A New Kind of Christianity: Too far, not far enough...or is that even the point? a book review

Stones have been cast. “Too far!” “Not far enough!” Love him or hate him, Brian McLaren shows in his newest book that he is willing to be a prophetic pastor, a figure representative of a conversation and movement (which means people are way too harsh and unloving to him). Book reviews are floating all over the internet dealing explicitly and directly with A New Kind of Christianity’s (aNKoC) content. For years as most know, McLaren has been in the messiest and necessary business of asking hard questions of the church, Christianity, and cultural changes. But aNKoC deals with creating and coming to answers to ten of the most important questions being asked within and of Christianity worldwide according to McLaren:

• The Narrative Question: What Is the Overarching Storyline of the Bible?
• The Authority Question: How Should the Bible Be Understood?
• The God Question: Is God Violent?
• The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and Why is He Important?
• The Gospel Question: What Is the Gospel?
• The Church Question: What Do We Do About the Church?
• The Sex Question: Can We Find a Way to Address Sexuality Without Fighting About It?
• The Future Question: Can We Find a Better Way of View the Future?
• The Pluralism Question: How Should Followers of Jesus Relate to People of Other Religions?
• The What Do We Do Now Question: How Can We Translate Our Quest into Action?

You can read the book or the reviews to find out the “what” that Brian is trying to say, but aNKoC’s true importance lies not in what Brian is saying but what he is doing with aNKoC. The real point of this book is to (1) recognize the real need to find language that is contextual yet faithful to Scripture & our deeper Christian tradition and (2) to guide actions into the kingdom/ethics/mission.

So what is Brian doing in aNKoC? He is giving Christians permission to reformulate doctrines in light of recent scholarship, conversations, cultural changes and most importantly mission. This book is both emergent and doctrinally focused (insert gasps here). And now more then ever with the growth of world Christianity and emerging, late capitalistic culture the church must learn to talk about doctrine in a healthy and humble way.

Bonhoeffer wrote, “it is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ” Thus what we DO know about God is that ultimately God is unknowable. So doctrine is not an end in itself, thus aNKoC is not an end in itself.

But the reaction and conversation on the blogosphere revolving around this emergent book of somewhat systematized theology of doctrines is symptomatic of the state of the church. First, these reactions reveal that doctrine is very important (it has fallen on hard times with all this pomo talk). In WWII, the Barmen declaration which deeply affirmed Trinitarian and Christological doctrines were used to attack the Nazi funded state church. Embedded in Walter Rauschenbusch’s theology are manifest destiny and nationalism. More recently, John Stackhouse has (wrongly) affirmed that God is in globalization. Doctrines are necessary for they reveal our convictions and ethics.

Second, doctrine is very important but we don’t know why. Liberals focus on the experiential kernel of doctrine, that we form beliefs off of hidden individual experiences. Conservatives focus on propositional, abstract truths that correlate to our doctrines, thus they believe what we say equals what is real. Both are wrong.

Doctrine is not an end in itself, but always exists to serve the mission of God. As Robert Louis Wilken writes, “Doctrines or theoretical concepts are never ends in themselves but always at service of a deeper immersion in the res, the thing itself, the mystery of Christ and of the practice of the Christian life.”

This week while at ChurchWorks (or does it? as Bass reflected), Diana Butler Bass spoke to a group of Cooperative Baptists and said “Historians know that people only argue about something when it’s going away,” in reference to the national debate around the identity of the USA as a Christian nation. We argue about being a “Christian nation” exactly because we are no longer a Christian nation (as if we ever were…thanks Rauschenbusch). In this same way, we argue about doctrine because as McLaren writes, “the bad news: the Christian faith in all its forms is in trouble. The good news: the Christian faith in all its forms is pregnant with new possibilities (aNKoC, xi). “

The “doctrine police” would do well to hear Martin Kähler, “Mission is the mother of theology.” Why did Peter find transformation and new doctrine at Cornelius’ house? Mission. Why did Nicaea, Gregory, and the early church struggle with Christology and the Trinity? Mission. Why is the church in the Western context finding new doctrine? Mission. Why is world Christianity growing and creating new doctrine? Mission. Why is Brian McLaren writing a book called A New Kind of Christianity? Mission.

