Just a quick note that I am at the point of my Doctor of Ministry program of defending my thesis. I have submitted a rough draft and am travelling to Boston to present my defense on Tuesday the 24th of March. Then I will have to make some revisions and then prepare for graduation on May 9th.
Merry Christmas to All!
I did want all of you to know that the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am still alive and I am actually writing a lot - just not much on the blog. So I'm writing a short hello to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and to update you on my activities this fall.
I am on the home stretch of my Doctor of Ministry program and am trying to finish off my thesis by the deadline - which would be the end of January. I have completed about 80 pages so far (out of a total of around 200 pages or so). I do have my work cut out for me. I plan to continue devoting as much time as necessary to try to complete my thesis on time.
The schedule is roughly as follows. I need to hand in my final draft sometime before the end of the first week of February. Then when it is returned, I will need to make the necessary corrections and get a final good copy ready with proper formatting and printed on acid free paper, etc., etc.
The thesis defense will be scheduled sometime in March and I will need to travel to Boston for that. Then if everything goes well my graduation is scheduled for May 9th amidst many hallelujahs and much rejoicing and "I told you so's" and "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes" type comments.
The working title of the thesis is "The End of the World as we Know It: New Expressions of Church for the 21st Century"
I also want to apologize for missing a number of opportunities for blog entries. I made almost no comments about the American (or Canadian) elections. I also haven't been checking out what others have been saying.
I have put many of my regular activities and connections on hold but hopefully I can make it up and do some significant reconnecting come February and March. Promises promises!
Many Blessings
May Jesus continue to be the reason for the season in your lives.
Merry Christmas and a Christ filled New Year.
I am just finishing off two weeks in Boston for my last residency in my DMin program. We have had a good time of discussing ministry and renewal. One of the most difficult things to communicate to the other members of my class was the difference between Canada and the United States. In some ways we are very similar – particularly when we talk about Christian issues. However, most of the USA is still much more conservative than Canada. Massachusetts residents consider themselves among the most liberal in the US.
This was backed up by a recent Pew Forum report which did show that this understanding is actually true. There are less people who believe in God, less people that go to church and more people who believe that there are other ways to heaven than through Jesus Christ. But at the same time, every day that I was here at seminary, the Boston Globe had an article about religion either on the front page or on the front page of the Local section. One day it was an article about Eugene Rivers (a black pastor in South Boston credited with the “Boston Miracle” – an inner city renewal project), a piece on female leadership in Reform Synagogues and then some local interest pieces about local churches. It just seemed that religion was at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
The language we use is the same and some of the problems are similar but somehow Canada is further down the road to secularism than our neighbours to the south. I listed some of these issues in one of my assignments which I pasted below.
Hills Church is located in Thornhill, a community of 132,000, in the city of Vaughan (population 240,000) at the edge of the largest city in Canada (Toronto – census metropolitan area population of 5.1 million). In some ways we live and minister in an unreachable neighbourhood – at least in the sense of a traditional approach to ministry and to church planting. Church growth, church planting and evangelism encounter deeply entrenched barriers. This may be true for much of the United States as well, but there is an even stronger resistance to active Evangelicalism in Canada – for a number of reasons.
The first is a strong secular and multicultural ethos. Even though this secular mentality does not necessarily represent the majority of the population statistically, it still exerts a strong influence over the Canadian psyche. We see this most clearly in politics. In the USA, all presidential candidates (Obama and McCain and even Clinton) attend church. They are expected to attend church. Not attending church would actually constitute a significant political disadvantage. In Canada attending church has become a political disadvantage. All you need to do to discredit a candidate is to expose their regular church attendance or their adherence to traditional values. This is only one example of the prevalence of secularism in Canada. There is no appeal in Canada to the “traditions this country was built on.” Canada is a self-proclaimed secular nation. We have no entrenched law concerning the separation of church and state because the church at one time was the state (Roman Catholicism in Quebec and the Church of England [Anglicanism] in much of the rest of Canada). So we have a history of groups resisting the state established church (Methodism and Catholicism resisting Anglicanism in English Canada and more recently, a complete break against Catholicism in Quebec). This has paved the way for a militant multiculturalism and political correctness (don’t offend any minority groups) in the current socio-political landscape.
The second is a strong resistance to and distain for an American-styled Evangelicalism. There is a deep bias against what is seen as the war-mongering, anti-gay, anti-abortion Evangelical platform. Most Canadians vote for liberal or socialist political candidates – especially in urban areas and most are virulently opposed to a legislated conservative morality. Many Canadians view American politics as being controlled or at least strongly influenced by the Evangelical power base. It is perceived as swaying the White House and imposing its morality on the country. Most Canadian provinces would be “blue states.” All major cities return liberal members of Parliament.
Third, there is very little tolerance or space in the Canadian media market for a right wing voice. Except for occasional public voices from the USA (which are widely ridiculed) and perhaps some voices from western Canada (Alberta) there are no strong conservative voices speaking to the culture. The government has only recently allowed religiously based stations to exist and even then they are often required to give equal space to “opposing viewpoints.” Our first religious television station (VisionTV) established by a coalition of Christian business people and broadcasters has become a vehicle for a multi-faith, multicultural religious outlet.
Fourth, to most Christians living in Canada, the days of Christendom are very tangibly over. There has been a change in mindset of those who would plant churches. As the number of nominal Christians without a church shrinks, and as the number of unchurched who once were catechumens of Christianity grows extinct, the success of traditional church plants is threatened. We can no longer merely compete for the leftovers of Christendom or try to find the church model that has just one more innovation. Church planters in Canada have needed to become missionaries, and plant churches cross culturally, across the barriers to people who have no knowledge about Jesus and no language to discuss Christian concepts. The church in Canada can no longer draw on people familiar with the premises of Christianity. There are almost none of those people left. Our culture has produced offspring who are not only unchurched but also unversed in the cultural canon of Christendom.
Fifth, on the micro level, Hills Church located in an almost exclusively Jewish neighbourhood. Ninety percent of the people living here are cultural Jews and there is strong “anti-missionary” sentiment. Jewish people (or Muslims or Sikhs or Hindus) will not attend church as “seekers.” To add to the complexity of this overpowering multicultural environment is the cost of land, the unwillingness of municipalities to zone for worship uses and the competition for existing worship land and space by many other faith traditions.
This is one of the books on my DMin reading list. It was written by Loren B. Mead who was the past president of the Alban Institute. Since I have to do a review of it for my course, I thought I'd post a summary and a bit of a review here.
The book does a decent job of examining the current state (EDIT: when written in 1991) of the church - although from a decidedly mainline perspective. Mead begins by analyzing the"current" Christendom situation - which in many ways still applies today.
Mainline churches in first half of 20th century were powered by a strong clear uniform paradigm of mission – built buildings and seminaries, and mission agencies that were well funded and clear in their mission. That changed in 60’s and 70’s. The one clear paradigm of mission stopped being clear and consensus disappeared – different agendas, conflicting demands and needs appeared because the culture was changing. People and congregations who were once prepared to make sacrifices to support a mission consensus found it hard to generate enthusiasm and conviction for a more complicated reality (a reality interpreted primarily by the denominational officials out of touch with the reality in specific congregations).
Three things happening simultaneously:
1. a fundamental change in how we understand the mission of the church
2. congregations were being challenged to move from a passive supportive role to a front line active role. The role of laity, clergy, bishops is in transition
3. institutional forms and structures are changing – the old are collapsing.
