May 23, 2012

Losing Our Religion

Pastor John Suk

Recently a pastor in my denomination (The CRCNA) announced that he is leaving the denomination because he ‘has doubts’ about the doctrinal positions that he is supposed to defend and teach.  He indicated that he is pursuing a ministry position in the United Church of Canada.

He is not leaving because he is no longer a Christian.

He is not leaving because he is done with the ministry.

He is not leaving because he no longer is interested in following Christ.

He is not leaving because he no longer is interested in preaching and teaching.

He is leaving because we’ve created a culture in which you have to be ‘on board’ with a narrow band of dogma constructed primarily in the mid-1600’s.

Is this a good reason for someone to leave our denomination?  Some would say, “Absolutely.”   “Of course!”

I’m not so sure.

An Outdated Approach

A philosopher friend (a graduate of Calvin College’s philosophy department) has noted:

“One of the challenges is that to support something like, say, the Canons of Dort, is to support an interpretive process that current scholarship no longer adheres to.  It is based on proof-texting.  Taking verses of various books without regard to context, authorship, intended audience, historical circumstances and the like — and then mashing them together.  This very process is foreign to the Bible itself.

You might even say that it is to ignore the historical-grammatical manner of interpretation that Calvin Seminary teaches its own students:  you understand a single verse, text, or book of the Bible in its context.  That includes who wrote it, who it was written to, what else was happening at that time, what the larger argument of the entire letter or gospel or book is, and so on.”

It seems to me that to dismiss all of that when it comes to endorsing a theological system that was developed prior to the current and best modes of biblical interpretation is to ask the impossible of its graduates:  “Here’s how you best understand the text, but now that you’re going to be a pastor, ignore all that, sign the dotted line, and keep on teaching things that may (or may not) hold up under further scrutiny.”

For example, nearly every single point of doctrine in the Canons are made by quoting a single verse from varied and disparate sources like Ezekiel, Moses, Paul, and all too infrequently, Jesus. This ‘systematic’ approach to theology has been disregarded by the leading and best theologians today who prefer a narrative approach to theology in which the themes and storylines of whole texts are used, rather than the ‘hunt and peck’ method of proof-texting that can be (and has been!) used to justify just about anything.

As J.R. Daniel Kirk, New Testament Professor at Fuller Seminary has noted:

“Narrative theology is more content to leave stories as stories. Perhaps more, narrative theology is content to talk about God as God interacts with Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Jesus, and Paul. To what degree can we speak of God truly when we have not located God as the actor in a story that unfolds in and among the people?”

The Bible is comprised mostly of stories!  Not of raw data that we can pick and choose and then compile.  A systematic approach to the Bible is too often foreign to what the Bible actually is.

Kirk also notes (and this is an important point):

“Narrative approaches also tend to have more patience with leaving contrasting voices on the table to continue their conversation. The Bible is a narrative, not a philosophical system, so univocal theological points are not expected.

For systematic theology, we must finally say either, “justification by faith apart from works” (Paul), or, “justification by works and not by faith alone” (James). As a discipline, narrative theology can allow those to have a longer conversation, at very least, before resolving the issue–and may not feel the need for such a resolution.

And there, perhaps, is the rub.

Systematic theology is driven by the complementing notions, natural to me and to most of us I suspect, that there is one right answer and that it is ours for the finding.

Narrative theology, because it functions in the realm of story rather than system, has more breadth for multiple right answers, or multiple interpretations (stories are slippery like that) of the right answer(s).”

This double-minded approach —teaching contextual biblical interpretation on the one hand, and ignoring it on the other— that we are asking of our pastors and theologians is a problem, and if it doesn’t lead to a personal crisis or the beginnings of doubts – a la John Suk — then perhaps that particular student wasn’t paying attention during their biblical studies courses.

Is this really the place we want to be in?

Where the leaders among us who have wrestled with these issues, struggled as to whether or not they actually believe them, who love God and at the same time are trying desperately to be intellectually honest —and come out on the other side with their faith intact— are asked to leave?  Are not these the very kind of leaders we need?  Yet the only space we seem willing to make for them is the doorway.

If I were sitting in the pews, I would much prefer this kind of pastor, as opposed to one who grew up being spoon-fed certain doctrines since childhood without ever honestly engaging them.  (Is this a caricature?  Maybe.  But it seems that most who would ‘wrestle’ with the confessions know there is only one real outcome: get on board or get out.  That tends to make for short –and less than genuine– wrestling matches.)

At this point, it should be noted, I am not dismissing the results of the confessions – but asking, is the process at which its authors arrived at them a process that anyone even endorses today?  (Some have noted that in fact the authors were using a form of narrative theology to support their systematic doctrines, and that may be so – I’m certainly not an expert on how these things came about – but in reading the documents themselves and the various texts cited one might ask if that is really the case.  It appears they approached the texts with their theology in mind and allowed that theology to determine the way the texts were read, rather than allowing the various texts to speak on their own.)

A Crossroads

The Christian Reformed Church is in many ways facing a crossroads:  do we continue to demand rigorous adherence to outdated doctrinal formulations and in the process risk losing some of our most thoughtful and faithful people?  Or do we shift our relationship to these historic confessional documents that ‘creates space’ for those who love God, want to serve him, but aren’t sure they can subscribe to everything in the fine print?

