Missional Explorer

Voyeuristic Christianity

Yesterday I exchanged emails with a pastor/friend who candidly expressed major frustration that most of us continue to "suck at the tit of Christendom" in living out our faith.  Not only did I agree with his assessment, but I went on to suggest my opinion that the spectator-mentality inherent in Christendom has become a major impediment to faith!  In fact, often without knowing it, modern-day Christendom has taken on an almost voyeuristic (or "peeping tom") approach to faith. . . allowing the vast majority to watch a much smaller minority of people "do it" from afar (in this case, engaging the world) which in reality reduces the majority to little more than "consumers of religious goods & services" during the week. 

All one needs to do is observe the pressures that "attractional" churches must face on a regular basis.  They not only have to meet the massively diverse expectations that individuals bring into the building regarding "church" and it's "programs" but they have to do so with a flash, flair, and excellence that will retain members who otherwise might find (as consumers of religious goods & services) somewhere else to "meet their needs". 

I actually have another pastor/friend who was driven from the church in general and church ministry in particular over this very issue.  As a pastor of a smallish church, he simply couldn't provide or meet the expectations that everyone brought into the building re: youth groups, infant care, small groups, etc.  He tried. . . in fact he struggled mightily over a number of years but, driven to exhaustion, he finally had to fold his very gifted cards and leave.  Lest anyone think this tale has a sad ending, my pastor/friend is thriving very nicely now, working a "secular" job and surrounded by friends (many not Christians) who share his passion for art.  He has not yet returned to "church" but has a wonderfully dynamic ministry all the same.

So how long are we going to "suck at the tit of Christendom"? 

"What On Earth is the Church For?"

More challenging thoughts from Robinson & Smith from their chapter entitled "What on Earth is the Church For?":

"The question of the primary purpose of the church is not as straightforward as many would like to imagine. . . Some (answers) inevitably focused on tasks that the church engages in, 'hatching, matching, and dispatching', while others responded with activities that mattered to them: friendship, fellowship, encouragement, prayer and care.  A few offered more theological responses, such as bringing pleasure to God and the worship and praise of God.  Others wanted to include elements of the proclamation of faith.  One person recognized that the church has a sociological function in relation to society and, in particular, local communities.  These were all good responses but the discussion revealed that the question is far from straightforward.

The issue is difficult because in one sense it is not a biblical question.  The Bible does not set out to ask or answer such a question in a direct or systematic way.  The fact that the Bible does not address the purpose of the church as an integral part of the mission of Jesus has led some to ask whether Jesus ever intended to found the church.  Hans Kung, amongst many others, is convinced that Jesus and his immediate followers preached about the kingdom of God and spent no time at all preparing the structure of a new organization. . . As one scholar wryly noted, the early Christian community was expecting the kingdom and what came was the church.   Not only did the first Christians not think about the church and what it was for, the Christian thinkers and leaders of the first few centuries hardly dealt with the question either.  Their agenda concentrated on he content of the Christian message and not on the vehicle that proclaimed it. . . ..

The challenge for the church now is to stop thinking merely about methods to reverse decline but to reconsider the basic purpose and call of the church.  To return to mission as the core raison d'etre of the church will inevitably mean that the shape of the church will change.  Our very failure may well assist us to return to that innovation stage of the life of the church when the church ceases to do church but to do mission (underlining mine).  What flows from mission will still be the church but will will be a very different kind of church."

The last sentence is probably a vast understatement!

Talking Consumerism with Ryan

I had coffee with Ryan, a new friend and kindred spirit from Adullam this past week.  Sometime soon Ryan is going to be challenging our community re:consumerism which often acts as a barrier in moving from the "oneness" of our communion to the "otherness" of mission.  This is gonna be a tough one to take on as I suggested to Ryan on Friday.  I have recently read Walter C. Hobbs chapter on "Faith Twisted by Culture" in Confident Witness--Changing World (Van Gelder) where Hobbs says:

"A cursory review of the history of Western Christian missionizing discloses two problems.  One is a colonizing tendency among those who have taken the gospel to other peoples.  The other is an inclination among the evangelized to reshape the gospel along the familiar line of their own traditional worldviews, values, and religious norms.

The task is perhaps even more difficult for the missionary who is a member of the culture to which the gospel is being proclaimed.  North American Christians face a substantial challenge in this regard.  The gospel we preach is too often shot through with Western sentiments, such as individualism, consumerism, security, personal happiness, and corporate success.  North American culture has a tenacious grip on our expression of the Good News, and we face a formidable task in disengaging ourselves from its hold. . .

The thesis of this article is that North American Christianity is in great measure a faith twisted by culture.  Too often, we have uncritically embraced many of the taken-for-granted presumptions and priorities that characterize the dominant worldview of Western civilization instead of testing our culture's values and perspectives against the biblical standards.  And we have merged those cultural givens within our doctrine and practice, even though we are people who claim to be followers of the Way."

