long periods of poor economic performance tend to be the least urbanized." (4) "All the evidence indicates that people benefit from living in urban areas. Average urban incomes are generally higher than those in rural areas. Urban dwellers also have better access to a variety of services, including education, health, transportation, communication, water supply, sanitation and waste management. Because of economies of scale, it is more efficient and cheaper to provide such services to large and geographically concentrated populations than to populations scattered over large rural areas. Furthermore, access to services tends to be better in larger urban agglomerations than in small cities or towns." (4) "Thus, urbanization plays a positive role in overall poverty reduction mostly by contributing to aggregate economic growth." (23)
Urbanization's downside- Urban infrastructures are struggling to keep pace with population growth, thus cities suffer from traffic congestion, inadequate sanitation, and over-concentration of industries. "Cities also tend to make demands on land, water and natural resources that are disproportionately high in relation to their land area or their population, whose high average income results in high consumption." (4) The poor tend to suffer the most in the cities, not benefiting from the services of the economically empowered. The urban poor continue to increase. In 2005, 840 million people lived in slums. (4) 37% of the urban population of developing nations. (26)
Yet, "in most developing countries, rural populations have worse living conditions and fare worse in terms of health and mortality than slum dwellers." (5)
The urbanization rate exceeds the population growth rate. (5)
Migrants to the cities generally do better than those that remain in rural areas (5)
Development requires urban and rural focus- "strategies to improve the living standards of all must combine policies to promote rural development with those to improve the lot of poor urban dwellers by improving service provision, raising their educational levels, improving transportation, improving access to health services and family planning, strengthening the regulation of land use and facilitating the acquisition of land titles." (5)
The world population is projected to be 70% urban by 2050. "At that time, most of the urban population will be concentrated in Asia (54 per cent) and Africa (19 per cent)." (6)
"China, India and the United States of America accounted for 35 per cent of the world's urban population." (9)
Small cities (under 100,000 residents) are growing rapidly- "48 per cent of the increase in the world urban population was accounted for by the rise in the population of small cities." (14) They have less access to basic services than larger cities. (26)
Cities are growing rapidly as a result of the rural-urban migration. (16)
"Among the few countries where migration and reclassification account for most of urban growth, two stand out: China and Indonesia." (17) In other words these countries have very high rates of migration from rural to urban.
"Urban-origin migrants are more likely to move to urban areas than rural-origin migrants." (18)
Urban areas have lower dependency ratios than rural areas, that is the number of dependents for per one hundred adults. "A lower dependency ratio is potentially beneficial because it makes it easier for a society to save and invest. Because urban areas are characterized by lower dependency ratios, they are in a better position to leverage the benefits of economic development." (21)
Slum households defined- UN Habitat defines them as "urban households lacking one or more of the following: durable housing; sufficient living area; access to an improved water source; access to improved sanitation, or secure tenure." (26)
Cities beyond a certain size decrease in efficiency and productivity. Thus, many nations have urban-urban relocation programs attempting to more evenly distribute the urban population. This is particularly true in nations that have a primate city. Some countries have even created new capitals for this reason. (30)
Main point- "Urbanization is a process intrinsically related to development that must be managed in ways that maximize its potential benefits and prevent its negative consequences." (32)
Needed- "The development of local databases that reflect local realities and inform policy, planning and investment decisions at the local level is urgently needed." (32)

Critiques of the report:

This report nowhere defines what is considered "urban". In a report which focuses on urban migration and compared with rural migration, this is a crucial weakness and makes the statistics less valuable.
The often used development markers of $1/day and $2/day only provide a superficial picture of living standards around the world. The two primary flaws are: 1) the dollar, as with all currency, fluctuates. In longevity analysis, a comparison of the number of people making less than a dollar a day does not usually consider the rate of inflation of the time period. Thus, a statistic illustrating less people making less than a dollar than five years ago does not necessarily illustrate the improvement of that population's welfare. 2) differences in buying power in different contexts are significant. Even within a single province of a developing nation prices of basic necessities vary radically depending on the availability of the necessities and the basic infrastructure in transporting the necessities. In many places, $2 a day is enough to live on. But in other places, especially larger cities, it is not. Thus the following statement is rendered a meaningless measure of economic improvement: "Overall, the percentage of poor at under $1 a day in urban areas declined from 14 per cent in 1993 to 13 per cent in 2002…" (23)
Discussion of access to basic services is far too simple. Percentages of those with access to electricity is only helpful if those with access have a consistent source of electricity. But when the electricity only runs have the day and is inconsistent when it is on and off, it is more damaging to the economic infrastructure because small business owner dependent on electricity suffer terribly.

United Nations Population Division. "An Overview of Urbanization, Internal Migration, Population Distribution and Development in the World." United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration and Development. January 18, 2008. http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/EGM_PopDist/P01_UNPopDiv.pdf. Accessed May 4, 2009.

A lesson in church planting from Greek city development

2009-05-03T01:16:00.001-07:00

Plato, Aristotle, and ancient Greek society in general had very specific ideals for utopian society. As such, they were not willing for their cities to grow haphazardly. They felt strongly that the size of the city does not dictate its worth or contribution, in fact they limited the size based on the need for intimacy and communication and then multiplied cities. Lewis Mumford describes this:

The good life, as they understood it and practised it, depended upon intimacy and small numbers. When the polis sent out a colony, it made no effort, it would seem, to extend either its territorial or its economic dominion: it sought only to reproduce conditions similar to those of the mother city. As between growth by accretion, which became socially inorganic and ultimately led to disintegration, and growth by colonization, which maintained integrity and purpose, the Greeks chose colonization, as the little towns of New England did in the seventeenth century. They had mastered the art of reproducing cities. (Mumford, The City in History, 216-17)

In order to preserve their understanding of the ideal city, they chose to intentionally multiply themselves. Turning now towards church planting the benefits are manifold:

Intimacy and small numbers are invaluable to church life.
Intentionally reproducing quality church communities with good DNA is vital the health of the mother church and the daughter church.
The new churches are started with the purpose of being fully mature, autonomous churches and not controlled by the mother church.
Growth through multiplication helps maintain integrity and purpose.

So many churches have not given much thought either to giving birth to new churches or to how they can be ideally structured to be the ideal, maximally functioning church of Christ. Aristotle noted that Babylon had grown so large that the city had been taken for three days before some neighborhoods of the city even knew about it. (Mumford, The City in History, 216) Many churches operate this way. Major events occur (even crises) within the life of the church and yet parts of the body don't even know about it. Intentionality is key.

Reflections for Good Friday

2009-04-10T00:12:00.001-07:00

Here are some quotes for reflection of Jesus' death (the quotes are in the 1st comment, I can't cut and paste from Word into the blog for some reason):

An interesting article on the good news

2009-03-30T23:50:00.001-07:00

Tim Keller is wildly popular these days and in this article on the gospel he shows why. He is balanced, well-read, articulate, and has a strong understanding of two dominant worldviews in America (modernism and postmodernism). He makes some noteworthy points about how we communicate the good news of Jesus in ways that recognize felt-needs while remaining utterly faithful to what Scripture says. The article is not new, about a year old, but I just came across it.

The Offering Plate: A More Recent Development

2009-03-14T20:17:00.001-07:00

Check out this article in Christian History magazine on an element of a standard worship service being a somewhat recent development.

Of statistics and spirituality

2009-03-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

My friend Linda recently posted links to two different studies related to Americans and religious belief. One study from the Barna Group reports statistics on the number of Christians with a biblical worldview. Here is an excerpt from the study:

George Barna, who has directed this tracking research since the early Nineties, pointed out, “There are a several troubling patterns to take notice. First, although most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and say they know the content of the Bible, less than one out of ten Americans demonstrate such knowledge through their actions. Second, the generational pattern suggests that parents are not focused on guiding their children to have a biblical worldview. One of the challenges for parents, though, is that you cannot give what you do not have, and most parents do not possess such a perspective on life. That raises a third challenge, which relates to the job that Christian churches, schools and parachurch ministries are doing in Christian education. Finally, even though a central element of being a Christian is to embrace basic biblical principles and incorporate them into one’s worldview, there has been no change in the percentage of adults or even born again adults in the past 13 years regarding the possession of a biblical worldview.”

The other study was reported on by USA Today and looks more generally at trends of religious affiliation. Traditional religious affiliations are dropping dramatically.

These studies are not really that alarming, the signs have been there. The question is, how do we respond to this?

Grace and Karma According to Bono

2009-02-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

I recently read an article (I found it here) about some of major themes coursing through U2's lyrics and concerts. Below is a quote from Bono. I appreciate the way he communicates using current idiom to articulate transformational truths.

"You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one…. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that…. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff…. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity…. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled…. It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven." (Michka Assayas, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2005), 203-204; as quoted in Harmon, "U2: Unexpected Prophets")

A ponderous quote

2009-01-29T06:53:00.001-08:00

"The prophets saw a people whose appetite for worship was insatiable but whose daily lives were a denial of all the moral standards of the God they claimed to worship. There was plenty of charismatic fervor (Amos 5:21-24), plenty of atonement theology in the blood of multiple sacrifices (Is 1:10-12), plenty of assurance of salvation in the recitation of sound-bite claims for the temple (Jer 7:4-11), plenty of religious observance at great festivals and conventions (Is 1:13-15). But beneath their noses and under their feet, the poor were uncared for at best and trampled on at worst. Spiritual religion flourished amidst social rottenness. And God hated it. God longed for somebody to shut down the whole charade (Mal 1:10), and finally he wiped it out of his sight." (Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, 288)

Are We Caring for Orphans or Creating Them?

2009-01-14T00:00:00.001-08:00

I wrote a post in October on Developing World Orphanages and some of the deceptions involved what has become an industry. I recently read a penetrating expose of has become a fully-orbed industry of adoption in Foreign Policy. "The Lie We Love" by E.J. Graff does a great job of thoroughly explaining how the exorbitant prices of international adoption have essentially created an industry of exploitation and human trafficking. "Westerners have been sold the myth of a world orphan crisis" he says. I will quickly try to recap the main points, for a more detailed explanation click the link and read the article for yourself. This industry has developed due to a confluence of developments. In the West, there are fewer babies being put up for adoption anymore. Also, the Western trend of waiting for a while to have children decreases the percentage of pregnancy. Combine those trends with the rising popularity of trying to relieve poverty in the world through adopting and you have a huge number of families hoping to adopt internationally. The numbers have spiked in the last fifteen years especially. It should be noted, however, that the demand is only for healthy babies. Graff states:

There are simply not enough healthy, adoptable infants to meet Western demand—and there's too much Western money in search of children. As a result, many international adoption agencies work not to find homes for needy children but to find children for Western homes.

When the adoption costs from $15,000 to $35,000 per child, one can see how this would be tempting in many economically-challenged nations. The lack of regulation in many developing countries provides an opportunity for the system to be exploited. It is that much easier with the levels of corruption in many developing nations.

So, what about those millions and millions of orphans we hear about? The figures are deceptive. First of all, orphan is sometimes defined as one parent dead or missing (as UNICEF does). This is not the Western connotation of orphan, we consider one orphaned when both parents are dead or missing. Two other factors are important to remember. Most orphans (95%) listed in the statistics are over the age of 5. Secondly, many orphans are physically disadvantaged. The truth is that a healthy baby born—in even the most dire of poverty—is wanted by the family. In the rare event that the baby is not going to cared for by his/her family, there is enough demand within the country that the baby can be adopted within the same country. The article makes the claim that if that enormous pile of cash did not exchange hands there would be zero healthy babies without a home in many of the nations. The amount of money involved has encouraged the terrible exploitation of the poor and minorities in many developing nations. Babies quickly become "paper orphans" through the manipulation of the official documentation.

The extremely high demand for healthy babies from wealthy western nations has created a business that will not go away unless we become wiser about these issues. As it is, we are essentially creating orphans by purchasing them from poor, disadvantaged families.

Scripture is clear that we are to care for those disadvantaged like orphans widows. But James 1:27 encourages us "to visit orphans and widows in their affliction", not buy them from impoverished or oppressed families. We need to seek the well-being of families in poverty so as to minimize the number of true orphans in the world.

Real Change in Africa- Check out this article

2008-12-31T22:23:00.001-08:00

Here is a cool article by an atheist that has seen true transformation that goes as deep as worldview transformation.

Cheering for the other side

2008-12-25T16:59:00.001-08:00

Rick Reilly for ESPN has a great article about a high school football game. A Christian school decided to cheer for the other team.

Volatility in Aid Hampers Development

2008-12-25T08:24:00.001-08:00

Not too long ago I was living in a large Southeast Asian city. There I had a chance to get to know "Supri" (name is changed to protect his privacy). Supri was a small time furniture carpenter with a very inconsistent customer base. We were new to the city and needed some furniture crafted. After looking at some photographs of his work, we decided to order some basic furniture pieces. In the midst of the negotiations, Supri asked for money in advance to help pay for his tools. It was confusing to me that a carpenter was lacking the tools required for his trade. But it had been a while since his previous order of furniture and he had to sell his tools to feed his family. As a result, each time he secures an infrequent furniture order, he has to start at square one, thus raising the cost of his products. This inconsistency was detrimental to his business and ultimately the welfare of his family.

In like manner, when a rural clinic in a back corner of a developing nation receives inconsistent funding, then it cannot serve the community from one year to the next. In the first year a sparkly brand new clinic is built with a fresh burst of donor aid. The new medical equipment gleams and fully salaried medical doctors and staff enthusiastically seek to bring medical attention where it is desperately needed. And when funding fails the next year, the doctors leave, nursing staff is laid off, regular maintenance suffers, and necessary medical supplies are not in stock. Even more detrimental is that the bright hopeful vision of this clinic dwindles into despair. Standards of medical care drop severely which impairs the ability to offer adequate medical services. In the off chance that there is a rise in donor aid in the third year and some of that money is allocated for the clinic, it must pretty much start from scratch all over again. Only this time it is a lot harder, doctors don't want to return to that clinic. Administrators of the money don't want to buy expensive medical equipment only to watch rust when the donor aid begins to ebb again.

A recent article in Foreign Policy, "Development's Great Depression", reports that a recent study has shown that aid to developing nations has been extremely volatile. These fluctuations often follow the increasingly frequent stock market panics or simply donor's emotional whims. According to this article, the moodiest donors are the Americans. The result of these donor mood swings is that the inconsistent aid hurts local developing economies more than helps.

How is this overcome? An obvious point is that we need to continue giving even in the midst of financial stresses. But there is another problem that I would like to mention. There is a tendency with development agencies to do big money projects with short time frames. This serves two purposes: 1) big projects sound really impressive in their websites, news releases, and promotional material; 2) being finished with these big project and ready to move on to new big projects calls for new donations. In other words, much of what most development agencies do has more to do with their own institutional advancement than true development. True development would tackle the health needs of that rural community very differently, but it means the agency would need to be willing commit to a long-term plan with steady funding. Donors need to learn more about what is involved in seeing a community develop to the point that it can overcome problems on its own and they take ownership for continued development in the future. Development agencies talk a good game. They talk a lot about working with local communities, developing sustainability, and making long-term change, but rarely are these organizations actually committed to the slow process involved in true development.

Yes, donor fickleness can impact development. But if development agencies were committed to true development, we might actually see some communities, even nations, climb out of their "developing" status.

View of War and the Early Church

2008-12-21T05:44:00.001-08:00

I came across some interesting thoughts on the early church's view of war and violence. Of particular note is the change in theological conviction coincided with the perception of Christian government.