There is nothing wrong with saying that these documents have shaped us deeply, and they will continue to do so— as historical documents (which is what they are!).  But do we really want to say they are the final arbiters of what the varied biblical authors had to say about God, faith, and the Christian life?  One can scarcely imagine that the original authors of these confessions assumed they were writing something that would be calcified into the ‘final word’ on these matters for all time.  In fact, as Karin Maag, professor of history at Calvin College recently noted, “They were not consciously planning to write a perfectly-crafted document for the ages.”  No doubt the very act of writing a new doctrinal statement – as they were – implies that this act must happen again (and again).  (Also note: we don’t make anyone sign on to Calvin’s Institutes, or Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism – yet those things continue to shape us).

One section of the Canons of Dort is prefaced with:  ‘Rejection of the Errors by Which the Dutch Churches Have for Some Time Been Disturbed’.  In other words, in a certain time and place, these things were deemed important.

But is anyone today honestly concerned about whether God chose them or they chose God, or whether that kind of question can even be properly answered (or needs to be answered) this side of eternity?

I’m not sure the biblical writers were as obsessed with such dogmatic approaches as some of us are.  They were telling a story.  A narrative.  One in which people engaged God, and God engaged people.  Granted, there are points that can be made abstractly about the whole thing, but the point is the story!

So many of the doctrines we are demanding adherence to were ‘constructed’ out of verses taken out of texts that were not actually concerned with that particular point at all, when read in light of the whole.  This is not to say that they are ‘wrong’ per se, but simply that they often miss the forest for the trees.

The point of the story is that our world is broken and God is renewing it through Christ – and we are called to hear that message, receive it, share it, and live it!

To instead freeze some doctrinal points derived out of dubious interpretive methods as some ‘perfect picture’ of who God is or what faith is, is to miss the point entirely!  It is to construct new idols which we now demand people must worship.  I think the Reformers had a thing or two to say about the propensity of people to create such objects of worship.

Jesus at the Temple

One could imagine Jesus showing up to one of our Synodical discussions about the form of Subscription, and —reprising his stint at the temple– ripping up the Confessions and turning over tables, lighting the Form of Subscription on fire  and yelling: “What are you doing about the brokenness of my world?!  You’re sitting here constructing ways of keeping people out, when I was about letting people in!  I tore the curtain, and you’re sewing it back together!”

An Unnecessary Departure

I continually meet people who have never heard of these documents and yet have some of the deepest, most thoughtful lives of faith I’ve encountered.

Are they ‘off-track’?  Are they less Christian?  Is their faith less sincere?

Hardly.

The average person today isn’t wrestling with these issues – these things aren’t even on the radar.  Today there are far different concerns.

If we want to continue to be less relevant to our culture, we can continue to stand on our little turf of doctrinal smugness while shoving everyone else off.

We can talk about ‘every square inch’ belonging to Jesus while making sure that we only cover about six inches square because we’re so tightly wound up with doctrinal anxiety that people are no longer interested in being around us.

Many have celebrated Suk’s departure as ‘honorable’ and ‘filled with integrity’.  They have lauded his honesty and willingness to own his doubts — now that he’s gone.

“He doesn’t fit here – he should just serve elsewhere.”  And so on.

Perhaps a polite version of the heresy witch hunts of times past.  In the old days you might have been burned at the stake or imprisoned.  Now we simply drop hints and give a wink, perhaps send a letter or two, have someone make a phone call… until you finally get the hint, and leave of your own volition.  It’s much neater and easier that way.

Suk wrote a recent blog post entitled, Time to Put the Confessions to Pasture?  A number of CRC pastors responded with things like, “Let me ask you, John, why are you still in the CRC?  Perhaps it’s time for you to leave.”

I think far too many breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing of Suk’s departure.  He made many uncomfortable, which is precisely why I wish he would have stayed.  But then again, when you have a doctrinal system that has ‘comfort’ at its core, you can expect the status quo to reign supreme.

(Incidentally I can’t recall Jesus preaching about being comfortable… or if he did, it was something like ‘Woe to you who have received your comfort now.’).

What seems clear to me is that people have invented a religion (CRC Dutch Calvinism) that is more important than following Christ.  A religion that doesn’t have space or room for theological wrestling, for philosophical questioning, for honest inquiry — and for seeking out the truth.  Many in our circles talk about seeking truth when the fact is that they are simply in favor of maintaining the status quo.

If we are really interested in following Jesus and seeing his kingdom come, it might just be time to release our grip on this religion we’re so attached to.  In fact, it might be time to lose our religion altogether, if in fact, we want to save it.

Suk’s departure makes me sad.  He feels he could ‘no longer serve in good conscience.’  That makes me sadder – not because he was wrestling or because he had doubts — but that we’re not that interested in having those kind of people around.  For me – that’s exactly the kind of pastor I would want to have: one who is searching, wrestling, praying, struggling, doubting, loving, walking by faith, humble about what he or she knows and doesn’t know.  A real person.

Some celebrate his decision, but I feel it’s one he shouldn’t have had to make.

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May 8, 2012

Of Paths and Prairies, Gods and Tears

Video created by my new Minnesota friends Tory and Rachel.  Reading is an excerpt of Wendell Berry’s “A Native Hill.”