Three responses to these events:
1. frantic effort to recapture initiative with new programs so compelling they will garner new support – restructuring, downsizing, trying to stop the bleeding
2. holding steady and hoping for the best – (i.e. RC church not responding to shortage of priests, PAOC shared funding model)
3. moving ahead into a new paradigm of mission, rebuilding and reinventing the church as we go
Mead favours the third response but says we need to know:
a. what the new paradigm really is and should look like
b. how do we determine what parts of the old system to keep to make it in the new era?
He then describes three paradigms in church history.
1. The Apostolic Paradigm
The central reality of this church was a local community called out of the world, that lived by the power and the values of Jesus, preserved and shared within the intimate community through apostolic teaching and fellowship and through ritual acts (eucharist). One gained entrance into the community only when the community was convinced that you shared its values and experienced the power of the Spirit. The world was opposed and hostile to this community. There was a clear inside and outside. There was a powerful conversion event to enter the community. Baptism was death to the former life in the world and a birth into the mission of the community. Your role in the community demanded a role in mission to the world. The role of the community (and its traveling troubleshooters – like Paul) was to build up its members with the courage, strength and skill to communicate God’s good news in that hostile world. This paradigm continued until the fourth century until the conversion of Constantine.
Then came the second paradigm:
2. The Christendom Paradigm
Christianity became the official religion of the empire – no longer was there a hostile world around the church – the church and the world became one – the church was the empire. The missionary boundary became the geographic boundaries of the empire – so to extend the empire was to extend Christianity. No longer was the individual on the mission frontier – no longer needed to witness – no longer needed to be different or separate from the world. Missions was now the task of the professional (soldier, politician, emperor). The task of every Christian was now to be a good citizen, to support the laws and leaders of the empire. One was no longer converted into the church but was born into it.
This paradigm still influences us today. However there are cracks in the system. The "empire" is no longer Christian - even if it has a Christian leader. There is no longer uniformity of mission or purpose. Mead goes on to say a third paradigm is emerging but we don't know what it is yet.
He spends much of the rest of the book trying to describe some of what is going on in many mainline churches today. Although he makes a number of interesting points, much of his material are tired ideas suggesting change and fresh thinking that still lines up with a Christendom paradigm.
Summary
Some good analysis of the three paradigms. He has a very good description of the development of the Christendom model and the characteristics of it that can still be felt today. There is a good rationale for the historic development of the denominational system in USA. His analysis applies equally to the mainline and free church traditions (the appendix is helpful but a bit redundant). Unfortunately, his solutions and suggestions are tired and old. He clings to the denominational structures and institutions. He assumes the traditional role of worship and church services. He nowhere defines mission and never mentions the name of Jesus until his conclusion. His suggestions for the shift that needs to take place in the clergy seems like a pep talk with no real concrete changes. Suggestions about experimenting more and helping lay people do more theological reflection are truisms that don’t really help anyone who has been seriously thinking about church and culture.
If one of the problems is lack of agreement about mission then the definition of mission needs to be a priority. He seems to shy away from any kind of parameters of what the mission should look like. This is clearly articulated in the final chapter as he gives examples. He never really says that the vitality of the mission must always be about the vitality of the relationship of the believer to Jesus and the formation of a community of faith. He still assumes that visitors will be coming into the church from the community and that there will always be children to train. Most mainline churches are graying out and many “free” churches are merely collecting the castoffs from the mainline churches as opposed to responding to the post-Christendom culture. (The Evangelical churches are clumped into the "free" church category. These are not currently facing the same intensity of the crisis that mainline churches face but will be soon.)
He nowhere addresses the real task of mission into a hostile world and how to do that. He merely assumes that as the church changes the mission will once again become clear. He also assumes the continuation of the clergy role (although in a changed form). I think he completely misses the boat there. I’m not sure there will be a role for national and international denominational offices. The more likely role is to band like-minded churches together regionally or as cities.
All in all I think this author has not grasped the seriousness of the cultural change around him. He assumes that the church will change and must change. He also admits he doesn't know what that change will look like. It will be more different than he ever imagined.
David Fitch has created a couple of posts on his blog on how church planting has changed over the years - especially in Canada. Although you can go over there to check it out, I want to post here a lot of what he is saying so to create some continuity with what I am thinking in terms of what church will look like over the next few decades. I will also tie some of this stuff into my DMin work.
50 YEARS OF CHURCH PLANTING: THE STORY AS I SEE IT
Over the last three decades, I have watched church planting change dramatically in Canada and the Northern parts of the United States. Back in the sixties/seventies, we used to send fifteen or twenty people from one local church into another place several towns over that was "under-churched." We would hold worship services, teach Sunday school, have a children's ministry. We would set up shop. We would choose a pastor who had all the tools as "they would say." He (most often a male) would be young, energetic and able to work like crazy. We would send out announcements expecting many who were looking for a church to show up. And if we did the basic services well, then we assumed the little gathering would grow into a self-sustaining church in 3 years. We might call these churches franchises.
Church planting worked like this because there were still large numbers of Christians to draw from for a congregation. We were in the great post-WW2 expansion in North America. New towns and subdivisions were springing up left and right. And just as each town needed a supermarket, a library and public schools, it needed a church. One could assume that out of the many thousands moving here into these new habitats, some would be Christians and need a church. So we planted churches like franchised local grocery stores. This was still an era of Christendom.
In the Eighties, the focus on church planting changed. Post WW2 expansion had slowed. More and more of the suburban boomers had not returned to the churches of their youth. The focus of church planting shifted to recapturing these now unchurched people for Christ. Now when we went to plant a church we needed first to conduct marketing surveys. We asked what we could we do to make church more relevant and user friendly. These surveys focused on finding out what these unchurched people were looking for? What turns them off of church? How can we do church in a way that relates to these people?
How can we make church relevant so that the "unchurched" would want to come to our services. What could make church more attractive? We focused on delivering the services with "excellence" and "efficiency" characteristic of the marketplace. In this way we planted churches like Wal-marts. The seeker service and church growth methods were invented. Hundreds of boomer generation people came who had left the church a decade before. Many hundreds of people in traditional churches left as well for "the new and improved" big box churches. Today, hundreds of mega-churches exist across North America as a testimony to "the success" of this approach to church planting.
Church planting like this worked because there were still huge amounts of unchurched people who had once learned of Christ in the earliest years of their upbringing. These unchurched had some familiarity with "who Jesus was." Deep within their boomer psyches, Jesus still carried credibility, even authority, even if they did consider the church obsolete. We assumed therefore that if we could just make Jesus relevant and attractive (as opposed to their former experiences of church) they would come. If the Bible could be communicated in a way that was meaningful to people's everyday life and needs, these unchurched would surely listen. They did come. People making "decisions for Christ" multiplied.
Church-planting like this however, still depended upon what was left of the vestiges of North American Christendom. A majority of the conversions were former high-church catechumens "coming back to Jesus." They had never made a "personal" decision to follow the Jesus they had earlier been taught about (most often in catechetical rote fashion). In this way, the seeker church movement was built upon Christendom.
To most Christians living in Canada, the days of Christendom are fading fast. There has been a change in mindset of those who would plant churches. As the number of Christians without a church shrinks, as the number of unchurched who once were catechumens of Christianity grows extinct, I have witnessed first hand the new wave of church planters who think of church planting in completely different ways. They are not interested in competing for the leftovers of Christendom. They resist the notion that the church is in need of just one more innovation. They are interested in nothing less than becoming missionaries, to plant churches cross culturally, across the barriers to people who have no knowledge or language about Jesus.
