Understanding Our Community

A few of us have been batting ideas about why it is we are living together (as the Church) in the way we are, what we're looking for, and "how long" we're willing to do it, over on Alan's blog for the last couple of days. If you find that interesting, check out these two posts and their comments.

I'll offer a version of my thoughts.

Why am I doing it this way? Being with the Vine and Branches Community and doing the "house church" thing? Let me tell you first what my rationale is not: transformation is not a sudden event that's going to come to completion before Jesus returns to renew the entire Creation with a fresh act of power and love. There is not a particular benchmark I'm looking for in my life, such that this way of being religious might finally accomplish. I don't really have a picture in my mind of what it'll look like to be "completely transformed" in this stage of my life. I really do trust Jesus (not me!) to finish the job, because he's the one who knows what he's doing. My life with VBCC could never fail to "do it for me" because I'm not after anything like that.

If I were part of our common life because I thought it would "finally work" to accomplish some particular goal of sanctification in my life, I might be asking myself, "how long am I willing do this before I see results, and then try something else?"

We are the Church of Jesus Christ, not a hemorrhoid cream.

What am I after? It sounds a little cliched to say, but transformation is about the journey more than the destination. Transformation is something that Jesus sneaks up on us while we cooperate and choose to be with him and live in the fellowship of his Church. I want to be with some people who love Jesus and are willing to stick around love me. I want them to stick around for awhile so I can learn to love them. Let us learn to love on and be like Jesus by learning and loving one another. Let's be very much a part of the places where we live and seek to transform the lives and situations of the people around us by being agents of God's Reign.

I can't judge whether that's happening "good enough." I can only be part of that, or not.

I often find our context a little challenging because I have committed to this way of being together not because I'm sold on a particular way of "being church" rather than another, but because I live in these relationships.

While I have particular values and criticisms that would keep me from building and budget-oriented fellowships, that's not important. I do what I do and stay with the people I stay with because we are important to one another. If somebody wanders off from our fellowship because "it wasn't working for them," they just never got it. What wasn't working? Human relationships? That's about being a new person, and about it being hard. Not about our corporate personality, or the way we order our common life, necessarily.

Are we close "enough" to one another? I don't know who might have suggested to us that it is possible to put people in a liturgical setting for a few months and at the end see friendships that look years old (or substitute years and decades), but they were wrong. Trust takes time and learning. My closest friends have been my friends for anywhere between three and seven years. I'm still learning what feels like basic lessons in trust with them.

The tree might be a sapling because it takes time to grow, not because it's being tended poorly.

How long are we willing to do it this way? That's the question everybody is going to have to answer on their own. The really difficult thing is not assuming everyone has the ability to understand and answer the question, and not insisting that they do so.

That's my challenge: letting people come into the fellowship even though they want to try the new religious thing that just might work this time. It's the wrong thing to look for, but it's not their fault. I can only hope and pray that Jesus will sneak up on and surprise all of us as we ask him.

In Defense of Praise Choruses

Or,

Theological Sophistication Can Sneak Up on You

I don’t usually weigh in on the “worship wars” that wrack some Christian churches, as such matters stand pretty far outside of my context (that is to say, I don’t care). But I had an epiphany the other day, and I didn’t want to keep that from all of you.

Some Christians like to denigrate the worship of others (an ugly hobby to be sure) whether they understand it or not. You know, sacramentalists are too much of one thing, or don’t understand something else (allegedly), and evangelicals lack (fill in the blank). I don’t do that.

It can be said of some examples of the “contemporary” style that the songs lack “deep” theological substance, or that they are repetitious, or that they are “me” centered. I would argue that none of these criticisms are really so bad.

First, if one insists on “deep” theological substance, one should define just what that means? Perhaps we should stick to hymns that parse ancient Christological formations into their finer points? Set the Chalcedonian Definition to music?

Like that wouldn’t be boring. If I were defining it, my hymnbook would consist mostly of Issac Watts and Charles Wesley, with a few lucky composers thrown in for variety. The 65 or so bits by Fanny Crosby that landed in a lot of modern evangelical church hymnals (especially the Baptists) would have to go. I like Crosby, but she doesn’t fit my definition of deep. She writes about warm, heart-felt religion, too. Just like those praise choruses.