Finally, Hobbs unpacks our unfaithfulness in three specific ways:

"Consider the several gods that our cultural forebears followed, and ponder the various ways in which the North American Church permitted the worship of such gods to become blended into our Christian faith.  Three gods, in particular, seem to permeate Euro-history that still dominates North American culture and North American Christianity.  These are: (1) modern science, itself the progeny of the Enlightenment and rationalism; (2) economic liberalism and individualism; and (3) organization and professionalization.  Each of these cultural themes has distorted a basic Christian doctrine.  Science and rationalism have shaped our view of Scripture; the individualism of economic liberalism has shaped our view of salvation; and organization together with professionalization has shaped our view of the church."

Do we lemmings have the courage to ask these kinds of questions of each other in our headlong dash to the abyss?

One Bible: Many Messages

I am continuing to joyfully "participate" in a recorded conversation led by Brian McLaren and Richard Twiss from the recent National Pastor's Convention.  Focusing on the Bible, Brian has suggested that traditional readings of the Word are primarily "flat", hearing only one "voice" and one "message" (and usually one "interpretation", often one's own interpretation of course. . . see previous blog where Dallas Willard comments that there are more than 30,000 Christian denominations in the world and they all think they are "right".  I tell my students: "what are the chances that any one denomination is "right" on everything.  Not only are the chances astronomically small but, if one denomination should be right on everything, guess what, they are "God" because there ain't nobody this side of heaven that is "right" on on everything.  But I digress:-).

I was fascinated with McLaren's suggestion that we are limited if we approach the Bible with the "one voice, one message" mindset.  For example, Brian recounted the substantial case using the Bible that pro-slavery pastors made in defense of slavery back in the mid-1800's.  As Brian admitted, both Old and New Testaments assume/defend slavery as normative part of life even if, in the NT, the relationship of slave and master is to be transformed.   Brian actually suggested that the Biblical argument against slavery was the weaker argument back in the 1800's, weaker because it was based on a more general  reading of the Bible as opposed to the specific texts that were used to justify human bondage.  Yet, despite the specific passages in both Old and New Testaments that would seem to ratify slavery, virtually no one in the Christian community would seek to justify slavery today.

Slavery is only one example where the Bible genuinely seems to speak with multiple voices and messages on a large number of issues.  Other examples could include war, violence, women (and men), community issues, etc.  I have to admit that Brian's point is very persuasive and, further, that many of our present disagreements among Christ-followers center on these very issues where multiple voices and messages are heard with cases that can be made using the Bible in very authentic ways and yet are still very contradictory.  So, the $64,000 question to me (and not having completed this conversation guided by Brian and Richard), how do we approach the Bible with a multiple voice/message assumption?  And, with the 800 pound gorilla (a "Biblical approach to violence") lurking in the corner, how do we specifically as American even begin to unpack this one let alone listen to our "non-American" brothers and sisters overseas?  As a tease, Brian suggests that we Americans desperately need to develop an authentic "Biblical hermeneutic on violence" even as the rest of the evangelical world outside the States looks on with disbelief and despair, often asking as one person put it: "Do you American Evangelicals realize how dangerous you are right now???"

What are your thoughts on authentically hearing multiple voices and messages in the Biblical Narrative??  Are we American Christ-followers "right" on everything?  If the answer is an obvious "NO!" (in fact, from God's perspective, there's probably a whole raft of stuff that we're not "getting") then how do we drop our ethnocentric arrogance and nationalism in order to truly hear our brothers and sisters overseas?         

Sound Familiar?

"Most people who went to church and thought themselves 'decent Christians' actually knew little or nothing about the faith they claimed to practice and did not practice the Christianity of the Bible at all.  Moreover, they were quite unaware that this was the case."  (underline mine) 

An amazing quote that would seem to describes our present circumstances exactly.  But there's more: "(His) main charge against the faux Christianity of his day was that it pretended to be the real thing but wasn't---yet few dared to rock the boat and say as much.  (He) couldn't stand the tepid version of the real thing and labored to show that this practice that everyone thought was Christianity was in fact not Christianity at all.  It was an uphill battle."