"For the first three centuries no Christian writing which has survived to our time condoned Christian participation in war. Some Christians held that for them all blood shed, whether as soldiers or as executioners, was unlawful." (Latourette, A History of Christianity Vol. 1, 242)

Early church advocates for a pacifistic policy

Hippolytus (prominent in Rome)- a Christian soldier must refuse to kill, even under command from superiors.
Tertullian- being a Christian and member of an army puts the person under two masters, which cannot be permitted. He also argued that even in peace time a soldier is asked to inflict punishment on people which is a type of revenge which is not permissible. "He said that in disarming Peter Christ ungirded every soldier." (Latourette, A History of Christianity Vol. 1, 243)
Origen- Prominent Roman accused Christians of making the Empire weak due to their pacifistic convictions. Origen argued if all were to become Christians that would influence the barbarians to become Christians. And that Christians love, labor, and prayers did more for the Empire than the military. (Latourette, A History of Christianity Vol. 1, 243)

Transition to just war theory- ca 4^th century

When the Emperors were Christian this changed the scene on war ethics. If the Emperor was acting on behalf of the church, then it was conceivable that war in pursuit of justice could be justified.
Ambrose and Augustine were proponents of this theory- "Augustine elaborated the theoretical basis for a just war. He held that wickedness must be restrained, by force if necessary, and that the sword of the magistrate is divinely commissioned. Not all wars are just. To be just, so Augustine said, a war must be waged under the authority of the prince, it must have as its object the punishment of injustice and the restoration of peace, and it must be fought without vindictiveness and without unnecessary violence…. Yet without the authority of the prince, Augustine taught, the civilian must not use force to defend even his own life." (Latourette, A History of Christianity Vol. 1, 244)

When a Conservative is not a Conservative

2008-12-17T16:31:00.000-08:00

John Stackhouse has a good post clarifying the difference between political conservatism and Evangelical conservatism here.

Having Unbounded Confidence

2008-12-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

I recently posted some thoughts about communicating in the public square as devoted followers of Jesus. I mentioned that so many unbelievers seem very unsure of themselves and maybe even lack a Scripture-soaked worldview that boosts our confidence in Jesus and His Way. Yale professor, Lamin Sanneh, reminds of the "unbounded confidence" of the earliest Jesus-followers:

“Once their resolve was galvanized by the resurrection experience, the apostles and the sympathizers of Jesus went about their business of testifying to the Messiah in his glorified power, and they did this with unbounded confidence.” (Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message, 10)

Challenging Quote from Tim Keller

2008-12-10T15:59:00.001-08:00

“Jesus’s teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while
offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in
the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of
outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches,
even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative,
buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the
broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the
preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not
have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be
declaring the same message that Jesus did.” (Tim Keller, The Prodigal God)

Thanks to William T. Chaney Jr. for posting this quote in his blog.

Ortberg on the Gospel and "Eternal Pleasure Factory"

2008-11-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

Check out this article by John Ortberg. Are we pursuing happiness or God?

Curious about voter statistics from the religious community?

2008-11-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Beliefnet has posted this survey on the recent election.

Shoddy Argumentation Continued: Seeking a Common Starting Point

2008-11-16T06:04:00.001-08:00

In my previous post I argued that followers of Jesus have done a poor job of communicating their perspective on issues in the public square. At the end I submitted that Jesus was our common starting point as we articulate our worldview in the public square. The historicity of the life of Jesus is widely acknowledged by scholars. There are detailed accounts of his life written by either his companions or those that extensively interviewed his companions in the Bible. In addition, there are other non-Christian accounts from the time period that attest to Jesus' life. Any responsible historian would acknowledge that there was a man named Jesus.

People from a diverse array of worldviews readily acknowledge respect for Jesus and even quote from him regularly. Unfortunately, however, most people's knowledge of Jesus is limited to some nifty out-of-context quote or perhaps a story or two. These little quips are often used to justify whatever people want to justify, Christians and non-Christians alike. Statements like "judge not lest you be judged," "blessed are the peacemakers," or "the kingdom of God is within you." When taken in isolation, these statements are used as a buttress for any viewpoint.

We are further shaken when we go to a bookstore and see row after row of books about Jesus that try to persuade the reader that Jesus' message was not what Christians say it is. The Jesus Seminar has assembled so-called historians from around the country and reduced Jesus' life and teachings to a few spiritually ambiguous adages. They have written lots of books with provocative titles and appear on PBS documentaries sounding authoritative. The reality is that their project of discovering the real historical Jesus has been academically irresponsible and a farce. Liberal and conservative scholars alike have discredited the Jesus Seminar and their proliferation of propaganda as bad history. Publishers publish their books and bookstores stock them because trashy tabloids sell. If you are looking for some worthwhile books that refute The Jesus Seminar, John Shelby Spong and others here are a few great ones:

The authors listed above come from various backgrounds and are respected as scholars.

Once we feel comfortable with the historicity of Jesus and the accounts of his life and teachings found in the Bible, we then must resolve to decide what we want to do with those facts. N.T. Wright makes a very compelling case for the veracity of Jesus' resurrection. As I read the historical record, the resurrection of Jesus is an act so significant that it shapes how I think and feel. It gives significance to his life and teachings. This significance is magnified by the invitation by Jesus to join in his death and resurrection. Our views and ethics ought to be primarily informed by this. We need to be so familiar with Jesus life and teachings that we can articulate our responses to the issues of today. When so many around the world consider Jesus to be a wise teacher, prophet, or mystic, then it only makes sense for them to hear more about Jesus. But not in the way we are used to talking about Jesus, which usually involves very little of Jesus' story and a lot of culturally-distant religious terminology. We need introduce people to the incredible teachings, stories and events and then maybe some of those oft-used quotes above might find grander meaning and the world might see transformation.

The Prevalence of Shoddy Argumentation in our Ethicizing

2008-11-09T07:12:00.001-08:00

This political season has successfully stoked the flames of many hot potato issues in our society like abortion, war, and even the definition of marriage. In the midst of the firestorm of debates—official ones between candidates and unofficial ones in blogs and facebook and other communication mediums—it is disturbing to see such shallow thinking and hollow zingers displayed proudly by those on all sides of the debate. I realize that a witty zinger or a clever sound bite is often a tactical PR move, but too often what I see happening is just plain bad thinking and communication. Even more unfortunate is that people seem so proud of their asinine arguments. It pains me to see those representing Christ display such ill-thought-through statements.

The reality is that society has changed a lot over the years. The ground-lying assumptions about the world are not the same as they once were. There was a time when most people assumed there was a God. The views of God may have varied some, but there was an assumption that God existed and so did heaven and hell. Most recognized the authority of God and that the Bible conveyed God's message to people. These words from George Washington reveal the extent of the pervasiveness of this worldview: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. Do not ever let anyone claim to be a true American patriot if they ever attempt to separate Religion from politics."

These are NOT the working assumptions of people today. Even those that consider themselves to be Christians, may not have these cosmological assumptions. Thus we make a mistake when we presume the existence of God, heaven, and hell in our arguments. It is further futile to build an argument from the Bible without first reaching common ground about some degree of truthfulness of the Bible. In the New Testament when we see Paul speaking to a Jewish audience, he makes frequent reference to the Jewish scriptures. But when Paul's audience is primarily from a non-Jewish background, then he seeks to establish other common ground.

When we engage in conversations in the public square over these issues, we need to articulate our positions and convictions in ways that challenge those that don't share our worldview assumptions to consider our perspective. Whenever we ignore the context of those with whom we debate, we usually end up talking past each other. And a more subtle thing happens to us. We become less sure of our own worldview. When we are able to communicate to those around us the reasons we have taken the ethical stands we have, then it is a sign that we are more sure of those ethical stands. I would submit to you that the historical life of Christ is a starting point with which we can communicate to others. But I will develop this idea in another post.

Community through doing

2008-10-28T20:29:00.001-07:00

Thought provoking quote:

Christian community…is not primarily about togetherness. It is about the way of Jesus Christ with those whom he calls to himself. It is about disciplining our wants and needs in congruence with a true story, which gives us the resources to lead truthful lives. In living out the story together, togetherness happens, but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus. (Hauerwas and Willimon as quoted in Hiebert and Meneses, Incarnational Ministry, 347)

The Green Bible?

2008-10-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

Check it out. HarperOne has just released The Green Bible, a New Revised Standard Version Bible with 1000 verses that emphasizes God's ecofriendly purposes in forrest green.

I'm a big proponent of our responsibility to care for creation and appreciate the recent attention to the biblical soundness of such a posture. We definitely need resources that help us have a renewed understanding for our God-given responsibility to be stewards of creation, but I'm not sure that marketing a biodegradable copy of God's Word is the way to do this.

First of all, the whole concept of the specialty Bible is troubling. One of the earlier ones was the Men's Devotional Bible. This was basically a Bible with thirty one-page devotions laced throughout the pages. And then came Men's Devotional Bible II, which was the same thing with thirty new devotions. Seriously, does someone need to by another copy of the Bible just to get thirty more devotions? It reeks of marketing ploy. Now every kind of niche Bible seems to exist. People end up with a bunch of copies of the Bible that collect dust in someone's basement (not very ecofriendly). The other problem is that people can be distracted from the powerful and timeless of Scripture for some trendy theme or current favorite preacher.

In the case of the Green Bible, it can easily be misunderstood that care for creation is the primary theme in the Bible. Even the words of Christ are not in red in this version. It is overselling one theme among many and has the dangerous power to skew the broader narrative.

Why not simply produce a book that highlights the many verses and stories that highlight God's concern for his creation? This could be a valuable aid to our study of Scripture without potentially blurring other powerful themes in the Holy Writ.

The Caducity of Words

2008-10-27T01:33:00.001-07:00

When I was in graduate school my friend Matthew and I had this goofy idea to create a list of rare and impressive words. The goal was to see who could incorporate these words the most in our research papers. It made the writing of some tedious papers a little more fun when we could slide "tergiversate" into a sentence. Now the challenge has been made for all of us to participate in comeback of some seldom used and underappreciated words.

A recent article in Time Magazine alerted me to the potential extinction of some fabulous words. This niddering campaign to exuviate the dictionary of some fabulous words is oppugnant and olid. That some of these words are passed their expiration date is apodeictic, but there are some that have a nitid quality. At the risk of sounding like an old Oxbridge English Don, I hate to see our English vocabulary become fubsy and…well…just dumbed-down. Is it worth trying to salvage some of these words or is this abstergent necessary.

Developing World Orphanages

2008-10-24T18:16:00.001-07:00

We got into the taxi and told the driver where we wanted to go. He said, "Good, I need to go that direction anyway." He noticed that my wife was pregnant and said that his wife had just had a baby. His wife had to have an emergency c-section delivery. The problem is that this poor family did not budget for a c-section or for expensive hospital bills. The hospital has kept his baby until he could pull together the money to pay the hospital bills, adding some each day for caring for the baby. This man was obviously distraught but it sounded like he finally borrowed enough money to bring his baby home.

We have heard other instances where the family could not pay for the hospital bills and put the baby up for adoption in exchange for paying for the bills. There are a lot of families for whom things have gotten tight financially that have sent on of their children to a local orphanage to be raised.

On the news we are inundated with clips of Angelina Jolie and Madonna adopting children from developing nations. One gets the sense that these two believe that we can simply adopt the world's poorest children in order to lift the world out of poverty.

I am not saying that we should not adopt those that are truly orphaned. Scripture is clear when it urges us to care for orphans. But we need to be very cautious that we are not assisting in a terrible exploitation of the world's poor. There are so many parents that have no idea what happened to their children because they were essentially forced to sell them. My concern is that the influence of Angelina and Madonna will train our focus on Band-Aid solutions rather than looking at the root causes of poverty.

Remembering a bold martyr

2008-10-06T03:45:00.001-07:00

Thanks to TSK for mentioning a young Saudi Arabian woman burned to death by her own father for following Christ. Gulf News in the UAE has the story.

While on the subject of the persecuted church, here is an article from The Economist on what has been happening in Orissa, India.

Voting Guide from BW3

2008-09-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

As the elections are fast approaching, Ben Witherington III offers sage advice in considering our voting choice here. In it he states emphatically that we should "never" vote based on one issue. What do y'all think?

The Importance of Seeds

2008-09-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

A very important part of sustainable development is having good seeds. I'm no agriculturalist at all, but I know that having quality seeds can make a huge difference in whether a farmer can support his family or not. Checkout this article on seed banks with the provocative title: "Sowing for Apocalypse."

Thanks to Tech.Samaritan for directing me to this article.

NoiseTrade Widget

2008-09-15T17:37:00.001-07:00

"God's Chemo for My Cancered Soul"- Check it out

2008-09-06T18:08:00.001-07:00

J. I. Packer has a little article (a reflection really) in Christian History magazine called "God's Chemo for My Cancered Soul." He reflects on the mentoring he received from the writings of the Puritan theologian John Owen and the impact it had on his daily walk and his struggle with sin.

A Quote on Theology

2008-09-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

What do you think of this quote? How do we preserve the gospel? Is "preserve" even the right word?

"The great theologians of each generation have realized that merely
repeating particular formulations inherited from previous generations
would serve only to preserve the gospel by petrifying it. Fear can
easily drive us to treat our theological propositions as fossils,
unearthed from a privileged period in church history and placed in an
ecclesiastical museum, quarantined from the polluted air of cultural
anxiety that might contribute to its deterioration." F. LeRon Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God, 201

Engaging Postmodernism, Not Running From It Or Decrying It

2008-09-02T00:12:00.001-07:00

Andrew Jones has written a response to the first two chapters of Carl Raschke's latest book, GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn. Here is a snippet of Jone's response:

"Carl’s contribution here is to equate being postmodern with being
global. Whatever postmodernism was, or however it has been received,
over the last few decades, it is about “globalization” in this 21st
century in which we live and more and have our being and, unlike a mere
philosophical theory, we cannot avoid it. This fact brings
postmodernism back into play for those of us that thought we could move
on."

I am often frustrated by the very superficial, naive view of postmodernism that pervades the Evangelical church. It is too often viewed as a campaign initiated by a few bumptious, atheistic, curmudgeon-ish, university professors that are out to hate on truth. I don't deny that there are these types, but that is not what postmodernism is about. More rightly understood it is a sweeping global phenomenon where worldviews are undergoing a paradigm shift. It is less due to some person's influence than due to the changing realities of the world and our reactions to it. Globalization, urbanization, and technology proliferation have changed the globe and cultures are changing as a result. In the west we are NOT transitioning from a Christian worldview to an anti-Christian one. We are, instead, transitioning from a modernist worldview to postmodern worldviews (the plural is intentional). Any worldview is deeply troubled by our tainted perspectives and agendas (one effect of sin). And yet the good news can be translated and embraced by those in any worldview. Of course those that really emerse themselves in the good news begin to exhibit a transformed worldview. But even then, this transformed worldview will be shaped by the background worldview.

I have posted remarks like this before and so I apologize for the repitition. It is one those issues that periodically makes me emotional. Postmodernism is here and is impacting people's worldviews. We need to spend less time attacking postmodernism and more time exhibiting and communicating the good news of Jesus in ways that people living in this emerging worldview can understand.

Urban fortification

2008-08-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

I have been slowly plodding through Lewis Mumford’s classic work The City in History. I was reflecting on this tendency described by Mumford below:

“Thus both the physical form and the institutional life of the city, from the very beginning of the urban implosion, were shaped in no small measure by the irrational and magical purposes of war. From this source sprang the elaborate system of fortifications, with walls, ramparts, towers, canals, ditches, that continued to characterize the chief historic cities, apart from certain special cases—as during the Pax Romana—down to the eighteenth century. The physical structure of the city, in turn, perpetuated the animus, the isolation and self-assertion, that favoured the new institution.” (Mumford, The City in History, 58)

Since the trend began to change in the eighteenth/nineteenth century, I was pondering on the current trend. My undeveloped thought is that the cities are still fortified, but not physically or militarily, rather economically. Cities still operate with hierarchies and classes except that now lineage and coat of arms mean little. Networking and resumes signal pedigree.

“Throughout the greater part of history, enslavement, forced labour, and destruction have accompanied—and penalized—the growth of urban civilization.” (Mumford, The City in History, 56)

The industrial age transformed the traditional practices of slavery to economic slavery. It seems that economics has become the primary determinant of a society.

