I've been processing my "personal" ecclesiology for a couple of years now, mostly in my brain's down time. Today I had a thought breakthrough. I was talking about a book I am proofing, which is entitled "Dead Church Walking" by Jimmy Dorrell.
One of my big vexations about church is the apparent complete lack of unity. Even if there is a little church which members get along well, serve each other, and serve the world, the congregation is still likely at odds with other congregations in the same town, probably because of theology.
I know that denominationalism emerged from the inability of disagreed parties to find common ground. That was probably fair when the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church was intractably corrupt and wouldn't listen to any critique. Luther didn't set out to found a new church; he simply wanted reform. But after a few splits over seemingly important issues, it became very easy to split just because parties didn't like each other during a disagreement. Now denominations (at least in America) seem to serve theological tastes, just as building, music, and preaching styles serve aesthetic tastes. Those are a few categories among which an individual can base their church attendance decisions.
However, one huge factor in church choice is transportation. With relatively cheap fuel prices, most people have no qualms traveling across town to their favorite church (selected on the above criteria). And here is the key move: the ability to traverse geography easily makes congregational diversity less likely. If I'm going to drive to church, I'm probably going to choose to mass with people who are rather like me.
I think one important way to encourage diversity is to commit to attending a truly local church. What if Americans did not travel further than one mile to their place of worship? They would be forced to relate with whichever people live near them. You are probably wondering about communities that are completely homogeneous regarding race, economic class, etc. I wonder about those too. I'm not sure I have an answer to that question. But as I look at my neighbors, there is incredible ethnic diversity in the two-house radius all the way around. If we were to meet as a house church, we wouldn't have the issues of ethnic homogeneity. However, we would all be middle-class suburbanites. But the important point is that we wouldn't be able to choose who we're with. I think taking some choice away from people—especially those in "higher" classes in America—would help to move focus off of self and onto really being the church.
Perhaps if people began to have their choice of church limited a bit, they may then choose to move into a more diverse setting where worldviews and skin colors are truly diverse. We may stop quibbling about minor points of theology because there would be much bigger preferences to sort out. And I think people would be less likely to break fellowship since they wouldn't be "standing for the truth" as much as discussing matters of taste. And this may be a small step toward a unified body of Jesus from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Christianese
I was in a meeting this morning where the topic of Christianese came up. One person mentioned how people's hearts are crying out to be authentic, but all they can do is speak the language of the church (or pseudochurch?) in order to not look bad or to be accepted.
Wasn't this exactly what Russia did in the Ukraine or Germany did in the Czech Republic? There was an imperial regime language that was required to be spoken or else very bad things would happen. The native tongue was spoken only in the most intimate, secretive settings for fear of being found out and punished.
Worse than that, perhaps, many good people are forced to keep their innermost thoughts to themselves because they fear being ostracized if they are honest. These people can't even find the "soulmates" with whom they can be honest because they have never spoken a common mother tongue of honesty with anyone else.
The church is meant to be a place of honesty and authenticity. It's the one place of all places where we should be able to share our deepest hearts with one another and seek healing and redemption.
As I look across the religious landscape in America (which is the one context I can address with some authority), I see Christianese as the de jure language—and in many ways, it has become the de facto language. The region is ripe for regime change.
Wasn't this exactly what Russia did in the Ukraine or Germany did in the Czech Republic? There was an imperial regime language that was required to be spoken or else very bad things would happen. The native tongue was spoken only in the most intimate, secretive settings for fear of being found out and punished.
Worse than that, perhaps, many good people are forced to keep their innermost thoughts to themselves because they fear being ostracized if they are honest. These people can't even find the "soulmates" with whom they can be honest because they have never spoken a common mother tongue of honesty with anyone else.
The church is meant to be a place of honesty and authenticity. It's the one place of all places where we should be able to share our deepest hearts with one another and seek healing and redemption.
As I look across the religious landscape in America (which is the one context I can address with some authority), I see Christianese as the de jure language—and in many ways, it has become the de facto language. The region is ripe for regime change.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Celebrity politicians
I was walking through a store last night and saw Bristol Palin's book. I mentioned to my wife how silly our celebrity culture is, and she noted Sarah Palin's TV show. I got to thinking, were there celebrities in the Bible?
The first one that came to mind was Absalom. Not only was he a celebrity, he was a celebrity politician. He set up a statue of himself, was kind to the disenfranchised, and was a total chick magnet. Everything was set for him to overthrow his dad for the kingship. But one thing led to another, as it so often does, and he ended up hanging in a tree by his hair and getting stabbed with three spears.