Mission serves the kingdom of God that Jesus was crucified for proclaiming and doctrine serves mission and the one who was crucified by pointing toward the significance of Jesus’ life, not the life itself. It is the Scripture and Holy Spirit’s work in community to reveal the life of Christ and doctrine’s work to witness to that significance.

Our cultural context is one of great upheaval and change for several reasons. Not least of these are the effects of globalized late consumer capitalism creating a homogenous experience of liberal individuals who simply do not experience the world the same way people did 100, 50, or even 10 years ago did. In this globalized world the church, especially in the West, must be faithful to God’s mission by allowing the gospel to sprout new life, language, and doctrine in its new setting. The church exists not for itself (just like doctrine), but must exist for the other, for mission encapsulated by hope, justice, and love.

Language is a tricky thing, but best understand by its performative intent. Does this statement mean you are grieving, want me to do something, rejoicing, sarcasm, asking for help, etc? In understanding what you mean by your words’ performative function, I can truly grasp what you are saying, what you mean.

Doctrine’s performative action is witness. It exists to point to God, the unknowable.

While I do not agree with many of Brian’s methods or assumptions behind the doctrine’s formulated in aNKoC like the recasting of church history as negative (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, the Pope, etc) or his simplistic “bad guy:” the “Greco-Roman” reading of the Bible; I do find great hope in aNKoC. Let us remember that Brian IS NOT seminary trained. Brian is a Jesus follower with a heart for God’s mission and in wrestling with this mission he is forming doctrines in service of the church…not vice versa. The world will not be saved by the few elite, seminary trained professionals for God’s mission is too vast, wide, and deep to be limited to experts.

In the West, atheism is growing in interest, pluralism and “therapeutic, consumer deism” is on the rise. The church in the West is in decline. Doctrines serve mission and right now that mission is failing because we are not believing rightly.

As Catholic Baptist theologian Barry Harvey of Baylor says, “doctrines order our transactions.” People are turning away from the church because our actions and transaction are not rightly ordered. We need new doctrines birthed out of the deep and rich traditions of Christianity. We are wealthy with theological reflection, but we must mine the wells and give to those who are willing to give their life to God’s mission the freedom and space to create new doctrines, just as Peter did, just as Paul did, and as Brian is doing (hey, it’s a biblical idea).

In so doing the church will find the “crucial difference…between telling us a story differently and telling a different story.” (Nicholas Lash).

I highly praise Brian as a brother in Christ willing to be a scapegoat for many and a refreshing voice for others. A New Kind of Christianity only deepens my belief and hope for giving people the space to discover new language and ways of putting together our story of God’s great redemption of the world in Jesus Christ. Brian is a mentor and friend to those who are tired of the conversation and Christianity as only thoughts/ideals/belief, old doing things the way they’ve always been done (badly and often without civility), and ready to give their life to a Kingdom come, but not yet. aNKoC is not the last word or the word after that, but gives permission to live into Christ and rethink that which is trying to be born. So quit throwing stones and go do it, be it, live it, and order yourself and God’s people back into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control so that God may be in all and known by all.

Not Violent Enough?

I recently had a very interesting and thought provoking day listening to Pete Rollins, hosted by an interesting faith community, Journey Imperfect Faith Community. In two sessions, Pete laid out theoretical and philosophical approaches to doubt and community than he talked about practicing those thoughts.

There were several and very intelligent insights Rollins talked about, some which can be found in his books or blog. Rollins argues for a constant place of doubting God, an a/theistic approach to faith which bends toward the Christian tradition. In ways I think Rollins is capturing a faith hermeneutic of suspicion that is 1) very contextual to Ireland, 2) intrinsic to who he is and how is approaches faith, 3) important for the Church at large, especially in the West, 4) not for everyone, and 4) still in the process of being understood.

With that last note, something I really appreciate about his thought and practice is that Rollins doesn't need to have everything theologized and figured out before acting, but instead acts and than creates a theology around those actions in retrospect. Why I think this is important is because Rollins and this approach really allows people to participate in creating culture, community, and faith or non-faith.