We have our houses and He has His

2008-08-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

I was reading an excerpt from an address of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to a congregation where I came across these words:

“We all know that Christ has, in effect, been eliminated from our lives. Of course, we build him a temple, but we live in our own houses. Christ has become a matter of the church or, rather, of the churchliness of a group, not a matter of life.” (Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer…, 43)

Every once in a while I find myself in a conversation about the value or need for sacred spaces (usually meaning church buildings). I’m not generally a big fan of church buildings and the building programs and financial indebtedness that it creates. But I think Bonhoeffer hits on one of the more subtle yet more tragic consequences of separate spaces for religious/spiritual activities. Our devotion to Jesus morphs into event-oriented, geographically-specific religious activities. It is no wonder that most Christians have very little daily connection to Christ and his call to take up the cross and follow him. We have compartmentalized Jesus by literally building physical structures for Him. Until our lives and homes become sacred spaces, we will continue to live duplicitously.

Structure without Institutionalization

2008-07-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

I have long felt that the subject of church structure has been neglected in our theological reflection and practice of church life. Our sense of the correct structure for the church is often more informed by recent church tradition than the intentions of Jesus and the Scriptures. Hans Kung notes: “All too easily the Church can become a prisoner of the image it has made for itself at one particular period in history.” (Hans Kung, The Church, 4) One of the major challenges is to develop healthy structures that remain unencumbered by institutionalization.

Alan Hirsch offers some good thoughts regarding the importance of church structure without getting bogged down by institutionalization on his blog The Forgotten Ways.

Is a shift from "organizational survival" to a "movement ethos" feasible?
How do we transition to a movement ethos?
How do we generate a movement ethos among the majority of those who call on the name of Jesus?

Change Across Cultures Pt 1

2008-07-16T23:16:00.001-07:00

Working in the field of community development I have seen many development agencies attempt to make social changes superficially. For example one organization in the area I work has attempted to change gender roles in the local culture through the use of posters. Often it is a nice sounding project that makes donors happy, but does very little to impact the community. I have been reading Change Across Cultures: A Narrative Approach to Social Transformation by Bruce Bradshaw and wanted to share a little bit from it.

Bradshaw wrestles with this very problem of development agencies defaulting to the quick fix to make changes in a community. He brings a deep, anthropologically informed of cultures and worldviews in to inform the values that drive cultural practices. In the introduction to the book, he describes the ethnic conflict in Albania and explains how mired it is in the worldview of the people. Our quick fix solutions to these types of issues leave the worldview unaddressed and thus the conflicts continue. Bradshaw posits:

"Sustainable cultural change requires the transformation of the values that permeate the cultural narratives, which are the stories of the social structures that comprise the communities in which people live." (Bradshaw, Change Across Cultures, 12)

My reaction when I read the introduction was that he presents the problem beautifully but have no idea how he will offer some workable options to address the deeper issues in societies across the world.

Some Sage Advice

2008-07-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight offers some good advice for all of those blogging on theological subjects. There are ramifications when we blog about controversial issues.

Whose Missionality?

2008-06-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

As is commonly the case will all buzz words, the word “missional” is being used diversely. This proliferation of definitions, while inevitable, has created a lot of confusion and diminished the force of the word. It is for this reason that this post is part of a synchroblog attempting to recapture the force of the word missional.

In a recent blog post a young man wrote excitedly about the contrast between churches that were “attractional” and “missional”. His ruminations led him to the conclusion that the “services” at his church should be missional. His heart was in the right place but his distinction between the terms was clearly off-base (at least according to my understanding of the term). This led me to consider the various voices espousing the notion of a missional church. Significant books and reports have focused on this term as the locus for their ecclesiology. Anglicans, American mainliners, and Southern Baptists are all keen to use this term (perhaps a rare time for these disparate groups to use the same terminology).

Part of the confusion is the word is deeply grounded in theology and robust with practical implications at once. It might serve us best by beginning with the theological underpinnings of the term. To be missional is to imitate the mission of God (missio Dei). This notion of the mission of God can best be understood as God’s purposeful and sending nature. The late missiologist, David Bosch, put it succinctly: “Missio Dei [God’s mission] enunciates the good news that God is a God-for-people.” (Bosch, Transforming Mission, 10) Christopher Wright offers a grand exploration of the intensely missional nature of God in The Mission of God:

“The Old Testament tells its story as the story or, rather, as a part of that ultimate and universal story that will ultimately embrace the whole of creation, time, and humanity within its scope. In other words, in reading these texts we are invited to embrace a metanarrative, a grand narrative…. It is the story that stretches from Genesis to Revelation, not merely as a good yarn or even as a classic of epic literature, but fundamentally as a rendering of reality—as account of the universe we inhabit and of the new creation we are destined for.” (Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, 56)

We are invited into this metanarrative to partake in God’s purposes. In other words, we are to be driven by the missional essence of God to be missional in the same way as God. As image-bearing created beings of a missional God, we are carrying the missional DNA of God. The ultimate expression of the mission of God was in the incarnation of Jesus. In the incarnation was a radical, sacrificial sending out of God. It is a posture of self-emptying (kenosis) as we see in Philippians 2. In light of this, how do we respond to Jesus words in John 20:21: “As the Father sent me, so send I you”? The missional essence of God is the core foundation of our missionality.

Where is the disconnect? For some, they miss this foundation of God being missional in nature. It is not just some program from a church. It should characterize the core essence of the church. In getting to the more practical side of it, simply trying to be “missional” by having a missional service misses the point of being the people of the intensely missional God. As the Father sent Jesus, so we are being sent. Our posture should then be that of being sent. The church needs to be going with the desire to love the missional God and love his people. This is a radical departure from a focus on ourselves or on our own church. This is noticeably different from churches building their own kingdoms and trying to attract people to it.

A missional ecclesiology posits the church should be sacrificially representing Jesus in the world. Comfort, prestige, and pride should be abandoned to see Jesus communities established in the most troubled, dark locations of the globe. Nothing short of this kind of going is what it means to represent the missional God. It is for this reason that tweaking a Sunday morning service to be “missional” is still not grasping what it means to be missional.

Check out what all of the others are saying about the word "missional":
Alan Hirsch
Alan Knox
Andrew Jones
Barb Peters
Bill Kinnon
Brad Brisco
Brad Grinnen
Brad Sargent
Brother Maynard
Bryan Riley
Chad Brooks
Chris Wignall
Cobus Van Wyngaard
Dave DeVries
David Best
David Fitch
David Wierzbicki
DoSi
Doug Jones
Duncan McFadzean
Erika Haub
Grace
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
Jeff McQuilkin
John Smulo
Jonathan Brink
JR Rozko
Kathy Escobar
Len Hjalmarson
Makeesha Fisher
Malcolm Lanham
Mark Berry
Mark Petersen
Mark Priddy
Michael Crane
Michael Stewart
Nick Loyd
Patrick Oden
Peggy Brown
Phil Wyman
Richard Pool
Rick Meigs
Rob Robinson
Ron Cole
Scott Marshall
Sonja Andrews
Stephen Shields
Steve Hayes
Tim Thompson
Thom Turner

Jesus at the Center

2008-06-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Returning to Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways, here is a short but challenging quote.

“So at the heart of all great movements is a recovery of a simple Christology.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 85)

My question: What is elemental to a simple Christology?

Hirsch Quote and a Question

2008-06-07T17:34:00.000-07:00

In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch makes this statement:

“So we have now reached the vexing situation that the prevailing expression of church (Christendom) has become a major stumbling block to the spread of Christianity in the West.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 63)

My question: Do you think the prevailing expression of church has become a major stumbling block to the spread of the good news?

Christ and Culture: Is it a helpful approach?

2008-06-02T19:54:00.001-07:00

In the last few decades, society has become much more culture-conscious. This primarily due to enormous increase in travel technology and telecommunications. We are now much more aware of different cultures through our own experiences and media. This awareness has urged discussions on how we, as Jesus-followers, should relate to culture. H. Richard Niebuhr wrote a landmark book, Christ and Culture, where he provides five different ways that people believe Christ relates to culture. Since this book was published there have been thousands of discussions in Sunday Schools classes, colleges, dorm rooms, seminaries, and over the dinner table on the typology Niebuhr sets out for us. In the last few years there have been several books that used Niebuhr's book as a launching pad to discuss this very crucial topic. Scot McKnight's blog had a good discussion on which approach to culture was the best one. Here are the five approaches:

Christ against culture,

Christ of culture,

Christ above culture,

Christ and culture in paradox, and

Christ transforming culture.

I want your input. Is this a good way to approach the issue of how we relate to culture? What are some alternative ways of better discerning how we as Jesus-followers should interface with culture?

Book Review: Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin

2008-05-29T20:46:00.001-07:00

"…for the church to retain a vibrancy about its faith, it must 'adapt and survive.'" (Brewin, Signs of Emergence, 19)

I just read Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church That Is Organic/Neworked/Decentralized/Bottom-up/Communal/Flexible/Always Evolving by English school teacher Kester Brewin. This books has the "Emergent Village" imprimatur on it and is highly endorsed well-known names in the various streams of the Emerging/Emergent conversation/movement. Brewin's writing style is smart and reflective without getting bogged down in scholarship or floating away with charming anecdotal stories.

Change is an unavoidable absolute, urges Brewin, and the church must respond through adapting, maturing, and evolving. There are a couple of overarching themes that Brewin uses to make his various points along the way. In resisting the term "revolution" for its proclivity towards violence and disruptive change, the author leans on the word "evolution" to describe the appropriate response of the church (my thoughts on that later). The other rubric used to move the book along is the idea that a person's life, the road to mature belief goes through different stages. This is drawn from Stages of Faith: Psychology of Human Development by James Fowler. Fowler seeks to map out the journey to a healthy mature faith through six stages. Brewin picks up on this psychological work and applies it sociologically to the church developing in maturity through history. In essence, he posits that the church has long been in a stage of naïve belief (synthetic conventional) marked by conformity. Brewin responds to this saying that it is high time to progress through stage four (Fowler: individuative reflective stage) and move on to stage five (conjunctive).

Brewin uses the posture of evolution (the concept not the biological theory) through the rubric of these stages to implore his readers to rethink/reimagine the church. Brewin then explores Jesus' movement through advent, incarnation and emergence as paradigmatic for the church. He then challenges the church to rethink its essence and structure in light of the model Jesus provided and in our ever-changing (evolving) context.

Many of the emphases introduced by Brewin are great and ones that I along with many others have been calling for, such as many of those things listed in the subtitle of the book. But I struggle more with the twin foundation of evolution and plodding through stages of faith. Brewin juxtaposes the concepts of revolution and evolution. Revolution is normally accompanied by violence and presupposes that a massive change in structure will make the reparations necessary in a society. This I can agree with. Brewin goes on to make a good argument for the exigency of continued incremental change. The way he chooses to capture that is by using the word evolution. I struggle with the word choice on this—and, no it is not simply a matter of semantics—because evolution communicates much more than simply incremental change. This is not about the creation/evolution debate really. My education has been more informed by the social sciences. Anthropology and sociology once assumed that societies evolved in their culture, religion, and social structure to become complex, pluralistic civilizations. More often than not this meant that societies would eventually grow-up to be like western civilization (enlightenment thinking at its zenith). It has since then been realized that this kind of evolutionary thinking was enormously ethnocentric as it made us the goal of all societies. The wars, violence, and abuses in western civilization in the last century have revealed that we had not actually become quite the noble society as we thought. To summarize my thoughts, evolution connotes a notion of unaided progress that does not reflect the extent of brokenness of humanity. An added thought is the idea of the survival of the fittest goes against the primary themes of kingdom of God that Jesus taught and exemplified.

An alternative word that captures the Jesus-like posture is "regeneration." Thom Wolf has described this as a "spiritual revamping" as it honestly wrestles with the intrinsicness of our brokenness (Wolf, "How is Society Changed?: Five Motifs of Social Change"). This word comes closer to describing our posture although I might tweak the definition a little. I believe the revamping must be holistic. Even though it starts with a spiritual reorientation, it must impact every corner and crevice of life.

Brewin also builds heavily on the notion of progressing through the stages of faith. While Fowler's work is insightful and offers loads of discussion material for college kids going through the fourth stage, individuative reflective, it remains psychological observation. I'm reticent to use a psychological matrix to discern the future of the people of God. For example, Brewin implies that passing through the "dark night of the soul" is a prerequisite to mature spirituality. While it can be observed that faith can grow deeper during times of hardship, we are encouraged to enter the kingdom lie a child would (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17).

This is all to say that Brewin develops his ideas of the emergence of the church on a less than stellar foundation. Yet, he offers some rich material in the midst of his work. Here are some of notable things:

Incarnation- Brewin posits that we, both individually and as the church, must undergo the Incarnational process in the pattern of Jesus.
"As we wonder how the church could change…I am going to suggest that, like God, we must be born again. That we must re-emerge. That there will be no revolution, only evolution. That what will be in the future body of Christ must be what Christ was: the embryonic cooperation of divinity and humanity." (Brewin, Signs of Emergence, 67)
As cultures and societies continue to change we must continue in the process of facilitating new birth. This, once again, is imagery that is more suited to regeneration than evolution.
New organization/structures- Culture is not static. The structures and organizations of society have undergone inestimable change. "Yet our models of church have not kept up with this radical change." (Brewin, Signs of Emergence, 74)
Decentralization- Bewin draws from theories of complexity in grappling with how to be church in an increasingly urban and complex society. He uses examples of ants, brains, and cities in helping understand decentralized structures that operate beautifully. These examples are fascinating, but I do wish he had drawn more from the Scriptures.
Urban reality- "Urbanization has marched on at huge speed over the last centuries, but our theology has not." (Brewin, Signs of Emergence, 122)
Gift- Lewis Hyde's book The Gift shapes Brewin's commentary on the commoditizing of the church. The church should reframe its approach to the world as offering a gift and not operate in economic terms.

Overall, the book was interesting and provides a good challenge to explore practicing the Way of Jesus in some fresh ways. I believe the author uses some unhelpful rubrics for developing his ideas, but some of his ideas are good. The added bonus is that I learned how ants operate, which I had long been curious about.

Boomers: Where are they now?

2008-05-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Curious about where the boomers are? Click here

Scharold’s Critique of the Emergent Church

2008-05-27T06:39:00.001-07:00

Kristen Scharold has written a well-articulated piece in First Things, "The Emerging Church and its Critics." She tenders a review of the much discussed Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck and uses that as a departure point to reflect on her own critique of the emergent church. She does a good job of communicating her critiques without name-calling or heresy-hunting. Her primary charge (as I understood it) was that the emergent church lacked conviction. This lack of conviction has propelled an overreliance clever writing, attractive events and artsy worship. She echoes DeYoung and Kluck in stating that the emergent folks are doing with postmodernism what the mainline churches did with modernism.

She makes some good points in this regard. Much of the buzz surrounding the emergent church has been eyebrow-raising book titles, conferences/parties in the Bahamas, and a savvy use of technology. The theological articulations tend to be trying so hard to unbox (or deconstruct) Evangelical theology that it has not actually theologized (if that makes sense). What I am trying to say is that too often the position taken is: don't take a position (of course, there are many exceptions to this). The emergent church is warm and friendly and likeable, but is it positioning itself to introduce the radical transformation of the kingdom in all corners of the earth?

Having said that, I think there is an irritating tendency to hear all things emergent and emerging through the megaphones of only a few voices. This is unfortunate. The range of expression and conviction in the emergent church is stunning. I have been very frustrated by some writers/bloggers/speakers and encouraged and challenged by others. Scharold describes Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian as understanding "that it is important to contextualize doctrine but that you cannot change doctrine." That is true in one sense, but it is superficial understanding of doctrine and culture. The reality of who God is and what he has done and promises still to do is fact, and a fact to be celebrated jubilantly. But our expressions of this fact in a specific language, recited in a certain order, referencing chosen verses all take place in the midst of contexts so thoroughly tainted that what we call doctrine cannot be considered the final product. Western articulations of doctrine are something to be read, studied and cherished, but also critiqued. Doctrinal statements and confessions are incomplete. An example of an area of undeveloped theology in the west is a theological/biblical grasp on the spirit world. Paul Hiebert, Charles Kraft and many others have been attempting to alert the west to these realities seen so easily by followers of Jesus in Asia, Africa, and South America.