With the number of politicians we've seen recently literally hanging from figurative trees by their metaphorical hair, I wonder how much of this is tied to seeking celebrity. Is vanity enough of an instability of character that it needs to be accompanied by risky behavior that will inevitably lead to a fall? Or, as Ecclesiastes says, does time and chance happen to us all, and a proportional amount of the anonymous populace screws up in exactly the same way and rate as their representative sampling of elected representatives? Is it the much maligned 24-hour news cycle that won't permit relatively private ignominy of public figures?
The Palin family have become the darlings of a segment of the population, the hated targets of another, and the family that another segment wishes would stick strictly to their private lives and leave the world alone. Regardless, I fear that there is enough instability of character in the celebrity seeking that someone will do something really stupid. And I never want to see anyone—friend or foe—do something really stupid.
I haven't covered 12 percent of the angles on celebrity, but if you'd like to add something, I'd be curious to hear it. I'd be especially curious to hear who you think are more celebrities from the Bible.
The first one that came to mind was Absalom. Not only was he a celebrity, he was a celebrity politician. He set up a statue of himself, was kind to the disenfranchised, and was a total chick magnet. Everything was set for him to overthrow his dad for the kingship. But one thing led to another, as it so often does, and he ended up hanging in a tree by his hair and getting stabbed with three spears.
With the number of politicians we've seen recently literally hanging from figurative trees by their metaphorical hair, I wonder how much of this is tied to seeking celebrity. Is vanity enough of an instability of character that it needs to be accompanied by risky behavior that will inevitably lead to a fall? Or, as Ecclesiastes says, does time and chance happen to us all, and a proportional amount of the anonymous populace screws up in exactly the same way and rate as their representative sampling of elected representatives? Is it the much maligned 24-hour news cycle that won't permit relatively private ignominy of public figures?
The Palin family have become the darlings of a segment of the population, the hated targets of another, and the family that another segment wishes would stick strictly to their private lives and leave the world alone. Regardless, I fear that there is enough instability of character in the celebrity seeking that someone will do something really stupid. And I never want to see anyone—friend or foe—do something really stupid.
I haven't covered 12 percent of the angles on celebrity, but if you'd like to add something, I'd be curious to hear it. I'd be especially curious to hear who you think are more celebrities from the Bible.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Internet leaves litter version of phone search obsolete
As I was driving today, I saw a van with the name "A All Animal Control." That immediately tells me this company violated grammar conventions in order to make it to the top of their category in the Yellow Pages. ["Yellow Pages? What's that?"] They probably chose this because "AAA Animal Control" was already taken in our town. This is yet another cultural artifact left obsolete by internet searches. Who wouldn't search for "animal control [town name]"? No need to win the alphabetizing game in that case.
Is Google's algorithm screwing you?
I read an article today about Americans having trouble getting helpful information on NT Wright when they searched for him. I thought this odd, given that the internets should give the most relevant information about a topic. And there's the rub. In today's algorithm, most relevant has to do with where your IP address is located and what those with IP addresses in your geographical locale have searched for. So news posted from UK IP addresses is virtually inaccessible to Americans, since they're unable to see the most accurate news post in their search results list.
This fact renders some of the most pertinent websites inaccessible, not due to the inability of the user to type, but due to their inability to see the searched site. Today's new word: hinternets. Example: The search algorithm left my site in the hinternets because it was busy selling crap to the people who actually wanted to see what I posted.
This fact renders some of the most pertinent websites inaccessible, not due to the inability of the user to type, but due to their inability to see the searched site. Today's new word: hinternets. Example: The search algorithm left my site in the hinternets because it was busy selling crap to the people who actually wanted to see what I posted.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Live Better Stories
I visited my college roommate up in Vail over the weekend, and we went to the Teva Games (sponsored by what was originally the footwear company). I picked up their soundtrack CD, and it had the phrase "Live Better Stories" on it. Turns out it's their tagline.
I was startled by this, since I live in the Christian realm, and I thought it was people like Walter Brueggemann and N. T. Wright theologizing about story and Don Miller bringing it to an intensely practical application. In some ways, I subconsciously thought "story" was an "Emergent theology."
So what's up with Teva? Why are they so enamored with story? I think they are tapping into a rich craving that people have, which some Christians have been working with. So it's not just religious groups talking about living better stories.
Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels, was an ad executive who handled the BMW account. He decided to bail when he realized that having the power to make a grown man cry using a BMW commercial wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But somehow, Teva has produced a profoundly religious—actually, profoundly human—video without Christian overtones. And it made me cry.