The talk he gave is also a blog title, "Fundamentalism isn't too violent, It isn't violent enough." I do not like his use of the term "violent," but this post is well worth the read. Maybe his use of "violence" is right in the context of changing social structures, yet I still want to steer clear of the term "violence." The post is full of great thoughts, check it out.

Rohr & It's Just Emerging

If you are not already listening to the HomebrewedChristianity podcast, then you should subscribe today. These two guys, one a friend from my days as a Crusader at UMHB, interview on a regular basis important and wonderful Christian thinkers like Phyllis Tickle, Walter Brueggemann, John Dominic Crossan, Brian McLaren, Leron Shults, Richard Rohr, John Cobb, etc.

Recently, they interviewed Rohr on contemplation, activism and the emerging church. I enjoyed the interview and Rohr's articulation. There was one statement though that Rohr made that struck me wrong. In his reflection on the emerging church, he says:

"this mentality is emerging simultaneously, in many places...this tells me that this has to be the work of the Holy Spirit because there's no one angrily creating a reform or a schism or an attack, it's just emerging" (emphasis added).

The disconcerting tone here is the naivety Rohr interprets this movement of traditions being willing to listen and open up to one another to find truths within each one in the Christian tradition. The lack of a central authority or place does not equate into a inexplainable movement of the Spirit that just happend. Certainly we are struggling to articulate terms and concepts to understand the changes in our world: postmodern, globalization, etc, but there are sociological, philosophical, and economic predicates determining the human condition. His statements seem to create an unhealthy perspective that singles religious life separate from the culture and globalization.

Why harp on this? It's not because I do not like Rohr or the emerging church, but exactly the opposite. This all goes back to a post from a few weeks ago on the commoficiation of the church. With the fear that I too am going to be overly simplistic and narrow, I feel that the single strongest influences on the formation of our culture and thus spiritual communities/people are consumerism and commodity fetish. The results of this culture are both positive and negative. Much of the emerging church movement can be understood through these lenses of commidification.

I'll be following up on these ideas, but whatever the emerging church is, it can not simply be boiled down to a statement that it's just happening because of the Spirit.

The Emerging Commodification of the Church

I do have my hang ups with how much time, energy, resources, thought, and planning goes into a single day of the week, Sunday. I've been brooding over this fact for some time now, but haven't come to any real conclusions about how I feel. In the "emerging missional church (EMC)" conversation, attractional vs. missional battle lines have been drawn and Sunday morning has become a topic often battered by a dualistic perspective that paints a strawman for the burning.

David Fitch, who has constantly been a helpful voice in this EMC conversation, recently wrote a good post on this issue referencing to Zizek's "decaffeinated belief:"

Zizek argues that when we say “I enjoy my religion” this implies that I don’t take it TOO seriously. For we really don’t want to take it too seriously (this is what the fundamentalists do according to Zizek). We keep it at a distance so to appear to be a Christian with all of it comforts and accoutrements yet not requiring any great disruption to a comfortable way of life. This distance, between the subject and the Symbolic Order, is what allows the subject’s Christianity (or religion) to be subsumed by the existing order.

The existing order that controls Western culture is the power of the spectacle produced by consumer culture. We commodify everything including our faith. Sunday becomes about receiving religious goods. Pastors are recognizing this growing trend and

…agree that a growing number of worshipers are talking or sitting through the congregational singing writing notes during the special music, showing up 10-15 minutes late, not worried about interrupting anything or anyone. One pastor shared that a congregant stopped attending worship opting to stay home and worship with a church on television. When asked about this, the congregant responded, “Why does it matter where I watch the service?” Another pastor commented that people treat everything in the service as if it were a movie preview and it is not until the feature presentation (the sermon) that people really start paying attention. Or in other churches with a more contemporary style of worship a pastor stated, “Once the ‘concert’ is over, they just settle in waiting for a sermon.”