Sometimes we think of theology like a candy bar with peanuts and caramel. And all we need to do is change the wrapper it is in. Maybe we change language on the wrapper for the country it is or change the design to suite the culture or the generation. But it turns out that another culture thinks nougat is imperative to the candy bar and that there were too many peanuts in the one from the west. We need to go back to Scripture and soak up all that is stated and work out the articulation of Scripture's contents in our communities. We need to be challenged by other communities that also read the Scriptures and follow Jesus and mutually challenge each other to see our blind spots. There is a tension in all of this. There are some that want to change the wrapper on the candy bar with just peanuts and caramel and there are others that want to say that whatever you want in your candy bar is just fine. The analogy breaks down at this point (as most do) before I start talking about an uber cosmic candy bar. The point is that we must approach our traditional articulations of theology/doctrine humbly recognizing that we need to perpetually return to Scripture, the way of Jesus, and the indwelling of his Spirit.

Are the Houses Starting to Change the World?

2008-05-26T09:09:00.001-07:00

Andrew Jones has provided a couple of links to articles on the strategic value of organizing in small communities on his fabulous Tall Skinny Kiwi blog. These articles are not really saying anything new, Jones himself had blogged on it a while back and articles in mainstream media were already surfacing in the early 2000's (e.g. Laurie Goodstein, "Seach for the Right Church Ends at Home,"
New York Times). In the Huffington Post article, the number of those that have experienced a house church is 70 million. That is an extraordinary number and it is telling. The trend is growing and might not be too far from becoming mainstream. And then we have to be careful. It is the mainstreaming of something that changes its character.

Focus on the form- There will be a subtle temptation to become more focused on the house church structure than on the allowing the structure to foster a community of growing Jesus-followers. The form is being mimicked by business and political strategists, which have very different bottom lines. We will need to ensure that we are characterized by our Jesusness and not our external forms or structures.
Cool and easy- Whenever the church or a movement within the church becomes the accepted norm, it becomes attractive to the casual Christian. The true good news of Jesus demands a followship that is anything but casual. House church, simple churches, small faith communities will need to work very hard to maintain the radical intensity of a community committed to the way of Jesus.
Comfortable- House churches can become comfortable, sedentary, and even institutional just like any other church or organized group of humans. There will arise a need for house churches and networks to establish themselves with longevity. The need for this feeling of something more lasting is understandable but antithetical to the need for the continued self-emptying of the church. The church must be willing to constantly go and make disciples, which may cost that expression of the local house church in process. The going of the church is painful and uncertain, but essential.

Don't get me wrong. I love churching in a small, simple, reproducible manner. I love bringing the church into our homes and our homes into the church. But if we really want to change the world, we must remain centered on Jesus and learn from the pitfalls of the past.

Reflections on Forgotten Ways 6: Preserving Unity While Fostering New Movements

2008-05-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

This post is a return back to our discussion on Alan Hirsch’s book, The Forgotten Ways. Hirsch is promoting a radical change in mindset that fosters free-flowing movements. The observation is made that new movements tend start on the banished fringes of the church establishment:

“As we shall see, vital movements arise always in the context of rejection by the predominant institutions (e.g., Wesley and Booth), But because vigorous movements of mission almost always create movements of renewal, in the end they do go on to produce renewal in the life of the broader church (e.g., Pentecostalism).” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 56)

I am very thankful that God has raised up these people throughout history that have been influential in catalyzing a return to the radical way of Jesus. Hirsch notes that while these new movements start off as a rejected entity by the established church, they end up sparking new life and renewal in the wider church. My struggle is that even while this is a good thing in many respects, the original movement ends up becoming just another calcified institution in the diverse collection that make up the worldwide church of Jesus. In other words, with each new movement there is a new denomination (sometimes more than one, Methodists, Wesleyans, Nazarenes, etc.). Therefore, in fostering new movements, we are thereby fostering new denominations, thus further fracturing/splintering/schisming the church.

I am not an “ecumenist” in the sense that it has often been used in the last century, but Scripture seems to be unequivocal on the point of unity of the church (John 17; 1 Cor 1; Eph 2; 4; Rom 12 and many more). A point that is rarely demonstrated among believers. I’m not suggesting that we sacrifice the freshness that new movements bring to the universal body, but that take the command of unity seriously. Here are some quotes that might challenge us to strive for unity:

“The time is always ripe for re-union. Divisions between Christians are a sin and a scandal, and Christians ought at all times to be making contributions toward re-union, if it is only by their prayers.” –C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, “Answers to Questions on Christianity, p. 60

“Spiritual unity and visible unity are not truly alternatives: the alternative to visible unity is visible disunity, and that is a witness against the gospel.” (Geoffrey Wainwright, from Grenz, Renewing the Center, 303)

“Unitive ecumenism…needs to be reconceived. It can no longer be thought of, as I have done most of my life, as a matter of reconciling relatively intact and structurally still-Constantinian communions from the top down. Rather, it must be thought of as reconstituting Christian community and unity from, so to speak, the bottom up.” (George Lindbeck, “Confession,” 496, quoted in Volf, After Our Likeness, 19)

Preaching: Lost in Translation

2008-05-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

(This post is a re-post from a now-dormant group blog. Some have found some of these ideas helpful in their contexts.)

The concept of preaching has become highly distorted manifold ways. One source of this distortion is the English rendering of the word “preach” in place of several different Greek words. “The Greek New Testament, however, contains 54 uses of eunggelizo (“evangelize”) and, by way of comparison, 61 uses of kurusso (“preach”). In current practice these are both translated synonymously as “preaching.” The English reader is not able to make a contextual analysis of the intended meaning of the term—as he always reads 115 uses of the word “preach.” (Johnston, Thomas P. “Toward Translating “Evangelize” as “Evangelize”, 93) Nate Krupp explains this occurrence:

“There are five Greek words that have all been translated into the English word ‘preach’ and all similarly mean ‘herald, publish, announce, proclaim, tell’ the Good News. All of the instances where these Greek words are found in the New Testament are in the context of announcing the Good News to the lost and are not found in the setting of the believers’ gathering. Preaching is to take place out where the lost are: door-to-door, the streets, the market place, the fields, the highways and by-ways.” (Nate Krupp, God’s Simple Plan for His Church)

If preaching is properly understood as proclamation focused on the lost, then preaching in the church body must undergo revision. As it is commonly practiced in most churches today, preaching is really a persuasive speech by one considered a professional. For some preachers this is the perfect platform for polemics. Bonheoffer observed this proclivity: "Does not our preaching contain too much of our own opinions and convictions, and too little of Jesus Christ?" (Bonheoffer, Cost of Discipleship, 36). Other preachers are content to entertain or offer pleasant possitivities to their parishioners. And others earnestly desire to communicate God’s truths to believers, but are forced into the formulaic and static medium of the sermon. Preaching among believers in the New Testament is not necessarily from a pulpit, it can be dialogical as seen by the use of dialegomai to describe Paul is in the synagogues ‘discussing’ his faith (Acts 17:2; 18:4) and among believers at Troas (Acts 20:7). In Acts 20:7 dialegomai is often translated as preaching, but that is not an accurate translation connotatively. ‘Preaching’ now connotes a monologue delivered, whereas dialegomai is more often used in the sense of conversing or discussing. Secular business author, Peter Senge notes a similar practice among the early Greeks:

“To the Greeks dia-logos meant a free-flowing of meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually. Interestingly, the practice of dialogue has been preserved in many ‘primitive’ cultures, such as that of the American Indian, but it has been almost completely lost to modern society.” (Senge, The Fifth Discipline, 10)

There is no question that Paul is teaching the gathered believers, but it is a difference between ‘speaking at them’ and ‘speaking with them’. It seems that the New Testament emphasis has more to do with teaching than preaching. Even the concept of teaching has been skewed by changes in the educational system since the industrial revolution. Wolfgang Simpson challenges us to consider the aim of teaching in the New Testament: “The goal of the teaching is not increasing knowledge, but helping people to obey and serve God and His purposes (Rom. 1:5).” (Simpson, Houses That Change the World, 83) One church planting manual directs us to the notion of learning from teaching:

“We evangelical Christians tend to emphasize the importance of good teaching. This is missing the point. The essential is that people are genuinely learning and applying Scripture to their everyday lives. Statistics show that we learn far more by actively participating than by hearing alone. Scientists tell us that we remember 20% of what we hear, 50% of what we see and hear and 70% of what we hear and see and then say ourselves. In house church, we have the opportunity to involve everyone. In New Testament times, teaching was far more interactive; for instance, the word used for Paul’s lengthy teaching in Ephesus is the word ‘dialegomai’ from which we get our word ‘dialog’ (Acts 20:7). Jesus tells us that we are to teach new disciples to obey His commands.” (Church Planting Handbook, 116)

The emphases in Scripture on character formation and learning Scripture presents a significantly different image than what is commonly practiced today. This is not to say that the form of preaching that has become so pervasive today should not exist. It has a place, but it should have refocused goals for truly nurturing the believers.

How did we get to this point of place such importance on a monological sermon delivered by professional clergy? It has often been stated that the Reformation movement left a few things unreformed, among them was ecclesiology. The churches of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli inherited many structural aspects of the church from the Catholic Ch. Rigid worship, hierarchical decision-making were not challenged like views on salvation, use of the vernacular, and meaning of Holy Communion.

“Protestants, with the exception of ‘High Church’ Anglicans and some Lutheran churches (for example, the Swedish Lutheran Church), have tended to hold a ‘lower’ notion of church in theory, but in fact they too have often been quite concerned about the church’s visible structure and polity. In any case, Solle says that Protestants express this perspective by putting undue emphasis on the importance of proclamation and preaching in the church, to the neglect of action in the world and the development of true community.” (Bevans and Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today, 41)

In fact, John Calvin campaigned hard to make the sermon the central point of a church gathering (replacing Communion). While the Reformers attempted to eradicate the distinction between the clergy and laity, they also sought the preaching of right doctrine. The insurance of right doctrine demanded a preaching office (die reine Predigt), thus once again reinforcing a bifurcation of clergy and laity. “Yet, in fact, contrary to the theory of fundamental non-distinction, it encouraged the practical recognition of a secondary status of the ‘laity’ in comparison with the ministry, the breeding of an attitude of passivity in the laity as a whole, the accentuation of the significance of ‘office’ (das Amt) and its leadership.” (Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity, 66) “Its counter-effect was that the laity gradually got into and, generally speaking, accepted the position of the ‘ignorant’, the spiritually non-adult.” (Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity, 66)

Please hear me when I say that I am not against “preaching” or feel that it is wrong. I do question whether it should be our default form of discipleship. If our focus is on helping people grow in the image of JC, then our methods of discipleship must reflect that. It is my belief that to accomplish this, great levels of interaction will be necessary. Less monologue and more dialogue. Perhaps even less talking and more active ministry with discipler and disciplee side-by-side good newsing (“preaching” in your translation) a world that does not yet know Him.

Book Review: Surprised by Hope

2008-05-17T21:16:00.001-07:00

In my educational background I have taken numerous New Testament and theology classes. In doing a survey of the New Testament, I can't remember having much time left in the course for the book of Revelation. And theology, we ran out of time to deal adequately with eschatology (study of last things). Add to this the fact that I have always been a bit weirded-out by those end-times junkies who perpetually forecast the rapture any time we have more than one earthquake or there is a war in Southwest Asia (the Middle East). All of this is to say that I arrive at N. T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, with very unformed opinions about the subject. The book, put simply (perhaps too simply), explores our future as understood through scripture.

Bishop Wright is a New Testament scholar, prolific writer, and a widely sought-after speaker. There is no question that he is a gifted communicator and lucid thinker, and he brings those gifts to this book. Wright has laid some ground work in some very dense works on New Testament theology and sets up the need for this book. A key theme of Wright's is God's desire to "put the world to rights." In this book, we are able to understand a little more about what he means.

Wright begins the book by illustrating the many varieties of confusion the church has about our future or what happens when we die, heavily critiquing the Platonic notion of the physical world being nothing more than a shadow of reality. Wright builds his argument in various stages, but distilling it down, he establishes the incredible event of Jesus' resurrection from death (which he did more definitively in The Resurrection of the Son of God), his ascension, and coming reign. Then the rest of the book is essentially the worked-out theological implications of that for those declaring their allegiance to Jesus. Wright resists the only-spiritual idea of our future, and that ultimately we will be enjoying the goodness of God's creation in the transformed new earth.

This challenges the standard images we have of a soft, glowy life up in the clouds. It also challenges how we live now in light of our future. He draws heavily on 1 Corinthians, where Paul indicates that the things we do now, will have impact into the future. Wright makes his points well and communicates to a wide audience. His portrayal of our future hope is beautiful and helps make sense of some of the bizarre images we have in Scripture. If what he describes is the best way to understand Scripture, then it has enormous implications for the church and its mission (which is partly his point in writing the book).

Not everything is resolved for me. I wish Wright had a chapter or appendix addressing some of the passages that might seem contrary to the view he is offering. For example, one that is frequently brought up by those that want to continue to treat the earth as one big trash dump, is 2 Peter 3:10. Relatedly, is the new earth made new through miraculous transformation or is it a totally new planet? As I stated at the beginning, this is not an area of theology that I have reflected on very much, so I would welcome insights from y'all.

For a chapter-by-chapter description of the book with a few points of explanation and well-placed questions, see Scot McKnight's blog. I am too lazy to retrace each step Wright takes in developing his argument.

Reflections on Forgotten Ways 5: Bored with meat and potatoes worship

2008-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Alan Hirsch tells the story of how his church in Melbourne became the object of the spirituality customer. They became the trendy church for people from the burbs to get their urban-hipster worship on. While this touches on the deeper, more troubling issue of consumerism and spirituality, we’ll get into that discussion later. For now, I just wanted to highlight the reality of corporate worship inflation.

“We discovered that if a community member left SMRC [the church they started], for whatever reason, they found it much harder to go back to a ‘meat and potatoes’ style of church, because they had acquired a taste for ‘spice and garlic,’ so to speak. We found that a lot of the people who left just wandered around and couldn’t reconnect anywhere.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 44)

This quote reminded me of a quote from early Brian McLaren:

“We are prone to guilt-tripping ourselves and others even though guilt trips take us nowhere but backward. For example, we glorify extraordinary revival experiences so as to feel like failures during ordinary times, not realizing that if last year’s extraordinary revival experience continues for more than a few weeks, it becomes the new ordinary experience. If last week’s worship was awe inspiring, this week’s must at least equal it in emotional force; otherwise, someone is sure to tell us we are backsliding and will threaten to go down the street ‘where God is really moving.’ The result in some churches is an ever-inflating hype, which might seem exciting from the outside, but from the inside is pressured, desperate, and pathetic.” (McLaren, Church on the Other Side, 105)

This is a very insightful observation. We need to be aware and honest about the hype and the emotions that come with it when involved in corporate worship.

Reflections on Forgotten Ways 4: Staving off institutionalization, cont.

2008-05-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the previous post never really got into the discussion on institutionalization. Well…in a way it did, but only insofar as it established the deeply institutionalized nature of the church because of its inherited Christendom mindset. Alan Hirsch articulates a danger of institutionalization on the church:

“We can observe from history that through the consolidation and centralization of power, institutions begin to claim an authority that they were not originally given and have no theological right to claim. It is at this point that the structures of ecclesia become somewhat politicized and therefore repressive of any activities that threaten the status quo inherent in it. This is institutionalism and historically it has almost always meant the effective expulsion of its more creative and disparate elements (e.g., Wesley and Booth). This is not to say that there does not appear to be some divine order (structure) given to the church. But it is to say that this order is almost always legitimized directly through the community’s corporate affirmation of calling, personal character, charismatic empowerment, and spiritual authority. It always remains personal and never moves purely to the institutional.” (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 23n9)

This quote has two parts to it. First, Hirsch lays out a critique on the effects of institutionalization. And secondly, he introduces an alternative path for the church. We’ll begin with the effects of institutionalization. We are all familiar with institutes, and rarely consider them positively. We think of HMOs, government bureaucracy, and taxes. We also think of churches. In our quaky shift to a postmodern worldview, there is a strong anti-institutional emphasis (Cooper, “Contributing Factors in the Resurgence of Paganism in Western Society”, 12). Institutions have become symbols of power in society. We are in an age where the Congress is considered a playground for lobbyists and priests are equated with child molestation. Is it any wonder that we have some trepidation about institutions?