In his interesting book on the collapse of community and the rise of the service industry, The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits, John McKnight begins with a story of a different collapse.  The following is an excerpt:

The story begins as the European pioneers crossed the Alleghenies and started to settle the Midwest.  The land they found was covered with forests.  With great effort they pulled up the trees, pulled up the stumps, and planted their crops in the rich, loamy soil.

When they finally reached the western edge of the place we now call Indiana, the forest stopped and ahead lay a thousand miles of the great grass prairie.  The Europeans were puzzled by this new environment.  Some even called it the Great Desert.  It seemed untillable.

The settlers found that the prairie sod could not be cut with their cast-iron plows, and that the wet earth stuck to their plowshares.  Even a team of the best oxen bogged down after a few yards of tugging.  The iron plow was a useless tool to farm the prairie soil.  The pioneers were stymied for nearly two decades.  Their western march was halted and they filled in the eastern regions of the Midwest.

In 1837, a blacksmith in the town of Grand Detour, Illinois, invented a new tool.  His name was John Deere, and the tool was a plow made of steel.  It was sharp enough to cut through matted grasses and smooth enough to cast off the mud.  It was a simple tool, the “sodbuster,” that opened the great prairies to agricultural development.

Sauk County, Wisconsin is named after the Sauk Indians.  In 1673, Father Marquette was the first European to lay eyes upon their land.  He found a village laid out in regular patterns on a plain beside the Wisconsin River.  He called the place Prairie du Sac.  The village was surrounded by fields that had provided maize, beans, and squash for the Sauk people for generations reaching back into unrecorded time.

When the European settlers arrived at the Sauk Prairie in 1837, the government forced the native Sauk people west of the Mississippi River.  The settlers came with John Deere’s new invention and used the tool to open the area to a new kind of agriculture.  They ignored the traditional ways of the Sauk Indians and used their sodbusting tool for planting wheat.

Initially, the soil was generous and the farmers thrived.  However, each year the soil lost more of its nurturing power.  It was only thirty years after the Europeans arrived with their new technology that the land was depleted.  Wheat farming became uneconomical and tens of thousands of farmers left Wisconsin seeking new land with sod to bust.

It took the Europeans and their new technology just one generation to make their homeland into a desert.  The Sauk Indians, who knew how to sustain themselves on the Sauk Prairie, were banished to another kind of desert called a reservation.  And even they forgot about the techniques and tools that had sustained them on the prairie for generations.

And that is how it was that three deserts were created: Wisconsin, the reservation, and the memories of a people.

A century and a half later, the land of the Sauks is now populated by the children of a second wave of European farmers who learned to replenish the soil through the regenerative powers of dairying, ground-cover crops, and animal manures.  These third- and fourth-generation farmers and townspeople do not realize, however, that a new settler is coming soon with an invention as powerful as John Deere’s plow.

The new technology is called “bereavement counseling.”  It is a tool forged at the great state university, an innovative technique to meet the needs of those experiencing the death of a loved one, a tool that can “process” the grief of the people who now live on the Prairie of the Sauk.

As one can imagine the final days of the village of the Sauk Indians before the arrival of the settlers with John Deere’s plow, one can also imagine these final days before the arrival of the first bereavement counselor at Prairie du Sac.  In these final days, the farmers and the townspeople mourn the death of a mother, brother, son, or friend.  The bereaved are joined by neighbors and kin.  They meet grief together in lamentation, prayer, and song.  They call upon the words of the clergy and surround themselves with community.

It is in these ways that they grieve and then go on with life.  Through their mourning they are assured of the bonds between them and renewed in the knowledge that this death is a part of the past and the future of the people on the Prairie of the Sauk.  Their grief is common property, an anguish from which the community draws strength and which gives it the courage to move ahead.

Into this prairie community the bereavement counselor arrives with the new grief technology.  The counselor calls the intervention a service and assures the prairie folk of its effectiveness and superiority by invoking the name of the great university while displaying a diploma and license.

At first, we can imagine that the local people will be puzzled by the bereavement counselor’s claims.  However, the counselor will tell a few of them that the new technique is merely to assist the bereaved’s community at the time of death.  To some other prairie folk who are isolated or forgotten, the counselor will offer help in grief processing.  These lonely souls will accept the intervention, mistaking the counselor for a friend.

For those who are penniless, the counselor will approach the County Board and advocate the “right to treatment” for these unfortunate souls.  This right will be guaranteed by the Board’s decision to reimburse those too poor to pay for counseling services.

There will be others, schooled to believe in the innovative new tools certified by universities and medical centers, who will seek out the bereavement counselor by force of habit.  And one of these people will tell a bereaved neighbor who is unschooled that unless his grief is processed by a counselor, he will probably have major psychological problems later in life.

Finally, one day the aged father of a local woman will die.  And the next-door neighbor will not drop by because he doesn’t want to interrupt the bereavement counselor.  The woman’s kin will stay home because they will have learned that only the bereavement counselor knows how to process grief in the proper way.  The local clergy will seek technical assistance from the bereavement counselor to learn the correct form of service to deal with guilt and grief.  And the grieving daughter will know that it is the bereavement counselor who really cares for her, because only the bereavement counselor appears when death visits this family on the Prairie of the Sauk.

