c. scott andreas

I promised to weigh in on the comments to my “approaching exile” post just shy of two weeks ago. Apologies for the delay.

My essential point was that a life of difficulty can often spur greater innovation, fervor, urgency, and vision than one lived without trouble. In this post, I attempted to map this onto the church at large. If our culture is approaching a point at which basic biblical concepts and stories are not readily understood or accepted (and I believe it is), then I believe that as the body we are faced not with despair but with a challenging opportunity to reach new people in new ways with the good news of Jesus Christ confirmed by the love that necessarily flows from it.

In his comment, Ben described it as a “very exciting time” — I would certainly agree. Many old methods, metaphors, and ways of explaining are fading slowly but surely into unfamiliarity (though many thankfully remain). My thinking assumes that the church must adapt to remain (or perhaps become) accessible to the culture God wishes her to bless. I am more than confident that the body will adapt, as I see it occurring in many, many places — the questions are how, when, and with what degree of friction.

How might our culture respond to the message of Christ communicated authentically, relationally, and beautifully? I pray that doors may bust open…with people running into the church, but also with people running out of it!

I watch with eager anticipation and joyful hope to see how God’s church is evolving and will continue to evolve, just as it has done so throughout history.

I’d love to hear more from Ben on this. Paul, too!

Paul engaged my thoughts a bit more critically. He offered some handy bullet points, which I’ll use as well.

1) Concerning my use of the word “myth” –

I believe that the death and resurrection of Christ (as elements of scripture) do “symbolically convey to us in a deep and meaningful way some kind of deeper truth about ourselves and how we should interact with the world,” as Paul summarized. However, to speak of them as simply “stories” without historical basis or reference to reality would defeat their purpose, rendering them absolutely impotent.  What use is a story about a God who died and rose again to forgive our sins if He did not in fact do so?  Here, he becomes something on the level of a cosmic Paul Bunyan, offering an invented explanation for the origin of the Land of 10,000 Lakes that does not correspond with reality and is useless to us today, other than perhaps for the purpose of amusement.  As the other Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and [our] faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God…”

Brian McLaren speaks of the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection as elements of “the story we find ourselves in.” For if these events were not rooted in history (or perhaps better, reality), then we would not be speaking of “the story we find ourselves in,” but rather “the story we have chosen to bring meaning to our lives.” That said, it happens that these two are one and the same, for the Resurrection is a reality that occurred at a specific moment in time, but continues to shape and define our reality as believers today.

This is what I mean by “myth” in the context of historical Christianity.

That said, I must say that I find “anthropocentrism” an interesting framework for criticizing a “post-liberal” theology (which is not my own), considering that the relationship between humanity and creation as described in the Bible through the interpretative framework of more conservative theologies is quite anthropocentric (for better or for worse). But I don’t want to light that fire here.

2) On “basking in the sun” –

Paul caught me making an irresponsibly-broad generalization here. However, he refines my essential point by showing that the phenomenon of “prospering on the outs” is one consistent with church history. He wrote, “the Church of God survives and even thrives in the darkness of this world.” Amen.

This evening, I read McLaren’s chapter on features of Anabaptist and Anglican Christianities that appealed to him. He cited the Anabaptist (in this case, Amish/Mennonite/Quaker) resilience in light of popular criticism and the pressures of a consumptive modern society as a redeemable element. (Chapter 13, A Generous Orthodoxy)

Mapping this theme onto present events and personalities in our “our modern, or post-modern day world” might be a bit more difficult, as analogies are necessarily fallible. However, I would argue that we do not live in a post-modern culture — in fact, American society as I’ve experienced it is very much rooted in a modern epistemology. I regard this as neither good nor bad, but merely a fact. In my original post, I wrote that we often confuse life in a society in which the story of Christ is not implicitly regarded as true with the epistemological framework of postmodernity. This is an idea that I would like to expand on at some point.

3) Regarding the ministry of the Spirit –

I love Paul’s reference to Jesus’ dialogue with Peter at Caesarea Philippi. In fact, I believe that the answer to this question lies in the text itself. Rob Bell at Mars Hill (Grand Rapids, MI) spoke on this passage in Matthew 16 a couple weeks ago. The fact that Christ spoke these words at Caesarea Philippi is quite significant. We’re given little background concerning the purpose of this journey; it is conceivable that Christ led them here to speak these words alone, though such a conclusion would be irresponsible. If I recall Bell’s teaching correctly, Caesarea Philippi was considered to be one of the most “immoral” spots around…certainly somewhere that good Jewish boys would not venture. The particular rock in question marked the site at which spirits were believed to move between Earth and the other place…and not friendly ones, either. So here we have Jesus standing with Peter who is probably feeling a little bit edgy.

And He says, “on this rock I will build my church.”

Christ and His Spirit today have dominion over all — in fact, if His holiness is so great that the foundation of the church can be laid upon the most evil ground and thrive, this certainly says something about the power of God and His ministry today.

Here, Paul revives the age-old question of content and form, medium and message. I suggest that the message is of central importance, but it is the medium that makes this message intelligible. “Una lectura de la carta de San Juan” would not make much sense to a white suburban community, but might teach and edify a Hispanic faith community. It is the medium that changes, but not the message. The same is true with epistemologies; Christ is just as true in modernity as in postmodernity…it’s simply a question of how we understand and speak of this truth. But in all cases, salvation is the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — not a clever video or an altar call.

I’m a little tired of talking about epistemologies, I think. That’s all for now; more on the rest later.

grace and peace,

- scott andreas