Consequences of Institutionalization

Some might wonder whether institutionalization is such a bad thing. It is not that institutionalism is this insidious evil that must be purged from the planet, but rather it subtly sends us messages that are contrary to the message of Jesus and scripture.

Institutions become the focus. Working in the humanitarian relief and development sector I see clearly a tendency among the agencies intending to relieve abject poverty around the world. These organizations know that they need financial support to accomplish their tasks of relief and development. In order to acquire this financial support these organizations must sell their projects as being the best ways to help those in need. The problem is donors do not really understand the principles of sustainable development. These humanitarian agencies then begin to do projects that appeal to the donor-base in order to keep the financial support for their organization flowing. Soon there is an obsession by the humanitarian relief organization to self-promote in order to become the organization that people want to give to. Churches have easily fallen into this subtle trap of promoting the church in order to maximize their opportunities to introduce people to the way of Jesus. In order to perpetuate these opportunities staffs, buildings, high-tech equipment become necessary. But soon these things get everyone distracted on to these things. Loren Mead warns us: “We must also be aware of our temptation to expend all our resources and energy in shoring up collapsing structures, holding onto the familiar long after it has lost its possibility for new life.” (Mead, Once and Future Church, 6). It is imperative for the church to have a kingdom focus. Thus the church must be willing to die so that the kingdom might prosper.
Institutions operate under a different paradigm- Leadership, decision-making, and productivity are all elements to institutional life that go subtly unchecked in a church context. Nasty elements of power and money slip into the mix and soon the church looks more like a government or corporation than the family of God. Even the notion of the legality of an institution in a state can lead towards a tension with kingdom values. I recently heard about one church that writing their by-laws in accordance with the wishes of the state law. In it they are required to list a president of the organization. Even though, this church disagreed with the idea of having one person listed as a leader (as opposed to a plurality of elders), the felt coerced to comply with state law as an institution.

Inevitability of Institutionalization

Another relevant thought is that institutionalization is inevitable. If we can’t stop it, then why try? This is a valid question. James Cobble observes that: “the church exists as a sociological reality subject to the same forces and laws which govern and shape the development and life of all social groups…. As a sociological reality the church reflects the political intrigue, bureaucratic development, social stratification, class conflicts, and boredom that occur in all social institutions.” (James Cobble, The Church and the Powers, 93-94) In a sense, institutionalizing is a reality.

“Institutionalization is unavoidable for an organization that wants to continue existing and growing beyond its first generation. It was precisely the formation of church leadership and organizational structures that led to the stabilization of the church.” (Gehring, House Church and Mission, 299)

The late Paul Hiebert frames it as succeeding generations inheriting something as the way things are done. (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections…, 160) Soon this results in what Hiebert calls a loss of vision and a hardening of categories. Although I concede there is an element of inevitability, there are some helpful ways to respond or slow down the process of institutionalization.

Staving off institutionalization

Continue to return to the biblical story and images- As has been emphasized in too many sources to site, the images for the community of Jesus in scripture are primarily organic not organizational. Body, bride, family, vine all attest to the dynamic, organic nature of the church. If the church is willing to periodically take a fresh look at these images in comparison to their current practice it could be enlightening. It might surprise some to realize that Robert’s Rules of Order was not used in the early church.
Centered on Jesus- This is one of the chapters in Hirsch’s book, as he claims all legitimate movements are unequivocally centered on Jesus. Related to this is a conceptual framework of focusing on the center (Jesus) rather than on the boundaries (who is in and out). A better explanation deserves much more space, Paul Hiebert has an incredible chapter on this (see Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections…, 107-137).
Resist premature institutionalization- When a new church plant begins with a budget, a building, and a payroll, it is already an institution. I have seen more than one church plant ruined by the acquisition of an old church building from a dying church. What was once a dynamic group of Jesus followers journeying together became an institution discussing issues of property maintenance, building use policies, and janitorial salary. We must be diligent in allowing things to be as simple as possible.
Continue proceeding outward- Humans quickly fall into rhythms and habits that become fossilized. We must force ourselves to continue move where there is need. I have heard many say that their church will look at starting another one once they are established or stable. A church should never allow itself to become established, it should be characterized by sending and going, even to the point of its own terminus. We return the notion of an institution becoming its own focus. A church should always be pointing to Jesus and the kingdom.
Foster and encourage radical new movements- This is what Hirsch refers to in the quote at the beginning of this post. We must help the Wesleys and Booths in our churches be radical followers of Jesus and lead others in doing so.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have our most explicit references to the church of any of the gospels, yet there is nothing that hints of the elaborate institutional behemoth that church would become. R.T. France, regarding Jesus’ community in Matthew, concludes:

“The structure is informal, but the sense of community is intense. And overarching it all is the consciousness of the presence of Jesus and of the forgiveness and pastoral concern of ‘your Father in heaven’.” (France, 252)

Reflections on Forgotten Ways 3: Staving off institutionalization

2008-05-14T07:28:00.001-07:00

At the heart of the Hirsch's book is the notion of overhauling our entire understanding of church and Jesus-followship from an institutional Christendom mentality to a dynamic movement that touches and transforms every community into which it flows. Right now, he argues, the church has an institutional ethos and we allow most of our activities to revolve around that ethos. He states, however: "I have come to the unnerving conclusion that God's people are more potent by far when they have little of what we would recognize as church institution in their life together." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 23) This is one of those statements that many people will quickly agree with but not see all of the implications of it. The reality of what Hirsch is saying is that we still have an institutional Christendom mentality. And for many Americans, Christendom and the American idea are confused. As I begin to unwrap this, I want to articulate more clearly about the notion of Christendom. I will not do justice to this subject, as it is a book-length subject. Although I have not read the book, Stuart Murray has a book on this topic, Church After Christendom. I really enjoyed another book by Murray called Church Planting: Laying Foundations.

The idea of Christendom is that of an established institution of the church that has a geopolitical involvement. Many would point to the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (313 CE) as marking the beginning of Christendom. It was during this time that the church began to build larger buildings, hierarchical power structure became more established and even worship had a resemblance to a Roman emperor processional. It also became a time when the church began to dabble more with the affairs of the state. This trend continued to the point that the church was intrinsically tied to the affairs of the state and relied on its powerful influence on the state. Michael Frost works out how this looked by the middle ages:

"Furthermore, by the end of the twelfth century, everyone in Christendom had been divided into parishes large enough to support a church and a priest but small enough to allow easy access to the parish chapel for services. Tithing became mandatory, so everyone was 'taxed' to support the parish church and its priests. It was a brilliant system for ensuring both ecclesiastical administration and pastoral care. The laity was expected to pay its tithe and attend Mass. The clergy were expected to perform sacramental rites such as baptism, marriage, funerals, and weekly Mass, as well as provide for the poor. The result of nearly two centuries of Christendom is that Christian have become used to the idea that their faith is primarily about attending meetings—worship meetings, weddings, funerals, prayer meetings, and so on. Even today, in our thoroughly post-Christendom world, when the essential work of the church in providing religious, liturgical services has become irrelevant, Christians (including many exiles) can't separate the idea of Christianity from the weekly Mass or worship service. Even those who have ceased attending church services have great difficulty imagining what it means for a group of believers to church together without picturing a liturgical meeting of some kind." (Frost, Exiles, 277)

Why does this matter? This Christendom mentality or ethos has carried forward through the Reformation until today. The late Lesslie Newbigin describes the force of Christendom (what he calls corpus Christianum) in shaping western culture and unequivocally posits that we cannot return to those days.

"…two facts are fundamental to an understanding of our present situation. One is that we are the heirs of the Christendom experiment. We who belong to the Western world live in societies that have been shaped by more than a thousand years during which the barbarous and savage tribes of Europe were brought, slowly and with many setbacks, into a community conceived as the corpus Christianum, a single society in which the whole of public and private life was to be controlled by the Christian revelation. Much of what we take for granted about normal human behavior is the fruit of that long schooling. However much we rebel against it, we are its products.

The second fact is that the corpus Christianum is no more, and we cannot go back to it. The religious wars of the seventeenth century marked the final destruction of Christendom's synthesis of church and society. From the eighteenth century onward, Europe turned away from the Christian vision of man and his world, accepted a radically different vision for its public life, and relegated the Christian vision to the status of a permitted option for the private sector." (Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 101-2)

In essence, Newbigin, Hirsch, Murray, and many others argue that the era of Christendom is long gone and cannot be regained but that much of the established church has not yet recognized this unalterable fact. Even harkening back to the Reformation commenced by the bold actions Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and many others, much of theology underwent a radical renewal. A fresh reading of scripture inspired a fresh articulation of our salvation and Christ's work on the cross. Yet, in terms of ecclesiology, they continued a Christendom-type ecclesiology (only without the papal authority). Today, long after the church has been relegated to the private sphere of life, the church still carries with it a mentality of enormous influence and establishment.

Hirsch is calling for the church to undergo a kenotic movement (from the Gr word kenos, devoid, empty) described of Jesus in Phil. 2. This self-emptying process allowed Jesus to identify more fully with humanity. The church, in like manner, must be willing to enter communities humbly and incarnationally. Just as Jesus encouraged his followers to take up their cross on a daily basis, so must the community of Jesus followers, the church.

(more on institutionalism to follow)

Reflections on Forgotten Ways #2: The seamlessness of incarnation and proclamation

2008-05-13T17:14:00.001-07:00

"There is a time for 'in-your-face' approaches to mission, but there is also a time to simply become part of the very fabric of a community and to engage in the humanity of it all…. If relationship is the key means in the transfer of the gospel, then it simply means we are going to have to be directly present to the people in our circle." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 133)

My wife and I read Alan Hirsch's book together. In the margin next to the above quote she asks "Is relationship the key or is proclamation?" Her question is a good one that started me pondering. Here Hirsch falls into a false dichotomy of incarnation and proclamation. When we look at the example of Jesus, we see a seemless movement of incarnation and proclamation combined. The radical otherness of the way of Jesus cannot be effectively shown only by becoming "part of the very fabric of a community." The way of Jesus challenges us to act and speak in an alternative manner that betrays a reign-of-God worldview.

There is a weariness with proclamation because it has been equated with an "in-your-face" approach that conjures up images of men in clothing from another era yelling in English (also from another era) armed with a signboard with flames on it. Proclamation of the great news of Jesus does not have to be so angry (nor should it be). But it does beckon us to say and do things that don't mesh so easily with the fabric of the community. In order to urge people away from false and temporary allegiances, uncomfortable things need to be proclaimed. But the manner of our proclamation should always be overwhelmingly characterized by our love. Part of demonstrating our love is to live incarnationally. On the next page, Hirsch offers us a glimpse of how an Incarnational posture can communicate God's love:

"But one of the profound implications of our presence as representatives of Jesus is that Jesus actually likes to hang out with the people we hang out with. They get the implied message that God actually likes them." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 134)

Reflections on Forgotten Ways #1

2008-05-13T09:12:00.001-07:00

After having provided a brief over view of the Alan Hirsch's book The Forgotten Ways, I will begin to cogitate on some of the things he explores in the book. In some cases these reflections will be directly wrestling with an idea in the book. Other times, something Hirsch has written might launch me onto something only tangentially related to his book. I should also warn you that my reflections may not be in the order of the book, my apologies in advance to those who prefer linear order.

"Edward de Bono, no theologian but definitely the leading specialist in creative learning processes, remarks that if there is a known and successful cure for an illness, patients generally prefer the doctor to use the known cure rather than seek to design a better one. Yet there may be much better cures to be found. He rightly asks how we are ever to find a better cure if at each critical moment we always opt for the traditional treatment." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 50)

It is this mindset that makes me fond of this book. We need to employ our God-given creativity in fostering the way of Jesus so that it becomes normative in more lives. Essentially, Hirsch is suggesting that we need more investment in R&D. This process will consume resources and may not show a lot of results initially, but it is necessary as culture and worldviews continue to morph. The rebellious nature that we have all been born with continues to develop immunity to the true goodness of God's kingdom.

Book Review: The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

2008-05-11T08:41:00.001-07:00

After too much time of toggling back and forth between several books, I have finally finished one. Alan Hirsch's book The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church is a remarkable book and worthwhile read for any follower of Jesus. After a stellar debut with The Shaping of Things to Come co-written with Michael Frost, I was skeptical that this book would have anything new to contribute. I was please to find out that my skepticism was misplaced.

Hirsch and Frost have travelled the world (particularly the post-Christian west) in search of Jesus movements that are actually connecting with those that do not yet know or follow the ways of Jesus. They combine their extensive travels and interviews with diverse reading in sociology, theology, and missiology. Their gleanings about the church in a post-Christian context became the stuff of The Shaping of Things to Come. In Forgotten Ways, Hirsch takes a step back at the macro-picture and looks at large-scale, dynamic movements of Jesus. Through the telling of his own experience with church planting in Melbourne, he indicates that a focus on starting a church is already a limiting/confining focus. He repeatedly references to two movements that created an impact for beyond what one church could do. The early church and the church in China during the last 50 years are the two movements that he points to as illustrating the dynamics of a movement. Hirsch argues that movements of these proportions have some characteristics that are vital in seeing a movement of Jesus happen.

Hirsch's overall analysis is spot-on, the church in the west (and most of the world) has lost its movement essence and has morphed into an institution that is remarkably similar to any other institution. "I have come to the unnerving conclusion that God's people are more potent by far when they have little of what we would recognize as church institution in their life together." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 23)

The traditional church (and many contemporary and even emerging churches) is stuck in an attractional posture. That is, the church has a "come to us" mentality, particularly centered around a service. There is a big effort to make the service appealing to its costumer base through music, preaching style, and programs. Evangelism is centered around trying to get non-believers to enter the doors of the church building so that they may hear the good news of Jesus expressed. This has been the dominant approach for the last seventeen centuries, even though there are many incredible and beautiful exceptions to this, it should be acknowledged as the default approach. In the past this approach has had some success in places where there was a spiritual vacuum or where institutional Christianity was highly honored and appreciated. It is rare to find contexts like those anymore. In fact, the failure of the church in reaching those who don't yet follow Jesus is clearly evident (for relevant statistical quotes see the appendix below).

This is contrasted with a missional posture, where the church proceeds outward to the world. This posture takes more literally the wording of the Great Commission to "go" and make disciples of Jesus all over the world. In other words, the church is going to people that don't know Jesus instead of waiting for them to come to their opulent, multi-functional church "campuses".

Hirsch retraces the story of his own efforts in Melbourne where a community of believers were introducing new people to Jesus in a post-Christian setting. Due to a more attractional and non-movement orientation, this church soon became latest, hippest spiritual hotspot. The outward motion morphed into an inward motion.

In The Forgotten Ways, Hirsch describes the features he sees as foundational to a Jesus movement. These features are chapter titles:

The Heart of It All: Jesus is Lord
Disciple Making
Missional-Incarnational Impulse
Apostolic Environment
Organic Systems
Communitas, not Community

In these chapters some rich material is explored and proffered. Hirsch's wide range of reading is impressive and helpful in offering well-rounded ideas. There are points when the idea sounds good, but one wonders if it is really possible. The early church and China each had unique characteristics which catalyzed these extraordinary movements. The soil in those two places were ready for lush growth, but not every context has the type of soil to sustain a movement. Another aspect that receives little attention is the local cultural context. The local cultural context may present obstacles to these different characteristics that may prove challenging. There is a tension in acknowledging the universal characteristics of a Jesus movement and allowing the good news to root itself deeply in each culture.