It will be only one generation between the time the bereavement counselor arrives and the disappearance of the community of mourners.  The counselor’s new tool will cut through the social fabric, throwing aside kinship, care, neighborly obligations, and community ways of coming together and going on.  Like John Deere’s plow, the tools of bereavement counseling will create a desert where a community once flourished.

And finally, even the bereavement counselor will see the impossibility of restoring hope in clients once they are genuinely alone, with nothing but a service for a consolation.  In the inevitable failure of the service, the bereavement counselor will find the desert even in herself.

The professional co-optation of community efforts to invent appropriate techniques for citizens to care in the community has been pervasive.  We need to identify the characteristics of those social forms that are resistant to colonization by service technologies while enabling communities to cultivate care.  These authentic social forms are characterized by three basic dimensions:  They tend to be uncommodified, unmanaged, and uncurricularized.

The tools of the bereavement counselor have made grief into a commodity rather than an opportunity for community.  Service technologies convert conditions into commodities, and care into service.  [note: this is only one example of a professionalized service industry, and McKnight goes into others in more detail]

How will we learn again to cultivate community?  E. F. Schumacher concluded that “the guidance we need. . . can still be found in the traditional wisdom.”  Therefore we can return to those who understand how to allow the Sauk Prairie to bloom and sustain a people.

One of their leaders, a chief of the Sauk, was named Blackhawk.  After his people were exiled to the land west of the Mississippi and their resistance movement was broken at the Battle of Bad Axe, Blackhawk said of the prairie:

There, we always had plenty; our children never cried from hunger, neither were our people in want.  The rapids of our river furnished us with an abundance of excellent fish and the land, being very fertile, never failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and squash.  Here our village stood for more than a hundred years.  Our village was healthy and there was no place in the country possessing such advantages, nor hunting grounds better than ours.  If a prophet had come to our village in those days and told us that the things were to take place which have since come to pass, none of our people would have believed the prophecy.

But the settlers came with their new tools and the prophecy was fulfilled.  One of Blackhawk’s Wintu sisters described the result:

The white people never cared for land or deer or bear.  When we kill meat, we eat it all.  When we dig roots, we make little holes.  When we build houses, we make little holes.  When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don’t ruin things.  We shake down acorns and pinenuts.  We don’t chop down trees.  We only use dead weed.  But the whites plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything.
The tree says, “Don’t.  I am sore.  Don’t hurt me!”  But they chop it down and cut it up.
The spirit of the land hates them.  They blast out trees and stir it up to its depths.  They saw up the trees.  That hurts them. . .  They blast rocks and scatter them on the ground.  The rock says, “Don’t.  You are hurting me!”  But the while people pay no attention.  When [we] use rocks, we take only little round ones for cooking. . . .
How can the spirit of the earth like the white man?  Everywhere they have touched the earth, it is sore.

Blackhawk and his Wintu sister tell us that the land has a Spirit.  Their community on the prairie, their ecology, was a people guided by that Spirit.

When John Deere’s people came to the Sauk Prairie, they exorcised the Prairie Spirit in the name of a new god, Technology.  Because it was a god of their making, they believed they were gods.

And they made a desert.

There are incredible possibilities if we are willing to fail to be gods.

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May 7, 2012

Toes, Lines and Bad Religion

There is a little controversy brewing over a recent suggestion Bob DeMoor made in an editorial, Which Line to Toe?, in the Banner (the monthly magazine of the Christian Reformed Church).  There has been an ongoing dialogue in the CRC as to the role the historic Reformed confessions should play in our life together as a denomination.

They were written in the 1600’s and 1700’s – should adherence to them be mandatory?  Historically, all pastors and office bearers (and professors at Calvin College and Dordt College) have signed that they will teach and uphold these (by signing the Form of Subscription).  Yet times have changed.

DeMoor notes that:

It’s been some four hundred years since our confessions were penned. During that time our church, guided by centuries of study in the humanities (such as biblical studies and linguistics) and the natural sciences (such as biology and astronomy) has earnestly and prayerfully studied Scripture and creation revelation so that we may accurately confess and address God’s Word to each new generation. And folks like Abraham Kuyper have wonderfully widened our biblical vision on the reach of God’s kingdom.

We’d expect that all of that would trigger major revisions to those confessions, especially since every officebearer must subscribe to them.

But these revisions haven’t happened.  So lately it has been proposed that perhaps this Form of Subscription should be rethought.  Perhaps we ought to declare that these historic creeds and confessions ought to ‘guide’ as historical documents and we should continue to be ‘shaped’ by them without demanding slavish intellectual submission to them.  I found this approach refreshing and compelling – perhaps a good way forward.  There’s been much hemming and hawing about this (and much fear-mongering).  This possibility is still in process.

De Moor’s editorial suggested we go even further.  We affirm a new document altogether.   Radical, right?  Who would write it?  How would we ever have consensus on such a thing?

In fact, this document already exists.  It’s called, Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony.  Give it a read – see what you think.  This is a document, says De Moor, which

elegantly summarizes our biblical faith in our contemporary context. It demonstrates much of that growth of our understanding and clearly addresses our society, culture, and Zeitgeist. Yet it remains the poor stepchild, with subordinate standing to our confessions.

