church

The Sweet Kingdom of Jesus

The Sweet Kingdom of Jesus

“Listen to what your heart is telling you.”

I had the delightful experience of attending a middle school play recently: Cinderella and the Candy Kingdom. It’s the usual Cinderella story, but set in a world of chocolate, sugar and sweets. Plenty of puns made it a very fun show: the wicked stepsisters of Cinderella were named Kit and Kat. The prince of the kingdom was named Reese, who rarely appeared without his squire, Hershey.

While Hershey won the audience with his consistent jokes and eager banter, it was Prince Reese who brought home the underlying meaning of the play. In the world of the Candy Kingdom, everyone loves sweets: first dessert, second dessert, third dessert. Whip cream and chocolate syrup on everything. You get the idea. Yet the young prince has a secret: he doesn’t like sweets. In other words, he’s not like everyone else. He doesn’t belong. Not only that, he’s in line for the throne, but isn’t the “right kind of prince.” Continue Reading..

Why Does the Church Insist That People Stop Learning?

Why Does the Church Insist That People Stop Learning?

AS A PARENT, it is a particular delight when I see one of my kids reading. I love to see when they become immersed into a story, or discover something they didn’t know before as they pore over a book. It is a thrill to watch their imaginations and worlds expand. Which makes it hard to imagine a parent saying to a child: “Stop reading! You’ve learned enough already. You’ve learned all you need to know.” Yet in my experience in the church, I’ve been told exactly that. And I know my experience isn’t an isolated one. Continue Reading..

Worship as the Ultimate Act?

Worship as the Ultimate Act?

THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CONFESSION famously says that the “chief end of man (sic) is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” This classic theological assertion is held with conviction by many in the Reformed tradition and beyond. God created us to give him (or her?) glory. The point of the universe is to glorify God.

It is often assumed that the way we glorify God is through worship. And worship is often understood as: singing songs on a Sunday morning, hearing a sermon, putting some money in the collection plate, and drinking some stale coffee afterward while dissecting the second point of the sermon or talking about the upcoming bake sale. Continue Reading..

Pub Theology Is (not) a Waste of Time

Pub Theology Is (not) a Waste of Time

This post originally appeared in HuffPost Religion as “Pub Theology Is a Waste of Time”.

You’ve read, perhaps, about churches making use of beer to gain traction in connecting with people. NPR put it more starkly in a story recently: “To Stave Off Decline, Churches Attract New Members With Beer.” But you’re skeptical. And I don’t blame you. It sounds like a gimmick. Trying to be trendy. Throwing a few jokes into a stale sermon to appear witty, humorous, relevant. Young. People increasingly like beer. People increasingly don’t like church. So it makes a certain amount of sense. You can’t blame churches for trying.

pubtheology waste of time_FI have my own experience connecting beer and faith. I help facilitate pub theology gatherings every week. Pub theology is simply open conversation over a pint. You’re still skeptical. “So, you go the pub to drink beer,” you might say. “Great. Some of us are actually spending time doing things that matter. Helping the poor, working on housing and jobs, advocating for justice, mentoring people and more. Going to the pub to talk about faith seems like it increases what we don’t need any more of: talk. Why do we need more talk? More hot air does not make the world a better place.” You might conclude: “Pub theology is a waste of time.”

–Related: Bar theology: Burgers, beer, and a side of spirituality in D.C. (Washington Post)–

I’ve heard some criticism along these lines, and I’ve had some of these thoughts myself. Pub theology — gathering with folks to talk about life over beer — is nice. But isn’t it time to start doing some things that really matter? Isn’t it just dressing up a relic without really changing anything?

I wonder, though, if there isn’t a small flaw or two in this line of questioning: it assumes that pub theology is the only thing one is doing. Or that one is doing it as a gimmick to attract new church members. Neither of those things is true. Pub theology is not the newest trendy outreach effort. It is open, honest conversation, wherever that leads. It may lead someone to your church. It may also lead someone out of it. Now if you’re a regular reader of mine or follow me on social media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that pub theology is all I do. If it was, I think I’d be in heaven already. But that’s for another discussion!

So I hear these legitimate questions and critiques and occasionally wonder to myself: maybe pub theology isn’t so worthwhile. Maybe I need to find something else to do on Tuesday nights.

And then we have an evening in which a Buddhist sits across from an atheist, and a liberal Lutheran sits across from a conservative evangelical. A member of a Unity church pulls up a chair. And the discussion is rich, full, and meaningful. We talk about issues of justice, evil, and whether or not an all-powerful God is culpable for the bad things that happen in the world. Some share stories of hope and powerful religious experience, while others talk about why the church is no longer the place for them, and still others say they’ve abandoned God years ago.

