c. scott andreas

Mark J. Berry posted a shot from a presentation delivered by Gill Poole to the Church Mission Society Directors and Managers meeting:

Without context, I can’t say whether Gill was expressing his opinion or giving voice to a popular concern within the church. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. As such, let’s just take a look at the statement itself.

“I love Jesus. I hate church.”

I’m a huge fan of making community with the body of Christ as accessible as possible and do what I can to make that happen. But this statement indicates either a lack of love for one’s brothers and sisters, or an inability to play nicely with them.

Neither of these are acceptable within the Kingdom.

Granted, different people are suited to different styles of worship (you won’t catch me speaking in tongues). But the fact that some who proclaim membership in the Body cannot find a community with whom they’re comfortable or even put aside these differences for one measly hour each week in order to worship our Creator, Lord, and Redeemer is troubling. While I acknowledge that there’s still probably a niche that 35,000 denominations have been unable to fill, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something close enough in order that love might triumph over boredom.

If the pure, unadulterated love shown to us by our God is powerful enough to deliver us from our sins, shouldn’t it be able to overcome a little grumble over teaching or tempo?

If we love Christ, we must love His people. Even though we’re a pretty kooky family.

Let’s stop the church-bashing. Let’s transform reactive movements into proactive movements, lest we forget what we aspire to become by focusing too intently upon that which we abhor.

Because love wins.

We launched the official Sacred Space site today.  I’ve been writing over there lately, which has come at the cost of content here.

Check it out at http://www.sacredspacepdx.org!

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

[Middle English exil, from Old French, from Latin exilium,
from exul, exsul, exiled person, wanderer.]

I spent an hour at a Seattle’s Best café inside Borders watching the rain pummel disaffected hoosiers as they scurried about the plaza’s sprawling wet desert of a parking lot.

While drinking a cuppa, I read a couple chapters of McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy. I say that not to preface this thought, but to give you an idea of the waters in which I’m teabagging my mind at the moment.

“The church functions best when in exile.”

I should first say that though this statement is a product of my own mind, I don’t think I agree with it. But the nature of this disagreement is rather complex. I’ll explain this in a few articles, but for starters, here are three premises (which you’re free to disagree with).

1. From the time of the ancient Israelites’ slavery under the Egyptians until the oft-suppressed rise of Jewish religion as we know it today, the Jews have largely existed under (or in opposition to) a larger host culture. That is to say, Judaism is essentially a religion of diaspora. Though this group of people has ostensibly existed and on occasion thrived, it has done so without political authority or even respect — often in disfavor and persecution.
2. Christianity in its various forms, as ostensibly the default religion of modernity in the West, has enjoyed almost 1700 years in the sun beginning with the conversion of Constantine in 312 until some time in the last three decades.
3. Today, we find ourselves in a culture that is less likely to accept or understand Christianity or its mythology (in any of it’s “official” 33,830 forms) as implicitly “true.” That is, individuals now must identify themselves as “Christian” and explain what that means — this identity is not simply assumed (or understood). Conscious engagement of biblical narrative (though still very much alive in the poets of our age) is very slowly but gradually fading from popular American discourse.

I often wonder what many Christians mean when they talk about “ministry in a post-modern world.” It seems that many confuse postmodernity with life in a culture that does not implicitly accept “Christianity” (as we’ve built it) as “true.”

We speak a language that has been “Christian” since its emergence as we know it today. Here, I speak of English as a “Christian language” from a diachronic perspective. In other words, English is a Christian language because it has been teabagged in biblical themes, both birthing, communicating, and transforming them.

But though our words and metaphors are steeped in centuries of Biblical myth as a framework for reality, we find ourselves approaching a time in which this myth will become less-understood by and less-accessible to our secular neighbors. As fewer and fewer recall or are subjected to years of flannelgraph indoctrination, we’re left of distillations of Noah’s Ark as “the time when God destroyed the Earth while Noah and his family floated in a boat with all of the animals.” Tales of the apocalypse are not stories of a renewed creation, but “when the earth will be destroyed like in Armageddon but Tom Hanks won’t save us.”

Perhaps the heyday is nearing its apex. For what are we without our language? And who is our God in a language that speaks of him as many speak of the NSA?

As Rob Bell said, should we turn up our noses, purse our lips, and say “People just don’t care about truth any more?” This seems like a logical response…and one that I’ve seen. But is there a better alternative? Can we productively engage it? And what might this look like?

Check back soon for more. I’m enjoying this.
Until then, what do you think?

c. scott andreas

This evening, I read an article at Church Marketing Sucks called “Ditching Sermons for Drama.” It’s about a church in Pittsburgh that is abandoning the sermon as a communicative medium in favor of drama (in totality), and calling themselves “emergent” by virtue of this fact.

This is certainly an ambitious undertaking. I suppose that my perspective on the idea might be conditioned by the very many poorly-constructed or executed church dramas I’ve seen. I would love to see drama redeemed as a didactic form — and I imagine that it could be a beautiful, excellent thing when used by those well-versed in its intricacies.

I’m also a little concerned by the manner in which Hot Metal Bridge portrays pastoral teaching and leadership…it’s as if these are elements that are no longer accessible to (proto-post-)modern congregations. Perhaps approaches such as this underestimate the potential of their members?

But perhaps I’m underestimating churchgoers’ capacity (and potential) to consume drama with a critical eye. Maybe this congregation pays close attention to these dramas and analyzes them not unlike Shakespeare. This analysis is an absolutely critical step if drama is to be a subtle form of teaching that does not beat people over the head with overt concepts and themes. Can we be counted on to take this step? Or are we more likely to consume it passively, much like a film or TV show, amusing ourselves to death?

I find many of Brian McLaren’s perspectives refreshing and some challenging, and in a very productive way. But I’m not convinced that he (nor most emergent thinkers/writers) would argue that being “emergent” necessitates an abandonment of traditional teaching methods; though both content and form shift to new media, why must current approaches be abandoned? Should this be considered an accomplishment?

If it works for them, excellent and congratulations. But it seems that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to compress a teaching to a medium reserved by our culture for the purpose of entertainment (or occasionally, fine art).  I’d be interested to see what congregants take away from this.

Finally, I’m a bit troubled by the Post~Gazette’s characterization of emergent:

“Hot Metal Bridge is part of the emergent church movement that rejects rigid orthodoxy and strives to use hip language and culture to draw in young Americans who stopped, or never started, attending church.”

“Emergent” (by virtue of the postmodern paradigm and the very nature of words themselves) is not a monolith. But this description does not resemble the emergent I know. It’s not about the rejection of orthodoxy, but realizing that orthodoxy is far more generous than we may have thought.

-csa