In essence, I don't challenge any of these characteristics, in fact, I applaud them. But I do sometimes feel like the language has a sense that if we just get the right ingredients together, we can sit back and watch incredible things grow. I get the same sense from a number of different people and groups (especially in the missional stream of the emerging church movement) that emphasize organic growth (for other examples see Neil Cole's Organic Church
or Christian Schwarz's Natural Church Development). Once again, I don't disagree with most of what is being stated. I am very much a proponent of understanding and practicing church more organically and less institutionally. It is mainly with that which is lacking in these books that I struggle. It is an amazing amount of continual work that is required in seeing this kind of incredible growth. At our house we just had grass put in our yard. I am no gardener (I am 100% city boy, hence the name of the blog), so when the grass sod was laid I thought, "awesome, I'll just watch that grass take root and grow." How foolish was I? As soon as the grass was put in, it stopped raining. I had to spend hours watering that grass. And then the weeds. The weeds were and are a constant menace that requires constant attention. It is oddly reminiscent of the gospels in Scripture, isn't it? Jesus told a parable about sowing seed and all that can go awry, including weeds sown by the enemy (Mt 13:24-30, 36-43). It was also evidenced in how much Jesus invested in the twelve and how many times they showed that they did not get it. Then we see the earliest churches having all kinds of problems in the earliest stages.

(For the record, I don't think that Neil Cole, Alan Hirsch, Paul Kaak, and others are trying to gloss over this or believe that it is not messy. Their focus is on empowering the average believer to become radically involved in a movement of Jesus. I simply think another volume needs to be written to help prepare those willing for the difficult road ahead, already foreseen by Jesus.)

The church is in desperate need to transition into a movement and cut away the institutional scaffolding. Hirsch has some terrific things to say in helping us move in that direction. But it is going to be messy and painful. We will need to go into this with a sound theology of suffering and endurance.

Appendix

Church Growth Failure-

"75 percent of the churches in the United States today are declining, 24 percent are growing, but only because of 'transfer' Christians form other congregations; only 1 percent of the churches are growing as a result of reaching unchurched non-Christians." (Statistics from Leonard Sweet, "Leadership and the Church in Contemporary Culture," George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oreg., May 16, 2002 cited in Gehring, House Church and Mission, 303)

How much do Americans love church? "Despite what we print in our own press releases, the numbers don't look good. According to 2003 actual attendance counts, adult church-going is at 18 percent nationally and dropping. Evangelical attendance (again, actual seat-numbers, not telephone responses) accounts for 9% of the population, down from 9.2% in 1990. Mainline attendance accounts for 3.4% of the national population, down from 3.9% the previous decade. And Catholics are down a full percentage point in the same ten-year period: 6:2% from 7.2% in 1990. Of the 3,098 counties in the United States, 2,303 declined in church attendance." (Sally Morgenthaler as quoted in Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 35)

"In a dialogue between Michael Frost, many members of the faculty of Fuller's School of World Mission, and me, it was generally acknowledged by all there that church growth theory had, by and large, failed to reverse the church's decline in America and was therefore something of a failed experiment. The fact remains that more than four decades of church growth principles and practice has not halted the decline of the church in Western contexts." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 45n10)

Disenfranchised Believers-

"Millions of devout followers of Jesus Christ are repudiating tepid systems and practices of the Christian faith and introducing a wholesale shift in how faith is understood, integrated, and influencing the world." (Barna, Revolution, 11)

"As someone who has been involved with young adults all my professional life, I venture to suggest that there are more people aged twenty to thirty-five who claim to be followers of Jesus who are outside the institution of the church than there are in the church at any given time." (Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 70n29)

May is National Foster Care Month

2008-05-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

More on technology and its effects

2008-05-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

In my last posting I cogitated on the sociological ramifications of wireless technology and what it would do to families and communities. This was inspired by an article in The Economist. Well, if I had kept reading I would have discovered a few more articles about the same trend. One article in particular, "The new oases," is interesting. Of particular note to me was the discussion on Third Places.

Implications of Increased Wirelessness

2008-05-02T00:19:00.001-07:00

In a recent issue of The Economist, an article titled "Our Nomadic Future," prognosticated that the increased reliance on wireless, easily transportable products is going to change "lives, culture, politics, cities, jobs, even marriages dramatically." With computers and phones (now often the same device) being wireless and work tasks increasingly being relegated to the use of those objects, people are more mobile. Large office spaces with a maze of telephone cords and a labyrinth of cubicles are fast becoming an unnecessary expense. People are telecommuting from home more and more, instead of hassling with traffic jams and parking stresses.

At one time, technology was the key influencer in creating separate locations for home and work. This development led to significant changes in the sociological dynamics of families, communities, and cities as a whole. The separate domains of work life and home life seeped into our worldview perceptions of a public/private bifurcation. Lesslie Newbigin describes the consequences of this:

"The home is no longer the place of work, and the family is no longer the working unit. The way is opened for a deep divide between the public world of work, of exchange, of economics, and the private world that is withdrawn from the world of work and remains under another vision of how things are. In the public world the workers in the factory are related to each other anonymously as units in a mechanical process. They are replaceable parts. They may not even know each other's names. In the home people are known to one another as irreplaceable persons, and their mutual understanding as persons is what constitutes the home. Moreover (at least during the first 150 years of the Industrial Revolution), it was the men who operated the public world of the factory and the market, and the women who were relegated to the private sector. The fissure in society divided the sexes: the man dealt with public facts, the woman with personal values. The man was the producer, the woman the consumer (even though, in fact, she worked as long and as hard in the home as her man worked in the office or the factory). Today's feminism, which is characteristic of modern—as distinct from traditional—societies, represents in part the revolt of women against these distortions." (Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 31)

This development does not mean that a complete reverse is on the horizon. We can't return to a pre-industrial era, rather we are entering a post-industrial era. Nevertheless, one must be mindful of the consequences of this transition. The mobility of those working is going to have ramifications on family life and community. The article in The Economist has observed that traffic patterns are already changing from rush hour to "daisy-chain" patterns. Parents will find themselves around their kids more, but may find that they are more distracted than ever due to ever-present connectedness to the "office." What will the sociological, and even epistemological, ramifications of this change hold for us?

Urbanization, Westernization, and Globalization: Confusingly Similar Trends

2008-04-20T09:33:00.001-07:00

Something occurred to me as I was reading a book by Paul and Eloise Hiebert about trends of urbanization, westernization, and globalization. Quite often the world outside of "Western" nations reacts to the sometimes oppressive influence of western culture. Individualism, naturalistic worldview, and segmented lives are considered Western values. These values and others are often considered to be threats to traditional cultures, worldviews, and ways of life, which is then associated with the West as the cause. As I was reading the Hieberts' book Incarnational Ministry, I came across a table drawn from anthropologist, Robert Redfield, compare rural life and urban life.

Rural Life

Urban Life

Established, traditional

Homogeneous

Group-oriented

Ascribed roles

Community

Harmonious

Status quo, little change

Egalitarian

Wholistic life

Human in scale

Sacred cosmos

Mobile, free

Heterogeneous

Individualistic

Achieved roles

Intersecting communities

Managed conflict

Rapid change

Hierarchical

Segmented life

Impersonal

Secular cosmos

(Hiebert and Hiebert, Incarnational Ministry, 262)

When perusing the list of characteristics of urban life I noticed a strong link to the various lists of Western cultural values. An exploration of which influenced the other is not really my point here. My point is that this strong similarity between urban values and Western values is illuminating. During the twentieth century the rapid rate of urbanization in the world was extraordinary and the trend continues at an alarming rate. Around 1900 the world was just 5 percent urban. (Drucker, The Community of the Future, 2) Just a few years ago the world became over fifty percent urban and we are on the fast track to 75% urban (the United States is already considered 75% urban (Vago, Social Change, 137)). The point being, the world is quickly urbanizing.

The confusing part of this is that often urbanization is labeled westernization. Westernization has been an abused term, sometimes meaning little more than use of modern science and/or free market capitalism. But then others hear the term "westernization" and think "those nasty neo-colonial, imperialistic, paternalistic purveyors of Big-Macs." In the midst of this confusion, there is a connection between westernization and urbanization. It was, in fact, the western nations that first began this urbanization trend. Modern technology was developed on a foundation of Enlightenment scientific method and capitalism is definitely western in origin. While westernization and urbanization are certainly linked, the connotations of the west masterminding and controlling urbanization trends are unfounded (Kusno, "Architecture After Nationalism," 142).

Given the manner in which westernization and urbanization is linked, it is not a surprise that there has been little resistance to the rapid urbanization. Many of the characteristics of urban life are already shared with western characteristics. Kester Brewin points out the ways in which "rural" areas in the west are in some ways already urban: "…it is the city that has reached out and infiltrated every part of country life, from mobile phones to Internet shopping, twenty-four-hour news, and celebrity gossip." (Brewin, Signs of Emergence, 121)

Other parts of the world that do not share similar characteristics with the west, struggle much more with the trends of urbanization. It is understandable how it can look like a planned takeover from the west. But the reality is that in this increasingly globalized economy, urbanization is a byproduct of the global race to get a piece of the global economy pie.

What is my point in saying all of this nonsense? It is this, the urbanization and globalization are growing realities that the world is being forced to deal with. We must find ways to help those that are having such difficulties with this process. We must find new ways for rural people being thrust into urban life to be able to transition without having all of their values shot to pieces.

References Cited:
Brewin, Kester. Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church That is Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-up/Communal/Flexible/Always Evolving. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.

Drucker, Peter F. "Introduction: Civilizing the City." In The Community of the Future. Fraces Hesselbein, et. al. eds. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998.

Kusno, Abidin. "Architecture After Nationalism: Political Imaginings of Southeast Asian Architects." In Critical Reflections on Cities in Southeast Asia. Tim Bunnell, Lisa B. W. Drummond and K. C. Ho, eds. (Singapore: Brill, 2002), 124-149.

Vago, Steven. Social Change. 2^nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Can a message be context-less?

2008-04-04T00:22:00.001-07:00

In the midst of this conversation surrounding the emerging/ent church, there has been a funny reaction by a few bloggers and church leaders. The reaction has been to the contextualization of the good news of Jesus to postmodern culture. A recent example of this can be found on the Pyromaniacs blog in a piece by Phil Johnson about Acts 17. This has been pointed out here. I have a few questions for those that feel that contextualization is wrong.

What language did Paul use in Athens?
When Paul was speaking to the Athenians, did he use Jewish concepts of the Messiah? Did he use the religious concepts of his target community?
When Paul message in Athens (Acts 17) is compared with other messages in Acts, do you not notice any differences in gospel presentation?
When you share the message of Jesus to your children do you communicate to a child's level or do you uncompromisingly confront your children with the full truth of the gospel?
When Jesus communicated with people, did he not use the metaphors of everyday life to convey truths about the kingdom of God?
When Jesus' disciples began to communicate the good news of Jesus in the Hellenistic context did they use terms from their own religious traditions or terms in the host culture?

To say that communicating within context is compromising illustrates an ignorance of the vast variety of cultures and thought patterns in the world. It does not mean that truth is being compromised, only communicated. Contextualization can be done badly…that is certain. Contextualization that fails to communicate the good news of Jesus is bad contextualization. It is equally bad to contextualize to culture that is different from that of the target community. Every message we proclaim is deeply contextual. The question is simply: For which context are we proclaiming the gospel? Our own?

Thought Process is Influenced by Culture

2008-03-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

How you think is influenced by your culture. When two people, each from a different culture, look at a picture. They see different things and draw different conclusions. For more, the International Herald Tribune has more here.

It should give us pause before we say something is obvious in a text. It should, also, urge is into more consistent and open dialog cross-culturally.

Getting Bored with the Emerging Church?

2008-02-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

There has been an increasing amount of chatter on the blogs about the imminent decline of the emerging church conversation/movement. Of those that make this observation are two types, the bored trend-chasers and those hungry for action.

The trend-chasers are ready for the next new thing, always in search of the magic formula or a get-church-big-quick scheme. As much as we would love to see it, the model presented by Jesus was not one of instant success. There were times that he began to accumulate a popular following, but we never see him passing out the campaign buttons or accruing majority support. Instead he wanted the committed, faithful guys that were going to help implement his plan for global transformation.

There are other trend-chasers that just love to wrangle with the sexiest new ideas. They were the ones that loved deliberating over the “hot topics” that Evangelicals have debated for a long, long time. They got bored with some of those topics and have moved on to the new set of “hot topics”. But the edgy sensation is wearing off. These are the bohemian followers of Jesus in search of the perpetual café table with funky people, ideas, and espressos. These conversations are important and they help prevent us from domesticating theology as suburban myopia. But when they remain conversations only, it ceases to be the good news that has the potential to enliven peoples lives. The New Testament everywhere expects believers to externalize the inner transformation.

Then there are those that are frustrated by the conversation held in perpetuity. These are the ones that hear a good idea and are ready to walk out the door and do it. The emerging has sometimes been guilty of talking about some great stuff to the point of goosebumps and warm fuzzies, but there is no plan of action. When Jesus sent his disciples out (Mt 10; Lk 9; 10) it was time to imitate Jesus proclamation of the nearness of the kingdom in word and deed.

I love the exchange of ideas, the creative blogs, and the blog comment repartee. But it seems that with the frequency with which many of blogging and commenting, that there is little time for action. Let us be more diligent in proclaiming the good news in word and deed.

Kingdom of ?

2008-01-29T20:49:00.000-08:00

The Emerging/ent church has been pivotal in bringing kingdom understanding back into the forefront of our thinking. This has been a necessary emphasis that I applaud, but have sometimes been uncomfortable with the implications that many have drawn from this. I was happy to see Brian McLaughlin quoting Scot McKnight on this subject. McKnight articulates some of the issues very well in this concise quote:

“It’s a bit of a hobby horse for me, but it will be until I get this kingdom series done. I see many today equating “kingdom” with “justice” and defining “justice” by freedom, rights, etc.. So that kingdom becomes working for what is good in this world. Fine. When God’s kingdom comes such things will be manifest. But, I believe kingdom is so tied to faith in Jesus that we are severing kingdom from church, kingdom from Jesus, kingdom from discipleship, and are left with nothing more than the social gospel of Protestant Liberalism. (I am hearing the ghosts of Troeltsch and Rauschenbusch.)”

Similarly, Pannenburg argues for the necessity of the church in directing people toward the eternal:

“The Church is necessary so long as the social and political life of man does not provide the ultimate human fulfillment that the Kingdom of God is to bring in human history. In this way we see that the Church is not eternal, but is necessary for the time this side of the Kingdom.” (W. Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God, 83 quoted in Bevans and Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today, 399)

Book Review: Truth and Authority in Modernity

2008-01-15T16:33:00.000-08:00

Newbigin, Lesslie. Truth and Authority in Modernity. Christian Mission and Modern Culture Series. Valley Forge, Penn.: Trinity Press, 1996.

The late missionary statesman, Lesslie Newbigin, contributes mightily to a valid articulation of Christian faith in the midst of cultural transition. This pithy treatment of the notions of truth and authority glides deftly through the topic without distraction or tedious philosophical prevarications. For those of you familiar with Newbigin’s writings, this book works with many themes common to much of his writing. This book is unique among his works in the singular focus on the notions of truth and authority.

With irascable clarity, Newbigin tackles the epistemological assumptions of the Enlightenment. Rationalism founded on skepticism (Descartes) changed the criteria of what was considered authoritative truth. Building a worldview from this foundation “was bound to lead to the triumph of skepticism and eventually of nihilism, as Nietzsche foresaw.” (8) This kind of search for certainty inevitably comes up empty, always subject to the arbiters of truth and their presuppositions.

Newbigin holds that faith should be primary, not doubt. He is not advocating a total lack of skepticism, it must remain in check. Neither is he promoting the “leap of faith” initiation to belief. It was a mistake, posits Newbigin, to allow Christian faith to become captive to skeptical rationalism without first recognizing that skeptical rationalism was subject to its own type of faith. Newbigin resets the conversation with a focus on relationship. Modern thinking has rendered itself devoid of seeking or understanding purpose (teleology). If one believes in a personal Creator, then one’s epistemological foundation cannot be built on doubt and purposelessness. The implications of this line of thinking are enormous for theology and philosophy. Modernist hyper-rationalism run aground fostering some to turn to hedonistic nihilism and others floundering in search of purpose.

Truth and Authority in Modernity is a great, quick read that gives all of us something to think about. I recommend this book along with all of Newbigin’s books. For a more complete treatment of these themes and others, his Gospel in a Pluralist Society is a great choice.

