Future Communication of the Gospel 6
Written by admin on November 8, 2007 – 12:45 pmOne of the things that’s happening, now, in response to this shift we’re going through in the church that I’ve been trying to describe, is that there are some - mostly younger - Christians who are trying to make sense of their faith rather than walking away from it. They have experienced a Christian faith that is simplistic, overly-rule and lifestyle oriented, dualistic (separating spiritual and physical, sunday from the rest of the week), subculturized and removed from world engagement, and seemingly unable to answer many tough questions that have arisen in the world they experience. But, the good news is that they are not willing to abandon their faith. Here’s what has happened.
Many young Christians have instead sought to deconstruct the current framing story in which Christianity is embedded. Many have talked about the move away from Christendom and into this emerging world that is post-Christian culturally. They’ve sought to personally discover, I think, at least five things:
- A biblical understanding of the heart and soul of the gospel.
- A biblical understanding of the heart and soul of true community.
- A biblical understanding of how to engage and transform culture.
- A biblical understanding of God’s heart for the world as understood through the message and actions of Jesus.
- Biblical and historical practices of experiencing the presence of God.
That’s an awesome thing. Think about it: instead of abandoning a faith they’ve experienced (remember, experience is a person’s felt truth, whether it is true or not) as irrelevant, they’ve sought to discover God for themselves and try to redesign or remodel the contemporary church with two important things in mind:
- Biblical faithfulness
- Cultural relevance and influence
That’s what I think a lot of so-called “emergents” are trying to do. (Oh, and I should, just for full disclosure, put myself into this category whether I take personally the label emergent or not. Label me however you want.) In any case, as we’ve watched new and different iterations of this desire to rediscover the heart of faith, the gospel, and the church, we’ve seen some real messes. We’ve seen some people misinterpret the Bible, misunderstand spiritual practices, and walk on the edge of some pretty scary and dangerous beliefs. However, we’ve also seen a resurgence in ”straight to the bible” seeking, an increase in concern for justice, a new heart for the poor and the marginalized, a higher challenge towards peace instead of violence, a new appreciation for the arts and beauty, and a powerful movement for the stewardship of creation. So, sure, this new adventure of discovery of a new generation who is seeking to understand and appropriate the faith of their fathers has made some great correctives to areas we’ve gotten off course while also opening some theological and/ or moral doors that we’re not so comfortable with, and probably shouldn’t be. But remember, this is a generation seeking God and seeking truth, not rebelling against it.
And that is exactly where we have gotten it most wrong. Rather than walking the road of discovery with this new generation, rather than praising them for wanting it to be real and make sense in their lives and matter for their neighbors and make a difference in the world, we’ve offered not help, wisdom, and humility, but instead rebuke, correction, frustration, name-calling, and even derision. The church should value those pursuing God and humbly walk with them. Could it even be that God is doing a new thing (he’s done that before) or that God is correcting his people (he’s done that before) and that he’s using a new generation to dream dreams and see visions? (he’s done that before, too.) So before we get too far down the road of being critical of the emerging generation seeking to rediscover the biblical church, biblical community, biblical impact, biblical passions, and biblical spirituality, it might be good for us to listen to what’s going on and hear if the Spirit has anything to say to the church.
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November 19th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Tom-
Interesting discussion…I have some thoughts and questions for you on this.
1) Why is it that many young Christians are evaluating the actions of adults, seeing that their lacking, and judging that Scripture, God, modernism, Church, and Christianity doesn’t work? Why can’t they see that the people there judging are simply not being faithful to the Word? They are modeling something Christ never intended!
1b) Question and comment…Would you be willing to say that much of the modern church is inept, undisciplined, socially unconcerned, because of the SEEKER SENSITIVE METHODOLOGY? I’m beginning to see more and more of a correlation between immature Christians and the seeker sensitive movement. In our desire to be “relevant” we have watered down the Gospel and made “Christians” in name only. We don’t see people repenting, hating sin, and doing good works for Christ out of His love, mercy and grace. The “evangelical” seekers have children and the kids realize the hypocrisy and turn to a new “brand” of Christianity. I truly believe the seeker sensitive garbage that started with Robert Schuler has birthed much of the modern emergent church reaction. I don’t blame kids for looking at there parents faith and wanting to revolt…they should! But in there desire to embrace something different…are they truly trying to do the five things you listed? Are they running to Scripture?
2) Has the basic gospel message lost its power in our culture? Must we wrap it in “relevant” social causes?
3) You said, “Many young Christians have instead sought to deconstruct the current framing story in which Christianity is embedded”. What is that framing story? The Biblical framing of sin and rebellion against God and the redemption of this by God? Or what Mclaren puts forth in his book…”It’s interesting to consider the importance of consumption in the biblical narrative. When the crisis of human evil is introduced in a passage beginning in Genesis 1:19 and ending in 2:20, forms of the words “eat” and “food” are used about twenty times. Consumption is closely linked with human evil. Adam and Eve live in harmony with creation in a garden, surrounded by food-bearing trees. But to be a human being is to live within creaturly limits in God’s creation - reflected in self-restraint in regard to eating the fruit of ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:17). If they break the limits represented by the fruit hanging on that tree, they will taste death (or as we said earlier, they will decompose).
Eve exceeds the limit, drawn to consume a fruit that “was good for food and was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (3:6). Adam joins her. As a result, an avalanche of alienation crashes into the human story - alienation from God, alienation from one another, alienation from oneself, and alienation from the creation.
In the following chapters, brother is alienated from brother and a form of class violence enters the story, as the class of pastoralists (symbolized by Abel) are exterminated by the class of agriculturalists (symbolized by Cain). Soon new forms of institutionalized violence arise in great cities, so horrible that they are swept away by a flood of judgment. Eventually empires emerge, reflecting the imperial dream of unifying people under one dominating language and culture in Babel. Genesis provides a genealogy for all the pain and evil in the whole social structure of humans on planet Earth: it can be traced back to a problem of consumption beyond limits.” (pages 209-210)
Notice that McLaren is injecting a Marxist framework into his interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis. Gone are the ideas of sin, rebellion, disobedience against God, the fall of man, and the Lord’s solution to our sin in the promise of a savior. McLaren has replaced those Biblical themes with the economic & political categories of consumption, class warfare and imperialism. Is this the new framing story you are looking into? Or are you suggesting something else…basically I’m asking…to you, what is this framing story? Is it a one and only, for all time Biblical story, or one that evolves with culture?
Has the Church missed the Biblical framing story?
This is a bit of a rant…but what do you think? How do we turn this mess around, while staying completely grounded in the Scriptures.
Tom, thanks for the great post’s and the passionate discussion. I can hear you talking when I read your post-I love it!
April 29th, 2008 at 1:31 am
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