Uphill battle, indeed.  This is precisely the situation that I believe presents itself to kids today.  Kids intuitively know that, what is often presented as "church", "faith", and "God" these days, is not worth the investment and certainly not deserving of a supposed "all-consuming commitment".  You know what?  I think they are right and I usually say so.  But here's the catch. . . and the challenge.  Many kids are (rightfully in my mind) walking away from "faith" as it is being presented but they tragically don't know that, what they are walking away from, is not the real deal at all but only a superficial facade.  So, rejecting what legitimately needs to be rejected, kids (and adults) begin to "look for love in all the wrong places", a tragically ironic dance that I see being played out with horrendous consequences every day.  I say tragically ironic because most do not realize that the alternatives they are embracing are no more worthy than the shells of religiosity they have correctly rejected.  How then do we hang in there with kids (and adults) who, having rejected what needs to be rejected, are yet unaware that the focus of their longing, the home for which all hearts long and all abandonments deserved, does not lie down another path. . . but must be found by exposing the fraud, pushing past the false "god", and walking further down the road toward the True and Living God!!!

FYI, the quotes above are not from today but from 18th century England with the pen and times of William Wilberforce as quoted in Eric Metaxas'  Amazing Grace.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A Vast Understatement

Alan Hirsch subsequently begins to unpack "The Missional Question" (previous post) with the following statement: "The Spirit is moving in marvelous ways again.  Movements are being sparked and the established church is just beginning to wake up to itself and its missional calling.  But shedding Christendom is no easy task.  The transition from Christendom modes to genuinely missional ones will not necessarily be an easy one for most churches and church leaders (underlining mine)."  To which I responded in bold letters written across the page, "A VAST UNDERSTATEMENT!"  Whether it be traditional Christian churches or Christian schools, I am personally finding this "shedding" or, as I earlier posted, "disavowing" of Christendom to be an almost unimaginable task of the moment.  In the midst of Christendom, I think that, quite honestly, our "gospel" has become so intertwined with our "country" and our "culture" that I think a critique of one has come to be perceived as attack on the other.  So the "shedding of Christendom" on a wide scale, at least in our American context often feels like an impossibility in my lifetime.  I realize that God remains God in finding, rescuing, and turning for good that which we think lost.  And I also believe that we can still embody His Mission with faithfulness if not always effectiveness.   But, bottom line?  I think that Jesus would find our "gospel" almost incomprehensible and certainly foreign to what He said and did.   

As for hope in my present context, I feel a complete sense of freedom to explore "church" and seem to be finding at least small pockets of fresh and renewed expressions of "church" that are often Spirit-inspired, creative, and highly organic.  But, while "church" seems to be a topic of conversation and exploration in various places, I don't see any of the same sense of creativity or possibilities re: our kids and especially following Christ in the context of "high school".   In this sense, I/we feel very alone in our hopes for/at Jim Elliot School. And, even as may we stand at the cusp of some exciting possibilities, our small school is in such dire straits financially that we may not survive the year.  Literally, God only knows what will happen here.  Christendom reigns supreme in American "Christian Schools" and I do not see much hope or challenge to this supremacy in the days ahead. 

Communitas, Not Community

Thought of the day from Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Way as I continue to "dance" with Adullam, a local Community of communities that operates very organically in what Hirsch identifies as a "missional-incarnational" approach to church.  Adullam is a gathering of 16 "villages" which regularly engage with each other and the world during the week.  Yet these are not cell/small groups as just another "program" of the church. . . the villages ARE the Church, functioning in a "sending" decentralized approach as communities of practice rather than a traditional "come to us" approach tyical of more traditional churches (which Hirsch describes as evangelistic-attractional).  Sunday gatherings, while not unimportant, are not the primary point of Adullam.  Monday through Saturday engagement is!

"The most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of a shared ordeal or those that define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves---thus initiating a risky journey." Alan Hirsch (italics mine)

This quote from Alan Hirsch has been bugging me these days in a good way.  I am fascinated with the Adullam community and am pondering all kinds of "wonderings" and possibilities down this road.  I also hope to blog more of what I'm learning from Alan Hirsch in the days ahead.

Tomorrow I'm off to Phoenix on a father-son trip with my son, Michael, in celebrating his upcoming 13th birthday.  As I did with our two other sons, Adam and Robby, in this case, Michael and I are going to be spending some time with my parents and one of my brothers and family.  Linda and I recognize what an enormous gift it is for me to be able to work at the same school where our sons (and their friends) attend every day.  Both quality and quantity time in huge amounts help to shape intimacy, trust, and mutual understanding.  What a gift!

Don't Sugarcoat It, What Do You Really Think about the Emerging Church?

Check out what Blindbeggar (www.blindbeggar.org) found on YouTube as an incredibly insightful critique of the emerging church(my tongue also planted firmly in cheek).  This is BlindBeggar's response:  "Yup, the emerging church is all about youthful stupidity and rebellion, all driven by that evil beat and rhythm music. And here is the proof. I’m so glad at 56 I’m older and wiser (tongue firmly planted in cheek)."