Unhindering the Good News

2008-01-04T02:25:00.000-08:00

I have recently perused an older commentary on Acts by Frank Stagg titled, The Book of Acts: An Early Struggle for an Unhindered Gospel. I love the subtitle of this commentary. It is too rare that we really consider the power of the Gospel. We have become so obsessed with the forms of Christianity that we impose structures and categories and formulas on our understanding of the Gospel of Jesus. These impositions on the Gospel are natural for us for a number of reasons that I won't explore just now. The problem is that we have become so comfortable and accustomed to these structures, categories, and formulas that we no longer realize that they are add-ons to our theology and practice. Now we suffer from an intense confusion about what is the basic to the Gospel. We have effectively read our institutions and traditions back into the Scriptures so thoroughly that we render the Gospel hindered.

When we look at Acts, even is such a brief number of years, there is a repeated effort at removing the hindrances to the good news of Jesus. These hindrances come at us from several angles, cultural, religious, institutional, and political. Perhaps our efforts should be geared toward unhindering the Gospel.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Day is a big deal everywhere I go. It is not always celebrated on the same day, as many cultures traditionally celebrate according to the lunar calendar or at the beginning of a different season. In America we grown accustomed to the ball dropping at Times Square, fireworks, a toast, and Dick Clark. This revelry is matched throughout Southeast Asia. Every ethnic group takes pride in their grandiose celebrations of their New Year’s day. The Chinese decorate everything in red and gold and spend several days visiting friends and family, giving the kids red envelopes with crisp new bills in it and eating the culinary delights that only the Chinese imagination could have created. In the Philippines the firecrackers get so big they rattle the house (and, all too often, take off an appendage) and if one has a gun they point up and shoot. The noise level is unbelievable. The celebrations of New Year’s (Tet) in Vietnam must be similar, as it was the occasion for the Tet Offensive to occur unnoticed for too long during the Vietnam war.

In the American celebration of New Year’s, the most spiritual it gets is making New Year’s resolutions. But mostly it is a big party. I was talking to friend of ours in Indonesia who comes from a tribe that is predominately Christian. For his tribe, celebration of New Year’s is far more important than Christmas. Church worship services are an absolute must. When we told him that we don’t gather with our church on New Year’s day (unless it happens to fall on a Sunday), he was appalled. He asked about it a couple more times to make sure he understood correctly. Another year has passed in which much has happened, how can we not worship the author and sustainer of our lives?

When we think about cultural events such as New Year’s Day, we have a proclivity to do a surface comparison of the celebration. To us, it is just a big celebration and little more. Thus when we view other cultures we only look as far as the big celebration activities. But these celebrations often have a much deeper and meaningful side to it that goes unnoticed. Why do so many cultures bring out the most obnoxiously loud firecrackers for this occasion? Why do the Thais splash water on each other? The underlying answers take us deep into the worldviews of each culture. Of course, we don’t expect that because there is little spiritual significance to the ball dropping in New York or Dick Clark. It illustrates just how secularized we are in America, no matter our creed.

As followers of Jesus and children of the most high God, it would behoove us to resacralize these moments. I’m not suggesting that we create a ritual for the sake of having a ritual. Neither am I suggesting that we work up another service at church so we feel better about ourselves. It does seem appropriate, however, to have a moment where we reflect on the gracious activity of the Almighty during the passed year.

Learning and Eating

2007-12-13T05:18:00.000-08:00

There is a relatively new website (http://www.freerice.com/index.php) that raises the consciousness of world hunger while helping improve our abysmal vocabulary. For every vocabulary word you guess correctly, you donate ten grains of rice. I know...that is a small amount of rice...so, tell others about it. And the cool thing is the vocabulary quiz adjusts the level of difficulty as you go along. Thus, it is a challenge for us all.

Sadhu Sundar Singh: Follower of Jesus

2007-12-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, someone emerges from the vastness of our global-historical mosaic that stands out as one who really followed Jesus. One such person was Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1933?). Here are a few thoughts about the devout follower of Jesus inspired from reading his biography by Phyllis Thompson. Raised in both Sikh and Hindu spiritual practices, Sundar Singh was very hostile towards Christianity to the point of destroying a Bible. While still a teenager, on the verge of suicide, Sundar called on a sign from God. He describes the experience:

I remained till about half past four praying and waiting and expecting to see Krishna or Buddha, or some other Avatar of the Hindu religion; they appeared not, but a light was shining in the room. I opened the door to see where it came from, but all was dark outside. I returned inside, and the light increased in intensity and took the form of a globe of light above the ground, and in this light there appeared, not the form I expected, but the living Christ whom I had counted as dead. To all eternity I shall never forget his glorious and loving face, nor the few words which he spoke. ‘Why do you persecute me? See, I have died on the cross for you and for the whole world.’ These words were burned into my heart as by lightning, and I fell on the ground before him. My heart was filled with inexpressible joy and peace, and my whole life was entirely changed. (Sundar Singh, as quoted in Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 18)

The changes in his life were immediate and the repercussions were also immediate. Sundar was disowned by his family and community. After eventually finishing his schooling, Sundar took on the life of a Sadhu (holy man) traveling barefoot from village to village teaching about the way of Jesus. He chose not to ask for money or support, but relied on the grace of God through local villagers as he went along.

He knew, true son of India that he was, that in the saffron robe of the sadhu doors would be open to him that would otherwise be closed. He would not be qualified to preach in the churches but, clad in the robe of one who was known to have taken the path of renunciation, he could reach the villagers, the common people, even the high-caste women secluded in their zenanas. (Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 42)

He possessed a passion to proclaim Jesus to those who had never heard about him. This passion took him to the heart of Hindu India, to what is now Pakistan among Muslims, to the Buddhists of Tibet. Hunger was his constant companion and the travails of the Himalayas were ever-present. He was scorned, persecuted and even left for dead. While some of these events certainly scared Sundar deeply, he always clung to the deep joy of Jesus in his life.

Sundar was thoroughly Indian in thinking and culture. When he devoted himself to Jesus, he became immersed in the Scriptures. He avoided the westernization that characterized many Indian Christians. The institutions of Christianity did not know what to do with Sundar, yet there was a recognition that this man understood what it meant to follow Jesus in his own cultural context.

He was not perfect, nor did he pretend to be. But how is that there are a few people that really seem to capture what devotion to Jesus looks like? What is it about the rest of us that is holding us back? What are we holding on to?

The most important thing we can do

2007-11-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

As I have been reading, ruminating, relating with friends, I have come to a conclusion that never should have taken me this long to come to. It all comes down to discipling and being discipled in the way of Jesus. Given that some of Jesus’ last words were to go everywhere imaginable and make disciples, I don’t know why I have been so slow in this realization. A friend of mine, Jason Elder, is striving to make disciples in Memphis. He captures the idea beautifully below. Be assured that the friend in SEAsia is not me.

Got a call from a friend today who's been in SEAsia doing some really neat work with some people groups who really need it. I was so inquisitive as to how "baby believers" grow. This fascinates me so much. I wake up and go to sleep thinking about it. I mow the yard and make the bed thinking about it. I look out the window and at the auburn sky and I think about it. It consumes me. How can someone foster spiritual growth in another person in a way that is translatable in every sphere of their life? What are the essentials of the faith? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus here and now as we prop our elbows on the same table? Man, just hearing my friend talk stoked this fire in me, sent the embers flying.

He has seen people come out of prostitution and then begin, literally, a dozen house churches/home groups in less than 6 months. It's not at all glamorous and he admits it is hard work, but when my ears heard his words it was like an electrical storm in my heart. Yes, Jesus in our midst. Yes, Jesus and me and you and our jacked up lives. Yes, people seeing how we treat one another in the midst of our sin and saying, "Enough of my religion! I need that!" Can that really be happening in this world? Why can't it happen here?

I think that it is happening and that many believers in Memphis are longing for that to happen. A church that is honest and broken and doesn't go around with a spiritualized caulk gun trying to artificially cover the deep cracks in our lives. We need a demolition! Something in me says, "Yes, this is what others want. This is what I want!" I don't want to just meet, neither in a church building, city building, or a house in the neighborhood without seeing grace come down and fill our souls. I look forward to the day that we see that happening in our church. Lord, hasten that day. O, God, for your glory and yours alone.

Jason intimates that we are so busy playing church and doing stuff that we are not really going after the transformed life of Jesus. For so many Christians, following Jesus is normal. Don’t do the really bad stuff, do the occasional good thing, and mind your own business. What Jesus has shown us is something much more RADICAL. There is nothing normal about being a follower of Jesus!

Worldview Confusion

2007-10-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

The other day I happened upon a website that “helps” you evaluate your worldview (www.christianworldviewnetwork.com). Most of the questions had to do with the American government and the founders intent for various government institutions. First of all, can we not evaluate the biblicalness of our worldview apart from views of American government? Are we not called to be citizens of heaven?

Christians in America are not transitioning very well to a post-Christian society. For some reason, Evangelicals have it in their heads that we can legislate American back into good, solid, 1950’s Christianity. I am thankful for the late missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin, and the Gospel and Our Culture Network who beckoned us to approach the West humbly and missionally. We shouldn’t be playing the same political manipulation games as the rest of the world. We should be markedly different, characterized by our love and forgiveness.

I’m not saying that we should enclose ourselves in little Christian pods away from the world of politics and power-grabbing. We should actively engage the world, but it should look different than it currently looks. Yale professor, Lamin Sanneh challenges us with these words:

“How well Christians manage their great pluralist heritage in these twilight years of the twentieth century will have enormous implications for the kind of society people live in.” (Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message, 6)

This quotes—obviously written at the end of the twentieth century—encourages to this differently about society as a whole. Society-at-large is not Christian. When will we figure that out! We need to focus on growing in our Jesusness and inviting others to enjoy the new life Jesus offers us. A brief look at divorce rates, pastor immorality, and church splits shows that the church is not acting very different from the world. They don’t know we are Christians by our love. We need to recapture the essence of being a disciple of Jesus and resembling a community that embodies Jesus.

Book Review: Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture

2007-10-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

There have been an alarming number of reports, articles, books and studies that have called attention to large numbers of committed followers of Jesus that no longer enthused about the institutional church. Many feel guilt or bitterness about this. For some, the bitterness has been destructive to their own lives and relationships with fellow followers of Jesus. In Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, Michael Frost seeks to offer challenging encouragement to those that have embarked on this journey. His goal is not to heap cynicism on top of the troubled institutional church, but to offer a navigational manual for exiled Jesus-followers in a complex web of cultures and ideologies.

Frost blends current and academically reputable biblical reflection and striking cultural exegesis with a vivid style of prose. Frost offers a juxtaposition of the stereotypical soft, glowy portrait of Jesus with a Jesus that was most certainly edgy and controversial in his counterculturalness. “The stories in the Gospels, far from being soothing bedtime stories for baptized children, are the most dangerous element of the Christian experience. They are radical, daring, unsettling, disturbing, even frightening.” (Frost, Exiles, 11) This understanding of Jesus calls his followers into a life different from the safe, suburban, sedentary drone.

Frost questions many of the assumptions and blindspots that characterize evangelical Christianity. Inaction in the areas of injustice, the environment and the persecuted church illustrate lacuna in the church’s imitation of missio Dei. Frost’s research is impressively diverse as he quotes from alternative news sources, popular media and sundry experts. These are no longer issues that can be ignored, diminished, or put on the back burner but are a vital part of the way of Jesus.

While Frost directs his book towards what he calls “exiles”, there is a strong undercurrent that is critiquing traditional church practice and proposing an ecclesiology that is at once biblical and proactively engages culture. This is where I find Frost to be the most engaging. Years of practical experience, deep and varied study and observation of Jesus communities all over globe give him rich insights and incisive analysis regarding how Jesus-followers should journey together. “My concern is that too many exiles are taking this journey alone.” (Frost, Exiles, 112) In response to this concern, Frost describes ways of gathering creatively and missionally in the midst of “the host empire.”

There are some points for which Frost’s solutions are overly simplified. Globalization, corporate enterprise, and development in the world’s most destitute places are extremely complex issues. While there are more than a few problems with privatization, local enterprise in developing countries suffers due to the insufficiency of public utilities. Terrible acts of oppression and violent hatred are inflicted upon those of different ethnicity, religion, or gender daily. And followers of Jesus need to make sacrifices to reduce the violence and aid the oppressed. However, appealing to our western governments to step in only confirms suspicions from the rest of the world that the west is not finished being imperialistic colonizers. This does not mean that the church should stand by idly, rather seek solutions that do not involve our hegemonic governments.

Even in these weaknesses of the book is the strength that Frost is calling on exiles to put down People magazine and grapple with these issues affecting God’s creation.

Without equivocation I recommend Michael Frost’s Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post Christian Culture. But be ready to be challenged on some of your thinking.

Starting from Scratch- Indigenous Development

2007-09-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainaina vividly describes Kenya’s jolty climb up the development ladder in his Vanity Fair Article, “Generation Kenya” (July 2007, pp. 84-94). His story is insightful for three reasons; he was there on the streets of Nairobi, he is not a macro-economist with calcified views of what should and should not happen, and he is a good writer. I will attempt to recount for you a little of the story he tells, only with less erudition and description.

Wainaina describes a Kenya that in its youth (independent since 1963) was off to a slow but steady start. But then infrastructure collapse, corruption and power-grabbing throttled the nation into tailspin in the 1990’s. Kenya had corporations and established formal businesses that began to tank. Banks became irrelevant to the average person. Education did nothing for earning a good job. Bars were the only places thriving. Then, an influx of upstart traders began vending used clothes and recycled, refashioned plastic on the streets. Soon the economy seemed to be surviving primarily on subsistence farming and these street vendors. The vendors began to organize into markets and the formal retail businesses collapsed. “The informal sector in Nairobi became the engine of the economy.” (89)

The combination of leftover imperialism (foreign corporations operated in a Kenyan’s name) and an unchecked central government meant that most of the established business in the country was a façade or fast declining into irrelevancy. Wainaina describes the effect on the mindset of the people: “We were a kind of mindless soup, waiting for upliftment from the gods above.” (90) A few large companies and just handful of leaders were not taking Kenya in the right direction.

Just as the informal sector of illegal street vendors became more robust, so did the drive of the people to see their nation changed. Elections to choose a new leader (after a president that clung to power for 22 years) provided a burst of empowerment. “The usual tribal chauvinism and crude political sycophancy vanished. Nations are mythical creatures, gaseous, and sometimes poisonous. But they start to solidify when diverse people have moments when aspirations coincide.” (90) On the day of elections, Wainaina observed: “For one day, the idea of Kenya and its reality were one thing.” (90). A new leader was elected. Enterprising vendors developed responsible, self-sustainable businesses from developed-world refuse.

The author is clear in communicating that all of Kenya’s troubles are solved. Graft is insidious, infrastructure is lacking, disease and poverty are rampant, but this new generation of Kenyans put their nation on the road to development. Often these things are all, we as outsiders, can see. But the economy is growing and Kenya is growing into its own.

We fool ourselves too often when we suppose that our outside businesses and aid will be the perfect remedy to restore a nation to growth and development. For Kenya, the established businesses and plantations were not the key. Now, there are thriving businesses that started from absolutely nothing. There are banks that serve the common person with respect and financial help. It is incumbent on us, the outsiders, to encourage such grassroots efforts instead of bolstering our stale, foreign institutions.

You Can't Run, You Can't Hide: The Ubiquity of Postmodernism

2007-09-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

Like so many others, I have been following the discussion about the emerging church. “Emerging church” is one of my google alerts which points me in the direction of blogs of prolonged pontification of the praises of the emerging church as well as vitriolic vituperations condemning emerging church advocates to eternity in the kiln of the devil’s destiny. I have been reading and observing with rapt attention to the church’s response to a transition in culture and worldview (I’ll let you, the reader, sort out the difference between culture and worldview).