In other words, times have changed, and since we’ve refused to update the old confessions, why not re-appropriate our common statement of faith (which we already have) that articulates afresh our understanding of Scripture, God, and the world we live in?

I think it’s a brilliant approach.

Not everyone likes it though.  Surprise.

What is a surprise is that someone in the philosophy department at Calvin College —who is a terrific thinker and writer— would be the source of the opposition.

James K.A. Smith has blogged a critical response to De Moor’s proposal.  I’m all for being critical, but I found his response less than compelling (and we won’t even get into the dripping sarcasm).

Let’s take them point by point.

First up:

(1)  De Moor is once again executing plays from the liberal Protestant playbook.

OK.  And…

Smith seems to think that by simply stating the words ‘liberal Protestant’ he has made some sort of brilliant argument.  His disdain for mainline approaches is clear (and fair enough), but he doesn’t spend any time developing this point.  Simply that he doesn’t like it (and he knows many in his conservative Reformed audience don’t either).  By merely stating it, he thinks he’s made a point.  I would beg to differ.  To be fair, he encourages people to read Ross Douthat’s book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, so perhaps the point he fails to develop here will be understood once we all go buy and read that book.

His second point:

(2)  While De Moor is pointing out the supposed historical limitations of Reformed confessions forged in the 16th and 17th centuries, in fact nothing in his argument can prevent the same stance and posture toward ancient catholic confessions like Nicea and Chalcedon.  Should we also just tip our hat to those creeds, Bob, but then pledge our allegiance to an activist document written by North Americans in the 80s?

Where to begin.  This is the old slippery-slope argument based on fear.  “If we begin to question the Canons of Dort – what’s next, the Athanasian Creed?”

I find this quite disappointing from someone who knows better.  First of all, De Moor was not suggesting that the Contemporary Testimony suddenly takes primacy over the ancient creeds.  Nor was he suggesting dismissal of the Reformed confessions (Canons of Dort, Belgic Confessions, and Heidelberg Catechism).  It is a matter of appropriation and relation.  The Contemporary Testimony states how we feel as a community about who God is and how he is calling us to be in the world.  This does not mean we ‘get rid of’ the other stuff, as Smith is misleading people to think De Moor is saying.  What De Moor actually said was much more compelling and thoughtful:

Of course, we shouldn’t dream of jettisoning our historic confessions. As my colleague, Rev. Gordon Pols, puts it: “Our posture to our historical confessions should be the same as that to our parents: we honor them.” To honor them means we don’t mindlessly and robotically obey them as we mature. It means we fully recognize what they taught us and the direction they set us on. As we grow, we continue to heed their guidance. But we also continue to find our own calling in the light of Scripture and the Spirit’s leading. As the church in the third millennium, we affirm our roots as we publicly profess our owned faith.

This is a wise, compelling, well-articulated approach of the relationship we can (and should) have toward these historic documents.  And if that isn’t enough for some, De Moor notes that

We could also carefully describe that ongoing relationship to the historic confessions in the Contemporary Testimony itself.

We could reminder one another, and younger generations, where we come from, without continuing to insist that they go back and live in the past.  The bottom line?

 That would allow many more officebearers and profs to sign the form of subscription without holding their nose.

Yes.

But Smith is afraid we will now begin to question everything.

Good.  I hope we do.  Only fear prevents one from questioning.  If you have the truth as you claim to, what fear is there for asking questions?

“But if we question X, aren’t we going to open the door to questioning Y?”

Yes!  As we should.

We do that with the Bible all the time – reinterpret in light of new understandings of language, archaeology, culture, and context.  Why should theological decisions made centuries later be off limits? They were made in certain contexts under certain motivations (often more political than theological). Exploring them might actually prove helpful. Why should theology be the one and only field of human inquiry where we automatically defer to antiquity? Should we assume we have nothing to bring to the table when it comes to understanding God? A faith that is living and active would seem to point in the other direction. I am not in favor of questioning for it’s own sake, but rather for seeking out where our foundations are not as infallible as we perhaps thought they were.  We are called to smash idols, and perhaps there are some lurking in places we haven’t been willing to look.

Smith’s third point is this:

(3)  I have a little hypothesis to float here, and I know it will be somewhat off-putting.  But here goes: I think this is very much a generational issue.  More specifically, I think this is a baby boomer problem.  And for the past 20 years, the leadership of our denomination has been in the hands of baby boomers who absorbed an anti-institutionalism that was in the water in the late 60s and early 70s, which they then channeled toward the faith of their forebears–particularly their immigrant forebears. Hey, baby boomers, I want to let you in on a little secret: you don’t own the denomination, though I know you’ve acted like you do for the past 20 years.

This seems to me to be a red herring that distracts from the argument. Blaming some kind of over-generalized boomerism is less than helpful. Is anti-institutionalism really what is driving DeMoor’s argument? I can hardly see that as the case. You might even say he is acting on behalf of the institution by hoping to prevent it from becoming an irrelevant ancient relic itself.  Again, á la point one, acting in ways similar to other mainline approaches should not be automatic grounds for dismissal.  (And if it should – give us the actual reasons rather than just ad-hominem disdain).