Here's the conclusion to my first DMin paper that I entitled "The End of the World As We Know It". It has certainly a long drawn out process - both the writing of it and the subsequent posting of it here. If you want to find all the posts go to the category labels at the left hand side and click on the label "DMin" and all the post should be listed in reverse chronological order. There may be a couple of other DMin labeled posts in there as well - but I'm sure you will figure out which one is which. If you really want a hard copy of the paper you will have to come to Thornhill and buy me lunch - or at least a coffee - and we can talk about it.
Conclusion
There are at least two fundamental understandings required when attempting to renew the church. The first is a clear understanding of the ability and purposes of God – or in the words of Alan Hirsch, a “primitive, unencumbered Christology.” Jesus said He will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We must have full confidence in the ability of Jesus to build his church. He will lead and guide and inspire and empower his people for the task at hand. He has already given much direction through the principles and clear commands of Scripture. Do we have the courage to follow them? Or will we, as Kierkegaard said, be “a bunch of scheming swindlers?”
The second fundamental understanding required when attempting to renew the church is a clear understanding of culture. If we don’t have the first understanding we may fear the second. If we lack the spiritual fortitude we will, as Bishop Spong did, recapitulate to the pressure of the culture and be “fuzzy, imprecise and relatively unappealing … and have no real message!” Culture has been divinely moved to this post-Christendom state for the very purpose of loosing the Gospel from the chains of tradition. The Kingdom of God has an enduring story that is not quenched with the ambiguities of Postmodernity. But the church needs to rediscover and relive the powerful, wonderful, subversive Story. The demise of Christendom may be the opportunity for the rebirth of vital, relevant Christianity.
Reclaiming “apostolic genius” will require some structural changes in the church (and then result in even more). Moving away from a dependence on the use of church buildings, eliminating ponderous, hierarchical, business-like systems requiring CEO type leadership, and scrapping fossilized programs would certainly help. Recovering incarnational thinking would encourage meeting in neighborhood hangouts, in small groups, in homes, or other “non-sacral” space. We also require a radical rethinking of the church’s financial structure. Many churches, as they exist today, are unwilling to try radical experiments, even though most are looking for ways of having an impact on their community. Too much focus is placed on understanding or tweaking the system when the system really needs to be fundamentally altered or even abandoned.
However, some individuals and groups are attempting to recreate the simplicity of first century Christianity. Some of the manifestations of this recreation include a revival of house churches; an experimentation with new monasticism where people are covenanting to live together as community (the return of communes?); a renewal of our understanding of vocation so that those working in the marketplace are seen as advancing the Kingdom of God; and experiments in new church models that are more effective in reaching marginalized, primarily urban, subcultures. The varieties of renewal movements of the last 50 years provide some indication that the Christendom model has been faltering and that a fresh wind is blowing. The inability of these movements to sustain change and transform our society may be one indication that Constantinianism has not completely lost its grip. . House church movements have come and gone. Charismatic style renewal (like Toronto and Pensacola) has made an impact but has not really had any long-lasting influence. The Emerging Movement is one more wave of renewal that is affecting many areas of the Western church. Yet it too may go the route of the Jesus People Movement of the Sixties and Seventies. However, each one has chipped a bit more off the monolithic, imposing presence of Christendom.
There are many other questions raised by much of the literature reviewed here - more questions than answers. How long will this transition take? How long will the change from Christendom, to whatever comes next, take? It may still be a hundred years before the full effect is manifested. Or we may see change more quickly, as China did. A radical shift in governments or a natural disaster could change the world as we know it in a matter of weeks or months. Questions still need to be asked about how the Third World church differs from the West in its perception of Postmodernity and Post-Christendom.
There is another series of questions to ask. Does the general Christian population understand Postmodernity and the demise of Christendom? Does the general non-Christian population understand it? What is their awareness of postmodernism and its nuances? Is there really a consensus in the world? What can be done? How? Is it even on the typical pastor’s radar screen? Is it an urban or suburban phenomenon? Do we see it in rural areas as well? How do we effectively disciple people in the midst of the rampant consumerism in our culture? Although hospitality is being renewed, how do we influence change in the monolithic, hospitality-resistant, suburbs? How do we transition good-hearted, well-intentioned, but Christendom-bound, tied-to-their-buildings congregations into missional, incarnational, “artistic, politically subversive, activist communities of mystical faith?”
Finally, where is all this leading? What if the church, with the grace of God, actually manages to recreate the dynamic of the early church and sees phenomenal growth and “success?” What if it is able to influence many of the world’s top leaders (which in some places is already happening). How will these leaders react? Will the tendency be to embrace a new form of Constantinianism all over again? Hopefully, not. Perhaps we might admit there is an eschatological purpose in all this. The Kingdom of God is among us. Perhaps we will be the generation to see the new heaven and new earth where "the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"” Maybe we really are coming to the end of the world as we know it.
Fifth post of the day with the last of the five implications for the Church. The question of the previous DMin posts was "How Shall We Then Live?" We looked at living incarnationally and simplifying our lives - and the third response was hospitality. The fourth response is that of living in unity as the body of Christ in our communities. The fifth is to live in such a way that we eliminate the false distinction between the sacred and the secular to see God at work in all areas of the world we live in.
Sacred or Secular
One of the things that has hindered the gospel is the artificial separation of the sacred from the secular. It has contributed to the divide between the clergy and the laity and has elevated spiritual tasks and space above secular work and space. This also is a product of Christendom. Identifying prayer, preaching, witnessing and Bible study as spiritual, while relegating work, play and much of the rest of our lives to the “secular” realm has done great damage to the understanding of the Kingdom of God.
One of the most significant results has been the neutering of Christians in the workplace. We must begin to affirm that people are called and gifted to work where God has placed them. An engineer is just as “anointed” as the preacher. We are to take the kingdom of God to where the kingdom of darkness is still entrenched and Jesus will build his church there. We must see the kingdom of God in its fullness, as transforming all of society. “Lay people” who fulfill their calling in their workplace are the ones who will accomplish that transformation.
We all want to live in neighborhoods that are safe and free of discrimination, poverty and oppression. We want our schools to be places where real learning takes place. We want our justice system to serve everyone fairly. We want economic decisions made that benefit the residents of every community, of every class, kind and condition, not just the investors. We want people to be set free from the binding and blinding oppression of destructive habits, substances and ideologies. And most of all we want people to hear and respond to a call to radical discipleship - one that fills our city with transformed people who truly follow, and are filled with the life and love of Jesus. Pastors, even those that run their churches well, cannot accomplish that. The body of Christ in its full expression accomplishes it.
This is my fourth post of the day (we had a snow day up here in the great white North). I thought I would finish off the posting of my DMin paper with the last two of the five implications for the Church. The question of the previous DMin posts was "How Shall We Then Live?" We looked at living incarnationally and simplifying our lives - and the third response was hospitality. The fourth response is that of living in unity as the body of Christ in our communities.
Unity and Christian Love
“Nothing in the past has been more detrimental to the plausibility of the Christian message than the destructively fanatical controversies among Christians. Perhaps the gospel of love cannot be expected to change the basic conditions of life in this world before the final advent of God's kingdom, but that gospel should be powerful enough to enable Christians to keep peace among themselves and to present their communities to the world as models of reconciliation. To be sure, controversy and division cannot always be avoided so long as questions of doctrine, questions of truth, are taken seriously. But controversy should not be dominant in the picture that Christianity presents to the world, nor should Christians today remain divided simply because their ancestors were divided by controversies in centuries past.” (A quote from Wolfhart Pannenberg. “Christianity and the West: Ambiguous Past.”)
One of the key manifestations of this love for one another is the movement toward seeing the church not as a local congregation but as the church of the city. We have become accustomed to view the Church as either the local church (a single church congregation), or as the Church universal (the worldwide body of Christ), or perhaps as the church in a nation (which sometimes becomes synonymous with Republican, “family values” ideals). Although the local church is vital for effective evangelism and discipleship it can no longer meet the complex needs of the city by itself. We have all but abandoned the parish or neighborhood concept as more and more people commute to church (which sometimes alienates the church from the very community that hosts it). Instead of co-operating at the denominational, national or global level, we need to begin to see the church becoming effective at the city level which requires a significantly deeper level of unity and love for one another. This is where transformation can be ignited. It is in the city church that people can begin to see the unified body of Christ effecting measurable change in a geographic area. The vision of one church in the city that meets in many congregations, is becoming a reality and a necessity.
The key elements that need to be set in place for the city church to become a reality are many but they must include: a functional unity of believers, a relational bond between pastors and leaders, the emergence of a city eldership (comprised of humble, servant leaders), the articulation of a clear vision for the city and a commitment to passionate, unified prayer. There are also problems that arise in trying to envision and accomplish such a process. Cities can be large and diverse.
Communication, language, administration and even transportation through the city are all challenges to be faced. Churches and Christians have a track record of competing for resources and people instead of sharing them. Unity among the many streams of the Church faces theological challenges. Establishing a vision for the church in a particular city is a daunting task. There are still strong vestiges of denominationalism and theological idiosyncrasies (resulting in isolationalism) that need to be overcome. And the time pressures faced by busy leaders leave little energy for a citywide focus. Our culture resists the movement towards a revitalized Christianity. There is a spiritual darkness blinding the minds of people, and there is a demonic oppression attempting to maintain strongholds that exert influence over many aspects of city life.
The question of the previous DMin posts was "How Shall We Then Live?" We looked at living incarnationally and simplifying our lives. The third response is hospitality.
3. Hospitality.
Hospitality was such a key concept in the first century church and should be today as well. When looked at closely, the hospitality aspect of the first century really captures the imagination. Hospitality is sometimes spoken of in our churches as if it is something optional, that we would be hospitable if it were our passion or gift. But the whole New Testament makes little sense without hospitality at the core of how the church developed. The ministry of Jesus was dependent on the hospitality of those around Him (Mary and Martha, Peter's mother-in-law, etc.).
The church was dependent on the hospitality of those in whose homes the church actually met. Hospitality is not an extra but the strategic central concept of the first two hundred years of the church. The household was where the church was embodied and it was actually the medium of the early church growth. We need to challenge the reluctance to show hospitality, or to show only the hospitality that is limited to family and friends, or the marginalization of household hospitality in favor of mega church programs and fellowship.
Shane Claibourne says it this way: “…as congregations build larger buildings, gyms and food courts, we find ourselves less likely to meet in homes, and kitchens, and around dinner tables. We end up centralizing worship on corporate space or on (a church) campus. Hospitality becomes less of a necessity and more of an optional matter – a convenient privilege. On the other hand as members open their homes and yards and share vehicles and recreations spaces less and less corporate property is necessary.”
In many ways this is counter-cultural teaching, but Christians need to excel in this virtue and transform it into a distinctly Christian principle. We are called to a higher level of living than the society around us and so must live as relational people. A commitment to hospitality confronts our society's rampant individualism and it actually protects our life together as the people of God. The challenge remains: can we break out of the individualistic culture around us (and deeply ingrained in us) in order actually practice what is commanded?
The question of the previous DMin post was "How Shall We Then Live?" Given the realities of the postmodern world and the demise of Christendom, what must we be doing and how should we be living? The first requirement is to be incarnational people - recognizing the Christ is in us and living as light and salt in the world. The second suggestion is both personal and structural - for each individual and for each local church to simplify. This post addresses more of the organizational simplicity. The challenge also remains to simplify our lifestyles by consuming less and giving more.
2. Simplicity.
Many churches have become complex machines that dehumanize both the visitor and the Christian worker. The burden is felt especially by Christian workers who are becoming burned-out because the lack of sufficient human resources to do the job and lack of appreciation shown to those who volunteer. Some churches can do it (the program church) well and provide some excellent programs and services but most pastors are not gifted as CEO’s or as Broadway producers and have difficulty carrying this major production off week after week. And more importantly, is the big, complex church effective at extending the kingdom of God, nurturing the workers and in discipling people to become more like Jesus?
One way of simplifying is to grow smaller. Neil Cole, in the Organic Church, makes a convincing case that complex organisms do not multiply easily, and certainly not rapidly. He suggests “the term “simple church” began to gain popularity, because we valued a simple life of following our Lord and avoided many of the complexities of the conventional church. Complex things break down and do not get passed on, but simple things are strong and easily reproduced. Ordinary Christians were able to do the extraordinary work of starting and leading churches.”
Neil Cole has established a network of simple churches based on the concept of “where two or three are gathered.” He always meets weekly with at least one “life transformation group” (an LTG). These are gender-specific groups of two or three. The addition of a fourth person is the beginning of a second group. They meet at least once a week for about an hour.
Three tasks are accomplished in an LTG: sin is confessed in mutual accountability (by asking specific questions of one another); large portions of Scripture are read repetitively and in context (both at the meeting and during the week); and, people (primarily non-Christians) are prayed for strategically, specifically and continuously. Three or four LTG’s will sometimes meet together as a home group for sharing and worship. In six years close to 800 of these churches were started in 32 states and 23 countries. This is the essence of simplicity.
Once we look closely at the philosophical foundations of much of what passes as popular culture today it is easy to become discouraged. When one is hoping and praying for a transformed city it is difficult to hear of fathers killing their children (as I heard this morning on the news in my community) and of characters in movies trying to kill God (as in the upcoming Golden Compass movie coming out - what a "great"?!? Christmas movie - do you think that timing was coincidental?) But is this cultural situation too difficult for God? Is the Gospel irrelevant to this emerging culture? Obviously not! God is at work and part of our role is to participate in the Missio Dei and the incarnation. The next section of my paper addresses some of the responses to our current cultural milieu.
How shall we then live?
"Ivan Illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society.
Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story."
The ongoing challenge is to recover and retell the original story of Jesus in the midst of a culture that thinks it already knows the story and believes the story is irrelevant. The challenge is also to realize that our understanding of the story has been clouded by the history of the church and our experience of that story. Alan Hirsch asserts: “I have become absolutely convinced that it is Christology, and in particular, the primitive, unencumbered Christology of the NT church, that lies at the heart of the renewal of the church at all times and in every age … Christology determines missiology; missiology determines ecclesiology.” In The Forgotten Ways, Hirsch maintains that a missional model must be incarnational. This is absolutely fundamental to effective ministry in this cultural milieu.
1. Incarnation
Incarnation is one of the key elements to understanding how to change our system and recover a New Testament ethos and praxis. God’s coming to the world is the incarnation — that is how God is missional. Therefore, true missional activity participates in the missio Dei, the mission of God. Jesus’ incarnation was an act of identification with others, taking up residence among others, and functions as clear revelation for us in our current situation. Hirsch contends simply this: God’s missional move is to find its counterpart in our similar incarnational missional move. And he sees a good theme in 1 Cor 9:22-23: “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”
Hirsch suggests that there are four elements of Incarnation: presence; proximity; powerlessness; and proclamation. These are all significant for the development of experimental models of church.
Presence is living among others in their space for a long time if need be. We rarely consider the significance of Jesus spending thirty years living among the people of Palestine before he began his “official ministry.”
Proximity means being genuinely available to those among whom you live. How many live in a neighborhood but rarely interact with their neighbors? How many have accepted the ethos of suburbia that polite interaction and good fences are all that is needed to be a good neighbor?
Powerlessness describes how Jesus laid aside his majesty to live among us. “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” Isaiah 53:2. He did not come in power to wield power. He allowed himself to be crucified and God raised him up and justified him. Too often we desire to control our mission and our culture to conform it to our image. This coercive style of ministry has been noticed and rejected by the culture.
Proclamation implies our preparedness to tell the story at all times and in all ways. We are a “message tribe” and we exist to communicate and live out the message – given the other three elements of incarnation.
As I continue posts from my DMin paper, we get to the point where I list some of the responses to the current situation the church finds itself in. The church is found in the midst of a post-Constantinian, post-Christendom, postmodern world where few of the old church rules and norms apply. One of the reactions to this situation is what has been called the Emerging Church Movement - which some people call "the conversation." In the paper I quote some of Scot McKnight's material which I have found quite helpful. He blogs at Jesus Creed. Here's the next section of the paper ...
Gibbs and Bolger, define emerging in this way: "Emerging churches destroy the Christendom idea that church is a place, a meeting or a time. Church is a way of life, a rhythm, a community, a movement. Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures.”
This definition encompasses nine practices. The core practices of emerging churches are then illustrated in their book with comments from those who are "practitioners" of contextualizing the gospel of the kingdom of God in the postmodern world. The nine core practices are:
1. Identifying with Jesus (and his way of life)
2. Transforming secular space (overcoming the secular/sacred split)
3. Living as community (not strangers in proximity at a church service)
4. Welcoming the stranger (radical and genuine hospitality that is inclusive)
5. Serving with generosity (not serving the institution called "church," but people)
6. Participating as producers (not widgets in the church program)
7. Creating as created beings (releasing God’s creativity inherent in each one)
8. Leading as a body (beyond control and the CEO model of leadership)
9. Merging ancient and contemporary spiritualities.
Although it has not yet become a formalized institution (and actively resists becoming one) there are a number of distinct commonalities in this emerging movement or “conversation” as many prefer to call it. Not all of them are positive.
Scot McKnight, in an article for Christianity Today, has summarized five themes that characterize the emerging movement.
1. Prophetic (or at least provocative). The emerging movement is consciously and deliberately provocative and provides a sometimes scathing critique of the Christendom tendencies of modern Evangelicalism. Emerging Christians believe the church needs to change, and they are beginning to live as if that change had already occurred.
2. Postmodern. Living as a Christian in a postmodern context means different things to different people. Some will minister to postmoderns, others with postmoderns, and still others as postmoderns. The vast majority of emerging Christians and churches fit these first two categories. They don't deny truth, they don't deny that Jesus Christ is truth, and they don't deny the Bible is truth. The third kind of emerging Postmodernity attracts all the attention. Some have chosen to minister as postmoderns. That is, they embrace the idea that we cannot know absolute truth, or, at least, that we cannot know truth absolutely. They speak of the end of metanarratives and the importance of social location in shaping one's view of truth. They express nervousness about propositional truth.
3. Praxis-oriented. A notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy, that is, a focus on right living. The contention is that how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes (although belief is also needed). Experience does not prove that those who believe the right things necessarily live the right way. No matter how much sense the traditional connection makes, it does not necessarily work itself out in practice. Public scandals in the church—along with those not made public—prove this point time and again. "By their fruits [not their theology] you will know them."
4. Post-evangelical. The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced. The vast majority of emerging Christians are evangelical theologically. But they are post-evangelical in at least two ways. i. Post-systematic theology: The emerging movement tends to be suspicious of systematic theology because God didn't reveal a systematic theology but a storied narrative, and no language is capable of capturing the Absolute Truth who alone is God. ii. In versus out: Even if one is an exclusivist (believing that there is a dividing line between Christians and non-Christians), the issue of who is in and who is out pains the emerging generation. Most prefer a centered-set approach where salvation is measured by the direction one travels (toward the center/Jesus) and proximity to the center as opposed to a clear in or out distinction.
5. Political. A final stream flowing into the emerging lake is politics. Put directly, they are usually Democrats – in the faith-based, activism style of the Catholic Worker or of Sojourners. And that spells "post" for conservative-evangelical-politics-as-usual.
How did they do it? How did the church of the first three centuries and the church in 20th century China grow so quickly?
Alan Hirsch’s concept is the mDNA of Apostolic Genius – that is, the “missional” DNA of how the apostles were led by God’s Spirit to unleash the gospel. He believes this mDNA is latent in every church and in every Christian. “So I come to believe, that every church, indeed every Christian, if truly birthed in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, has the full coding of mDNA and therefore has direct access to the power of Apostolic Genius. … Institutional systems tend to try and organize through external hierarchical command and control; organic missional movements organize through healthy mDNA coding embedded in each cell and then let go.”
The six key elements of Apostolic Genius are:
1. Jesus is Lord
- A simple, passionate Christology shapes missional DNA
2. Disciple making
- “The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.”
3. Missional-incarnational impulse
- “an outwardly bound movement from one community or individual to another… a genuine missional impulse is a sending rather than attractional one.”
4. Apostolic environment – the apostle was a custodian of mDNA and the gospel — and an apostolic, missional leader “imparts and embeds mDNA” through pioneering new ground for the gospel, guards mDNA through apostolic theology, and creates the environment in which other ministries emerge.
5. Organic systems
- the sufficiency of local churches, small groups, to get the job done — to let the mDNA do its gospel work. It’s about networks, not institutionalizing structures that maintain what has happened or try to manufacture what the Spirit generates without the system.
6. Communitas – not merely community (huddling/fellowship), but active in mission together, calling people to a dangerous journey to unknown places – Communitas happens during a period of changing paradigms (during 9/11, during the tsunami, and during Katrina). People forge together to restore life and in doing they formed communitas to make it happen. The danger to communitas is equilibrium. What is needed is certain level of chaos so the church is challenged to generate creativity and response to the conditions. This leads to self-organization which must not be institutionalized.
These attempts to revive new models of church that line up with the structures of pre-Constantine Christianity have crystallized into an identifiable movement called the Emerging Church – although not all these groups would necessarily identify themselves that way. “Emerging” catches into one phrase the global reshaping of how to "do church" in postmodern culture.
The last post was going to contain another section of the DMin paper but I got a bit carried away and it got too long. So in response to the previous stuff posted in my paper, we respond to the current church and culture situation by looking back to the first century and other periods of time when the church responded effectively to the culture around it.
Going Forward by Going Back
What is needed is not a recalibration or retooling of the existing model but an entirely new structure and certainly a change in thinking. There is a consistent message being communicated in much of the literature examining our necessary response to the passing of Christendom. If the problem is Constantinianism, then the solution is to be found as we examine the church before Constantine and of course the biblical record. Many of the authors suggest recapturing the spirit, if not the specifics of first century Christianity.
The characteristics of the first century church and that of the necessary emerging model of church can be contrasted with the Christendom model:
1. Locus of gathering: didn’t have dedicated sacral buildings but met in homes and was often persecuted – emerging models also reject need for “church” buildings,
2. Leadership: apostolic, non-institutional, 5-fold ministry gifts (Eph 4), pioneering-initiative, usually bivocational,
3. Organization: grassroots, decentralized,
4. Grace: communion celebrated as a community meal – the new models redeem, resacralize and renew symbols and events alongside Lord’s Supper,
5. Position in society: on the margins and fringes,
6. Missional mode: incarnational/sending and missional.
Given the demise of Christendom and the bleak outlook facing the church in the West, are there any models, past or present, that can help us formulate a way forward? Fortunately, yes. The clearest model is the exceptional growth of the Church in the second and third centuries. Rodney Stark, a church historian, (using conservative estimates) calculates that the Church grew from 25 thousand in CE 100 to anywhere between 10 and 20 million in CE 310 and up to 33 million by CE 350.
Although exceptional, this growth is not unique. More recently, when Mao Tse-tung seized control of China, there were about 2 million Christians. He nationalized the church buildings, killed most of the leaders, banned all public Christian meetings and tried to eradicate all traces of religion. When the so-called Bamboo Curtain was lifted a few decades later, estimates were that there were 60 million Christians; and that there are about 80 million today. How did that happen?
Hirsch summarizes the common characteristics between the early church and the Chinese church:
1. They were an illegal religion.
2. They didn’t have church buildings.
3. They didn’t have easy access to Scripture (the Chinese had illegal, partial copies passed on from house to house).
4. They didn’t have any central institutions or professional forms of leadership.
5. They didn’t have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, or commentaries.
6. They made it hard to join the church.
How did they do it? Hirsch’s concept is the mDNA of Apostolic Genius – that is, the “missional” DNA of how the apostles were led by God’s Spirit to unleash the gospel. That will be for the next post.
This consumerist attractional model is what Hirsch says characterizes Christendom. Success is measured by numerical growth, better programs, and an increase in resources – all of which require an attractional model. The success of outreach services and evangelism programs are measured by how many new folks attend church.
The strategies of the attractional model are based on conventional church growth principles and include incorporating the following steps:
1. Expand the building for growth and redesign.
2. Ensure excellent preaching that is relevant.
3. Develop an inspiring worship service with a good band and positive leaders.
4. Provide good parking.
5. Ensure excellent programs for kids.
6. Develop cell groups rooted in a Christian educational model.
7. Make sure next week is better than last week.
However this type of strategy only entrenches the Christendom model and creates a church that has very little active participation of its members (usually only 10-20%). Church growth principles have not really contributed to a growth in the percentage of Christians or in the effective discipleship of Christians. It has however contributed to the consumer mentality of Christendom and has resulted in the ongoing “trading of sheep.”
Even a church that focuses on missions or on social action is not breaking out of the mold. Giving to outreach projects and going on missions trips can function as outlets that allow us to appease our conscience and still remain a safe distance from the poor, lost or needy of our world. It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor or the lost so we don’t feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in third world poverty or someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. Demonizing those we disagree with (liberals, abortionists, gays, Catholics, Moslems, etc.), or going on protest marches, or writing letters, also allows us to remain a safe distance from our “enemies.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity, or social action, or moral indignation but concrete acts of love (Matthew 25).
Shane Claiborne provides this example. “The social work model of church produces clients and providers … merely facilitating the exchange of goods and services, putting plenty of professionals in the middle to guarantee that the rich do not have to face the poor and power doesn’t shift. Rich and poor are kept in separate worlds and inequality is carefully managed … The Church becomes a distribution point where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. Both go away satisfied … but no one leaves transformed. No radical new community is formed”
We have developed programs to do everything in the church. Many programs can be helpful and useful because people do care and understand why they are doing what they do. But many times programs are implemented to provide a service – not to develop community, nor to act incarnationally. The examples are manifold. In ministries to the poor it is often quite obvious when people come just to provide a service or are doing something to ease their consciences. Inside the church we have ushers and greeters to welcome and seat people; visitors groups instead of personal interaction; advertising instead of personal invitation. We have discipleship courses instead of one-on-one mentoring. We do fellowship lunches instead of extending hospitality in our homes.
Each of these things not only serves a consumerist mentality, but it also removes much of the responsibility from individual Christians to develop relationships and engender community. Instead of connecting with someone that God brings across your path and walking with them for as long as it takes to see them mature in Christ, we give the task to the church “machine” and we become cogs in the machine – each doing our part (greeter, parking lot attendant, teacher, group helper, kitchen clean-up crew, etc., etc.) All of these tasks keep us busy with church work, and meetings with ourselves, but leave us with little time to interact with our neighbors, whom we are commanded to love.
“Believers are a dime a dozen … but lovers are hard to come by – people who are building deep genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about. So we need to put a face on war, on Moslems, on poverty, on the difficult situations of the world.”
Matt Casper, an atheist commissioned by Pastor Jim Henderson to visit churches to provide an outsider’s view of what we do in church, said this about the machine that church has become. If someone who had never attended church went to visit a number of churches … “if that’s where they started, they would have to conclude that Jesus’ number one priority was that Christians invest the very best of their energy and their money into putting on a huge church service – a killer show as it were … is this what Jesus told you guys to do?” Casper simply could not imagine Jesus telling his followers that the most important thing they should be doing is holding church services. And yet this was the only logical conclusion he was able to come to based upon what he observed.
I wanted to post a bit more on consumerism in the church and how serious a challenge it is to faith in the Western world but didn't really get to it. Scot McNight at Jesus Creed is posting on a recent book by Paul Metzger called Consuming Jesus.
One of the solutions Metzger proposes to the rampant consumerism practiced by Christians is a theology that begins with personal conversion that works itself out into genuine reconciliation with others and downwardly mobile ethic. But Scot McKnight's contention (counter to Metzger) is: "Either evangelicalism is filled, big-time filled, with unconverted folks or this strategy is just words. The fact is that many, if not most, of evangelicals — or those who claim personal conversion — are not that involved in the anticonsumerist and antiracist and anticlassist agenda Metzger advocates." Consumerism is so deeply entrenched in our culture - including our Christian culture - that we don't even know we are so deeply infected by it.
So because I didn't get to all that I wanted to say about consumerism I will quote from Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger (which I also included in my paper and which I have also quoted previously on this blog).
Consumerism
Gibbs and Bolger present an insightful critique of the consumerist mentality of many churches. Their comments, though lengthy, are worth quoting. “Today, typically, individuals come to spirituality as shoppers. They consume spiritual experiences. They pursue the next experience that promises to take them to a higher spiritual plane and yield greater growth. Churches that adopt a marketing approach treat their visitors as customers, numbers and potential converts instead of simply as people. A culture of self-interested exchange permeates the life of consumer-oriented churches, where the "customer's" financial support is solicited in exchange for spiritual services rendered. The underlying assumption is that customers are never satisfied and are liable to take their business elsewhere. Satisfaction is an elusive target, constantly moving and taking on new forms.
“Much of marketing practice borders on manipulation by creating needs. Until one sees or experiences a product one often does not "need" it. The creation and the presentation of a product create the need. Marketing is not neutral; it fosters human desire as much as it satiates it. Churchgoers associate the consumer church's products with "need satisfaction." There are areas of an individual's life that are ambiguous and insecure, to which the church seeks to respond by creating and offering products that will address those gaps. Consumer churches present a relationship with Jesus as the answer to widespread feelings of angst. Thus Jesus is turned into a product that satisfies needs. The problem is that Jesus won't satisfy individual needs, for the gospel is primarily about God's agenda, not ours. For true satisfaction to take place, needs must be reformed and transformed to correspond with the gospel.
“When Jesus is presented as a product and ceases to satisfy, as all products cease to satisfy at some point, one must then move on to another spiritual expression. By marketing Jesus, therefore, the consumer church actually makes the pain worse, for now even God (from a visitor's perception) cannot help. Instead of challenging the logic of the economic system, which the kingdom does wonderfully, the consumer church blesses the economic rules and creates transitory, surface-level Christians in the process.
“Consumerism both pacifies and disempowers people and robs them of their individuality and creative potential. Consumerism destroys community by discouraging active participation. Unbridled consumerism also leads to greed, acquisitiveness, and wastefulness as people become dissatisfied and bored with their possessions and strive for the latest and the biggest (or the smallest, in the case of gadgets).”
My comments again - the next post will continue on this theme.
The last post on fruit, leads into the next section (and a couple of posts) of the DMin paper, the malaise of the Constantinian church and the scourge of rampant consumerism in the church and what some people are doing about it.
Frost and Hirsch describe the revitalization of the church as a diaspora – being thrust out of our safe environments like a mother robin pushes her fledglings out of the nest. Frost uses the term “exiles” to mean Christians who find themselves caught in that dangerous wilderness between contemporary secular Western culture and an old-fashioned church culture of respectability and conservatism.
Douglas John Hall describes it this way: “If we have the courage to give up our defense of the old facades which have nothing or very little behind them; if we cease to maintain, in public, the pretense of a universal Christendom; if we stop straining every nerve to get everybody baptized … if by letting go, we visibly relieve Christianity of the burdensome impression that it accepts responsibility for everything that goes on under this Christian topdressing, the impression that Christianity is a sort of Everyman’s Religious Varnish, a folk-religion (at the same level as that of folk-costumes) – then we can be free for real missionary adventure and apostolic self-confidence.”
Shane Claiborne says “I gave up Christianity in order to follow Jesus.” He then quotes Soren Kierkegaard: ”The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly … Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”
If committed Christians are leaving the institutional church (yes, even Evangelical and Charismatic churches) to pursue radical obedience to Jesus, perhaps the very existence of this institutional church needs to be challenged. The philosophical aspects of church as we know it are expressed in tangible structures. The structural characteristics of Christendom thinking include:
1. dedicated, sacral buildings that are central to the notion and experience of church so that church becomes a visible, tangible place to be sacred,
2. leadership and much of the hands-on ministry provided by institutionally ordained clergy, mostly gifted as pastors/teachers/administrators – a professional guild,
3. a hierarchical/top-down organizational structure, that often excludes “undesirables” (women, youth, poor, new people, those not of the dominant ethnic group, etc.),
4. the institutionalization and formalization of sacraments into a symbolic event administered by the dominant leadership culture,
5. the perception that church is central (or should be) to society and culture,
6. an attractional (come to the church building) and extractional (extract people out of the host culture and into the church culture) missional mode.
To put it into context, this list describes a church that invests much of its time and energy into conducting a weekly “worship service” and a number of other programs that include music and teaching, designed to appeal to a small percentage of society. These events are planned and conducted by about ten percent of the people (predominantly male paid professional staff members) and presented to the other ninety percent of the people (who are predominantly female). The majority (90%) of the financial resources are committed to the upkeep of the building and the hiring of staff.
Given the poverty in the world, and that of our own neighborhoods, spending millions on church buildings begins to become a justice issue. The main mode of growth of this type of church is marketing (by members and often through various forms of media) that invites people to come to the church building to consume what the paid professionals are presenting. This description may sound harsh or crass. In reality, some are able do this type of church with excellence producing positive results (in terms of some conversion growth, and some discipleship). But the fact remains that the vast majority of resources of this type of church is consumed to sustain itself and it typically doesn’t transform communities , produce new converts or truly disciple Christians.
Sometimes looking at our culture and our church with open eyes can be discouraging. At times as I was writing my paper I wondered where we go from here. Was I the only one thinking about the consequences of a culture that had for all intents and purposes moved beyond (or at least away from) its Christian heritage. It was encouraging to find other pastors and authors and bloggers who were asking some of the same questions and struggling with how to make their faith in Jesus vital and live their lives in such a way as to have a message to our culture. The DMin paper continues ...
Responding in a Post-Christendom Era
The responses to the demise of Christendom are varied. Rodney Clapp lists three main categories of response. The first is Relinquishment (or sentimental capitulation) where the church capitulates to the culture and has nothing significant to offer it but sentimentally hangs on to Christian practice and language anyways. This response is more common in mainline denominations. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong typifies this response by saying: “The only churches that grow today are those that do not, in fact, understand the issues and can therefore traffic in certainty … The churches that do attempt to interact with the emerging world are … almost by definition, fuzzy, imprecise and relatively unappealing. They might claim to be honest but for the most part they have no real message.” The honesty of his response is mildly refreshing but the depth of hopelessness reflected in his comments reveals the pervasiveness of the despondency experienced by many Christians in the face of the relentless advance of postmodernism.
The second response is Retrenchment (or getting back to Constantinianism). Trying to turn the nation back into a Christian nation and trying to regain the power and influence it once had as the sponsor of Western civilization, characterizes this response. Postmodernity is then seen as an attack against the Church and must be confronted at every level.
This seems to be how much of the Evangelical world is responding – particularly those commanding a strong media influence (Pat Robertson, James Dobson, John MacArthur, etc.). In many circles, this “religious right” has become the face of Evangelicalism and the position is politicized (Republican versus Democrat), and narrowly focused on only a few key issues (abortion, sexual morality, and family values).
The other expression of retrenchment is the tendency of some to try and escape the evils of society by creating a “safe” Christian environment isolated from the world (complete with Christian schools, clubs, books, movies, restaurants and amusement parks). Christians have their own celebrities, media networks and “yellow pages” and God is the means to become happy, “healthy, wealthy and wise.” They do not question the dominant culture: they embody it and baptize it. This “consumerism” is a serious challenge to discipleship.
A further expression of retrenchment is one of blissful ignorance where people really are unaware of the shifts within our culture and the challenges it presents to Christianity. They are unwilling or unable to engage their culture actively and just want to be a good Christian living a holy lifestyle. They don’t know what Postmodernity is and wonder what all the fuss is about. All that is needed is more prayer, deeper study of Scripture and a greater reliance on the Holy Spirit. This may be the most positive expression of retrenchment because there is an innocence (or is it ignorance?) and simplicity to this way of life and some may be called to this. They may be the Mennonites of the twenty-first century.
However, other Christians are sensing the deep change in culture. Many feel a vague dissatisfaction (for some a deep and profound dis-ease) with their Christian experience and the way church is done. Some are leaving the church because they are unable to see the connection between institutionalized faith and reality. Clapp puts it this way: “Christians feel useless because the church feels useless. And the church feels useless because it keeps on trying to perform Constantinian duties in a world that is no longer Constantinian. So the grace is this: Christians feel useless because they are no longer useful for the wrong thing, namely, serving as chaplains in a sponsorial religion.”
Others are leaving the church because they see life outside the church as the way forward and that they feel being part of a typical Evangelical congregation is actually harmful to their spiritual growth. These are those who (in George Barna's words) “wish to be faithful followers of the radical Jesus but no longer find themselves able to fit into the bland, limp, unsavory straitjacket of a church that seems to be yearning to return to the days when “everyone” used to attend church and “Christian family values” reigned.”
George Barna calls them revolutionary Christians. Revolutionaries are typical of a “new breed of disciples of Jesus Christ. They are not willing to play religious games and aren't interested in being part of a religious community that is not intentionally and aggressively advancing God's Kingdom. They are people who want more of God in their lives and they are doing whatever it takes to get it.” Clapp calls this third response Radicalization (to be radical followers of the Way – of Jesus).
Here is another post of some of the writing I have done in conjunction with my DMin course. This section is on the characteristics of the Christendom system that has been set up in Western culture - which most of the culture is now rejecting. I trust it is interesting reading.
It is because there is such a significant shift in our culture that the church has become the least likely option for those seeking an “artistic, politically subversive, activist community of mystical faith" - and the rejection of middle-class American values in some ways is also a rejection of Christianity, the sponsor of those values. The mode of operation of much the Church is still rooted in an assumption of “culture Protestantism” – in other words, still rooted in the Christendom paradigm.
Christendom is the term used (in many instances negatively) to describe the church-influenced culture that has dominated European society for the last Millennium. Its roots go back to the Edict of Milan in CE 313, where Christianity moved from being a marginalized, subversive and persecuted movement, secretly meeting in houses and catacombs, to being the favored religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity became the metanarrative of Western culture blurring the lines between the church and the state to the point where, in some countries, the king (or queen) was, and still is, the head of the church.
The head of state was often the one who determined what type of church there would be, or if there even was to be a church. You became a Christian by birth rather than choice, and to be a good citizen was to be a good Christian (and vice versa). Rodney Clapp refers to this as “Constantinianism” and a good summary of his thesis is this quote: “The question is no longer ”How can we survive and remain faithful Christians under Caesar?” but now becomes “How can we adjust the church’s expectations so that Caesar can consider himself a faithful Christian?””
Stuart Murray provides an excellent summary of the major shifts that occurred in the centuries after Constantine imposed Christian rule on the Roman Empire.
• The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of a city, state or empire
• The movement of the church from the margins of society to its center
• The creation and progressive development of a Christian culture of civilization
• The assumption that all citizens (except for the Jews) were Christian by birth
• The development of the corpus Chirstianum, where there was no freedom of religion and where political power was regarded as divinely authenticated
• Infant baptism as the symbol of obligatory incorporation into this Christian society
• Sunday as an official day of rest and obligatory church attendance, with penalties for noncompliance
• The definition of orthodoxy as the common belief shared by all which was determined by powerful church leaders supported by the state
• The imposition of a supposedly Christian morality on the entire society (although normally Old Testament moral standards were applied)
• A hierarchical ecclesiastical system, based on a diocesan and parish arrangement which was analogous to the state hierarchy and was buttressed by state support
• The construction of massive and ornate church buildings and the formation of huge congregations
• A generic distinction between clergy and laity, and the relegation of the laity to a largely passive role
• The increased wealth of the church and the imposition of obligatory tithes to fund this system
• The defense of Christianity by legal sanctions to restrain heresy immorality and schism
• The division of the globe into Christendom or heathendom and the waging of war in the name of Christ and the church
• The use of political and military force to impose the Christian faith
• The use of the Old Testament rather than the New to support and justify many of these changes
Even though many of these changes may have been well intentioned, we see how the Christendom model has created a system that makes it difficult to produce radical followers of Jesus. To be very simplistic, the Christendom goal in North America has been to establish a nation that is lead by a godly person and that has laws reflecting the Old Testament moral code, with morality legislated so that the behavior of the citizens is controlled. The spiritual leaders sponsor the civil leaders (or elect one of their own) so that the nation will create an environment favorable to their purposes. The model citizens of this society are outwardly obedient and outwardly observant – inner conviction was a matter of personal choice.
Those who are unable to comply are marginalized to the fringes of society. It devalues the powerless. It produces Pharisees and outcasts. It sounds very much like the system in which we find ourselves in North America. It sounds like the system from which Jesus came to deliver us. Tony Campolo says it this way: “If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America.”
I am continuing to post some of the writing I have done in conjunction with my DMin course. This section is about postmodernity and metanaratives. [A metanarative is story that explains all the elements of life with one overarching thesis or paradigm. All the world religions presuppose a metanarative. Christianity's metanarative has been at times been summed up with John 3:16.] Postmodernity will get lots of press as my paper continues. Enjoy.
We are facing a changing view of life itself that challenges many of the things that have been part of the understanding of society for centuries. We live in a postmodern world, where people “embrace pluralism and place value in the diversity of worldviews and religions that characterizes contemporary society.” Also, Postmodernity certainly influences Christianity, and may in some ways actually be interpreted as a reaction to Christendom.
Among numerous definitions of Postmodernity, Paul Lakeland provides a succinct description. The basic tenets of Postmodernity are:
1. No standpoint is neutral or above suspicion. All are rhetorical.
2. Metanarratives erase otherness by including the other within “my” metanarrative, thereby removing its otherness. Therefore all metanarratives are suspect.
3. The task of understanding or interpreting society, if attempted at all, must be conducted through piecemeal, tactical, pragmatic, and tentative means.
4. The task of changing society if attempted at all, must be conducted through grassroots, localized (though sometimes networked) tactical, pragmatic and incremental means. The social activist must be committed to dialogue and consensus building.
5. Postmodernity contains within it elements both of the emancipatory and the demonic. No theoretical grid is available that will easily allow the discernment of which elements are which, though the kinds of totalizing impulses that would reject points 1-4 provide important hints.
One of the predominant characteristics of Postmodernity, according to Lakeland, is the explosion of communication technology that has, for the first time in history, created a world culture. This world culture allows us to be in contact with many divergent viewpoints and has contributed to a pluralism that challenges Christianity’s exclusive claims – at least in the public forum. It has also contributed to the “small world” phenomenon whereby we are much more closely connected to every other person upon the earth.
Similarly, communication technologies shift how our society views people in leadership positions. With instant and mass communication leaders are now under much closer scrutiny than ever before. This concept of globalization (or a global spirit) will continue to present challenges to the understanding of the exclusive claims of Christianity.
Also a world culture creates scrutiny of metanarratives. One of the main problems with metanarratives, whether or not they are consciously adapted or unconsciously reflected, is that they shape a singular view of the world and its peoples. It is only when the metanarrative is abandoned that voice can be given to people who are marginalized – who are defined as the “Other.”
Lakeland gives this example: “… the privileged citizens of any developed Western nation, and that of course meant a white male, and probably a Protestant, did not have to confront the Other … Women, slaves, native peoples, and homosexuals were of course not invisible, but were successfully deproblematized, incorporated into a monological schema of untroubled serenity. So, while they were undoubtedly “others,” their status as “Other” was unrecognized.” Therefore in a postmodern world, the minimized other is genuinely accorded the status of “Other” and is to be heard. This shakes some of our Evangelical certainty and must be considered as we examine the church’s sensitivity to existing paradigms of power, exclusiveness and inclusiveness, the role of laity, women, children, language and other religious systems.
In the midst of the challenges to Christianity, interest in spirituality in general and more specifically Jesus, is actually increasing. The popularity of a postmodern Jesus is the result of the perception that “he’s a pluralist, he welcomes outsiders. He welcomes women, he is against organized religion, he’s for economic justice. Jesus comes dressed up in the clothes of our own culture.”
Evidence of this interest in spirituality finds expression in New Age events like psychic fairs or like the Burning Man Festival , and in movies like David Fincher’s Fight Club (based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk). In describing the attraction of the movie, Frost and Hirsch say: “Theirs is a community of male empowerment with a strongly anti-consumerist sentiment. Like the Burning Man festival, it is also about belonging, liberation, rebellion and the rejection of middle-class American values.
There is an untamed energy about Fight Club. It has a dissident wildness about it … both are prime examples of the desperate yearning that has been unleashed in the Western world … (raising) within the West many expectations for an experiential, activist form of religious, mystical experience. The Christian church has not met these expectations.” Even though Jesus may be attractive, the Church is seen as the LEAST likely option for those seeking an “artistic, politically subversive, activist community of mystical faith.”
