Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity. One that is Postmodern. Part 2/3

From Leonard Sweet's book, So Beautiful -


There was once a broken-down old mainline/sideline/offline church
traveling on the road from yesterday to tomorrow when it fell among
postmodern culture. It was stripped of its place in society, leaving it beat up,
left behind, and more than half dead.

Now by chance there was a doctoral student going down the road who passed by
on the other side. “I’ve got papers due, and besides, that dead old denomination
hasn’t got any life left in it.”

In the same way a prophetic pastor came to the place, saw the broken-down church,
and whispered to himself, “O Lord, let me retire before it finally dies.”

But then a complete nobody, who didn’t know enough not to get involved,
and who had failed the Jesus course, found the church and had compassion on it.

S/he bound up its wounds, pouring on the oil of hope and the wine of Christ’s blood,
poured out the oil of forgiveness of sin; then set it on her/his own beast
 and took it to a place where it could reflect and refresh and find healing.

S/he said to the keeper,

“This poor old church is almost dead.
It may or may not have anything to say to a new world;
but make it as comfortable as you can ,
spend whatever you have to, until I come back…”

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Continued from:

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 1

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity.html

I am beginning with Leonard Sweet's quote from a Drew University student that had written an adaption to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in his class. I find it apropos to the other day's discussion on the postmodern church (see link above) and the state of affairs that the church is encountering and must choose between. However, I would make one small adjustment to the prose/poem above by substituting the word "modern" in place of "postmodern" to give it a better reflection of truism for today.

For postmodernism has not been the cause of death to the modernistic church. Firstly because it is too new to the church to be understood or incorporated even though it has been around since the 1990s (its roots have been around for far longer). Secondly because most of today's evangelical churches actively reject postmodernism and disparage its call to "discriminate and rebuild" itself in God's grace and redemption. To deconstruct and purge itself of all its earthly possessions held in its traditions and dogmas; and to reconstruct and renew itself into the spirit and principles that those same traditions and dogmas had once so faithfully declared. The truth of the matter is that postmodernism is the church's salvation as well as its death through revival from its antiquated past.

In actuality, it has been modernism that is causing the church's death plagued by society's standards of success through wealth, structure, building, programs, organization, marketing, publicity, power, popularity, and so forth. Not that these are bad things in-and-of themselves but because it can feed upon itself and eclipse the simple good news of the gospel though the church proclaims its devotion to Jesus' gospel daily. Still this gospel can soon be forgotten when bound up with preserving the "works of our hands."

Quite correctly Len Sweet speaks to the implications of practicing APC churches (attractional, propositional, and colonial churches) which are good at creating a growing numbers-based membership; producing catechised believers in pre-packaged confessionals; and provisioning a consumerist mindset amongst its many "safe" in-house, community-based programs. However, he urges that churches think again about becoming MRI churches (missional, relational, and incarnational churches) that focus on a missional, transformative message of Jesus; making disciples focused on relationships and revelation; and practicing Christ's daily incarnation through rich, vibrant connections into their community to provide context to Jesus' message of love and redemption, both to themselves as well as to those they would serve. In his estimation, as it is mine as well, "It is the only theology (or theological message) worth knowing and following." Jesus said it best when he said to live out the love of God through good works.

The Great Commandment

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducee's, they gathered together. ³⁵ And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Below is Newsweek's annual Easter weekend tribute to Christianity that reflects the good and the bad of the church's cultural image to society at-large. Many of these same themes have been reflected within this web journal describing the heart-felt mandate of the Emerging/Emergent church to the more popular cultural idioms of Evangelicalism, and how each may help the other towards apprehending postmodernism's fundamental themes of reform, authenticity, and participation. Themes of personal worth and value; social justice and equality; practice of corporate ethics; preservation of ecology; integration with community; pursuit of global citizenship; practice of humanity without condemnation nor judgment; these are but to name a few. Yet each of these social qualities speak to dynamic areas revolutionizing the church to adjust its belief structures and practices to better reflect the demands of the gospel throughout its fellowship, goals, purposes, practices and intents. To accede to one is to accede to all by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit of God.

R.E. Slater

April 5, 2012

The Full Series:

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 1/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.

Part 2/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_05.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 3/3
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_07.html



Related Articles:

What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

An Introduction.
Part 1/2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html


What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

My Personal Observations.
Part 2/2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about_26.html

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Christianity in Crisis

Newsweek Magazine

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/01/andrew-sullivan-christianity-in-crisis.html

by Andrew Sullivan

Apr 2, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

Christianity has been destroyed by politics, priests, and get-rich evangelists.

Ignore them, writes Andrew Sullivan, and embrace Him.

If you go to the second floor of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., you’ll find a small room containing an 18th-century Bible whose pages are full of holes. They are carefully razor-cut empty spaces, so this was not an act of vandalism. It was, rather, a project begun by Thomas Jefferson when he was a mere 27 years old. Painstakingly removing those passages he thought reflected the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, Jefferson literally cut and pasted them into a slimmer, different New Testament, and left behind the remnants (all on display until July 15). What did he edit out? He told us: “We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus.” He removed what he felt were the “misconceptions” of Jesus’ followers, “expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves.” And it wasn’t hard for him. He described the difference between the real Jesus and the evangelists’ embellishments as “diamonds” in a “dunghill,” glittering as “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” Yes, he was calling vast parts of the Bible religious manure.