Most church plants are in the business of Christian reconfiguration, they steal Christians from churches in the area instead of leading people to faith (and this is NOT an overstatement). My growing concern for the "emerging church" is that it preys on the sensabilities of its consumer culture, thus utilizing culture uncritically or being used by culture.

The power of consumer culture and the commodification of everything is that religious seekers can take objects, beliefs, and pieces of traditions and lift them out of their context to be used in whatever way they like. They can have their cake and eat it too, because they simply cut off the baggage from where those traditions arose.

In some respects, I believe this weakens the ability of emerging churches to form people for Kingdom work, because the main tool for combatting commodification is immersion in a religious community who emphasizes its deep religious tradition (baggage and all) for the formation of disciples. I know this is a generalization, but emerging churches are heavily influences by the culture of consumerism because they tend to be planted by those on the cutting edge of consumer culture.

Of course, I've excluded from this conversation "seeker churches," who attract people to church Sunday mornings by having a great rock show and a funny preacher (because I'm sympathetic to EMC). Sunday morning should be about formation:

I think this is a mistake. For the missional church communities require a regular practice for the shaping and forming of a people into the Life with God, the Mission of God. Missional people do not grow on trees. If then we would see people formed into the Missio Dei we must order our worship so as to be encountered by the living God. We must learn how to preach not as information but as proclamation and invite people into the Mission. The real presence at the Table must be the center of our gathering, our lives and our community. If we would see people formed into the Missio Dei, our gatherings must take on liturgical shape, a way of inviting people into the prayers, confessions and affirmations of the alive relationship we have with the living God of Mission. We must learn how to listen, interpret Scripture for what God is doing among us and in the world, hear God and then respond to God. This should be the character of our Sunday morning gatherings.

This kind of gathering should be both easier and harder to plan than any kind of programming approach we have hitherto been used to. It should be simpler and less focused on excellence of performance. It should not cost near as much in time, resourses and planning. It should be able to be done in a living room with three to thirty people or in a larger sanctuary with 200. Yet this kind of gathering takes more discernment of the Spirit, theological wisdom, historical sensitivity than we have been used to in the protestant church of our evangelical past (we haven’t paid attention to theology of worship in evangelical church). This way can lead us out of the wilderness of decaffeinated worship.

Deep traditions like lectio divina, intentional community, monastic practices, authenticity, and vulnerability are all very important, but so are the communities, traditions, and histories they have grown up in. Much of the EMC conversation is reactionary and deconstructive (which is fine, I understand), but there is something unhealthy about simply cutting ties with communities of faith that tend to have baggage because they've been around for 50, 100, or 150 years. Of course, this critique works in the inverse. Communities with baggage need to be listening to churches who are concerned about doing and being church differently.

My main concern though, is that churches critically engage culture so that contextualization is healthy (meaning the gospel doesn't get subsumed or overpowered by the culture). Our culture is a product of late capitalism, consumerism, and commodification; so we need traditions and narratives that will equip us to live counterculturally. We need Sunday mornings baggage and all to be unenjoyable, uncomfortable, and formative.


If you've made it this far, you might also be interested in Fitch's conversation over the epistemology of missiology and ecclesiology.

Bonhoeffer & Rollins in Conversation

In his PhD. dissertation, Sanctorum Communio (SC) Bonhoeffer (DB) writes a sociological/theological account of the church and community. Instead of arguing for a narrow individualism, DB argues that humans exist as communal beings. This does not take away from the uniqueness of individuals, but rather highlights it.

The individual personal spirit lives solely by virtue of sociality, and the ‘social spirit’ becomes real only in individual embodiment. (SC)

DB then explicates a very helpful understanding of sin as both individual and communal so that guilt lies within both realms evenly (which I believe is a very important theological statement to make).

Thus, sin is not a biological problem, but a societal and individual problem. Every individual falls into sin, thus making the human race fall into sin anew. So here is where the church comes in:

It is 'Adam', a collective person who can only be superceded by the collective person 'Christ existing as church-community.' (SC)

The reality of the church is to be either denied or trusted, because it is by nature revelation. By nature man is capable of sin, not church which is understood by Bonhoeffer to be the presence of Christ.