Who would get to decide what are deep topics for hymns and songs? You wouldn’t want me to do it. So why should we let you?

Don’t be tempted to admire the mainliners, either. ECUSA’s 1982 Hymnal seems geared toward real musicians and choirs – I found it impossible to follow. I couldn’t sing that stuff, and in my experience, I’ve never seen a congregation actually sing those bits. I’ve seen some hard working choirs drown out their attempts, though. But if they want that, that’s fine. And just because you sing words that you never use, and can’t figure out what the songs are going on about, doesn’t make them deep.

Second, what’s wrong with a little “me centered” singing? I love Jesus, after all, and he loves me. There’s a place for that in our hymnody, kids. If we really refuse to touch that and spend all of our time trying to sing songs about the transcendent majesty of God that just doesn’t come near to the deepest, darkest places of our hearts, I might recommend actually reading the gospels, and maybe a little bit of therapy. I am not kidding.

Finally, repetition can be good. Repetition quiets the heart. While I would never appreciate singing “I could sing of your love forever” – literally forever, it sometimes seems – spending some time with hands outstretched repeating some simple, true phrase from the Scriptures is a very good thing.

What do you think centering prayer is? It’s being with Jesus and quieting the mind to hear from him by focusing on one true thing that will push out all the noise that’s been crowding it. I sat down to learn that from the Eastern mystics, but realized I’d already been introduced to the idea (how unsuspecting I was) by my favorite evangelical, contemporary worship churches.

I realized this when I was so looking forward to joining my friend for worship with his home Christian Community the other day – it was an opportunity to be assisted in quieting my heart before the Lord, and offering him thanks and praise. That is the point, I would suppose, of any liturgy. So bring on the overhead projectors!

Technorati Tags: worship, liturgy, church music

Codependent a Little Bit?

Two women were in line at my register in the bookstore. Each of them held a copy of Codependent No More for purchase.

All I could think was, "Couldn't you just share a copy?"

What I like about the Office

It is our custom in our community to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Several of us spent the last weeks of the school year doing it, gathering outside the little cafe in the College library to say the daytime office together over cups of coffee. (That, by the way, is what we mean when we talk about letting organic, incarnational community emerge in an appropriate form by the movement of the Spirit.)

I should clarify what this means. The Liturgy of the Hours is a set of 7 "prayer services" that consist of psalms, songs from scripture, ancient hymns, and readings primarily from the Old and New Testaments, and some from the early writings of the Church.

In praying the Office, I'm being trained to quit trying to "get something out of" my reading of Scripture. It is a regular, daily practice, to be engaged in whether I feel like it or not. The Scripture reads me, and I sit with it, (often with my friends as well) whether I'm in the mood for it or not. When it's done, I can trust that this is indeed part of being transformed by the renewing of my mind, whether I "feel" transformed or not.

Because that's the way it happens. Often the Holy Spirit will do a very deep work when we don't think he's anywhere near. There is so much to be done in our redemption, and he doesn't always see fit to let us know exactly what it is, why it is, or what it looks like while it's going on.

Sometimes, it's just none of our business.

O God, come to my assistance

O Lord, make haste to help me

Technorati Tags: worship, liturgy, prayer

Deo Gratia

Academia Oxoniensis

Regent's Park College

My application to the Master of Applied Theology program has been approved. I'm feeling humbled (latin fixation aside) and deeply grateful for the prayers, support, consideration, nurtue and challenge I've recieved from all the friends who have supported me in this and all the endeavors that came before it.

This is my next adventure...

On Civil Partnerships

Meanwhile, the fellow called "I'd Rather Not Say" has published a good and thoughtful essay (from a conversative Christian perspective, no less) on a rationale behind civil partnerships as separate from Christian marriage. It's long, but very worthwhile. Note that the essay begins by discussing a recent proposal by English bishops that English clergy not be disciplined for participating in celibate civil partnerships when the law that allows them in the UK takes effect in December. Check it out:

"Goin' to the Chapel?"

What do I think? I'm glad you asked...

In his 1997 essay "Christian Same Sex Partnerships," (in T. Bradshaw, ed., The Way Forward?) Rev. Dr. Jeffrey John argued that if the Church is going to call its homosexual members to a state of perpetual celibacy, it must provide some alternative to the apparent sentence of lonliness that seems to be foisted upon all Christian persons who do not enter a state of holy matrimony.