Is all that is happening here just “talk”? When we can sit and learn from someone who gave up his Catholic faith in college and has subsequently been practicing Buddhism for over 30 years, something is happening. When an atheist who gave up his religious views because of deep philosophical considerations, yet is interested in issues of meaning and life enough to join us and contribute — something is happening. When a person who hasn’t stepped into a church for years, but still considers herself spiritual pulls up a chair to listen: something is happening. When ten of us from very different perspectives can wrestle together about questions like — “Can violence make the world a better place?” or “Is the weight of history unbearable without the idea of God?” or “Is privacy a God-given right?” — something is happening. When we build relationships with a bartender, a server, a pub owner, something is happening. When a beer distributor attends an interfaith event during DC Beer Week and says, “Man, this is so refreshing compared to other beer events I go to,” something is happening. When someone says, “I just don’t go to church anymore because it doesn’t mean much, but I come here because it is participatory, thoughtful and open” — something is happening.

And so as I reflect on the ongoing place of gatherings like pub theology and similar events, I liken it more and more to a spiritual discipline or practice. In other words, it is something that I intentionally participate in because it shapes me in important ways (again, it is not a gimmick to attract new members — though some might seem to use that approach). And like any other discipline or practice, it isn’t everything. So it isn’t fair to compare it to something that it isn’t, and that it isn’t trying to be. It isn’t those things, and it doesn’t need to be. It is one thing, among many things that a person might be involved in. And like a practice of, say, contemplative prayer — which incorporates deep moments of silence, one might say of it: “Nothing is happening. You should be doing something.”

Yet when I engage in contemplative practice, though it appears nothing is happening, much is happening: deep wells are being opened up within me. Space is created which heightens my awareness, deepens my senses, gives me more patience and love in which to encounter the very real challenges that life contains. My connection to the Spirit of God is renewed. It is far from nothing. In silence, I find that much is happening. And as a discipline, when I participate in it regularly and intentionally, it adds to the other things I am doing, which includes engaging in “action” and more visibly constructive types of things like building relationships in my neighborhood, being an activist for issues like peace instead of war, dismantling mass incarceration and recidivism, tuning in to environmental /climate realities and how I might be a participant in and advocate for the natural world, creating a community of people seeking to engage their world while deepening a connection to Jesus and more.

And so pub theology, like prayer, or fasting, or Scripture reading, is a discipline. One might be tempted to ignore or skip such a practice in favor of ‘doing more’. But when I skip it, I miss out. I miss out on learning from people with experiences and perspectives that are vastly different from my own. I miss out on constructive dialogue on issues we all face together. When I am tempted to abandon the practice, I remember that for some folks, this is a first step toward re-engaging their spiritual side, or their first chance to speak honestly about their doubts, and is perhaps their only opportunity for deep, constructive dialogue and reflective thinking.

It is also, in a way, like preventive medicine. When I know someone as a person, I am less likely to judge them harshly based on preconceived stereotypes. If I know a peace-loving evangelical or Muslim, I am less likely to judge all evangelicals or Muslims as endorsers of violence. If I meet a deeply thoughtful, liberal Christian, I realize that they aren’t just about feelings or dismissing orthodoxy, but are about careful, deep reading of Scripture and tradition. If I meet an atheist, I may well realize through her caring presence that atheists are just as thoughtful and intentional as anyone else. If all I have are stereotypes, I’m likely to help perpetuate them.

So is pub theology just talk? Yes. And no. It is deep relationships. It is barriers coming down. It is stereotypes being proven wrong. It is new friendships occurring. It is lines being crossed. It is deep thinking about the issues we all face as humanity, being discussed from varying perspectives. It is a movement to deeper understanding, where new possibilities are opened up. It is a practice that I value deeply, and — in many different ways, under many different titles — it is happening all over, and needs to be happening, and I’m glad to be a small part of it.


bryan-2Bryan Berghoef is a pastor, writer, and pub theologian, and author of the book, Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God.  Bryan currently facilitates weekly conversations at a bar in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Why Conservative Churches Attract Young People… or Not

“Catch my conservative drift there? No? Too much? Let’s take it again from the top.”

A fellow pastor recently wrote a recent column entitled, “Why Conservative Churches Attract Young People.”  My interest was immediately piqued, as someone who is also interested in helping people of all ages cultivate their spiritual lives, including ‘young people.’

In the post, Aaron Vriesman, who pastors a church on the north side of Holland, Michigan, begins: “As a 33 year-old minister in the CRC, I can say with both personal and professional experience that conservative churches do indeed draw young adults.  In particular, churches that have a self-consciously high view of Scripture, a commitment to the creeds and confessions, traditional stances on marriage and sexuality, and work to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ actually do draw young adults.”

I have no doubt that this is the case.  He goes on to note some of the reasons, some of which I agree with, and some of which I might view from a slightly different angle.