It's so beautiful to encourage people to be fully alive. I would protest that the activities in the video aren't the only way to be alive, but they are still a very important avenue. And for those of us Christians who are into creational living, we have a touchpoint here.
Live Better Stories.
I was startled by this, since I live in the Christian realm, and I thought it was people like Walter Brueggemann and N. T. Wright theologizing about story and Don Miller bringing it to an intensely practical application. In some ways, I subconsciously thought "story" was an "Emergent theology."
So what's up with Teva? Why are they so enamored with story? I think they are tapping into a rich craving that people have, which some Christians have been working with. So it's not just religious groups talking about living better stories.
Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels, was an ad executive who handled the BMW account. He decided to bail when he realized that having the power to make a grown man cry using a BMW commercial wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But somehow, Teva has produced a profoundly religious—actually, profoundly human—video without Christian overtones. And it made me cry.
It's so beautiful to encourage people to be fully alive. I would protest that the activities in the video aren't the only way to be alive, but they are still a very important avenue. And for those of us Christians who are into creational living, we have a touchpoint here.
Live Better Stories.
Monday, May 30, 2011
A hermeneutic of versejacking
On this blog, each post "of late" has come with some disclaimer. This time, it is "I will be through seminary in less than two weeks."
My last reading assignment has shed light on a question that has vexed me for years. The assignment was “Were the English Puritans the ‘Saints of the Most High’?” by W. Sibley Towner. I'm pasting below a modified version of a homework question on the reading.
On one level, the article points out that it is perilous to force correspondence of every detail between a Scripture text and an event. Prophetic visions aren’t to be taken as prenarration or even allegory. The article aims to take the edge off the fact that millennia of Scriptural interpretation have gone against what seem to be sane exegetical principles. It speaks to my issues with interpretation. I describe my tension with the title of an essay written by John Walton (now of Wheaton): “Inspired Subjectivity vs. Hermeneutical Objectivity.” What made it okay for Peter to say, “For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, ‘May another take his place of leadership,’” which are two versejacks extraordinaires, but I intuitively know that what many interpreters do to texts is simply similar violence? The only difference seems to be that Peter was inspired, and since the canon is now closed, none of the rest of us is permitted to ravage the text to carry off our own edificatory plunder. Where Towner’s article succeeds is in offering a plausible alternative to this tormented worldview. Of late I’ve been wrestling with certain African hermeneutics where it seems Spirit-filled people are truly enlightened by their terrible exegesis. Why can’t the Spirit work in his people this way? So Towner says we should see both sides of the exegetical transaction as serving a greater reality. The greater reality is God’s grand purpose in his creation, and a valid interpretation of a text is one that corresponds in a similar way with the ethos of God’s creative and redemptive work. So the text and the interpretation are both equidistant from the greater reality. It so happens that the text is canonized and thus scrutinized till kingdom come. I’m not yet willing to say I fully agree with this, but it is such a refreshing alternative to a decade of wrestling that I must consider it.
My last reading assignment has shed light on a question that has vexed me for years. The assignment was “Were the English Puritans the ‘Saints of the Most High’?” by W. Sibley Towner. I'm pasting below a modified version of a homework question on the reading.
On one level, the article points out that it is perilous to force correspondence of every detail between a Scripture text and an event. Prophetic visions aren’t to be taken as prenarration or even allegory. The article aims to take the edge off the fact that millennia of Scriptural interpretation have gone against what seem to be sane exegetical principles. It speaks to my issues with interpretation. I describe my tension with the title of an essay written by John Walton (now of Wheaton): “Inspired Subjectivity vs. Hermeneutical Objectivity.” What made it okay for Peter to say, “For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, ‘May another take his place of leadership,’” which are two versejacks extraordinaires, but I intuitively know that what many interpreters do to texts is simply similar violence? The only difference seems to be that Peter was inspired, and since the canon is now closed, none of the rest of us is permitted to ravage the text to carry off our own edificatory plunder. Where Towner’s article succeeds is in offering a plausible alternative to this tormented worldview. Of late I’ve been wrestling with certain African hermeneutics where it seems Spirit-filled people are truly enlightened by their terrible exegesis. Why can’t the Spirit work in his people this way? So Towner says we should see both sides of the exegetical transaction as serving a greater reality. The greater reality is God’s grand purpose in his creation, and a valid interpretation of a text is one that corresponds in a similar way with the ethos of God’s creative and redemptive work. So the text and the interpretation are both equidistant from the greater reality. It so happens that the text is canonized and thus scrutinized till kingdom come. I’m not yet willing to say I fully agree with this, but it is such a refreshing alternative to a decade of wrestling that I must consider it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)