If in the scope of our Christian living and reflection, the only way to be permanently joined and committed to a loving family is marriage, it is because we have not yet formed ourselves into the cohesive and permanent Christian communites that New Testament Christians could take for granted. Our theology of the Community, the New People of God, is terribly stunted if we can only find permanent loving relationships not in the fellowship of the Church, but in marriages that may or may not be Christian.

To put it briefly and succinctly: If we are going to call members of the Community to celibacy (which has historically been considered a vocation, not a punishment), we'd best re-learn a theology of celibacy post-haste.

Trust

I'm moving to Lexington this week. I'll continue working at the school for the rest of this month, and then begin a job at a bookstore in town. I must say, I get trendier as time goes on. Ahem.

waiting waiting waiting

Talked about authority with some of the guys last night. Just what does it look like? I've taken seriously Richard Foster's word that the discipline of submission frees of from "the tyranny of self-will." It's how Jesus seeks to free us from a life in which we as individuals must always, on our own, determine the right decisions, for us, and then accept the rewards or face the consequences on our own. To use a cliche, it takes us out of that "Lone Ranger Christianity" bit.

I don't have to worry about knowing "God's will for my life," because I know a bunch of people who pray and talk about that with me. We find direction in our life together. My friends will protect me from doing anything too crazy that way. I don't have to worry about fooling myself as whether I'm obedient to Jesus in my everyday life.

Holy obedience isn't a slavish response to the will of others, but a openness to listen and be corrected. I've known so many people who have much difficulty pressing into life with Jesus in the Christian community, not because they keep making bad decisions, but because they don't make one basic faithful decision - to sit still, to trust and to listen, even when that means hearing uncomfortable things.

You really want to be a Christian? You really want to be refined by the Creator and Redeemer of humanity? Go make some friends. Be friends with them for a few years without giving up because they don't do and say what you want them to, or because you're pissed at them, or becaue you can't seem to figure out how to love them well.

Fights will come. Conflicts will ensue. Learning to live in those with openness, honesty and forgiveness is the primary work we're called to do. This is our specific task. That is how we learn to love. That is how we learn to be loved. And it is in that - and that only - that we bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the entire world.

I don't know about the other believers out there, but I am too hurt, too tired, and too hopeful to do anything else.

The Problem with Singles Ministry

Formerly titled, "Single People are Pathetic." Yes, I know. I am adorable. Due to popular demand (2 e-mails), I have reworked, clarified, and re-posted the essay. I do think these are important points for those with ears to hear. And yes, "single people" are still pathetic (just read the comments on the original post), but that's incidental to my real point.

I don't think a specialized "singles" ministry ought to exist. I have been in the company of many concerned Christians who disagree, but this is my reasoning:

I think church people make a bigger deal out of having separate "single" or "attached" catagories for humans more than non-church people do. It seems to me that the people who get excited about "singles ministry" reveal in their language an assumption that being "single" is somehow a lesser personhood.

Whenever I've been present for singles ministry meetings, things have gotten around to "recognition of singles" by "the church." The apparently problem? The generation before mine wants some ethereal entity called "the church" to bless their way of living. As if not being married were unusual are bad, and they need to be told it's not bad. In my context, I never concern myself with whether "the church" or "lots of people" think that not being married at age 14, 22, 30, or never, is weird. That's a bit of a misdirected search for validation I think. The important questions are, "What think the people who love me?" "What kind of man or woman, and in what manner of life, am I called to live?

I am not married, and I won't be soon. I am attempting to cultivate a holy celibacy, belonging to God and to my community, a local grouping of the Body of Christ. I do not need some prancing prelate priestling pontificating from a pulpit to inform me that this is an acceptable way of life. I would be insulted by the attempt. My friends and I do quite well discerning my vocation. Christianity, Inc. and associates can keep their opinions to themselves.

I have a problem with the language of "singleness," "singularity," or whatever one wants to say.

I am not single, or alone. Lots of people, including Christians, would say that I'm single, and not in a relationship. How sad it would be if that were true! What's with this "in a relationship" language? No wonder so many unmarried people feel worthless and unloved: they speak in a language that gives explicit value only to those relationships that are in some way sexual (or at least romantic) and offers implicit devaluation to those that are not. "No, I'm not in a relationship." Of any kind? With anyone?