Thus, everyone beomces guilty by their own strength and fault, because they themselves are Adam; each person, however, is reconciled apart from their own strength and merit, because they themselves are not Christ. (SC)

These thought by Bonhoeffer will be helpful when I bring Pete Rollins into the conversation. We'll need to remember that the church when it exists, exists not by the actions of 'Adam', but instead by the revelation of Christ, the church is Christ and Christ is the church. There is much that can be said here, but our focus is that whatever may be said of the church, it is the real presence of God in the world through the revelation of God himself.

Emerging Church Fundamentalism

I wonder if the way the church is talked about in the emerging missional church (EMC) conversation is related to fundamentalism. Because the emerging church can be complex and multifaceted, I'm not necessarily talking about any one thing. As a matter of fact I'm not talking about a thing or doctrine at all, but rather a way of thinking. Truly that's what fundamentalism is, a way of thinking (as noted by Pete Rollins in How (not) to Speak of God).

Rollins describes fundamentalism as holding a "belief system in such a way that it mutually excludes all other systems, rejecting other views in direct proportion to how much they differ from one's own." From my own experience in the EMC conversation, it seems that many who are going through the deconstruction process or are simply in the conversation can be the most excluding group of people when it comes to ecclesiology, writing off in a reactionary fashion any forms of the modern church.

Could it be possible that we've been so careful to have a generous orthodoxy, that we cannot have a generous ecclesiology toward the churches and institutions that have parented our faith. In a forthcoming post I'm going to bring together the thought of Bonhoeffer who claims the church is revelation and thus Christ and Peter Rollins who claims that Christians must be a/theists and "not master theology but be mastered by it." Or maybe that Christians must not master the church, but be mastered by it.

Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody knows it's a Lie!

It seems that the gospel for too long has been about where we'll end up after we die. Sadly, we begin evangelism with the question (and not relationship), "if you were to die today, would you go to heaven?"

Obsession. Failure. Misguided. Irrelevant.

N.T. Wright has become one of the most formidable and brilliant N.T. scholars of our generation. I agree with him in many ways on his recent book. You can see what he has to say about why heaven doesn't exist in this piece for Time (I really recommend the read, it's well worth it). Because of our unseen Greek influences, heaven has become a matter of discourse for anyone who would dare call themselves a Christian. In the end this leads to a dualism never intended by the N.T. writers or God, I think.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation declares that when Jesus comes back, believers won't be swooped into heaven while the rest experience some tribulation-like some whacked out authors have written. Jesus was resurrected with his new body bearing the marks of crucifixion. This earth too will experience new creation, a resurrection bearing the marks of the crucifixion that it is suffering at the hands of its so called caretakers.

Being Christian does not exempt us from being human. We must care for this world and for people (not simply their souls). It is time we rethought heaven, earth, resurrection, and the future plight of creation intended by God. Towards the earth, we must take care of God's creation for it is on loan from our children. Towards our neighbor, we must seek and create meaningful relationships that care for and allow for that person to share who they truly are and care for their real needs. Towards God, we must be humble enough to allow him to break the boxes we force him to reside in.

Is Desconstructionism Safe?

No, and it shouldn't be. Maybe its our drive for control and comfort, but I've heard weariness over the abundant use of deconstruction philosophy and hermeneutic among emerging churches. I recently read Caputo's Philosophy and Theology, which helped me to understand Caputo better. This was important for me because of some issues raised over the use of deconstructionism and Caputo being the key speaker in the Emergent '07 Theological Conversation. It was an excellent read and I trust his assumptions.

Anyways, here's a piece from Tony Jones on the use of deconstructionism and how it highlights our faith in the Bible...

This connection between deconstruction and the Bible is especially meaningful, methinks. I am quite convinced that the Bible is a subversive text, that it constantly undermines our assumptions, transgresses our boundaries, and subverts our comforts. This may sound like academic mumbo-jumbo, but I really mean it. I think the Bible is a f***ing scary book (pardon my French, but that's the only way I know how to convey how strongly I feel about this). And I think that deconstruction is the only hermeneutical avenue that comes close to expressing the transgressive nature of our sacred text.