When we think of Jefferson as the great architect of the separation of church and state, this, perhaps, was what he meant by “church”: the purest, simplest, apolitical Christianity, purged of the agendas of those who had sought to use Jesus to advance their own power decades and centuries after Jesus’ death. If Jefferson’s greatest political legacy was the Declaration of Independence, this pure, precious moral teaching was his religious legacy. “I am a real Christian,” Jefferson insisted against the fundamentalists and clerics of his time. “That is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”

What were those doctrines? Not the supernatural claims that, fused with politics and power, gave successive generations wars, inquisitions, pogroms, reformations, and counterreformations. Jesus’ doctrines were the practical commandments, the truly radical ideas that immediately leap out in the simple stories he told and which he exemplified in everything he did. Not simply love one another, but love your enemy and forgive those who harm you; give up all material wealth; love the ineffable Being behind all things, and know that this Being is actually your truest Father, in whose image you were made. Above all: give up power over others, because power, if it is to be effective, ultimately requires the threat of violence, and violence is incompatible with the total acceptance and love of all other human beings that is at the sacred heart of Jesus’ teaching. That’s why, in his final apolitical act, Jesus never defended his innocence at trial, never resisted his crucifixion, and even turned to those nailing his hands to the wood on the cross and forgave them, and loved them.

Politicized Faith

Whether or not you believe, as I do, in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection—and in the importance of celebrating both on Easter Sunday—Jefferson’s point is crucially important. Because it was Jesus’ point. What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself? If we return to what Jesus actually asked us to do and to be—rather than the unknowable intricacies of what we believe he was—he actually emerges more powerfully and more purely.

And more intensely relevant to our times. Jefferson’s vision of a simpler, purer, apolitical Christianity couldn’t be further from the 21st-century American reality. We inhabit a polity now saturated with religion. On one side, the Republican base is made up of evangelical Protestants who believe that religion must consume and influence every aspect of public life. On the other side, the last Democratic primary had candidates profess their faith in public forums, and more recently President Obama appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast, invoking Jesus to defend his plan for universal health care. The crisis of Christianity is perhaps best captured in the new meaning of the word “secular.” It once meant belief in separating the spheres of faith and politics; it now means, for many, simply atheism. The ability to be faithful in a religious space and reasonable in a political one has atrophied before our eyes.

Organized Religion in Decline

Meanwhile, organized religion itself is in trouble. The Catholic Church’s hierarchy lost much of its authority over the American flock with the unilateral prohibition of the pill in 1968 by Pope Paul VI. But in the last decade, whatever shred of moral authority that remained has evaporated. The hierarchy was exposed as enabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children. I don’t know what greater indictment of a church’s authority there can be—except the refusal, even now, of the entire leadership to face their responsibility and resign. Instead, they obsess about others’ sex lives, about who is entitled to civil marriage, and about who pays for birth control in health insurance. Inequality, poverty, even the torture institutionalized by the government after 9/11: these issues attract far less of their public attention.

For their part, the mainline Protestant churches, which long promoted religious moderation, have rapidly declined in the past 50 years. Evangelical Protestantism has stepped into the vacuum, but it has serious defects of its own. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat explores in his unsparing new book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, many suburban evangelicals embrace a gospel of prosperity, which teaches that living a Christian life will make you successful and rich. Others defend a rigid biblical literalism, adamantly wishing away a century and a half of scholarship that has clearly shown that the canonized Gospels were written decades after Jesus’ ministry, and are copies of copies of stories told by those with fallible memory. Still others insist that the earth is merely 6,000 years old—something we now know by the light of reason and science is simply untrue. And what group of Americans have pollsters found to be most supportive of torturing terror suspects? Evangelical Christians. Something has gone very wrong. These are impulses born of panic in the face of modernity, and fear before an amorphous “other.” This version of Christianity could not contrast more strongly with Jesus’ constant refrain: “Be not afraid.” It would make Jefferson shudder.

It would also, one imagines, baffle Jesus of Nazareth. The issues that Christianity obsesses over today simply do not appear in either Jefferson’s or the original New Testament. Jesus never spoke of homosexuality or abortion, and his only remarks on marriage were a condemnation of divorce (now commonplace among American Christians) and forgiveness for adultery. The family? He disowned his parents in public as a teen, and told his followers to abandon theirs if they wanted to follow him. Sex? He was a celibate who, along with his followers, anticipated an imminent End of the World where reproduction was completely irrelevant.

The Crisis of Our Time

All of which is to say something so obvious it is almost taboo: Christianity itself is in crisis. It seems no accident to me that so many Christians now embrace materialist self-help rather than ascetic self-denial—or that most Catholics, even regular churchgoers, have tuned out the hierarchy in embarrassment or disgust. Given this crisis, it is no surprise that the fastest-growing segment of belief among the young is atheism, which has leapt in popularity in the new millennium. Nor is it a shock that so many have turned away from organized Christianity and toward “spirituality,” co-opting or adapting the practices of meditation or yoga, or wandering as lapsed Catholics in an inquisitive spiritual desert. The thirst for God is still there. How could it not be, when the profoundest human questions—Why does the universe exist rather than nothing? How did humanity come to be on this remote blue speck of a planet? What happens to us after death?—remain as pressing and mysterious as they’ve always been?