A Final Word on Nationalism (For Now)

It has been suggested that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".  If that be the case, I am the fool because my words in this blog have stirred the pot more than most readers could know. . . and I can explain.  Suffice it to say that my words over the past days have more than a few people upset and I am deeply (and enjoyably. . . at least so far) in conversation outside the bounds of this blog.  There are some who disagree strongly and have been offended by the tone and substance of what I have been quoting and/or saying.  Many are close friends with whom I have been co-travelers and partners in ministry for many years.  In those situations, I am truly sorry that my words have given offense.  I often wish I could say things more clearly and have them received less personally.  Others have applauded these postings as very important and long overdue.  I leave the rest to you.  Blogs are exactly what they are advertised to be: personal web-logs that allow me/others to "think out loud" as it were in our wanderings, wonderings, and exploring.  My blog name is "missional explorer" and I have come to see that as incredibly descriptive of what God is doing with me in more ways than I can possibly explain here.

Lest you think I close this part of the conversation with a whimper, let me quote one final author from a book that is a primer for understanding the missional conversation (see sidebar).  In  Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, editor Darrell Guder makes the following statement which was pointed out to me at a recent gathering of about 30 missional explorers like myself.  Guder's statement hit me like a truck and, at the time, I found myself half praying, half exhaling in shock  "My God (literally), could this be true????"

"Churches have become so accommodated to the American way of life that they are now domesticated and it is no longer obvious what justifies their existence as particular communities.  The religious loyalties that churches seem to claim and the social functions that they actually perform are at odds with each other.  Discipleship has been absorbed into citizenship."

Church as "Chaplain" to American Democracy?

"Both the conservative and the liberal church, the so-called private and public church, are basically accommodationist in their social ethic.  Both assume wrongly that the American church's primary social task to to underwrite American democracy".  Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon in Resident Alien: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry For People Who Know that Something is Wrong.

An interesting transformation happened on our way into the 21st century.  While churches and pastors used to be respected as part of the center of Western culture, we now face a growing situation(some have called "post-Christendom") where churches in general and Christians in particular have become increasingly marginalized and therefore unwelcome in public conversations.  This has already happened with greater alacrity in Europe and Canada where it has become almost a liability to be identified as a Christian in public conversations.  Christians are intolerant, right?  Waking up to this transition, a growing number of Christ-followers are not only embracing life on the margins as the location where we have always been lived most authentically as followers of Jesus but are also now questioning the role that "Christianity" has played in Western culture.  Has institutional Christianity (and Christians) been "used" as spiritual cover for all kinds of roles that have nothing whatsoever to do with faith?  In other words, has Christianity played the role of chaplain to Western culture, conveniently used when a national crisis hits or democracy needs legitimizing and/or defending but then cast aside as irrelevant when the need passes?

A growing number of Christ-followers are answering "yes" to this question and are furthermore suggesting that we must embrace our marginalized status as the place where faith thrives best and therefore reject the siren song of power and privilege with which we have been tempted to seize in order to correct the world's ills.  I've read recently that some are interpreting the three temptations that Satan offered to Jesus as part of this narrative.  Many more are tracing the quantum shift of a "powerless and persecuted" early church to a "powerful" alliance of church and state back to Constantine when the Roman emperor not only eliminated the persecution of Christians but proceeded to compel/coerce everyone to be confirmed into the Christian religion.  History shows that Constantine, of course, had multiple motives including his desire to unite his empire behind one "religion".  History also shows that Constantine himself was profoundly ambivalent about his one Christian faith but rather used Christianity to bring peace to the empire.  While it is perfectly understandable that the early church greeted Constantine's elimination of persecution as heaven-sent, Stan Nussbaum, in interpreting South African missiologist David Bosch's seminal work Transforming Mission, points out in hindsight the tragic result:

"At the time Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, the church was like an infant that has never seen a cobra.  The child does not know how to the charm the snake.  It does not even know not to pick it up by the sharp end.  When the church announced a political theology in which the church and state were inseparably united, it did not know what poison it was letting into its system.  It could not foresee what historians have noted since: 'Orthodox churches tended to become ingrown, excessively nationalistic, and without a concern for those outside".  The bite of the pro-Christian state proved more deadly to mission than the bite of the anti-Christian state had ever been."  Stan Nussbaum in A Reader's Guide to Transforming Mission.

So what are we to make of this "snake" of nationalism where allegiance to church and state have become so intertwined?  Is political power (coercion) and the nationalism it engenders a legitimate avenue for Christian participation in "bringing all things under the lordship of Jesus Christ" or is it possible that, when we resort to political power and nationalism we give in to the temptation that Jesus resisted and somehow sacrifice the best of what we have to offer to a fallen world?  As Hauerwas/Willimon suggest, "The problem is that when Christians in America take as their fundamental task to make America work, we lose our ability to survive as a church.  We do so because in the interest of serving America the church unwittingly becomes governed by the story of America" instead, I might add, of the more important narrative that is God's Kingdom and Mission earth.