If that's the way I saw it, I would certainly feel pathetic. But I am in lots of relationships, with lots of people. They love me, and I love them, and that's important. We learn to love well. We are committed to one other through our baptism and unity in the truth, empowered to love and remain by the Holy Spirit. Sexual relations would obviously not improve those friendships (for many, many reasons), but that's what's implied by the language of "in a relationship" and "just friends." Non-sexual relationships are second-best. Everyone knows that, apparently.

Christians are picking up the world's false views on healthy intimacy and happiness, and once again failing to teach a redemptive and healthy sexuality as a consequence. I think these false views of what it means to be with others and to be alone foundational to the idea of a "singles ministry," and why I don't share the enthusiasm of some of my colleagues.

While I am not in a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone, I am not "single" in any way that is meaningful to me, and I am certainly not "alone." For that reason, I could not in good conscience do "singles" ministry. I've not met any peers at this point in my life who see the need for such a thing, because for most of us it would unnecessarily separate us from our friends in the life of the Church.

At its worst, I think it becomes a lonely persons ministry or a matchmaker gathering, meant to offer "another chance" at dating or assuage the woundedness of those who experience continual relational disintegration. It can't ultimately heal those conditions because the premise is faulty: that unmarried (celibate) people are a different class of human, and need to be treated as such. In attempting to overcome the felt alienation of singles, these ministries increase it by buying into the assumptions of the cultural and ecclesial assumptions they hope to challenge.

As a side note, it is also disingenuous to say "singles ministry," when what is meant is "divorce recovery."

And that's what I think about that.

Technorati Tags: singles ministry, ministry, celibacy

a few less impurities to burn away

Not much to write about at the moment. I've been doing thinking, and resting. Which means less talking. Perhaps the creative output will pick up again soon.

I'm "free church" again. "Again?" you ask. I'll tell a story about that soon.

Last week I got to rejoin the mothership (ahem) to worship and spend time together. I had only joked about it before, but surely enough we talked about Purgatory for quite some time.

Basic question: is the process of formation into the likeness of Christ, that process we're going about now, and that God is doing in us, a process that will continue in some sense after we die? Will there be an instantaneous completion of sanctification, or a process. JP put it well: "... like some kind of cosmic group therapy." Alan introduces a good article by an Asbury prof here if you want to read on the idea.

My take?

Purgatory makes sense to me. "Love's redeeming work" surely won't be finished like the final touches on an assembly line, but rather with the loving hands of a master artisan.

And frankly, I think I deserve the extra attention.

Pentecost: On Anger with God and Receiving the Holy Spirit

Pentecost

As I’ve been writing so much these past few months on spiritual development and living as God’s New Community, it’s been helpful to reflect on my own formative experiences. It’s Pentecost, so I will share a snapshot of my journey with the Holy Spirit.

Within the first two years of my apprenticeship to Jesus, I came to realize that if he really was Lord of all, any problems I might have with the world and my place in it were problems I had with him. I’ve been quite the angry young man, so this made things… awkward.

It seemed to me that there were two distinct sides to my religious life; on the one, I was learning to be with Jesus through corporate worship, prayer and the study of scripture. On the other, I found myself feeling deep resentment toward God, as he seemed to shirk many of the expectations I might reasonably place on a god. I didn’t see it being done at the time, but over a period of many months, the Holy Spirit integrated those parts of my personality. I learned to be hurt and bitter in the context of my prayer, study and worship. That meant being very honest in my prayers, choosing to rage against God while singing praises and reading Scripture.

I learned to be angry with Jesus while learning to love him. I learned that Jesus remains, long after my rage is exhausted. I learned it in the only way it can be learned: not by affirming the proposition, Sure, God can handle my anger,” but by remaining with Jesus while expressing anger and hurt to him, and watching him as he did remain.

However, I was possessed of a dark cynicism that ran deeper than mere anger. In the months before I left for Oxford in January 2002, I became more aware of deep-seated belief that, God indeed is not very good, and that God does not really love us - does not really love me - in any helpful way. I became aware of these thoughts as they began to surface in worship: whenever someone in the assembly spoke praises of God’s goodness and provision, “…my heart curses,” I wrote. “It curses because it knows better.” I began to realize just how much bitterness I held against God, but didn’t know of a thing I could do about it.