That’s why polls show a huge majority of Americans still believing in a Higher Power. But the need for new questioning—of Christian institutions as well as ideas and priorities—is as real as the crisis is deep.

Back to Jesus

Where to start? Jefferson’s act of cutting out those parts of the Bible that offended his moral and scientific imagination is one approach. But another can be found in the life of a well-to-do son of a fabric trader in 12th-century Italy who went off to fight a war with a neighboring city, saw his friends killed in battle in front of him, lived a year as a prisoner of war, and then experienced a clarifying vision that changed the world. In Francis of Assisi: A New Biography, Augustine Thompson cuts through the legends and apocryphal prayers to describe Saint Francis as he truly lived. Gone are the fashionable stories of an erstwhile hippie, communing with flowers and animals. Instead we have this typical young secular figure who suddenly found peace in service to those he previously shrank from: lepers, whose sores and lesions he tended to and whose company he sought—as much as for himself as for them.

The religious order that goes by his name began quite simply with a couple of friends who were captured by the sheer spiritual intensity of how Francis lived. His inspiration was even purer than Jefferson’s. He did not cut out passages of the Gospels to render them more reasonable than they appear to the modern mind. He simply opened the Gospels at random—as was often the custom at the time—and found three passages. They told him to “sell what you have and give to the poor,” to “take nothing for your journey,” not even a second tunic, and to “deny himself” and follow the path of Jesus. That was it. So Francis renounced his inheritance, becoming homeless and earning food by manual labor. When that wouldn’t feed him, he begged, just for food—with the indignity of begging part of his spiritual humbling.

Jefferson cut the “diamonds” of Christ’s teaching out of the “dunghill”
of the New Testament
Hugh Talman / Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Francis insisted on living utterly without power over others. As stories of his strangeness and holiness spread, more joined him and he faced a real dilemma: how to lead a group of men, and also some women, in an organization. Suddenly, faith met politics. And it tormented, wracked, and almost killed him. He had to be last, not first. He wanted to be always the “lesser brother,” not the founder of an order. And so he would often go on pilgrimages and ask others to run things. Or he would sit at the feet of his brothers at communal meetings and if an issue could not be resolved without his say-so, he would whisper in the leader’s ear.

A Vision of Holiness

As Jesus was without politics, so was Francis. As Jesus fled from crowds, so did Francis—often to bare shacks in woodlands, to pray and be with God and nature. It’s critical to recall that he did not do this in rebellion against orthodoxy or even church authority. He obeyed orders from bishops and even the pope himself. His main obsession wasn’t nature, which came to sublime fruition in his final “Canticle of the Sun,” but the cleanliness of the cloths, chalices, and ornaments surrounding the holy eucharist.

His revulsion at even the hint of comfort or wealth could be extreme. As he lay dying and was offered a pillow to rest on, he slept through the night only to wake the next day in a rage, hitting the monk who had given him the pillow and recoiling in disgust at his own weakness in accepting its balm. One of his few commands was that his brothers never ride a horse; they had to walk or ride a donkey. What inspired his fellow Christians to rebuild and reform the church in his day was simply his own example of humility, service, and sanctity.

A modern person would see such a man as crazy, and there were many at the time who thought so too. He sang sermons in the streets, sometimes just miming them. He suffered intense bouts of doubt, self-loathing, and depression. He had visions. You could have diagnosed his postwar conversion as an outgrowth of posttraumatic-stress disorder. Or you can simply observe what those around him testified to: something special, unique, mysterious, holy. To reduce one’s life to essentials, to ask merely for daily bread, forgiveness of others, and denial of self is, in many ways, a form of madness. It is also a form of liberation. It lets go of complexity and focuses on simplicity. Francis did not found an order designed to think or control. He insisted on the simplicity of manual labor, prayer, and the sacraments. That was enough for him.

Learning How to Live

It wouldn’t be enough for most of us. And yet, there can be wisdom in the acceptance of mystery. I’ve pondered the Incarnation my whole life. I’ve read theology and history. I think I grasp what it means to be both God and human—but I don’t think my understanding is any richer than my Irish grandmother’s. Barely literate, she would lose herself in the rosary at mass. In her simplicity, beneath her veil in front of a cascade of flickering candles, she seemed to know God more deeply than I, with all my education and privilege, ever will.

This doesn’t imply, as some claim, the privatization of faith, or its relegation to a subordinate sphere. There are times when great injustices—slavery, imperialism, totalitarianism, segregation—require spiritual mobilization and public witness. But from Gandhi to King, the greatest examples of these movements renounce power as well. They embrace nonviolence as a moral example, and that paradox changes the world more than politics or violence ever can or will. When politics is necessary, as it is, the kind of Christianity I am describing seeks always to translate religious truths into reasoned, secular arguments that can appeal to those of other faiths and none at all. But it also means, at times, renouncing Caesar in favor of the Christ to whom Jefferson, Francis, my grandmother, and countless generations of believers have selflessly devoted themselves.

The saints, after all, became known as saints not because of their success in fighting political battles, or winning a few news cycles, or funding an anti-abortion super PAC. They were saints purely and simply because of the way they lived. And this, of course, was Jefferson’s deeply American insight: “No man can conform his faith to the dictates of another. The life and essence of religion consists in the internal persuasion or belief of the mind.”

The Faces of Christian Politics
Win McNamee / Getty Images

Jefferson feared that the alternative to a Christianity founded on “internal persuasion” was a revival of the brutal, bloody wars of religion that America was founded to escape. And what he grasped in his sacrilegious mutilation of a sacred text was the core simplicity of Jesus’ message of renunciation. He believed that stripped of the doctrines of the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the various miracles, the message of Jesus was the deepest miracle. And that it was radically simple. It was explained in stories, parables, and metaphors—not theological doctrines of immense complexity. It was proven by his willingness to submit himself to an unjustified execution. The cross itself was not the point; nor was the intense physical suffering he endured. The point was how he conducted himself through it all—calm, loving, accepting, radically surrendering even the basic control of his own body and telling us that this was what it means to truly transcend our world and be with God. Jesus, like Francis, was a homeless person, as were his closest followers. He possessed nothing—and thereby everything.

Christianity Resurrected

I have no concrete idea how Christianity will wrestle free of its current crisis, of its distractions and temptations, and above all its enmeshment with the things of this world. But I do know it won’t happen by even more furious denunciations of others, by focusing on politics rather than prayer, by concerning ourselves with the sex lives and heretical thoughts of others rather than with the constant struggle to liberate ourselves from what keeps us from God. What Jefferson saw in Jesus of Nazareth was utterly compatible with reason and with the future; what Saint Francis trusted in was the simple, terrifying love of God for Creation itself. That never ends.

This Christianity comes not from the head or the gut, but from the soul. It is as meek as it is quietly liberating. It does not seize the moment; it lets it be. It doesn’t seek worldly recognition, or success, and it flees from power and wealth. It is the religion of unachievement. And it is not afraid. In the anxious, crammed lives of our modern twittering souls, in the materialist obsessions we cling to for security in recession, in a world where sectarian extremism threatens to unleash mass destruction, this sheer Christianity, seeking truth without the expectation of resolution, simply living each day doing what we can to fulfill God’s will, is more vital than ever. It may, in fact, be the only spiritual transformation that can in the end transcend the nagging emptiness of our late-capitalist lives, or the cult of distracting contemporaneity, or the threat of apocalyptic war where Jesus once walked. You see attempts to find this everywhere—from experimental spirituality to resurgent fundamentalism. Something inside is telling us we need radical spiritual change.

But the essence of this change has been with us, and defining our own civilization, for two millennia. And one day soon, when politics and doctrine and pride recede, it will rise again.


Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, weekly columnist for the Sunday Times of London, brought his hugely popular blog, The Dish, to the Daily Beast in 2011. He's the author of several books, including "Virtually Normal," "Love Undetectable," and "The Conservative Soul."

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity. One that is Postmodern. Part 1/3

In the months ahead I hope to rewrite Christendom's Evangelical heritage in terms of Postmodern Christianity whose faith must let go of its many past foundational elements of its narrative constructs and begin updating those older narratives into a more flexible, less mechanised, more dynamically constructed theology that better engages our understanding of who God is, what He is doing, and how He is effecting our world.

To begin with I wish to use Andrew Perriman's theological starting point of God calling a remnant people to Himself in terms of purpose and calling, commitments and labor, expectancies and potentialities. From there I wish to dis-engage from our European heritage of dogmas and traditions, and then re-engage the bible with a fuller language of postmodern and relational theology.

By way of example, this process would be similar to dis-engaging from classical Newtonian physics as an ultimate descriptor of our cosmogony to the alternative, and no less real, re-engagement of physics from a quantum mechanics scientific viewpoint. One mathematical model works with the world of the large, while the other mathematical model works with the world of the small. Lately, through string theory, the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle, and other similar theories, the gap between the worlds of classical and quantum physics begin to seem more bridgeable. More intertwined. Similarly, the Christian faith stands in a correspondent state of engagement.

However, the 21st century church still is using an older language, concepts and constructs of the past while impossibly trying to relate to the newer discoveries of postmodern Christian theorists, theologians, philosophers, and pragmatists. This newer language of discovery is different. It's foreign. It feels alien. Strange. And at times absurd. It leaves us puzzled, confused, frighten, threaten, defeated, broken and perhaps even willing to throw out all our belief systems as untrue, too biased, too localized, too subjective, or frivolous. But these very human elements and personal knee-jerk reactions are actually the very starting point to positively re-framing, and re-arrangement of, our faith if it is to expand and grow lest it die upon the antiquities of past traditions and dogmas. Antiquities that once were founded upon the hotbeds of a living, dynamic faith, but now are beginning to feel more like dying, irrelevant idols we needlessly cling to, fight for, and refuse to give up.

But just like the older concepts of classical physics which have become "updated" to be more useful in the modern era of engineering projects, so too are the newer concepts of quantum physics giving to us the ability to better engineer God's complex creation that we have more recently discovered through the newer quantumized tools of interaction. Similarly, for some Christians it will be difficult to update their faith so that it can continue to exist in postmodern times of religious plurality and inter-faith dialogue. For others, they will be driven to radically re-express every aspect of Christianity in fundamentally altering terms that may leave little, or no, resemblance to the church's past dogmas. And yet for others like myself that fall in the range of constructive theologians (by nature, if not by trade), we will want to engage both systems and try to build a bridge between both worldviews of the old and the new. While at the same time chiding faith-camps on both sides of the bridge for either not giving up enough, or for giving up too much. For being too rigid and in danger of losing their faith. Or so flexible, as to lose the centrality of what they were initially seeking to recharge, uplift and re-energize. We're looking for balance while retaining substance. Reasonableness while remaining true to the biblical word.

So if you're a Calvinist, expect to speak of God in less deterministic terms - as One who is not in control of all things at all times - and rather think of God as One who partners with His freewill creation (which includes mankind). Who influences rather than coerces. Who suffers with us and despairs of sin and evil (and thus, to some, seems weak and unable to help. Or to others, prohibited to act... something I defer to think of as God self-limiting Himself.) Who may not (or cannot) stop evil and harm because of either self-limitations incurred when creating a freewilled creation or, because by His very act of creation sin entered into what was holy and good. Which thus prohibits His coercive interaction upon a free-willed creation. Who encourages obedience to His will and purposes but does not demand it or force it. Who uses our failures and refusals to His ultimate goals of recreation and renewal. These are only some, of many, many ideas being discussed within postmodern Christianity that we should think through ourselves - sometimes in admonstrative critique (did I just make up a new word? or simply misuse admonish... poets ask that question at times), but mostly, to help enliven our faith, and our faith-walk in this world.

Further, expect to think of God as not the unchanging One, but One who is changeable, just as we (and the world of creation) change from day-to-day. This is part of what it means to be in the Image of God. To think in terms of process and relatedness. That is, to consider all things are in flux and in dynamic adaptability. So too is God in process because He wishes to relate to us and will change Himself with the changes we go through (or will be changed in Himself by the experiences He experiences by/from His creation)... like the example of a parent who changes with their kids as they grow up into maturity through life's experiences, brokenness, harms and delights. Or like the child itself growing up within the world with all of its rich experiences good and bad, fulfilling and desettling, impossibly being able to hold a past stage of life from immortal change and timeless eternity. These aspects describe our humanness - we are relational beings just as God is a relational being in His essence. Moreover, we have no self-identity without having social interaction with each other (or with other things) gained through event and process. Just as the physical concepts of Einstenian time-and-space bear no meaning without interaction with one another through event, so too we bear no meaning within ourselves without interaction with each other that are formed as a series of events. The same can be said of God. Creation gives God meaning just as God gives creation meaning through mutual interactions formed as a series of shaping events. God changes from day-to-day in his immortal, timeless essence. It is a mystery we cannot understand but a seemingly true mystery that we must allow without compartmentalizing His essence, His authority, His deity or the divinity of His fellowship.

But by saying these things doesn't necessarily mean that we, as postmodern Christians, shouldn't remember the church's past creeds and confessions as its gatekeepers of past historical legacies hard won and perilously wrestled away from past withholding auspices of the reigning catholic church and/or powers of the religious state through inquisitions, torture, brutality, death and destruction. However, we are updating those past ideologies into a postmodernistic language of expression. When we do this we're going to say things differently. And, if necessary, even create a new language to speak of God and of His relationship to the world. For without a new language we cannot break the bonds to the antiquated past that has held our present-day language in similar bondage. We need new concepts, new symbols, new words to infill a Christianity that must grow and change and adapt from its older version of itself to this day's more postmodern culture. A culture holding hostage the modern day church in its present day language, paradigms and expressions. And why not?! Does not the bible teach that man's view of the world is finite and that God's is infinite? When God questioned Job did He not tell Job the same thing? It would be the height of human audacity to presume that our knowledge of God is limited to the past and that God is consequently limited  by our past systematic statements (or symbolic representations) of Himself. Or by our simplistic/naive belief systems that have attempted to grasp Him eons ago through the ancient mind when we are just discovering the dynamicy of the bible based upon its fluidity of communication (which is what I think the original writers of the bible would ultimately want us to do even as we we were gauging their words through our own static, inflexible, belief systems). This is the mystery of the Holy Spirit charged with communicating God's eternal word to humanity's future days and ages seeking to behold God's wisdom of revelation which is bound within theology's perception of what a good hermeneutic should, and shouldn't, be.

Inflexible belief systems can ultimately be destructive or harmful to willing, and evolving, postmodern societal interactions should the church chose not to evolve at an organic level. Whether naturally, or by man's intercessory provisioning, or even by the prophetic activity of its inherent counsel resident within its Spirit indwelt visionaries). But to foolishly expect that, (i) mankind (and creation) will no longer evolve with one another, but must ever -and-always remain statically bound to one another through past enriching or conforming paradigms, expressions, practices, and worldviews alone, is unreasonable. Or that, (ii) our relationship with the divine Otherness of the Eternal One has been fully proscribed by the genius of older theologians, bishops, priests, and rabbis, would be beyond the bounds of our practical experience and expectant imaginations. It would place an unrealistic burden upon the church by ascribing to the church of yesteryear  an impolitic expectation of knowing, being, grasping, even managing, timeless truths unbent to modern, or postmodern, or post-postmodern (and beyond), needs, insights, proscriptions, charters, knowledge, worldly experience,  and spiritual provisioning based upon a yet-to-be-realized evolving society of mankind that would prophetically re-envision all aspects of mankind's future orders, sciences, technologies, constitutions and praxis - both theoretical and pragmatic. This would be foolishness. The height of audacity to which today's present orthodox church arranged around its present theologies would pretend admission to while at the same time creating for itself a time-bound community of believers unwilling, and unable, to struggle with society's polypluralisms for effective missional witness. 

However, if this is not the case, than we should both allow - and expect! - more enlightened thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, worship and faith practices to proceed forth from this very reasonable and natural essay between the God of the cosmos and His creation. An essay that may rewrite its experiences of God with a sharpened pen more attune to the needs of today's societies. One that would speak to mankind's search for morality, truth and error, like the relationship between old friends beheld in intimate conversation seeking fuller expression with one another - speaking from the depths of one's heart telling each other what is true, but had become lost in the conventions of words and experiences impossible to envisage, conceive, paint, or portray. That, like friendships, as they grow old and perhaps more intimate (or more apart) with one another, so too will man's corporate relationship with God expand or contract as each discovers, or refuses discovery, or even infuses discovery, with the language of the other. Between God and man. And man to God. This is the language of experience. The language of timeful relationship as it moves and breathes around the life of the other. A language which cannot be held static to the reforms and experiences of past saints and scholars. But a language which must be continually expressed in some manner or way as only time and experience will allow. The Christianity of one's youth must and will change. If it does not it will die becoming traditionalized and solidified by an inanimate, dead faith centered around past memories, ideas, and experiences. The language of faith and life cannot admit this. And never will.

So then, with that said, let us turn our attention to "A new kind of Evangelicalism" - one that is neither conservative nor modern - but one that might better attune towards all things God and man, church and faith, life and breath... mostly because I'm an optimist who believes God is always alive, always present with us, always speaking His word to us, through all things and in every indescribable way to our imaginings and unimaginable hopes and dreams, as befitting His divine council and wisdom, Spirit and grace. Eh verily, O Lord, Amen!

R.E. Slater

April 4, 2012
partial edits: February 28, 2014

The Full Series:

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 1/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.

Part 2/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_05.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 3/3
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_07.html



Related Articles:

What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

An Introduction.
Part 1/2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html


What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

My Personal Observations.
Part 2/2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about_26.html



* * * * * * * * * * * *


Evangelicalism, A new kind of

http://www.postost.net/lexicon/evangelicalism-new-kind

by Andrew Perriman

29 March 2012

As I would redefine the term from a narrative-historical perspective, an “evangelical” in the broadest sense is someone who finds “good news” in the long and complex story of the historic family of Abraham, descended through Jesus. Or better, the church is “evangelical” insofar as it finds good news in that story.

The evangelical vocation

What Abraham stood for was the remaking of God’s good creation in microcosm, as a world within a world, after humanity had chosen, in defiance of the creator:

1. self-determination (Adam and Eve),
2. a course of violence and injustice (the generation destroyed in the flood) and,
3. the idolatry of empire (the builders of Babel). 

That still encapsulates the broad purpose of the people of God: the church is not an aggregation of redeemed individuals; it is an alternative society, set in opposition to the idolatry, self-interest, injustice, violence, tyranny, oppression, and systemic arrogance of what we glibly call “fallen” humanity. To be evangelical is to embrace the full scope of that opposition.

But this has always been a troubled, painful, and controversial vocation. We still find it extremely difficult and unnatural to live up to the ideal of a just people, reconciled to the creator, as a blessing to the nations. To be evangelical, therefore, is to be unreasonably, absurdly, stubbornly optimistic about the concrete and symbolic potential of this people’s narrated existence; and we are sustained in that optimism by what is now for us, since Jesus, the unfailing grace of God.

The evangelical narrative

As I understand it, the bible tells the story of the people of God from the call of Abraham to the climactic moment when his descendants inherited the pagan world. It is authoritative for the church precisely because it tells this story. This, I think, is the proper starting point for an evangelical hermeneutic: the Bible sets the narrative trajectory for the people of God throughout the coming ages.

The story is told partly “historically” and partly prophetically or apocalyptically. The New Testament deals with a critical period when it appeared that the family of Abraham, in the form of national Israel, was about to lose the right, under devastating circumstances, to represent the creator God amongst the nations. Israel was hell bent on a course that would lead to the destruction of its national and religious existence, but in the fulness of time a young wonder-working prophet from Nazareth entered the charged political arena proclaiming a narrow and difficult path that would lead to life, though he was not confident that many find it.

The good news of Jesus (in historical context)

His death for the sins of his people defined the way forward for faithful Israel. His resurrection from the dead convinced his followers that the creator God, the God of Israel, had not only made him the way, the truth, and the life for his people, but also had given him the authority to judge and rule over the nations. This was the “good news” that was proclaimed first in Jerusalem and then across the Greek-Roman world. The inclusion of Gentiles in the commonwealth of Israel at this juncture was itself a sign to the empire of the transformation to come. This is the evangelical heart of the narrative: the “gospel” is public and political, not private and personal.

The exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of the Father set in train a long historical process. Through the faithful witness of communities of eschatological transformation the pagan world, which had for so many centuries opposed the God of Israel and oppressed his people, would be overthrown, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ—and not any other god—was Lord, to the glory of Israel’s God.

Apocalyptic Trinitarianism

So from this point onwards the family of Abraham has had to relate to the one creator God on new terms—as the Father who determines the fate of his people, as the Son who has been given authority to reign, and as the Spirit who is the inspiring, empowering presence of the creator in the midst of his people. A statement of Trinitarian belief that is genuinely biblical—and so genuinely evangelical—has to take account of the apocalyptic narrative of Jesus’ “sonship”: unlike the pagan kings he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself to the point of death on a Roman cross; because of this obedience he was exalted, and given authority to rule as Lord and king, to the glory of Israel’s God.

To Christendom and beyond

This is how the family of Abraham, for so long confined to the small beleaguered state of Israel, came to inherit the world. But the story does not stop there, and evangelicals must learn how to make sense of the continuing narrative. European Christendom, as both a political and a theological construct, lasted in one form or other for perhaps 1700 years, to be defeated in the end by the combined forces of secular rationalism and post-imperial pluralism.

The heirs of European Christendom have been mostly exiled from the territory that they once dominated, and in order to survive are having to disengage themselves from many of the habits of thought and practice that characterize a world that no longer exists.

But an evangelical, being an incorrigible optimist, believes that the story is by no means over; that the family of Abraham, descended through Jesus, has a viable future; that there is still “new creation” ahead of us. Moreover, an evangelical has the confidence to invite people into this difficult historical journey of corporate witness.

The whole story (plus actions)

So to be an evangelical community now is to find and proclaim the good news that arises from this whole story. It is good news that God is; that he still calls into existence a servant people for his own possession, to be priests and prophets in the world; that he remains faithful towards those who trust him; that he can still hold his own against the powerful cultural forces that oppose him and oppress his people; that he is still able to effect the renewal of his creation in ways that convince us that he will not finally be defeated but will make all things new.

It is good news that Jesus died for the historical family of Abraham; it is good news that there is no longer the possibility of terminal failure; it is good news that the doors of that community are open; it is good news that in and around this community lives are transformed, the sick are healed, sight is restored to the blind, the poor are comforted, captives are set free, relationships are renewed, divisions are healed, prejudices and fears are overcome.

It is good news that sometimes this is not all just words….

Trusting God Amidst Loss of Beliefs and Self-Identities

I Have Met the Stranger and He is Me...
http://peterrollins.net/?p=3611

by Peter Rollins

posted 27/3/12

To believe is easy. You can fill stadiums with people wanting to believe, either to solidify what they already think or to grasp hold of something because they feel cast adrift and lost at sea.

To doubt, to interrogate your fear, to really question what you believe, that’s difficult. It’s difficult because we want to protect ourselves from doubt and unknowing. Indeed when we encounter somebody who is different from us, our first experience is often to see them as monstrous, as having beliefs and practices which are alien and stranger and historical and contingent. When we encounter them we either want to consume them, make them part of our social body, or we want to vomit them and get rid of them. Or perhaps we want to have some sort of interfaith dialogue where we can talk about where we agree.

In each of these experiences we seek to minimize our encounter with the other. We seek to domesticate them. In the first, I’m right and they’re wrong, and I want to make them into a version of me. In the second, I’m right and they’re wrong, and I want to get rid of them. In the third, we’re both right.

But in the genuine encounter with the other, we start to see ourselves through their eyes, and instead of seeing their beliefs as monstrous, we start to see our beliefs as monstrous. We see our beliefs as contingent, and historical, and alien, not just to them but to ourselves.

It is in this experience, when our beliefs begin to fracture and fall apart and our political, religious, and cultural narratives begin to fracture that we know what it is to experience a type of crucifixion. For the cross was a symbol of curse. The person was killed outside the city. They weren’t part of the political structure. They were no longer part of the cultural system. They were no longer protected by the religious leaders. They were the complete outsider. They were crucified naked and alone.

When we experience the loss of our beliefs, when we experience the breakdown of our narratives, it’s not there where we lose God, it’s there where we stand side by side with Christ.

The Damage We Do When Not Accepting and Loving Gays and Homosexuals

Confessions of a Gay Christian
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/blog/28785-confessions-of-a-gay-christian

Nate Smith

April 4, 2012

 

We live in a society where we feel that as individuals nothing can shape us or harm us. We are free thinkers only influenced by what we want to be influenced by. The reality is, that is totally false.

 

Erik Erickson was a developmental psychologist who proposed that as a person grows through different life stages. At each turning point, there needs to be room to have an “identity crisis”. This allows for the individual to adapt—or not—to their circumstances. Different stages can be revisited if the internal struggles are not acknowledged. The success of a person’s development is affected by outside influences.

 

As a person who has grown up in Christian culture and of a homosexual orientation, I have come to realize that I have never fully been able to trust until this year. And I am 27-years-old.

 

My dad was in the military until middle school and then became a pastor. The fear of the Lord and rigidity of religious rules weighed heavy in the household. Matters of faith and theology were never to be questioned. Before I even started thinking about my sexual orientation, I happened to become friends with a guy who was “out” in my freshman year of high school. We communicated through letters and eventually I gave him my number. My dad found out who he “was” and I was instructed not to associate with “people like that”. The friendship ended. My dad became vocal about Disney supporting the gays. As a family we joined the boycott against Disney and “those homosexuals.” I remember hearing about the Matthew Shepard murder and started wondering why the Church hated them.

 

After high school, I started working at a Christian bookstore. Employees were allowed to take books home to read and return them at their leisure. I snuck a copy of Desires in Conflict, a book published by an ex-gay ministry. I remember seeing the “gay” spectrum. I thought to myself that I wasn’t that “gay” and maybe could move closer to heterosexuality. The next week, a co-worker made a comment about the flamboyant men who purchase the “gay” books. I laughed it off and wondered if he knew.

 

A year later, I attended a short-term Bible school in Spain. After numerous suicidal nightmares, I walked to the beach and yelled at God. I needed Him to show His face, to give me mercy and love because the Christians I knew hated people like me. The next morning, my ability to soak in Scripture was like night and day. God had showed up, but my secret was kept to myself in fear of others.

 

I started to become honest with others at 22-years-old. I came out to my professor through an assignment I had written and to many friends. An immense fear of others resurfaced, and I started to hate myself again for my orientation. My college friends showed me love, but I knew it was time to tell my family. Before heading to Georgia, I kept watching Valerie’s story in V for Vendetta. She shared this: “I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like ‘collateral’ and ‘rendition’ became frightening, while things like Norsefire and the Articles of Allegiance became powerful. I remember how ‘different’ became dangerous. I still don’t understand it, why they hate us so much.”

 

My worst fear of being thrown out of the family did not happen. However, I was left deeply damaged. Questions arose like “How did we raise you?” or “Have you prayed enough?” or “Your friend, Toby, is he your lover?” Yes, I knew how I was raised; yes, I prayed relentlessly for this to stop; and no, Toby was not my lover, nor did I ever have one.

 

Despite my suicidal ideations, I headed to Costa Rica for a year-long internship. I was upfront about my “struggles”, which led to being questioned about male friendships that developed. I had to have surgery while in Costa Rica, which resulted in easy access to pain medication. The medication caused hallucinations and my four year struggle of suicidal thoughts became a reality as I consumed a cocktail of pills. The 30 minute race to the hospital was accompanied by the director, his wife and my roommate. With an unpredictable heartbeat, I kept saying, “The man said, ‘Homosexuals must die. Homosexuals must die. They are all going to hell.’” I was put on schizophrenic medication and two months later went to finish my final year of college. Deeply broken, I partook in some prayer counseling, which was immensely helpful until it turned into reparative therapy to change my attraction to men. The American Medical, Psychiatric and Psychological Associations are all in agreement that reparative therapy is harmful to clients. Why are evangelicals still doing this? After a few sessions, I stopped going. I questioned if there was a place for me in the Body of Christ.

 

In 2010, Jennifer Knapp released Letting Go, which spoke directly to the emotions I had. Lyrics like I’m the one who keeps it on the inside // so they’ll leave me alone radiated what I lived by, just so I could have normal relationships with people.

 

In October 2011, I read Love is an Orientation by Andrew Marin. He placed emphasis on the Gospel and not orientation. Christ’s love and acceptance goes way beyond this. I stopped viewing my sexual identity as something to fight against. As a result, I am off all medications, suicidal ideations have stopped and I lost the 45 pounds that I gained in less than 2 years. I finally began to trust in myself and who God is.

 

The highest at-risk group for suicidal behaviors is found in celibate, self-identified homosexual males at 46.1 percent with an attempt rate at 15.5%. I am both of those statistics. Do I remain celibate? If I do, how do I gain a sense of community? Even the idea of having a guy roommate results in Christians telling me to “warn” my roommate about “who I am.” I am then questioned about whether I will be “tempted.” Should I be forced to live alone like a leper?

 

The environment we are in has great impact on who we become. Christian culture can help a person flourish into who God wants them to become or burn them alive. I love my family and consider myself God’s son. Christian culture has influenced me to remain celibate, but I don’t “struggle” anymore. I just question if I am remaining celibate to appease my Evangelical family or friends and wondering if that statistic will reappear in my life.

 

Nate Smith is obsessed with chai tea and lives in the Bluegrass state.

He writes at psychosiswar.wordpress.com and tweets at @smithbrooks.

 

 

 

 

Recommended: Children Adoption Agency Holt International

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Who We Are — Holt International

Finding Families for Children

The love we experience as children enables us to thrive. It fuels us. Molds us. Nurtures our developing minds.

At Holt International, we help orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children to thrive by finding families to love them. Families in the form of trained caretakers who assume the awesome task of nurturing children awaiting adoption.

And the adoptive families who will love and nurture children… forever.

Moved by faith and a firm belief that all children deserve permanent, loving homes, Harry and Bertha Holt began their lifelong mission in 1955. Overcoming legal and cultural barriers, they sought families for children orphaned by the Korean War.

With this act of love, two farmers from rural Oregon revolutionized international adoption.

Today, Holt International strives to uphold their vision: to find loving homes for children regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender.

Our Mission

Holt International is a Christian organization committed to expressing God’s compassion for children. While always upholding the highest ethical standards, we: Find and support permanent, loving families for children who are orphaned, abandoned or at serious risk of separation from their family Provide services to ensure that children will grow and develop to their fullest potential Lead the global community in advocating on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable children

Our work is their legacy

Established overseas for more than five decades, Holt is the model for international adoption. World leaders seek our expertise. Child welfare organizations embrace our partnership. We helped formulate the Hague Convention, an international treaty that sets ethical standards of practice for adoption. And through innovation, determination and collaboration, we continue to raise the standard of care provided to homeless and at-risk children throughout the world.

Though we've grown, our ideals remain constant. We still believe the best care comes from a loving family – the right family. Each child has a story. Each child's circumstances are unique. Thus we always explore the possibility of reuniting Holt children with their birth families.

We have one goal: to give all children the love they need and deserve. Whether by birth or by adoption – to a domestic family or a family in the United States – this is our passion. This is our purpose.

To adoptive parents, we offer this assurance: international adoption was the best solution for your child.