There’s actually a resurgence happening within many mainlines because disaffected *younger* evangelicals and others are finding a space where both ancient practices and progressive thinking are welcome (See Diana Butler Bass: Christianity After Religion or her recent column: A Resurrected Christianity?).  A place where we live and act in light of history and tradition, but are not slavishly bound to it – as it appears Smith and many others would prefer in the CRC.   Trying to pin this on boomers leaves out the scores of younger folks (Driscollites aside) who want to follow Jesus without being forced into an intellectual corner.  Smith does note that there are many younger people who want a ‘more ancient’ faith.  Agreed.  But ancient doesn’t mean antiquated.

It appears to me (and I hope I’m wrong) that Smith is more interested in catering to the old guard and the younger conservatives by posturing himself as the new thoughtful guardian of our theological heritage.  That we can move forward by not moving at all.  He knows better, and frankly it’s quite disappointing.  If you ask me, this is a step backward, and he’s made his entire case based on fear and distraction.  It’s hard to move forward if you can’t take your eyes off of what’s behind you, just as you can’t drive very well by continually staring in the rear-view mirror.

I nod toward De Moor’s proposal as a healthy, thoughtful, and not unrealistic approach.  A move forward, while understanding and appreciating what got us here.  Some would say let’s get rid of the Form of Subscription altogether.  I’m not opposed to that, but perhaps De Moor’s approach is at least a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

Update:
In case you haven’t seen them, Dan Brown, Mark Hilbilenk, and John Suk have responded with some interesting thoughts on their own blogs, each worth reading.

Dan Brown – Toes on the Body of Christ, the Past, Present and Future of the CRC

Mark Hilbelink  - In-Fighting & Generational Bias @ CRC Young Adult Leadership Website

John Suk – Time to Put the Confessions to Pasture?  (this is latest entry, and if you ask me, best)

(The conversation is continuing between all parties in the comment section under Mark’s post – read them and jump in!  I’d also be interested in your comments on what I’ve written above – comment below.)

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May 3, 2012

Church Planters Academy Highlights 2

Tonight’s portion was on failure in church planting — Rich McCullen (Missiongathering), Mike Stavlund (Common Table), and Mark Scandrette (ReImagine).

“We should write the eulogies for our churches every single day.”

“How do you make attractive that which is not? How do you sell emptiness, vulnerability, and nonsuccess? How do you talk descent when everything is about ascent? How can you possibly market letting-go in a capitalist culture? How do you present Jesus to a Promethean mind? How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect? This is not going to work  (admitting this might be my first step).”

~ Richard Rohr, “The Inherent Unmarketability of Authentic Christianity”

Here’s a taste:

   
exchangeWinc RT @Skypilot917: Be a student of the place you are serving. #cpa2012 -9:45 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
viqui_dill RT @relyalma RT @happyemm: Instead of building, think of gardening. What can grow here? What’s already flowering even w/o tending? #cpa2012 -9:42 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
rockinrev RT @RevAndrewWong: “Only those who have been wounded by power learn to wield it responsibly.” #cpa2012 -9:18 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
mmartella RT @trans4m: “I think there’s a way for us to do great and beautiful things as human beings, not as production units.” -@MToy #cpa2012 -8:58 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
Skypilot917 Be a student of the place you are serving. #cpa2012 -8:56 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
ireverant RT @kansasprarierev: Unless a grain falls to the ground and dies, it bears no fruit… #cpa2012 -8:56 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
happyemm Continuing the gardening metaphor: let the field lie fallow, and see what still grows. #cpa2012 -8:52 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon #cpa2012 church starting should be a rolling release of beta versions #geekspeakcontinues -8:52 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer We thought in terms of two month chunks of experimentation. @markscandrette #cpa2012 -8:50 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
The_B_C Key question for church planting: what grows here?#cpa2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
carlgregg Instead of “building” w/ hammer and nails, maybe gardening metaphor better: “What grows here?” #ParableOfSower#CPA2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
scottrsimmons RT @abbykk: how is failure reframed by experience of resurrection? #cpa2012 -8:47 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon The only thing untweetable at #cpa2012: how much $$$ was spent on mailers -8:45 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
MHMorgan Instead of building something big…we instead find what will grow here. #CPA2012 -8:49 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
annawoof Thanks to @markscandrette for his honesty and words on identity. #cpa2012 http://t.co/5ObEA3YV -8:47 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
revsusan RT @nanettesawyer: “God was probably more interested in what I was becoming rather than what I was doing.” MarkScandrette #cpa2012 -8:43 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
megsande If you’re not doing what God has called you to do…you’re going to fail. #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
brc_live ”So many people need to know that they are loved by God . . . and that’s why we do what we do.” – Rich McCullen #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
ireverant it just got real #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
The_B_C RT @RevAndrewWong: Don’t try to build your church on cool, hip people. They suck.” #cpa2012 -8:21 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
megsande People need to know that they are loved by God.#cpa2012 -8:20 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer RT @seattlerev: “Maybe we should base the success of our churches, not on longevity, but on impact.” —@MikeStavlund #cpa2012 -8:07 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
scottrsimmons #cpa2012 What would it look like if we spoke of the church not in terms of success/failure but faithfulness/unfaithfulness… -8:07 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
RevAndrewWong Starting a church with a chip on your shoulder…not a good idea. #cpa2012 -8:06 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
shawnabowman RT @MHMorgan: If something is not working let it die. #CPA2012 -8:05 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
abbykk Write the eulogy of our churches’ everyday. -@MikeStavlund All churches. Not just church plants. #CPA2012 -7:57 PM May 3rd, 2012

There was so much more!  That’s just a taste.  Terrific, raw, honest stuff from those three fellas.

And this was day one of the conference!

For more go to:  http://tweetchat.com/room/CPA2012#

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May 3, 2012

CPA Highlights

Overheard at the Church Planting Academy at Solomon’s Porch:

Just a taste of the first afternoon session.   Presenters Nadia Bolz-Weber (House for All Sinners and Saints, Denver), Nanette Sawyer (Grace Commons, Chicago), and Maggie Mraz (Bull City Vineyard Church, Durham).

 

   
bryberg Bolz-Weber: being a good theologian matters.#CPA2012 -4:12 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
RevAndrewWong ”I feel like my denomination made sure I had a top notch theological education and then trusted me with it.”@sarcasticluther #cpa2012 -4:12 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
carlgregg ”We’re anti-excellent, pro-participation. We do a lot of crappy stuff, but we do it together.” ~@SarcasticLutheran#CPA2012 -3:36 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
phannon RT @jonestony: Don’t listen to @pastormark or@johnpiper. Women CAN and SHOULD plant churches. #cpa2012 -3:38 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
bryberg Nadia Bolz-Weber: i started a church b/c i wanted a church that i wanted to go to. #CPA2012 -3:45 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
happyemm I love when presenters are open about what they would have done differently. Thank you, @Sarcasticluther :) #cpa2012 -3:44 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
RevAndrewWong Negotiating the difference between being people’s friend and being people’s pastor was really difficult. #cpa2012 -3:44 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
drostad77 Starting a church is kinda like throwing your own birthday each week and hoping people show up. #cpa2012 -3:44 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
markclosson #cpa2012 @Sarcasticluther is doing amazing work as a church planter! #Exponential get the news! Women can plant churches too! -3:43 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
mtoy_live ”i was wrong about who would find life in this place. i thought it would be people like me” -nbw #cpa2012 -3:43 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
RevAndrewWong “I really undersold it…you don’t have to commit or do any work. And then that screwed me because they took me up on it.” #cpa2012 -3:41 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon #cpa2012 @Sarcasticluther is speaking the truth -3:41 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
mtoy_live ”you don’t have to do any work, just show up … it screwed me, because people took me up on it” -nbw #cpa2012 -3:41 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
phannon Every church planting conference (& preaching conf) should be required to have female speakers. Too many won’t even allow them. #cpa2012 -3:41 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
shawnabowman @gracecommons imbedded in the neighborhood.#cpa2012 -3:12 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
Skypilot917 Peripatetic ministry led to name change to Grace Commons, not a neighborhood name. More freedom and flexibility#cpa2012 -3:11 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
brc_live ”Irrepressible optimism that lives could be changed” -@nanettesawyer #trudat #cpa2012 -3:11 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon RT @Sodacracker77: “I come from a mostly mythological group of people people called progressive baptists” – John #CPA2012 -3:10 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
jonestony #CPA2012 is the only church planting conference I’ve ever been to that kicks off with three women church planters.#happy -3:04 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
hopemissional ”You treat a person differently when you know their name.” -@MaggieMraz #missional #cpa2012 (via @the_b_c) -3:05 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon #cpa2012 ”the most that we’ve done is show up” -3:05 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon #cpa2012 - get a card printed up with your name phone and email and then go out and be the pastor of a church that doesn’t exist yet -3:04 PM May 3rd, 2012

   
dukedeacon Speaker at #cpa2012 : one of our primary rules: if you’re going to be part of this church start, you have to be forgiving -3:04 PM May 3rd, 2012

Are you at the conference?  Love to hear your thoughts, questions, stuff you like or don’t.

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May 3, 2012

Highlights from Funding the Missional Church

Attending a conference in Minneapolis entitled, “Funding the Missional Church”.  It’s been inspiring, challenging and very fun.  Great to meet so many people who are seeking to create unique, engaging communities of Christ followers.

Here’s a few highlights:

   
shawnabowman authority is not the issue, but how you use it. Keel#funding2012 -10:25 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
shawnabowman what if [meeting consumer needs] is not why we gather? Keel #funding2012 -10:21 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright ”It’s not so much what we are doing, it’s how are we resourcing people to think differently about their lives” – Tim Keel#funding2012 -10:20 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright ”the people who give the most are the least demanding” (generally). a lot of nodding in the room. interesting#funding2012 -10:13 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer ”the progressive surrender of everything we know of ourselves to everything we know of God.” Tim Keel #funding2012 -10:08 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
brie_marie Sad. “excommunication” because of loving people.#funding2012 -9:31 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
rawlingswright hearing about someone possibly losing her ordination for being loving and welcoming of all God’s children is heartbreaking. #funding2012 -9:27 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
seattlerev What are innovative stories of sustainable missional communities that we can share w/ each other? #funding2012 -7:22 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
ireverant @seattlerev I served a missional church that survived b/c of its thrift shop min. Now I’m working on a coffee house-funded min #funding2012 -1:03 AM May 3rd, 2012

   
trans4m ”If u don’t have a history of getting people to do crazy stuff, then u probably shouldn’t b starting a church”@SarcasticLuther #funding2012 -4:57 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg #Skunkworks: high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy. #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg #Skunkworks: small, loosely structured group who develop a project for sake of radical innovation. #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
shawnabowman Heads up #chipres this is what we need for church plants: skunkworks money: http://t.co/RCgUSfVl #funding2012 -4:53 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
nanettesawyer ”skunkworks” money. Need to look that up.#funding2012 -4:52 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
bryberg @SarcasticLuther - Nadia Bolz-Weber: “I don’t care shit about what you’re imagining – I care about what you’re actually doing.” #Funding2012 -4:51 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
brie_marie @ChrisAgne some of us just ignore the rules…#funding2012 -4:46 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
ChrisAgne To be missional in a denomination, you have to renegotiate the rules. #funding2012 -4:44 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
FBCPaloAlto RT @nanettesawyer: “willing to go thru death and resurrection a lot” at House for All Sinners and Saints.#funding2012 -4:44 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
knightopia @scottrsimmons The big shift is God’s mission is bigger than the Church. The Church is j/privileged to participate.#missional #funding2012 -4:38 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
brie_marie Electronic bill pay only works if your audience has computers and the internet. Must know your audience.#funding2012 -3:06 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg @P3T3RK3Y5 I got idea from St. Gregory of Nyssa in SF: “Dialogue completes the sermon.” #SermonTalkback #funding2012-3:06 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
carlgregg @P3T3RK3Y5 Every Sunday, we have ~15 minute sermon, 2 minutes silence, then 15 minute open dialogue. #funding2012 -3:02 PM May 2nd, 2012

   
jonestony RT @carlgregg: Don’t believe people who tell you they don’t need to be thankful. Seriously: THANK THEM. #funding2012 -2:50 PM May 2nd, 2012

That’s just a taste!  Great stuff.  We are wrapping up today and then on to the Church Planters Academy at Solomon’s Porch.

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May 1, 2012

Master and Apprentice

“Always two there are, master and apprentice.” ~ Yoda

On Sunday at Watershed we looked at John 5:19-20 and saw it as a ‘parable of apprenticeship.’  (Wes Howard-Brook)

Jesus watching the Father to see how he acts, and to act likewise in the world.

watching, learning, doing

We noted that throughout history, fathers have taught their sons a particular trade.

NT Wright notes:

“This is becoming more rare today in the Western world, but there are still plenty of places where it is the normal and expected thing for sons to follow fathers into the family business.  And, particularly where the business involves working at a skilled trade with one’s hands, apprenticeship means literally being side by side, with the son watching every move that the father makes and learning to do it in exactly the same way.  That is how many traditional skills are handed down from generation to generation, sometimes over hundreds of years.”

Listen to John 5:19-20 in light of this:

Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

NT Wright notes that Jesus is explaining more fully how it is that Israel’s God is working in a new way, and how he, Jesus is watching carefully to see how it’s being done, so as to do it alongside the father and in keeping with his style and plan.

This is exactly what Jesus has said earlier in v.17:  “My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working.”

In my reading this morning at the home of my new Minnesota couchsurfing friends (though I guess I’m the one who’s couchsurfing!), I came across Mark Scandrette’s Practicing the Way of Jesus.  (Apparently he’ll be at the conference later this week).

An appropriate book in light of what we studied together on Sunday.  Here’s a taste from the first chapter:

“In a holistically-oriented culture, skeptical people are less convinced by purely rational arguments about why Christianity is true, and more curious to see whether Christian belief and practice actually make a positive difference in the character of a person’s life.  Knowing the transformational promise of the gospel, it is fair to ask whether a person who claims to have a relationship with Jesus exhibits more peace and less stress, handles crisis with more grace, experiences less fear and anxiety, manifests more joy, is overcoming anger and their addictions or compulsions, enjoys more fulfilling relationships, exercises more compassion, lives more consciously or loves more boldly.  In any culture, but especially in one that yearns for holistic integration, the most compelling argument for the validity of the Christian faith is a community that practices the way of Jesus by seeking a life together in the kingdom of love (John 13:35).

And yet, a tremendous gap exists in our society between the way of radical love embodied and taught by Jesus and the reputation and experience of the average Christian.  We simply aren’t experiencing the kind of whole-person transformation that we instinctively long for (and that a watching world expects to see).

This suggests the need for a renewed understanding of the gospel and more effective approaches to discipleship.  Though our understanding of the gospel is becoming more holistic, our most prevalent formation practices don’t fully account for this.  We can be frustrated by this gap and become critics, or be inspired by a  larger vision of the kingdom and get creative.

I believe what is needed,   in this transitional era, are communities of experimentation — creative spaces where we have permission to ask questions and take risks together to practice the Way.”

If you haven’t read Scandrette’s book – pick up a copy, or borrow a friend’s.  Hoping to get a copy for the Watershed library!

Love to hear thoughts/reactions on what it means for us to be apprentices, disciples, to be those who live in the way of Jesus, and don’t just talk about it.

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