So I didn’t do anything. I didn’t suppress it. I didn’t deny it. I didn’t revel in it. I just let it be there. Nor (it must be said) did I dedicate myself to elaborate or rigorous spiritual exercises. I prayed and read scripture every few days, and joined in corporate worship. All of this was done with an attitude that could be summarized thus: “Stay away, Jesus, or I’ll kick you.” I avoided “emotional” engagement in worship and devotional practice, because I needed the control. I remained with Jesus – with him in concrete, practicable ways. No nonsense about “complete surrender,” or any kind of wishful thinking about the degree to which I was able to muster warm feelings about Jesus. I was just with him.

One evening, during Lent, I was worshipping in the assembly and had the strangest feeling. We sang a psalm of God’s goodness and faithfulness, but my normal commentary wasn’t running: my heart did not curse.

I had wanted to flee encounters with Jesus, and kept him at arm’s length for so very long, because I was afraid of him. I did not trust him.

And this was not a problem. Keeping Jesus at arm’s length is not the same as shutting him out of the room.

I learned that he’s quite pleased to love us from a distance, because that is how many of us will come to know and trust his love and care. He does not force his way in. He does not violate.

I learned that “letting God in” couldn’t remain some pious cliché, but needs to be specific in practice. So take courage if you are angry, and bitter against God. Take courage especially, if you are afraid to admit it. It’s alright to keep him at arms length; just consider ways that you might hang out in the same room from time to time.

Diognetus: Dropping Our Idols

Here's an excerpt from the schola reflection I prepared for last month, on Mathetes' Epistle to Diognetus, a second century defense of the faith written by a Gentile believer for a Roman audience.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus begins by debunking the worship of both the pagans and unconverted Jews. The former worship that which are not gods, and the latter offer a worship that is unneeded and silly. Wishing to cooperate with my new nineteen hundred year old friend “Mathetes,” I started considering what my own idols might be. Nope, don’t worship money. I don’t build figures to adore as higher beings. I looked back at his introduction:

The first thing, then, is to clear away all the prejudices that clutter your mind and to divest yourself of any habit of through that is leading you into error. You must begin by being, as it were, a new man, ready, as you yourself put it, to give ear to a new story. You must take a look not only with your eyes, but with your mind, at what you call and consider gods, and ask: What substance or form can they really have?

One of my favorite idols is The Right Way. There is a Right Way, of course, to do everything. There’s a Right Way to be together and foster spiritual growth. There’s a Right Way to pray, and study the Scriptures. Is that Right Way mine? Do I deify myself and my proclivities? Not blatantly. See, I don’t often think that I have found The Right Way, but I’m always looking for it. I have lived as if the formation of Christ in me, and the formation of Christ in us together, was somehow contingent upon me getting things right.

I honor the works of my own hands when I expect my own actions and the effectiveness of my spiritual strategies to do the work of forming me into Christlikeness. I muster the right effort, follow the right steps to guarantee growth, and nurture particular feelings and behaviors, hoping that the right information, and the right incantation will somehow do the work of transformation. These presumptions, that I am the guide of my own path in Christ, that I must figure out the right things to do, that God for whatever reason will not teach me these things, is very silly and sad. In making those presumptions, I would make a god of my own understanding, and fashion on idol out of my own accumulated knowledge. The Lord should accept my counsel, for I may yet figure out how to form Christians.

How can I honor the God who cannot be controlled? I can create an empty space sufficient for him to do his redeeming work, a space in which I can listen and hear: “give ear to a new story.” The Father is well versed in our brokenness and he knows how to heal it. What he would do is not necessarily what we should chose for ourselves, but that can surely be trusted, right? I will not accept any more savvy inventions, or hear any more promises of a quick fix. I will be quiet and do the right things for a long time. I will read, listen, work, pray and eat with my friends. I will learn the new story of God’s redemption of the world through Christ, and learn to speak it in everything I do.

Discussion? If you're interested in further reflections on the document (mine or someone else's), you can find the rest for download here.

Meet Me on This Road

In the beginning, YHWH made heaven and earth

The Man and the Woman lived with promise,
clothed in their trust of his heart

And then they Fell

-

In the beginning, YHWH created Israel

Israel lived by his promise,
as he had brought Jacob to freedom through the Red Sea

And then they turned

and YHWH called
and they turned

and YHWH called
and they turned

and YHWH smote
and after that, our exile

YHWH promised a new beginning

he promised them a new heart, beating with covenant faithfulness

And soon their return

-

In the hours before the dawn of chastened Israel's vindication

the promise comes to bear

the Son of Man confronts the rod of YHWH's arrogant instrument

but

the righteous and anointed one is slain

-

They had promised their lives to him. They trusted YHWH's promise to redeem them. "How long will you hide your face from us, O YHWH?" they must have asked. "We are a disobedient people, and our god has finally forsaken us.

Their hope has died.

They walked along the road, arguing. Perhaps they argued about it, this shattered hope. Was he a false prophet? Had they disappointed YHWH? Had he finally proved as faithless as they had?

Or perhaps they argued about where to stop for the night.

They didn't know what the others did. They had not seen. They had not touched and felt. They offered their story and their broken hearts to a stranger on the road. They offered him bread and drink.

"He was our hope," they explained.

The stranger told them God's story anew. He told them of Moses and the Prophets, and of the Suffering Servant: the Son of Man who must suffer for Israel and be vindicated by God before his enthronement as his viceroy.

The Risen Lord told them the story anew, and their suffering was transformed. In the breaking of bread he bore the sorrows of their long and dark Holy Saturday into the joy and illumination of Eastertide.

Many of us have missed the promise of Easter, and suffer under the long shadow of our crucified hopes. We share our stories of pain with one another and with the stranger. We tell of the God who failed to show up. We offer him this bread.

We learn silence here that we might hear the new tale, the bigger story that weaves every tattered thread of our lives into the tapestry of YHWH's redemptive work.

We eat the bread, offering our brokenness for his healing.

We recognize him in this word and this sacrament, and he disappears from our sight.

And our cold hearts begin to burn

Facing Opposition: An Open Letter to Emergent Christians

To my faithful “emergent” brothers and sisters

As you may have realized, some denominational leaders are noticing us. Baptist Press recently offered an article arguing that our lives in Christ present a “threat to the Gospel.” We stand accused of accommodating the post-modern culture, abandoning trust in the unique saving work of Jesus, and selling out confessional Christianity. In my context of mission and ministry, these charges are simply untrue. Yet they are frustrating not merely because they are false, but because are born of stereotypes and poor generalizations about “what those emergent Christians believe.”

Why are these leaders so angry? Why are they so afraid? I can’t answer those questions, because those accusations are not made in the context of relationship. Without the mutual openness and respect that would come with a real friendship in the Gospel, any critiques that “emergent” and “traditional” Christians might offer one another are reduced to sound bites.

How then can we respond to our friends and the Powers That Be in American religious life who question our motives and our faithfulness?

I wholeheartedly believe that most of us in these emergent generations are making the choices we are in faithfulness to God’s call to be his new community in Jesus Christ: agents of change and redemption in his world. When our critics do not recognize our faithfulness, the answer is found in living openly. If it is really Jesus to whom we are responding, we needn’t be afraid to talk about that without defensiveness: we must “answer… with gentleness and respect … so that those who speak maliciously against [our] good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:15-16).

Many of us have critiques regarding the way “traditional” or “modern” Christians choose to live together. Many of them are valid and needful. But they will not be heard if we cannot be friends, and if we cannot be seen to assume the faithful intent of those with whom we disagree. If we are to be ideological adversaries, we must at least be adversaries in good faith. If we impugn the motives of our conversation partners, we will end the conversation, and relegate it to the realm of unhelpful, inflammatory, and fearful accusations: faithfulness is predicated, again, on who can most effectively use religious media to pain their enemies as “threats to the Gospel.”

To begin (or continue) fruitful conversation in religious life, we must remain friends. We must share our “redemption stories,” witnesses of how Jesus is transforming lives for the better in each of our ministry contexts. Let’s learn together what values and hopes we share in common with “traditional” church practitioners. If we let Jesus transform our lives, there will be quite a bit of deconstruction (post-modern or otherwise) along the way, as well as a great deal of construction. Truth, after all, is nothing to fear.

I offer a word of caution, however. This desire to maintain relationship with the traditional church and its structures can become idolatrous when the goal becomes approval, and not mutual learning and discernment. For many of us, our desire for the approval of “those reputed to be pillars” (whether seminary or convention presidents, popular writers, megachurch leaders, professors or pastors), can stand in the way of responding to God’s call. I don’t blame anyone for desiring the approval of those religious leaders who possess prestige and accolades from the masses, but that desire is dangerous.

Maintaining loving relationships with people does not require approving all of their values and practices, nor endlessly defending one’s own. Loving relationships are not so defensive, or so insecure. Sometimes we must agree to disagree. We must offer one another the freedom in Christ to do that.

God called Abram to leave his country, his people, and his father’s household for a land Abram had yet to see. He called him to leave behind his symbols of security, and trust God to reveal his faithfulness.

Sometimes we must disappoint important people whose intentions for us are not God’s intentions; we must often leave behind the approval of charismatic leaders and denominational entities. If you can remain in respectful, caring relationships with those religious persons, do. But if they continue to speak abusively and seek to keep you on the defensive regarding your life in Christ, it is better to walk away.

Regardless, keep praying together. Keep studying the scriptures. Keep delving deeply into the Church’s history. Keep doing life together. Keep being the Church.

Technorati Tags: Emerging Church, Emergent Church, Al Mohler, Kentucky Baptists, church

I made a t-shirt

I made a t-shirt today...

Freestyle prayer?

*sniff*

How... Protestant.

I was in a funny mood...

And in other news, habemus papam!

Read Andrew Greeley’s piece for an optimistic appraisal, courtesy of Kendall Harmon.

Authority Issues

+ Irenaeus of Lyons

I wrote previously that

...trust is the willingness to feel badly [because of our relationships with one another], and deciding that in the light of the healing and love we’re receiving from Christ and his Church, we will stay with one another, and be obedient to him anyway.

If we will risk this, if we will accept the potential pain that comes with these relationships into which he calls us, then we can obey.

When discussing Clement's "come to Jesus talk" with the Corinthians, I wondered when one is justified in throwing off authority? Clearly, it depends on the nature of that authority.

I probably don't need to describe the destructive context of obedience, which is possibly what many of you are thinking of right now: signing over one's personhood to some powerful or charismatic figure who will take a very paternalistic role because one is just not clever or good enough to make one's own decisions. Often the decisions made by the authority figure will be for his own benefit, or the perceived benefit of "the community" at the utter expense of the individual.

Obviously, that's not godly authority, nor holy obedience.

The proper context of obedience occurs in communities in which the members are dedicated to one another for "the long haul." If God really is transforming us in that context of commitment, we can trust one another to care for us. Authority is not found in the dictates of a central figure, but in the counsels of the community at large.

We are responsible to one another, to listen.

We are responsible for one another, in healing, truth-telling, and sharing burdens.

Life in God's New Community draws us out to share our brokenness and confusion, as well as the joys and disappointment of everyday life. That intimacy is a gift we give God by handing it to one another. The recipient of the trust has an obligation to speak truth honestly.

Here's where it gets really difficult: that whole "agents of redemption and change" stuff.

The intimacy comes around to redemption, not mere catharsis. We do this because we believe that the Holy Spirit gives wisdom to the community for its healing. That wisdom will come through the counsel of friends in the community. That means that we have an obligation to listen our friends. Not to agree, and certainly not to obey slavishly, but to create a non-defensive place in ourselves in which we can really listen.

There is pain in that.

We're used to feeling pain because authority so often negates personhood instead of offering God's healing. But in trusting, loving relationships, it means something else. It's the pain that comes with realizing that we as individuals cannot be the final arbiter of God's will. It's the pain that comes when we cannot live according to our momentary whims - for we are dedicated to something bigger than ourselves. It's the pain that comes with learning we don't have the freedom - or damning responsibility - to orchestrate our own redemption.

There is another freedom in that. It's the freedom of listening to a Jesus who isn't mediated to us only by our own understanding. It's the freedom that comes with not needing to be right all the time in order to be "successful." It's the freedom and rest that comes with knowing that this community shares one's burdens. One does not succeed or fail alone.

What do you think? What is healthy authority? What is healthy, holy obedience?

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