In the midst of the rising tide of blogs, books, and babble I occasionally come across something refreshing. That was the case this morning when I read John Hammett’s “An Ecclesiological Assessment of the Emerging Church Movement.” The spirit with which he wrote and considered the theological issues of the emerging church was respectful and amicable. Hammett articulated some weaknesses of the emerging church movement as if he was trying to lovingly persuade the emerging church to consider the weaknesses, not trying to start World War III. My biggest complaint about the article was its brevity. I would have liked to have seen Hammett proffer a lengthier assessment. With respect to Dr. Hammett, there are a couple of points on which I differ. This is a response to his response to the Emergent response to D.A. Carson’s critique of the emerging church.

Hammett challenges the notion that the church should be about responding to postmodernism. Hammett quoted Ed Stetzer as saying that some places are not experiencing the shift towards postmodernism, and thus the church in those places does not need to respond. He also states that the traditional church still appeals to a large number of people seeking out a traditional church. My response to this goes back to our understanding of postmodernism in general. How does one gauge the postmodometer in any given place? We too easily fall into the habit of gauging worldview with a few outward signs. San Francisco and Seattle are easily considered postmodern because of globalization protests, grassroots activism, subversive artistic expressiveness, and a higher proportion of observable Goths, body art, and vegans. In some ways, these outward signs demonstrate postmodernism’s free roam in those places. I contend, however, that a study of suburban and small town America would reveal that the traditional modernist worldview is, at best, under review. I have spoken with good, church-going, soccer moms whose theology is more influenced by Oprah than the Bible. It is hard to know how much MTV, movies, and reality tv inform one’s worldview. I saw churches in the South (not responding to postmodernism) send their youth off to college with a simplistic, don’t question, modernist view of Christianity. The plurality of worldviews and ideologies in a college environment completely decimate the young Christian’s faith. This is because churches are not responding to postmodernism.

Something else in Hammett’s response is also related to the macro-understanding of postmodernism. Much of the emerging church response to the traditional church critique of postmodernism is due to the fact that it is often portrayed as a one issue worldview. Relativism is certainly one common characteristic of postmodernism. But it is one of many. Whether or not one accepts that postmodern epistemology is at the core of understanding postmodernism, relativism is not the only characteristic. Much of the evangelical critique of postmodernism has reduced everything down to relativism, which is then understood to mean anti-truth. (I am thankful that Hammett did not simplify postmodernism in this way.) Most people perceived to be postmodern did not decide truth was the enemy and must be annihilated at all costs. In the sudden exposure to a plurality of worldviews and perspectives, people faced confusion about truth. The response from many in the truth was just to yell their view of the truth louder than everyone else, which did not really help people understand truth. I believe there is absolute truth, and that truth is embodied in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. But I also believe that my understanding of the truth is obscured by my culture, experiences, tradition, and ultimately sin. It is not truth that is vulnerable, but my firm grasp of it. Going back to the main point of understanding postmodernism, it cannot so easily be reduced to a concise definition and it will not produce one worldview. Modernism was a slow-developing thing with its roots in different movements, cultures, and sociopolitical contexts. Some of what we call modernism had its roots in the humanism of Erasmus, the priesthood of the believer espoused by Luther, the emergence of the nation-state, etc. The Enlightenment came along and propelled modernism further. Multiple worldviews have been profoundly influenced by modernism as diverse as Marxism, psychology, secular humanism, and many expressions of Christianity (I recognize that these worldviews are somewhat intertwined). In the same way, postmodernism can trace its roots to a multiplicity of locations spanning a century of time. Deconstructionism, pragmatism, and anarchism are very different but each postmodern in its own way. The emerging church ought to be about contextualizing to these emerging worldviews. That is, critical contextualization is needed, not haphazard adoption of anything and everything postmodern. There is a lot of talk about “hypermodernism” or “post-postmodernism”. It is my view that we have not arrived at postmodernism yet. We are in a transition period between modernism and postmodernism. Thus expressions of hypermodernism are evident everywhere, as are examples of fully developed postmodernism. We are currently in the turbulent transition time between the two.

Hammett makes the comment that “emerging churches” are still a minority of the churches out there. I suspect, however, that there are a lot of pastors that are reading many of the same books the emerging folks are reading (and writing). There are a lot of traditional church members that are asking questions about the worldview transition going on. There are a huge number of churches that are connecting with the postmodern worldview without ever being labeled “emerging” or “postmodern”, it is just who they are.

Hammett makes a strong point in that we need to approach postmodernism critically, as we do any new culture. But I think what so many from the emerging perspective are saying is that postmodernism is no worse than modernism. Each has devastating snares and wonderful opportunities for the church. Thus both modernism and postmodernism need to be understood critically.

Stark Contrasts? The Gospel and the Privileged

2007-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Is there hope for the privileged?

Sometimes you hear that the privileged and educated are not open to the gospel. It is almost a truism in some circles that open people are poor, less educated, and rural. When you look around the areas of the world where there are populations of new believers, that mostly appears to be the case. Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom, goes so far as to say that: “By 2050… [the world’s average Christian] …is above all likely to be an extremely poor person...” (1)

Some have been relating to sections of the world’s middle and upper classes for decades without seeing a single person coming to faith in Christ, and few continuing in their faith. This is no small matter since for example in India the upper and middle class is possibly 300 million people strong (roughly the same as the entire population of the United States.)

Some encouragement from the early church.

I’ve recently been reading a book called The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries by Rodney Stark. Reading Stark’s study of the early church has encouraged me to harbor hope for the urban privileged and educated. The overall thrust of the Bible certainly has a special concern for the poor, but it also states that God loves the whole world. There are instances of God redeeming rulers, priests, tax-collectors, and apparently large privileged urban populations.

Stark argues that a consensus has developed among New Testament historians that the early church was not mainly made up of the poor and uneducated, but rather the early church was based in the middle and upper classes, was relatively privileged, educated and highly urban. He also notes that statistically there is no reason to believe there were any rapid mass movements to the faith happening. The numbers could have been extremely small in the early years and with only very modest growth rate could have reached half the population of the Roman Empire by the middle of the fourth century. Both of these points encouraged me that those relating to the educated middle classes of the world are not wasting their time. And even if there are only small handfuls of Christ-followers in the early decades, this is not very different from how things went in a movement that changed a whole civilization. We needn’t write off the world’s cities, educated and privileged. They seemed to have been on God’s heart in significant ways in the history of His people.

-Sdawg

(This was a guest post authorized by the Swooping Crane.)

NOTES

1. Philip Jenkins, “Companions of Life” [http://www.christianvisionproject.com/2007/03/companions_of_life.html]

Just one acceptable theory of atonement?

2007-08-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Increasingly—or so it seems to me—the penal substitution theory of atonement has become reified as the sole, legitimate theory accepted by “orthodox” Evangelicals. I have seen a number writings that indicate any openness to other theories of atonement is a departure from “biblical” Christianity. This is surprising to me. My theology and history classes indicated that a multiplicity of atonement theories have been propagated by well-known and highly respected theologians. Moreover, Scripture offers up several different word pictures for understanding the death of Jesus.

The fact that the penal substitution theory has become the only “correct” theory of atonement further confounded me as I discovered it to be a later development. In fact, two sources I consulted place its origins in the second millennium of Christian history. Don’t hear me wrong, I’m not saying that the penal substitution theory of atonement is wrong. I concede that there is amble evidence in Scripture to indicate that it is a viable theory. But, is it the only legitimate possibility?

A curious phenomenon

2007-08-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

Using “Google Alerts” I come across a variety of blogs. Occasionally, there is a blog that is one of those ultra-conservative, anti-everything blogs. What I find very curious about those blogs is that, inevitably, those are the blogs that don’t have a place for comments. They are so concerned about accountability for heresy and wrong teaching, yet don’t offer their own writings up for critique or reproof. Hmmm…interesting.

Two blogs visited recently are of this nature: Jeremy Green’s http://sbcpastor.blogspot.com/2007/07/memorandum-camel-method.html and Ken Silva’s http://www.apprising.org/archives/2007/08/the_emerging_ch_6.html . Three things are striking about these blogs. First, their dogmatic views come at you like a bullet train with a steam roller attached to the front. Second, their views come across as uninformed. Their “research” comes only from written literature and then compared with stalwart theology of yester-century. Some of these bloggers need to get out and mingle with lostness for a while. And thirdly, the lack of any feedback loop (as mentioned above). I once had a friend that felt it was his duty to deliver the gospel to people no matter how understandable, and then the recipient is culpable to respond to it. It is as if I can quote John 3:16 to a bunch of people in a language not their own, and I am relieved of my responsibility to share the gospel. Conservatives are going to have to learn how to communicate their views to non-conservatives and be willing to take criticism.

This is not my usual kind of post, but I needed to get it off my chest.

De-Ritualized: Organically Free or Empty Structure

2007-07-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

Piggy-backing on the previous post, I’m ruminating on the notion of liminality and communitas. It occurred to me that in Michael Frost’s beautiful explanation of these concepts from Victor Turner that it was in the context of ritual/ceremony that this idea developed. In Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, Frost moves toward application in secularized circumstances. In other words, any harrowing or adventuresome group experience might catalyze communitas. Examples were given of rights activists and church mission trips creating communitas. Carl Starkloff wrestles with these same anthropological concepts in his article “Church as Structure and Communitas: Victor Turner and Ecclesiology” (Theological Studies v. 58 (Dec. '97) p. 643-68). Starkloff brings a Catholic perspective on the same topic and thus has a heightened sensitivity to the value of ritual.

My background is thoroughly Evangelical Baptist, thus the element of ritual has always been minimized unless we were talking about Wednesday night fried chicken. Americans (and Westerners in general), for a long time, neglected the importance of rituals and ceremonies in everyday life. Even the church has worked very hard at minimizing or commercializing our symbolically-rich ceremonies. The rituals that are observed have been reduced to an express version of the former. Funeral ceremonies have become lighter life celebrations. Wedding ceremonies are lightning fast and then its on to the reception. The rich symbolism is hardly given a second thought.

In this void of meaningful rituals and celebrations, individuals and groups are scrambling to create their own or dig them up from obscure corners of history. Among the ritual ideas proposed by Carole Kammen and Jodi Gold (Call to Connection: Bringing Sacred Tribal Values into Modern Life, 1998) are ceremonies for a woman’s first menstruation or the return to singleness after a divorce. They also submit ideas for ritualizing Christmas and Thanksgiving. (Kammen and Gold, 215) Isn’t it remarkable that people have to create rituals for Christmas because all they see is frenetic gift-buying and commercial hype?

Kammen and Gold demarcate a void in our culture. Their solutions, however, come off as cheaply manufactured imitation ceremonies. The fun might be as long-lasting as the novelty of a theme-party. Once it is over, it is time to move on. They are attempting to reintroduce forms without the meaning.

Evangelicals have taken the opposite approach, locating the focus squarely on the meaning devoid of ritual form. Monological exhortations (“sermons”) have become the primary focus in the primary gathering of the church. Even in churches that still celebrate the sacraments in ritual manner, the deep sense of awe and mystery seems noticeably underwhelming. It has become too staid and thus no longer a ritual that demands communitas.

This has become a meandering line of thinking. So, to rein these thoughts back in, how do we celebrate in ritual the rich meanings of Christ in forms that spur us toward liminal experiences and theretofore communitas?

Finally Understanding Liminality

2007-07-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Liminality is a term used by the well-known anthropologist, Victor Turner. During my graduate studies I had a professor who was keen on the notion of liminal space. It is was consistent part of his church planting jargon, but I must confess I failed to understand the concept. I later attempted to read an academic article about Victor Turner’s use of liminality and communitas. This article only served to befuddle me further, as it was mired in uber-academic language. In my mental filing cabinet I labeled the concept as “irrelevant, only theory.” That was…until now.

I have been reading Michael Frost’s Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. When I started reading the book, I was concerned that it was going to say the same hackneyed things everyone is publishing and blogging about; emerging this, emergent that, postmodern this, deconstruct that, yada-yada-yada. I have been on board with a lot of that stuff for years, lets start getting into some more depthy material. To my pleasant astonishment, each succeeding chapter—thus far (I’m in chapter 6)—has gotten better. In chapter five, Michael Frost teaches his readers a lesson about an anthropological term. It was his explanation of liminality that turned on the lights for me.

Victor Turner studied a people group in Africa that sent boys on a coming-of-age survival journey. These candidates for adulthood are sent into the wild to fend for themselves in the elements. The interesting observation that Turner made was that there was a special kind of bond that occurred among those boys that went into the wild together. This bond was more intense than our common understanding of community. The dire circumstances pushed this group of boys to their uttermost thresholds, therefore forcing these aspiring adults to trust and help each other interdependently. These boys then share a bond that stays with them until their deaths. This kind of bond, Turner labels communitas, community at a much more intense level. The consequences of this tendency are far-reaching. Turner states:

People of societies in a liminal phase are a kind of institutional capsule or pocket which contains the germ of future social developments, of societal change. (Victor Turner, as quoted in Frost, Exiles, 110)

Since most of the readers of this blog come from cultures that have nothing resembling this coming of age ritual, what does this mean?

Frost describes his intense quest for real community and coming up short. He notices a pattern of successive generations attempting a deeper, more authentic sense of community. Each time the efforts add to a long trail bitterness and disillusionment. His observation is incisive, “But I have come to realize that aiming for the community is a bit like aiming for happiness. It’s not a goal in itself.” (Frost, Exiles, 108) He goes on to describe how going on a common quest or mission can create a liminal experience. A group that goes on a mission trip together shares a new level of community.

Frost elucidates further on this topic with many more important observations. I have long thought that being on mission together can accelerate community. But I had not yet thought about the issues in such distinct ways. I also realized that I have been guilty of promoting mission in order to create community. This is a wrong-headed approach, mission should be done because we worship God by participating in his mission (missio Dei). Community is a beautiful byproduct of being on mission in community.

A First Posting

2007-07-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

I created a new blog in which to converse with willing interlocutors and pontificate about missiological and ecclesiological ideas. Suddenly, it came time to inaugurate my blog with a post. I was at a loss, how does one immediately jump waste deep into the deeper issues of how theology intersects with sociology and anthropology. There is a part of me that wants delve right into issues of insider movements, modalities and sodalities, and postmodern expressions of faith in Jesus. But there is another part of me that feels like a need to warm up to such issues.

An issue that currently troubles me is how to reconcile the Way of Jesus with public policy and inevitable institutionalization. A simple reading of the four biographies of Jesus in the Scriptures seems to suggest that Jesus initiated a subversive movement. It was a movement that challenged the principalities and powers (mentioned by Paul) of the day. The mere news of Jesus’ arrival launched a province-wide infanticide campaign. The high religious leaders were continually unhappy about his existence. Static theological constructs, religious institutions, and political manipulating was suddenly being unveiled as irrelevant to God’s purposes of seeing his world become in tune with his wishes.

Jesus and his band of followers seemed like a little upstart group going up against dominating powers. This insignificant group of uneducated men and women continued the struggle even after their leader’s early physical departure from earth. In a matter of three hundred years, this smattering of peasants turned into a well-oiled ecclesiastical machine. So significant was this machine that politicians began to affiliate and enemy nations became weary of Christians in their own lands. It wasn’t much longer before the church was fully in bed with the state. Accessorized with the sign of the cross, politicians, clergy, and generals exploited every ounce of power they could out of the church. But, why not? Every politician is going to pander to the majority.

It is my desire to see as many people as possible change their allegiance to the Way of Jesus. I don’t just desire a few people to do so, I want the majority of people to do so (if not all). Equipped with the teaches and example of Jesus and bolstered by ever-present companionship, the masses coming to Jesus should spark revolutions of love, reconciliation and hope. We so often talk of societal transformation due to a movement towards Christ. And to a certain degree this kind of transformation occurs. Valuing humans of every socioeconomic level regardless of gender, ethnicity, and status are by-products of whole nations becoming “Christian.” The troubling part for me, is that the church always institutionalizes and joins in the power-grab of the rest.

Why don’t we see more of a drastic change when a culture becomes more than 50% Christian? Why are places that have an overwhelming majority of its citizens going to church still mired by poverty, racism, crime, and immorality (sometimes to a worse degree than places with a minority of Jesus-followers)?

So, there it is. I start of this blog with a question, quandary really.

A new blog in experimental stages

2007-07-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment.