This article is written for the daughter who brought John Pavlovitz's article to our attention by commenting on it on social media. She has for a long time been sensitive to the plight of those who are marginalized in society.
An important article to read is written by John Pavlovitz on the Church and the LGBT community (click here or there). The article first appeared on his blog and was then picked up by the Huffington Post. The article is important because of how those in the LGBT community and the reputation of the Gospel are suffering by our treatment of them.
What's causing this suffering? According to Pavlovitz, one cause is how we translate the Christian theology on homosexuality into how we speak the truth.
Pavlovitz starts with a somewhat gruesome list of ways Christians show their disapproval of the LGBT life. These ways include beatings, bullying, shaming, ostracizing, marginalizing, and so on. In essence, the Christian community acts to "dehumanize" those in the LGBT community. This results in causing some people to want to do more than just "shoot the messengers." And who could blame them? Don't the messengers also represent the message?
Another result is that gays cannot feel free to worship with us. And to add insult to injury, we bid them good riddance when they leave.
In short, there is something about the sexual views and practices of the LGBT community that leaves those of us in the Christian community discontent with merely tackling the sin of homosexuality, to use football terminology. We feel both bound and free to pile on, spear, and target those in the LGBT community. We feel bound because we must show the proper level of righteous indignation in order to prove our love for God, our Christian street cred. But we also feel free because the transgressions committed by the those in the LGBT community have given some of us permission to release our own pent-up hostility. This means that the sins of others can be to us Christians what hot water is to a teabag. As the hot water simply draws out what is in the teabag so the sins of those in the LGBT community have drawn out our true colors.
Though not mentioned by Pavlovitz, if how we treat the LGBT community in Church is not enough, we insist that society must follow our example by punishing and stigmatizing homosexuals and the transgendered as well. Much of this punishment revolves around denying homosexuals equality lest they escape stigmatization and are counted as normal.
The overall theme of how many of us Christians treat the LGBT community is that those in that community must know their place. Many of us want them to think that they are not only not up to our standards, they are a threat to us, to our society--and that is despite their many personal and historical contributions. And after we call on society to punish those in the LGBT community, we have the audacity to wonder why we get push back. We wonder why people not only disagree with our views of sex, they question our religion. And though we, in our usual self-flattering way, want to view their resistance against us as resistance against God, we need to realize that not only have we hurt fellow people who are made in the image of God and fellow sinners, we have harmed the Gospel's reputation by not speaking as Jesus would have. This is the point of Pavlovitz's article.
Pavlovitz prefers to finish with a question rather than a suggestion or two. So to try to answer his questions might require that we return to the drawing board. The most immediate solution would be to change our theology. We could rewrite it to accept homosexuality. But to do so would be to betray the Scriptures. For while some LGBT apologists want the Biblical debate on homosexuality to revolve around the definitions of a couple of words, the scriptural passages in Leviticus and Romans, both of which condemn homosexuality, remove the issue beyond the reach of individual definitions by talking about the concept and how it falls short of God's design.
Therefore, changing our theology about sex is not an option. So we must, for the sake of some who are made in God's image and the Gospel, look for changes in how we communicate our theology for the solution. And if we listen to the complaints raised by those in the LGBT community, it will not be too difficult to solve some, but not all, of the sources of contention.
What many in the LGBT community seem to be saying is that we are overstating our case. We are, to repeat the above football references, doing far more than just tackling the sin; we pile on, spear, and target the people involved. And we do so while being blind to our own sins. In short, we come across as the pharisee in the parable of the two men praying (click here). The sins of others have given us delusions of self-righteousness. We forget that while Paul associates the sin of homosexuality with the Gentiles in Romans 1 (click here), he then goes on to describe the sins of the Jews in Romans 2 (click here), and then finishes by stating that no one is better than the other in Romans 3:9-21 (click here).
Thus, our ways of speaking to and treating gays have shown that we have not only exercised bad bedside manner when telling homosexuals about sexual sin, we've made matters worse by not treating them as equals both as individuals and as people in society. And until we change that, much of our teaching about Biblical sexual morality will be lost in translation and we will become stumbling blocks rather than preachers of the Gospel.
All of this starts with how we want society to treat those in the LGBT community. For we cannot expect to have the Church be more loving toward those in the LGBT community when we require, in varying degrees, that society marginalizes both homosexuals and the transgendered. So how we want society to treat those in the LGBT community is where it starts though it isn't where it ends. And we must also realize that because of the past unjust suffering, the sensitivity of some in the LGBT will prevent them from distinguish those who preach in love and those who don't.
Yes, we must be firm in holding to Biblical moral standards regarding sex. But that doesn't preclude us from being gentle with those who do not meet those standards and speaking to them as equals, as fellow sinners.
Showing posts with label Conservative Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservative Church. Show all posts
Friday, October 24, 2014
Monday, January 21, 2013
It Is Time To Take Names And Preach Repentance
When confronting Peter about his duplicitous behavior, Paul was not shy as recorded in Galations chapter 2. For Paul to be shy would imply that he was at least leaning toward trying to please people than God. What was Peter's sin? He would associate with Gentile Christians when he was by himself but withdrew from them when those from the Circumcision Party came. The Circumcision Party consisted of those who believed that Gentile Christians must follow all of the Jewish ceremonial laws including being circumcised. Paul regarded those in this party as preaching a false gospel.
The question the Conservative Church must answer today is how does it confront evil behavior? The Conservative Church has an answer but, like the behavior that Paul had to confront, it is duplicitous. When an average Joe commits sin, especially sexual sin, the Conservative Church is prepared to intervene and even bare its teeth. But when those with wealth and power sin, the Conservative Church backs away and becomes meek, mild, and some would say obedient. Sins such as waging immoral wars, destroying the environment, and manipulating the economy receive a far different treatment from the Conservative Church than personal sins committed by ordinary individuals. Why the double standard?
Those on the Left explain the duplicitous behavior this way. The Church, along with the education system and the news and entertainment media, serve as institutions of indoctrination to maintain the status quo with the status quo consisting of society being ruled over by those with wealth and power. This keeping the status quo can be done by either encouraging people to support the status quo or by minimizing dissatisfaction and resistance.
To see how correct the Left is in its assessment of the Church as an institution of indoctrination, one only needs to look at the tenets the Church teaches and the behaviors it promotes amongst its members. One of the basic tenets that the Conservative Church teaches its flock is to be preoccupied with oneself, to be spiritually narcissistic. This is first done through teaching the flock on how to be content in all situations. The result here is that contentment, especially in the face of hardship, is a measure of one's spirituality. Logically speaking, if one is taught that contentment is how we should respond when things are not going our way, one will very likely conclude that the way to help others who are going through trials is to teach them how to be content.
To answer this call to contentment, a parallel could be drawn here between the personal command to not to be anxious for our lives and not to work for food that perishes with how we should respond to those in need. Here, a different kind of double standard is imposed on Christians. Despite the Golden Rule, while we should learn to trust God and be content (Matthew 6:25-33 and John 6:27), we should look to provide for those in need (Matthew 25:31-46 and James 2:14-17).
Another way by which the Conservative Church leads its flock into a gross self-preoccupation is through its emphasis on saving faith. The way it is preached is that as long as one has saving faith, one can be apathetic to a world that is destroying itself. But we should note that that disinterest is selective. For when the world around us is doomed, this saving faith is adequate to give us peace. But how many Christians would have the same peace if they sold all they had to give to the poor?
Likewise, I have heard preachers reject the Social Gospel because feeding the hungry does means little if the same people are unbelievers and will condemned to hell. And the same goes with righting the wrongs of those who are oppressed. But here we must consider the source of these statements. Realize that these things are being said by well-fed pastors who, because of their own personal wealth, have more privileges than most people who live on earth. For not only must we ask the Biblical question of of how can people believe if there is nobody to preach the Gospel to them. We must ask how can people hear the Gospel when they are too hungry or oppressed to listen when it is preached.
The same self-centeredness can be found in the way Conservative Christians use Romans 13, the chapter that tells us to submit to all in authority, to quell resistance against the abusive practices of those with wealth and power. Basically, Conservative Christianity tells us that because of this chapter in the Bible, when it is those in authority who do the abusing, the hands of Conservative Christians are tied. There is a escape clause however. If those in authority tell the Christian to do or refrain something that violates a Christian's conscience, the Christian is allowed to ignore those in authority.
The problem with the Conservative Christian approach here is that it reduces our relationship to tyrants to our personal obligations to honor those whom God has ordained as rulers. In so doing, those in the Conservative Christian are, again, being told to be concerned solely for oneself. They are being told to care first about being pure by submitting to those in authority while others suffer even cruelly. Their suffering, Conservative Christians are being told, is of no consequence. But saving oneself by being obedient, which in turn enables the persecution of others, is what is important.
Romans 13 is important. It played a role in Martin Luther King's thinking of how to react to abusive people in position of authority. However, unlike what the leaders of the Conservative Christian church tell their flock, King did not reduce how one should respond to unjust governments to Romans 13. Two other issues we must consider when determining how we will react to an abusive government are how we are to oppose evil and how to stand with the victims. In contrast to Romans 13, both of these issues call us to be concerned about and act on that what is outside of our interests. Opposing evil calls on us to be stand against the evil of others while standing with the victims calls on us to show an abuse, and sometimes even death, defying compassion on others. We need to ask ourselves which behavior follows Christ's example more faithfully, is it obeying the authorities so that one is not punished or is it to risk what one has in order to protect innocent victims from bullies with power?
Now we should not jump to stereotypes about how the Conservative Christian Church teaches its members on how to respond to those in authority. Certainly some Conservative Churches, in the name of patriotism, condemn any resistance to the government that they see by some of its own politically progressive members. Other Conservative Churches, however, allow for some of its members to resist those in authority but with a concern for not offending its good, submissive, patriotic members. These Churches do so by either merely trusting the consciences of those who resist or by exhorting people to take a political stand on whatever political side one's own understanding of the Bible leads them to.
This allowing for members to be on both sides of an issue can be a legitimate recognition of the complexity of an issue but it can also be used to dodge having to take a possibly costly stand. Just as we could ask how Christians could be on the both sides of the slavery issue during the 19th century, how can Christians be on both sides of fighting immoral wars, of fraudulent foreclosure processes, of the poisoning of our food and environment, of the growing wealth disparity that is at least partially due to the reduction or elimination of workers' pay, rights and benefits, or the torture and/or murder of innocent civilians overseas? In short, how can any Church, in good conscience, be on both sides of all of the issues in a society where money rules and determines what is right and wrong? All of these attacks on innocent people and the environment are occurring because of government-corporation collusions where one hand washes the other and there is a revolving door for jobs between those in the private and public sectors.
Again, the Conservative Church has no qualms with persecuting an individual member for sexual sins but let a sin be both violent and perpetrated by either a businessman dressed for success or a person in a military uniform and we find that the Conservative Church is strangely silent. It is as if good clothes cover a multitude of sins. And one of the reasons for this double standard is that to take sides would mean that the Conservative Church could lose members and thus revenue.
Where the Conservative Church takes such a cowardly stand by treating defenseless, though not innocent, individuals harshly while overlooking the gross injustices of those with wealth and power, it exceeds the Apostle Peter's duplicitous behavior referred to at the beginning of this post. Already, those outside of the Church are trying to do the Church's job by calling those with wealth and power to repentance. Of course, without the Gospel, their calling of wealthy and powerful sinners to repentance will have many unnecessary flaws. But at least they are not afraid to say who is sinning and challenge them to repent. When will the Conservative Church do the same? When will the Conservative Church name those who are committing sins that devastate the lives of the vulnerable? The Conservative Church will do so when it commits itself to pleasing God rather than people. The Conservative Church will do so when it no longer agrees to serve as an institution of indoctrination for the status quo.
The question the Conservative Church must answer today is how does it confront evil behavior? The Conservative Church has an answer but, like the behavior that Paul had to confront, it is duplicitous. When an average Joe commits sin, especially sexual sin, the Conservative Church is prepared to intervene and even bare its teeth. But when those with wealth and power sin, the Conservative Church backs away and becomes meek, mild, and some would say obedient. Sins such as waging immoral wars, destroying the environment, and manipulating the economy receive a far different treatment from the Conservative Church than personal sins committed by ordinary individuals. Why the double standard?
Those on the Left explain the duplicitous behavior this way. The Church, along with the education system and the news and entertainment media, serve as institutions of indoctrination to maintain the status quo with the status quo consisting of society being ruled over by those with wealth and power. This keeping the status quo can be done by either encouraging people to support the status quo or by minimizing dissatisfaction and resistance.
To see how correct the Left is in its assessment of the Church as an institution of indoctrination, one only needs to look at the tenets the Church teaches and the behaviors it promotes amongst its members. One of the basic tenets that the Conservative Church teaches its flock is to be preoccupied with oneself, to be spiritually narcissistic. This is first done through teaching the flock on how to be content in all situations. The result here is that contentment, especially in the face of hardship, is a measure of one's spirituality. Logically speaking, if one is taught that contentment is how we should respond when things are not going our way, one will very likely conclude that the way to help others who are going through trials is to teach them how to be content.
To answer this call to contentment, a parallel could be drawn here between the personal command to not to be anxious for our lives and not to work for food that perishes with how we should respond to those in need. Here, a different kind of double standard is imposed on Christians. Despite the Golden Rule, while we should learn to trust God and be content (Matthew 6:25-33 and John 6:27), we should look to provide for those in need (Matthew 25:31-46 and James 2:14-17).
Another way by which the Conservative Church leads its flock into a gross self-preoccupation is through its emphasis on saving faith. The way it is preached is that as long as one has saving faith, one can be apathetic to a world that is destroying itself. But we should note that that disinterest is selective. For when the world around us is doomed, this saving faith is adequate to give us peace. But how many Christians would have the same peace if they sold all they had to give to the poor?
Likewise, I have heard preachers reject the Social Gospel because feeding the hungry does means little if the same people are unbelievers and will condemned to hell. And the same goes with righting the wrongs of those who are oppressed. But here we must consider the source of these statements. Realize that these things are being said by well-fed pastors who, because of their own personal wealth, have more privileges than most people who live on earth. For not only must we ask the Biblical question of of how can people believe if there is nobody to preach the Gospel to them. We must ask how can people hear the Gospel when they are too hungry or oppressed to listen when it is preached.
The same self-centeredness can be found in the way Conservative Christians use Romans 13, the chapter that tells us to submit to all in authority, to quell resistance against the abusive practices of those with wealth and power. Basically, Conservative Christianity tells us that because of this chapter in the Bible, when it is those in authority who do the abusing, the hands of Conservative Christians are tied. There is a escape clause however. If those in authority tell the Christian to do or refrain something that violates a Christian's conscience, the Christian is allowed to ignore those in authority.
The problem with the Conservative Christian approach here is that it reduces our relationship to tyrants to our personal obligations to honor those whom God has ordained as rulers. In so doing, those in the Conservative Christian are, again, being told to be concerned solely for oneself. They are being told to care first about being pure by submitting to those in authority while others suffer even cruelly. Their suffering, Conservative Christians are being told, is of no consequence. But saving oneself by being obedient, which in turn enables the persecution of others, is what is important.
Romans 13 is important. It played a role in Martin Luther King's thinking of how to react to abusive people in position of authority. However, unlike what the leaders of the Conservative Christian church tell their flock, King did not reduce how one should respond to unjust governments to Romans 13. Two other issues we must consider when determining how we will react to an abusive government are how we are to oppose evil and how to stand with the victims. In contrast to Romans 13, both of these issues call us to be concerned about and act on that what is outside of our interests. Opposing evil calls on us to be stand against the evil of others while standing with the victims calls on us to show an abuse, and sometimes even death, defying compassion on others. We need to ask ourselves which behavior follows Christ's example more faithfully, is it obeying the authorities so that one is not punished or is it to risk what one has in order to protect innocent victims from bullies with power?
Now we should not jump to stereotypes about how the Conservative Christian Church teaches its members on how to respond to those in authority. Certainly some Conservative Churches, in the name of patriotism, condemn any resistance to the government that they see by some of its own politically progressive members. Other Conservative Churches, however, allow for some of its members to resist those in authority but with a concern for not offending its good, submissive, patriotic members. These Churches do so by either merely trusting the consciences of those who resist or by exhorting people to take a political stand on whatever political side one's own understanding of the Bible leads them to.
This allowing for members to be on both sides of an issue can be a legitimate recognition of the complexity of an issue but it can also be used to dodge having to take a possibly costly stand. Just as we could ask how Christians could be on the both sides of the slavery issue during the 19th century, how can Christians be on both sides of fighting immoral wars, of fraudulent foreclosure processes, of the poisoning of our food and environment, of the growing wealth disparity that is at least partially due to the reduction or elimination of workers' pay, rights and benefits, or the torture and/or murder of innocent civilians overseas? In short, how can any Church, in good conscience, be on both sides of all of the issues in a society where money rules and determines what is right and wrong? All of these attacks on innocent people and the environment are occurring because of government-corporation collusions where one hand washes the other and there is a revolving door for jobs between those in the private and public sectors.
Again, the Conservative Church has no qualms with persecuting an individual member for sexual sins but let a sin be both violent and perpetrated by either a businessman dressed for success or a person in a military uniform and we find that the Conservative Church is strangely silent. It is as if good clothes cover a multitude of sins. And one of the reasons for this double standard is that to take sides would mean that the Conservative Church could lose members and thus revenue.
Where the Conservative Church takes such a cowardly stand by treating defenseless, though not innocent, individuals harshly while overlooking the gross injustices of those with wealth and power, it exceeds the Apostle Peter's duplicitous behavior referred to at the beginning of this post. Already, those outside of the Church are trying to do the Church's job by calling those with wealth and power to repentance. Of course, without the Gospel, their calling of wealthy and powerful sinners to repentance will have many unnecessary flaws. But at least they are not afraid to say who is sinning and challenge them to repent. When will the Conservative Church do the same? When will the Conservative Church name those who are committing sins that devastate the lives of the vulnerable? The Conservative Church will do so when it commits itself to pleasing God rather than people. The Conservative Church will do so when it no longer agrees to serve as an institution of indoctrination for the status quo.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Martin Luther King's Review Of The Good Samaritan
In his last speech, Martin Luther King spoke in Memphis in support of the striking sanitation workers. Conservatives should note here that King's presence in Memphis was to promote economic justice. Toward the end of his speech, King referenced the parable on the Good Samaritan (read here for parable, read here for King's speech). This parable tells a story about a man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead on a dangerous road. He was then ignored by two religious leaders but was helped by a religiously unclean Samaritan. This parable was told by Jesus to a man intent on proving his own righteousness.
King began his explanation by giving the traditional interpretation of the parable. This understanding says that the Levite and the priest had religious reasons for not stopping to help. These reasons might have included wanting to get to the "church" on time or desiring to keep ceremonially clean.
But then King decided to use his imagination to fill in the blanks. He first noted that the road Jesus used in the parable was a dangerous road and was filled with robbers. So when the Levite and the priest came upon the man, King thought that they had asked themselves the question, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" They wondered if they would be robbed or was the man who was beaten merely trying to trick them so he could rob whoever stopped to help. King summarized the attitude of these two religious leaders by asking, "What would happen to me?"
Then King noted that the Good Samaritan reversed the question that the Levite and priest had asked. The Good Samaritan asked the question, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" King went on to say that the reason why they were in Memphis was not because of what would happen to them; rather, the question that made King go to Memphis was one that asked what would happen to the sanitation workers if he did not join them.
The question King attributes to the Good Samaritan delivers a knockout punch to the solar plexus of Conservative Christianity. Why? It is because this question challenges us to become other-directed while Conservative Christianity, with its focus on the individual, pressures us to stay self-directed. American Conservative Christianity funnels our attention to the individual by putting the emphasis it does on both where we will go after we die and on keeping oneself personally pure. Unfortunately, this stress on the self stops us from caring for many people. Therefore, the question that is most often asked by conservative Christians with regard to helping others is, "What will happen to me if I stop to help another person?" A variation of this question is also asked by conservative Christians. That question is "What will happen to me if I don't stop to help this person?" The subject of the latter question is whether one would be punished by God if one does not stop to do something one does not want to do.
But the demands of God's law, as partially illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the needs of our time require that we ask the altruistic question. Both the law and the times require that we place concern for others over self. And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, as in the parable of the sheep and the goats (read sheep and goats parable), the other person is one who is oppressed or neglected. Thus, when we meet someone in need, we should be asking, "What will happen to this person if I do not stop to help them?"
The next question becomes will Conservative Christianity remain on the road paved by the question of "what will happen to me" and its variation or will it turn onto the street that asks, "what will happen to the other person." We should note that care for where one will go after death and one's own personal righteousness does not necessarily free the believer from sin. However, being other-directed can help. The believer who is self-directed regardless of how religious the believer is holding on to an idolatrous self-interest. The believer who is other-directed has an advantage in battling sin.
As Conservative Christianity remains on its current road, it sanctifies self-centeredness. It tells us to become preoccupied with ourselves in a holy way. It teaches us that faith in Christ can help us get what we want in life. It teaches us to be righteously selfish. That means Conservative Christianity tells the sinner that their self-centeredness only needs to be tweaked, not removed. With Conservative Christianity, one can be as self-centered as before as long as what one desires is not taboo. With today's Conservative Christianity, the believer becomes a consumer, the Gospel a commodity, and the exercise of faith in Christ the adding of the Gospel to one's shopping cart.
We should also ask why Conservative Christianity teaches its adherents to remain so preoccupied with themselves when their Savior did just the opposite. One reason has to do with what the believer would have to do if they were other-directed. Certainly they would have to help some as individuals such as by helping with chores, giving money to those who are poor, tutoring, and such. But other activities would require the believer to be an activist and speak out against those with wealth and power. In Biblical language, this is called being a prophet.
Does the Conservative Church want to change course and challenge the status quo by teaching its members to be prophet-activists? After all, the Conservative Church depends on the status quo for both numbers and funds. Calling on believers to challenge the hand that feeds them may cause them to leave since many individual conservative Christians depend on and admire the wealthy and are loyal to power. In addition, calling on believers to be activists on more than just the abortion issue will lead to believers working with and reading unbelievers. This idea frightens the American Conservative Church both on an institutional and individual level. On an institutional level, encouraging believers to read nonbelievers could result in having less control of the flock as its members read non-approved material. At the same time, many individual Christians are afraid of reading non-approved material less they be corrupted by nonChristian world views.
So far, the American Conservative Church has opted to keep faith and the Christian life as a self-directed endeavor. And this is despite the fact that a greater concern for others than for self does not prevents one from believing or from being concerned about personal righteousness. In fact, being other-directed is more consistent with saving faith than is being righteously selfish.
In the meantime, the question that King imagined the Good Samaritan asking challenges those outside of the Conservative Church as well. With all of the factions and issues tearing at our society and world today, it is safe to say that unless we imitate the Good Samaritan as King saw him and tried to do himself, we will implode and lose all that we have. Not only will we lose, but so will all of our loved ones. Such a statement seems incredulous to those who are content. That is because contentment releases a hallucinogen that causes us to see our current state as existing forever. And it is only when that state of contentment is interrupted that are we motivated to see and react to reality. If this is the case, our hope can only come too late.
King began his explanation by giving the traditional interpretation of the parable. This understanding says that the Levite and the priest had religious reasons for not stopping to help. These reasons might have included wanting to get to the "church" on time or desiring to keep ceremonially clean.
But then King decided to use his imagination to fill in the blanks. He first noted that the road Jesus used in the parable was a dangerous road and was filled with robbers. So when the Levite and the priest came upon the man, King thought that they had asked themselves the question, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" They wondered if they would be robbed or was the man who was beaten merely trying to trick them so he could rob whoever stopped to help. King summarized the attitude of these two religious leaders by asking, "What would happen to me?"
Then King noted that the Good Samaritan reversed the question that the Levite and priest had asked. The Good Samaritan asked the question, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" King went on to say that the reason why they were in Memphis was not because of what would happen to them; rather, the question that made King go to Memphis was one that asked what would happen to the sanitation workers if he did not join them.
The question King attributes to the Good Samaritan delivers a knockout punch to the solar plexus of Conservative Christianity. Why? It is because this question challenges us to become other-directed while Conservative Christianity, with its focus on the individual, pressures us to stay self-directed. American Conservative Christianity funnels our attention to the individual by putting the emphasis it does on both where we will go after we die and on keeping oneself personally pure. Unfortunately, this stress on the self stops us from caring for many people. Therefore, the question that is most often asked by conservative Christians with regard to helping others is, "What will happen to me if I stop to help another person?" A variation of this question is also asked by conservative Christians. That question is "What will happen to me if I don't stop to help this person?" The subject of the latter question is whether one would be punished by God if one does not stop to do something one does not want to do.
But the demands of God's law, as partially illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the needs of our time require that we ask the altruistic question. Both the law and the times require that we place concern for others over self. And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, as in the parable of the sheep and the goats (read sheep and goats parable), the other person is one who is oppressed or neglected. Thus, when we meet someone in need, we should be asking, "What will happen to this person if I do not stop to help them?"
The next question becomes will Conservative Christianity remain on the road paved by the question of "what will happen to me" and its variation or will it turn onto the street that asks, "what will happen to the other person." We should note that care for where one will go after death and one's own personal righteousness does not necessarily free the believer from sin. However, being other-directed can help. The believer who is self-directed regardless of how religious the believer is holding on to an idolatrous self-interest. The believer who is other-directed has an advantage in battling sin.
As Conservative Christianity remains on its current road, it sanctifies self-centeredness. It tells us to become preoccupied with ourselves in a holy way. It teaches us that faith in Christ can help us get what we want in life. It teaches us to be righteously selfish. That means Conservative Christianity tells the sinner that their self-centeredness only needs to be tweaked, not removed. With Conservative Christianity, one can be as self-centered as before as long as what one desires is not taboo. With today's Conservative Christianity, the believer becomes a consumer, the Gospel a commodity, and the exercise of faith in Christ the adding of the Gospel to one's shopping cart.
We should also ask why Conservative Christianity teaches its adherents to remain so preoccupied with themselves when their Savior did just the opposite. One reason has to do with what the believer would have to do if they were other-directed. Certainly they would have to help some as individuals such as by helping with chores, giving money to those who are poor, tutoring, and such. But other activities would require the believer to be an activist and speak out against those with wealth and power. In Biblical language, this is called being a prophet.
Does the Conservative Church want to change course and challenge the status quo by teaching its members to be prophet-activists? After all, the Conservative Church depends on the status quo for both numbers and funds. Calling on believers to challenge the hand that feeds them may cause them to leave since many individual conservative Christians depend on and admire the wealthy and are loyal to power. In addition, calling on believers to be activists on more than just the abortion issue will lead to believers working with and reading unbelievers. This idea frightens the American Conservative Church both on an institutional and individual level. On an institutional level, encouraging believers to read nonbelievers could result in having less control of the flock as its members read non-approved material. At the same time, many individual Christians are afraid of reading non-approved material less they be corrupted by nonChristian world views.
So far, the American Conservative Church has opted to keep faith and the Christian life as a self-directed endeavor. And this is despite the fact that a greater concern for others than for self does not prevents one from believing or from being concerned about personal righteousness. In fact, being other-directed is more consistent with saving faith than is being righteously selfish.
In the meantime, the question that King imagined the Good Samaritan asking challenges those outside of the Conservative Church as well. With all of the factions and issues tearing at our society and world today, it is safe to say that unless we imitate the Good Samaritan as King saw him and tried to do himself, we will implode and lose all that we have. Not only will we lose, but so will all of our loved ones. Such a statement seems incredulous to those who are content. That is because contentment releases a hallucinogen that causes us to see our current state as existing forever. And it is only when that state of contentment is interrupted that are we motivated to see and react to reality. If this is the case, our hope can only come too late.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Reviewing The Five Streams Of The Emerging Church Part II
A week ago, we wrote Reviewing The Five Streams Of The Emerging Church Part I (review) where we started to review an article by Scot McKnight on 5 themes of the Emerging Church (Emerging). We started the article by listing 3 criticisms that the Left has levied against the Conservative Church of being an institution of indoctrination, preaching a gospel of "me," and creating a culture of fear that keeps the flock reading the "right" people. The purpose of listing these criticisms was to show that there is a real need to make corrections in the Church.
We then listed 5 themes that McKnight has seen in the Emerging Church and covered 2 of them: the prophetic and Post-modern.
The next theme to be covered is Praxis-oriented. We should note here that the word praxis is the Greek word used to name the Book of Acts in the New Testament. So the term praxis-oriented refers to being centered on what the believer does. Focusing on the believer's actions hits a nerve here because the Conservative Church sees the Gospel as proclaiming that salvation comes by faith, not by works.
McKnight looks at this theme of Praxis in 3 areas, worship, orthopraxy, and missional. With regard to worship, McKnight contrasts the different environments in which the Emerging Church and the traditional Conservative Church worship God. The latter church has taken their cue from some of the Reformers who were reacting against the Roman Catholic Church. These Reformers took down all artwork and most decorations in an effort to focus a congregation's attention on the Word Of God as it was preached. All the extras were seen as distractions at the least and idols at the worst.
McKnight sites the Old Testament and Hebrews to defend the Emerging Church's use of decorative symbols. In addition, different ways of sitting together are being used by the Emerging Church to change how the worshipper sees himself or herself in relation to others, especially the minister. Here, what the Emerging Church seems to be seeking for ways in which people can relate in a more egalitarian and less authoritarian way.
To the Conservative Christian, these new worship practices could be seen as an attempt to change the focus of worship from God to people. Thus, the church service could be used to advance humanism rather than the Gospel. That is a valid concern. But at the same time, shouldn't the Conservative Church also reflect on the wrong messages its worship practices could be communicating as well? In other words, the Conservative Church should not be smug in expressing valid concerns.
Concerning orthopraxy, which is the right way of living, we find that some of the reaction against the Emerging Church is from anticipation in that some Conservatives expect those in the Emerging Church to abandon orthodoxy. This fear is unfounded. What is the case is that the Emerging Church questions the Conservative Church's belief that orthopraxy follows orthodoxy. They question this because of observation. McKnight points out that church scandals can prove their point.
But the presence of doing wrong is not the only evidence that shows the disconnect between orthopraxy and orthodoxy. Those in the Emerging Church believe that the absence of living as Jesus did when he reached out to sinners, healed the sick, and helped the downtrodden also shows the same. It is here that I couldn't agree more with the Emerging Church. This goes back to when the traditional Conservative Church acts as an institution for indoctrination to help maintain the status quo. When the Church does this, it takes the side of those with wealth and power at a time when they are seen as oppressing all others. To add to this, the Conservative Church reduces all right living solely to issues regarding personal righteousness which, having some merit, can be used to excuse the Church from standing up for the oppressed by preaching repentance to those who oppress.
There is good news from McKnight; the Emerging Church sees orthodoxy as being important and he doesn't know of anyone in the movement who believes that one's relationship with God is based on right living. But, McKnight adds that what the Emerging Church does differently can be found in what the Church focuses on and it focuses on the way of Jesus. However, we will see a problem in the Emerging Church's view of orthodoxy later on.
The final part of this Praxis-oriented theme has to do with the Church's mission. This includes being involved with God's redeeming the world, living in the community where God's redemption occurs, and playing a role in God's "holistic" redemption. The last part refers to the physical ministry of Jesus. Here, redemption takes on a broader meaning that what the Conservative Church defines it to be. This could be good if we note that there are multiple levels of redemption and we don't reduce the emphasis on the traditional understanding of Jesus' work on the cross.
The fourth theme McKnight tackles is Post-evangelical. Here is where we come in contact with the most questionable and troublesome part of the Emerging Church. What McKnight calls in-versus-out deals with the exclusiveness of the Gospel where some are saved and some are not. There are some in the Emerging Church who question whether there is such a dividing line between Christian and nonChristian.
McKnight warns the Emerging Church not to minimize or deny the Gospel. I agree with him here. In fact, I wish he would make this point more strongly than he did. We should also look for reasons why some in the Emerging Church would diminish the place of the Gospel in their church. Is the rejection of exclusivity of the Gospel by some partially because of faults found in the traditional Conservative Church? I would answer yes. And one of these faults refers back to the accusations made by the Left against the traditional Conservative Church. The problem here is that the Conservative Church has transformed the Gospel, which includes exclusivity, into a gospel of me where if I am saved, I don't have to care about the problems in the world, I only have to worry about myself. And what Conservative Christians should ask themselves is whether the rejection of exclusivity by some was originally inspired by the embedding of selfishness inside the Gospel message.
The final theme McKnight describes is politics. Not much is said here except that the Emerging Church leans to the left, which is ambiguous, rather than to the Right. The traditional Conservative Church strongly favors the Right though this does not imply that it always agrees with the Republicans. What the traditional Conservative Church favors likes the Right, besides its hollow pro-life stand, is that the Right favors authoritarianism, evidenced by its emphasis on law enforcement and the military, that acts as a plague in the Conservative Church. In addition, the Right, with its emphasis on individual responsibility and its focus on the commandment forbidding stealing, opposes a spirit of collectiveness that moves society to help those in need.
The ambiguity mentioned above is due to the fact that some mistakenly refer to the Democrats as being the Left, I do not think that McKnight makes that mistake. Others think the Left are those who are anti-Capitalists. I myself am an anti-Capitalist and so I prefer to be precise when referring to the Left.
The word on the street is that many in the traditional Conservative Church disparagingly shakes its collective heads at the Emerging Church and say, "They sure don't make churches like they use to." But the problem here is that the traditional Conservative Church has played a significant role in the emergence of the Emerging Church. For in an effort to cling to the antiChristian influences of authoritarianism, patriotism, and Capitalism, the Conservative Christianity has balked at answering the legitimate questions raised by Post-modernism. In lieu of even considering these questions, Conservative Christianity has defiantly entered its own way-back machine and has refused to leave Pre-modern times where religious faith determined all truth and and totalitarianism was in style.
Since many people can think when they read the Bible, they see the vast differences between Conservatism (both religious and political) and what the Bible says. And as people start questioning colonialism and other forms of domination, the Conservative Church tells them only to submit regardless. But was such an answer appropriate for German Christians during when the Nazis were in power? Was such an answer the Biblical response to the institutionalized prejudice that existed in this country not too many decades ago? How did the Old Testament prophets speak to Kings and others in authority when they sinned by practicing injustice?
In addition, what does Conservatism, with its emphasis on the individual, tell them about how to solve the conflict between the needs of a growing population of people versus a world of limited resources? The answers to all of these questions point to some of the failures of the Conservative Church.
The Emerging Church is a Post-modern movement. And as Post-modernism tries to address the gross abuses that have come from the misuse of truth and facts during Pre-Modern and Modern times, the Conservative Church withdraws from the world in an effort to keep itself spiritually pure while enjoying the benefits of those abuses. Unfortunately, Post-modernism's solution also includes throwing out absolute truths as it challenges any group's right to dominate. And the Emerging Church has been given no other option than to closely follow Post-modernism because, as the world has upped the ante by asking new questions, Conservative Christianity has folded by chanting the questions and answers from yesteryear.
If the Conservative Church desires a corrective dialog with the Emerging Church, it has to do more than just shake its finger at and try to shame the Emerging Church for being different; it must carefully enter the Post-modern times. The Conservative Church must move toward Post-modernism because of the valid questions Post-modernism tries to address. But the move must be careful because of the errors being employed as Post-modernism attempts to correct the abuses being propagated from the past. The longer the Conservative Church resists moving to Post-modernism, the more it becomes irrelevant to the masses.
We then listed 5 themes that McKnight has seen in the Emerging Church and covered 2 of them: the prophetic and Post-modern.
The next theme to be covered is Praxis-oriented. We should note here that the word praxis is the Greek word used to name the Book of Acts in the New Testament. So the term praxis-oriented refers to being centered on what the believer does. Focusing on the believer's actions hits a nerve here because the Conservative Church sees the Gospel as proclaiming that salvation comes by faith, not by works.
McKnight looks at this theme of Praxis in 3 areas, worship, orthopraxy, and missional. With regard to worship, McKnight contrasts the different environments in which the Emerging Church and the traditional Conservative Church worship God. The latter church has taken their cue from some of the Reformers who were reacting against the Roman Catholic Church. These Reformers took down all artwork and most decorations in an effort to focus a congregation's attention on the Word Of God as it was preached. All the extras were seen as distractions at the least and idols at the worst.
McKnight sites the Old Testament and Hebrews to defend the Emerging Church's use of decorative symbols. In addition, different ways of sitting together are being used by the Emerging Church to change how the worshipper sees himself or herself in relation to others, especially the minister. Here, what the Emerging Church seems to be seeking for ways in which people can relate in a more egalitarian and less authoritarian way.
To the Conservative Christian, these new worship practices could be seen as an attempt to change the focus of worship from God to people. Thus, the church service could be used to advance humanism rather than the Gospel. That is a valid concern. But at the same time, shouldn't the Conservative Church also reflect on the wrong messages its worship practices could be communicating as well? In other words, the Conservative Church should not be smug in expressing valid concerns.
Concerning orthopraxy, which is the right way of living, we find that some of the reaction against the Emerging Church is from anticipation in that some Conservatives expect those in the Emerging Church to abandon orthodoxy. This fear is unfounded. What is the case is that the Emerging Church questions the Conservative Church's belief that orthopraxy follows orthodoxy. They question this because of observation. McKnight points out that church scandals can prove their point.
But the presence of doing wrong is not the only evidence that shows the disconnect between orthopraxy and orthodoxy. Those in the Emerging Church believe that the absence of living as Jesus did when he reached out to sinners, healed the sick, and helped the downtrodden also shows the same. It is here that I couldn't agree more with the Emerging Church. This goes back to when the traditional Conservative Church acts as an institution for indoctrination to help maintain the status quo. When the Church does this, it takes the side of those with wealth and power at a time when they are seen as oppressing all others. To add to this, the Conservative Church reduces all right living solely to issues regarding personal righteousness which, having some merit, can be used to excuse the Church from standing up for the oppressed by preaching repentance to those who oppress.
There is good news from McKnight; the Emerging Church sees orthodoxy as being important and he doesn't know of anyone in the movement who believes that one's relationship with God is based on right living. But, McKnight adds that what the Emerging Church does differently can be found in what the Church focuses on and it focuses on the way of Jesus. However, we will see a problem in the Emerging Church's view of orthodoxy later on.
The final part of this Praxis-oriented theme has to do with the Church's mission. This includes being involved with God's redeeming the world, living in the community where God's redemption occurs, and playing a role in God's "holistic" redemption. The last part refers to the physical ministry of Jesus. Here, redemption takes on a broader meaning that what the Conservative Church defines it to be. This could be good if we note that there are multiple levels of redemption and we don't reduce the emphasis on the traditional understanding of Jesus' work on the cross.
The fourth theme McKnight tackles is Post-evangelical. Here is where we come in contact with the most questionable and troublesome part of the Emerging Church. What McKnight calls in-versus-out deals with the exclusiveness of the Gospel where some are saved and some are not. There are some in the Emerging Church who question whether there is such a dividing line between Christian and nonChristian.
McKnight warns the Emerging Church not to minimize or deny the Gospel. I agree with him here. In fact, I wish he would make this point more strongly than he did. We should also look for reasons why some in the Emerging Church would diminish the place of the Gospel in their church. Is the rejection of exclusivity of the Gospel by some partially because of faults found in the traditional Conservative Church? I would answer yes. And one of these faults refers back to the accusations made by the Left against the traditional Conservative Church. The problem here is that the Conservative Church has transformed the Gospel, which includes exclusivity, into a gospel of me where if I am saved, I don't have to care about the problems in the world, I only have to worry about myself. And what Conservative Christians should ask themselves is whether the rejection of exclusivity by some was originally inspired by the embedding of selfishness inside the Gospel message.
The final theme McKnight describes is politics. Not much is said here except that the Emerging Church leans to the left, which is ambiguous, rather than to the Right. The traditional Conservative Church strongly favors the Right though this does not imply that it always agrees with the Republicans. What the traditional Conservative Church favors likes the Right, besides its hollow pro-life stand, is that the Right favors authoritarianism, evidenced by its emphasis on law enforcement and the military, that acts as a plague in the Conservative Church. In addition, the Right, with its emphasis on individual responsibility and its focus on the commandment forbidding stealing, opposes a spirit of collectiveness that moves society to help those in need.
The ambiguity mentioned above is due to the fact that some mistakenly refer to the Democrats as being the Left, I do not think that McKnight makes that mistake. Others think the Left are those who are anti-Capitalists. I myself am an anti-Capitalist and so I prefer to be precise when referring to the Left.
The word on the street is that many in the traditional Conservative Church disparagingly shakes its collective heads at the Emerging Church and say, "They sure don't make churches like they use to." But the problem here is that the traditional Conservative Church has played a significant role in the emergence of the Emerging Church. For in an effort to cling to the antiChristian influences of authoritarianism, patriotism, and Capitalism, the Conservative Christianity has balked at answering the legitimate questions raised by Post-modernism. In lieu of even considering these questions, Conservative Christianity has defiantly entered its own way-back machine and has refused to leave Pre-modern times where religious faith determined all truth and and totalitarianism was in style.
Since many people can think when they read the Bible, they see the vast differences between Conservatism (both religious and political) and what the Bible says. And as people start questioning colonialism and other forms of domination, the Conservative Church tells them only to submit regardless. But was such an answer appropriate for German Christians during when the Nazis were in power? Was such an answer the Biblical response to the institutionalized prejudice that existed in this country not too many decades ago? How did the Old Testament prophets speak to Kings and others in authority when they sinned by practicing injustice?
In addition, what does Conservatism, with its emphasis on the individual, tell them about how to solve the conflict between the needs of a growing population of people versus a world of limited resources? The answers to all of these questions point to some of the failures of the Conservative Church.
The Emerging Church is a Post-modern movement. And as Post-modernism tries to address the gross abuses that have come from the misuse of truth and facts during Pre-Modern and Modern times, the Conservative Church withdraws from the world in an effort to keep itself spiritually pure while enjoying the benefits of those abuses. Unfortunately, Post-modernism's solution also includes throwing out absolute truths as it challenges any group's right to dominate. And the Emerging Church has been given no other option than to closely follow Post-modernism because, as the world has upped the ante by asking new questions, Conservative Christianity has folded by chanting the questions and answers from yesteryear.
If the Conservative Church desires a corrective dialog with the Emerging Church, it has to do more than just shake its finger at and try to shame the Emerging Church for being different; it must carefully enter the Post-modern times. The Conservative Church must move toward Post-modernism because of the valid questions Post-modernism tries to address. But the move must be careful because of the errors being employed as Post-modernism attempts to correct the abuses being propagated from the past. The longer the Conservative Church resists moving to Post-modernism, the more it becomes irrelevant to the masses.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Reviewing the Five Streams Of The Emerging Church Part 1
When I first heard of the Emerging Church, it was not good. I was told that it wants to subvert the preaching of the Gospel and a true worship of God with trendy options, activism, and in style gatherings ministering to felt needs. I am a not a fan of that. At the same time, I am very frustrated with the traditional Conservative Church. The frustration does not stem from its orthodoxy; rather, I am at wit's end because I find it going out of its way to confirm what the Left has to say about it.
There are three basic criticisms I have heard from the Left regarding the traditional Conservative Church. First, this church is an institution of indoctrination to facilitate contentment with the status quo and compliance with the demands of wealth and power. This can be shown in two ways. The first way is that the conservative Church, for the most part, whitewashes American history along with America's use of the military and Capitalism. If it does not praise them as being exceptional, then it refrains from listing the necessary specifics of sinful policies, exploitation, and military interventions.
Second, the traditional Conservative Church has been preaching a gospel of "me." They have reduced the gospel call on people's lives to the question, "Do you know where you are going when you die?" And almost any other question or issue is squelched and deemed divisive because, in the Church, there are a variety of opinions. Such a focus has led many Conservative Christians to wear their crosses rather than to bear them. That is because since we are saved by grace alone, there is no need to bear one's cross. Rather, we are taught to enjoy life and be righteously selfish. And all of that is promoted when the only question Christians ask themselves is what happens to ME in the afterlife.
Finally, the traditional Conservative Church creates a culture of fear. And this fear is used to direct its followers to circle the wagons to avoid any exposure from the wild heathens from the Left. One fellow Conservative Christian told me that he doesn't even read nonChristian authors because he wants to avoid the eventual humanistic worldview of the author. It is as if the traditional Conservative Church is tragically fulfilling what Martin Luther King said about the West in saying that it has "everything to teach" but nothing to learn. The arrogance of such a position is both implicit and in your face. Of course there is a reason for all of this. It is to prevent nonChristians from gaining credibility. Because once a nonChristian source becomes an accepted authority, whatever else they have to say, especially anything that could contradict what Christian writers have said, could be too easily believed.
In his article, Five Streams Of The Emerging Church ( Emerging Church ), Scot McKnight presents five themes of the Emerging Church that acts as streams feeding a lake. These five streams consists of: Prophetic, Postmodern, Praxis-oriented, Post-evangelical, and Political. One can summarize the movement as saying this is a Christian, Post-modern engagement with the world. Here, we need to explain Post-modern a bit. Post-modernism is a denial of the use of absolute truth, whether that truth comes from Modernity's Science or Pre-modern's faith, to conquer and colonize others. Here, absolute truth can be regarded as collateral damage as mankind's history of violently domination was targeted. And while Conservative Christians complain about the collateral damage, they overlook and under-appreciate the rejection killing and subjugating others.
From the beginning, McKnight wants to emphasize that he has his own criticisms of the movement to which he belongs. In addition, McKnight wants to distinguish the Emerging Church, which is a broad, widespread movement, from the Emergent Church, which is a specific group that is located in the U.S. and the U.K. and revolves around certain leaders.
The first of the five themes is the Prophetic. This immediately reminded me of Cornel West's article, The Crisis In Contemporary American Religion, where West complains that, regardless of the religion, it is has lost its prophetic voice in America. To West, being prophetic means to have a clear vision or direction and to have an adequate understanding of morals and their place in America. My experience in the Conservative Church tells me that the only morals worth preaching are personal morals especially governing one's sexual behaviors. However, the Conservative Church places the violence of both poverty and military action as being outside their concern.
What McKnight is referring to when mentioning the Emerging Church's prophetic theme is how those in the movement speak. To be prophetic is to be provocative in one's speech. In addition, orthodoxy is being reexamined here. The Emerging Church is no longer content with the old view of beliefs, it is telling us that we need to be in the world in a different way. According to McKnight, the Emerging Church emphasizes mercy. However, he then cites Brian McLaren, from the Emergent Church, in saying that Jesus would not hang with the traditional Church. The merit of this statement lies in the fact that Jesus did not often associate positively with the rich and powerful of his day. In fact, in His parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus identified with the invisible people of the world (Matthew 25:31-46).
Here we must note how the traditional Conservative Church has failed. For even when it provides for the immediate physical needs of the those in need, it never challenges the system that puts so many in need. This kind of challenge is the charge that Martin Luther King put before us (Declaration of Independence). Of course this is an anathema to those who have been bought out by wealth and power, by the traditional self-exalting view of America.
McKnight notes that part of this prophetic voice is that it can be abrasive and loud. Of course this only gives those who are content a reason for ignoring what is said.
The next theme McKnight discusses is Post-modernism. Though his description of Post-modernism is a bit lacking, his assertion that Christians can embrace parts of it could not be more right. Of course, such a charge challenges traditional Christians and their adherence to American Exceptionalism. The parts of Post-modernism anyone who claims to follow the Suffering Servant must accept is a rejection of any claim of one group to rule over another.
On the other hand, McKnight points out the fatal flaw of Post-modernism: moral relativity. Certainly moral superiority must be rejected. Unfortunately Post-modernism takes that to mean that no set of morals can be viewed as superior to another set rather than no person can claim to be morally superior to another. In addition, McKnight reports that the limits of propositional truth come to the forefront. This is a necessary discussion because an over-reliance on propositional truth does more than to make truthful statements prominent; it makes the God and Gospel we describe finite and less personal.
So far, we have introduced the Emerging Church and two of its five major themes. We will finish describing McKnight's description of the Emerging Church next week.
There are three basic criticisms I have heard from the Left regarding the traditional Conservative Church. First, this church is an institution of indoctrination to facilitate contentment with the status quo and compliance with the demands of wealth and power. This can be shown in two ways. The first way is that the conservative Church, for the most part, whitewashes American history along with America's use of the military and Capitalism. If it does not praise them as being exceptional, then it refrains from listing the necessary specifics of sinful policies, exploitation, and military interventions.
Second, the traditional Conservative Church has been preaching a gospel of "me." They have reduced the gospel call on people's lives to the question, "Do you know where you are going when you die?" And almost any other question or issue is squelched and deemed divisive because, in the Church, there are a variety of opinions. Such a focus has led many Conservative Christians to wear their crosses rather than to bear them. That is because since we are saved by grace alone, there is no need to bear one's cross. Rather, we are taught to enjoy life and be righteously selfish. And all of that is promoted when the only question Christians ask themselves is what happens to ME in the afterlife.
Finally, the traditional Conservative Church creates a culture of fear. And this fear is used to direct its followers to circle the wagons to avoid any exposure from the wild heathens from the Left. One fellow Conservative Christian told me that he doesn't even read nonChristian authors because he wants to avoid the eventual humanistic worldview of the author. It is as if the traditional Conservative Church is tragically fulfilling what Martin Luther King said about the West in saying that it has "everything to teach" but nothing to learn. The arrogance of such a position is both implicit and in your face. Of course there is a reason for all of this. It is to prevent nonChristians from gaining credibility. Because once a nonChristian source becomes an accepted authority, whatever else they have to say, especially anything that could contradict what Christian writers have said, could be too easily believed.
In his article, Five Streams Of The Emerging Church ( Emerging Church ), Scot McKnight presents five themes of the Emerging Church that acts as streams feeding a lake. These five streams consists of: Prophetic, Postmodern, Praxis-oriented, Post-evangelical, and Political. One can summarize the movement as saying this is a Christian, Post-modern engagement with the world. Here, we need to explain Post-modern a bit. Post-modernism is a denial of the use of absolute truth, whether that truth comes from Modernity's Science or Pre-modern's faith, to conquer and colonize others. Here, absolute truth can be regarded as collateral damage as mankind's history of violently domination was targeted. And while Conservative Christians complain about the collateral damage, they overlook and under-appreciate the rejection killing and subjugating others.
From the beginning, McKnight wants to emphasize that he has his own criticisms of the movement to which he belongs. In addition, McKnight wants to distinguish the Emerging Church, which is a broad, widespread movement, from the Emergent Church, which is a specific group that is located in the U.S. and the U.K. and revolves around certain leaders.
The first of the five themes is the Prophetic. This immediately reminded me of Cornel West's article, The Crisis In Contemporary American Religion, where West complains that, regardless of the religion, it is has lost its prophetic voice in America. To West, being prophetic means to have a clear vision or direction and to have an adequate understanding of morals and their place in America. My experience in the Conservative Church tells me that the only morals worth preaching are personal morals especially governing one's sexual behaviors. However, the Conservative Church places the violence of both poverty and military action as being outside their concern.
What McKnight is referring to when mentioning the Emerging Church's prophetic theme is how those in the movement speak. To be prophetic is to be provocative in one's speech. In addition, orthodoxy is being reexamined here. The Emerging Church is no longer content with the old view of beliefs, it is telling us that we need to be in the world in a different way. According to McKnight, the Emerging Church emphasizes mercy. However, he then cites Brian McLaren, from the Emergent Church, in saying that Jesus would not hang with the traditional Church. The merit of this statement lies in the fact that Jesus did not often associate positively with the rich and powerful of his day. In fact, in His parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus identified with the invisible people of the world (Matthew 25:31-46).
Here we must note how the traditional Conservative Church has failed. For even when it provides for the immediate physical needs of the those in need, it never challenges the system that puts so many in need. This kind of challenge is the charge that Martin Luther King put before us (Declaration of Independence). Of course this is an anathema to those who have been bought out by wealth and power, by the traditional self-exalting view of America.
McKnight notes that part of this prophetic voice is that it can be abrasive and loud. Of course this only gives those who are content a reason for ignoring what is said.
The next theme McKnight discusses is Post-modernism. Though his description of Post-modernism is a bit lacking, his assertion that Christians can embrace parts of it could not be more right. Of course, such a charge challenges traditional Christians and their adherence to American Exceptionalism. The parts of Post-modernism anyone who claims to follow the Suffering Servant must accept is a rejection of any claim of one group to rule over another.
On the other hand, McKnight points out the fatal flaw of Post-modernism: moral relativity. Certainly moral superiority must be rejected. Unfortunately Post-modernism takes that to mean that no set of morals can be viewed as superior to another set rather than no person can claim to be morally superior to another. In addition, McKnight reports that the limits of propositional truth come to the forefront. This is a necessary discussion because an over-reliance on propositional truth does more than to make truthful statements prominent; it makes the God and Gospel we describe finite and less personal.
So far, we have introduced the Emerging Church and two of its five major themes. We will finish describing McKnight's description of the Emerging Church next week.
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