To provoke thought, the article is prefaced with:
“Why would young adults be attracted to conservative churches? Aren’t young adults more educated and scientific in their view of the world? Aren’t young adults more accepting of premarital sex and gay relationships? Aren’t young adults more interested in communities of dialogue than cold hard doctrine?”

That’s more like it.

I’ll let you read his reasons in full, so that I’m not taking any parts of this out of context. (quotes italicized)

  1. Young adults want authenticity.  All people, but young people especially, appreciate people who are up front about who they are and what they are about.  As advertisements everywhere attempt to lure people into spending money with attractive images and promises, young people are constantly being played.  Give it to me straight.  Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.  Tell me where you stand and then I can form my own opinion.  Don’t be a jerk about it, but at least be honest. Some churches shy away from Bible passages that might offend certain groups or avoid verses about God’s judgment because it makes God appear unloving.  Conservative churches with a higher view of Scripture are not shy about anything the Bible says.  They will read and preach on the uncomfortable Bible texts.  Even those that equate divorce with adultery, tell wives to submit to husbands and spell out horrifying disaster for sinners. Since conservative churches are not worried about political correctness of any kind, they present the true God and Jesus Christ in all authenticity, with (what some would say) “warts” and all.  Even if some young adults disagree with what they hear, they usually respect a straightforward message without spin.

    My response.
      I agree, young adults want authenticity.  Aaron correctly notes that our culture has much shallow, get-your-attention-and-your-dollars gimmicky stuff going on.  Something deeper and more substantive does indeed have a certain draw.He notes, “Give it to me straight.  Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear.” He goes on to note that conservative churches don’t shy away from certain biblical texts. His examples consist of divorce, submission of women to their husbands, and judgment for sin (read between the lines: hell).  How can they be so daring as to talk about things so culturally against the grain?  Because “they’re not worried about political correctness of any kind.”

    I’d like to push back slightly.  There is indeed a culture that would take issue with people equating divorce with adultery, with endorsing repressive measures against women, and with fire-and-brimstone theology.  So in this sense, yes, these conservative churches are ‘against the grain.’  But let’s think about context for a moment.  Vriesman preaches in West Michigan in a very conservative area, in a very conservative congregation, likely among largely rural congregants who grew up in such a conservative milieu.  So in fact, what he is saying should be turned around.  In his context, preaching these things is exactly what people want and expect to hear.  It is not against the grain.  It is politically-correct, because if he were to suddenly start preaching a more progressive message that divorce is much more complicated than simply equating it with adultery (which everyone knows intuitively, but has to listen to repeated sermons to be convinced otherwise), that God loves everyone including divorced folks, that women and men should equally respect each other, and that perhaps our view of God ought to transcend a Puritan, fire-breathing, sinners-in-the-hands-of an angry God—if this was his approach, he would be questioned.  In his environment, sticking with a conservative approach is exactly the politically correct thing to do.

    He goes on to say that this approach communicates to people ‘the true God’ and Jesus Christ ‘in all authenticity.’ Hmmm… The hubris to assume your view and only your view displays God as he actually is (rather than our ideas of God) is in fact the kind of thing that causes young people outside of the bubble he is operating in to flee from churches.  Because they know it simply isn’t true, if anyone has taken the time to really wrestle with and engage traditions outside of their own, be it any of the many other Christian traditions, as well as other faiths. (See the excerpt of Chapter 6 of my book, An (Un)Safe Place, on Patheos).

    In fact, many of these conservative churches supposedly teaching about Jesus ‘in all authenticity,’ often fail to communicate the Jesus who taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love our enemies, to practice reconciliation at all costs, to respond to violence with forgiveness.  These same churches consistently favor a militaristic approach to foreign policy, which looks like anything but ‘the authentic Jesus’, they often favor social policies that marginalize the poorest and weakest in our society, and one could go on. The point being that there is a healthy diversity of thought on what it means to follow ‘the real Jesus,’ and you better have a seat next to the angels in heaven before you claim to alone have insight into ‘the true God.’

    So back to the initial point: I agree young people want authenticity. I think all people do. The examples mentioned may well be authentic, but they hardly put conservative churches in sole possession of authenticity.

  1. Young adults want to know the real God.  Many people today build their own gods with the bits and pieces they like from various sources, but what is God really like?  Some churches present Scripture as human writing, introducing Biblical texts with, “Paul says…” or “David says…”  Conservative churches will say, “The Lord says…” or “God’s Word tells us…” Human opinions are a dime a dozen, but the Bible is not another human opinion.  It is God’s truth, and so it is worth getting up early on a weekend to hear.

    My response. 
    “Many people today built their own gods with bits and pieces they like from various sources.” Yes they do. Sources like the Heidelberg Catechism, or John Calvin, Saint Augustine, or various Bible passages. WE ARE ALL guilty of doing this.  Me too.  Can we do otherwise?  In our discussion at the pub the other night we asked, “Do we sometimes confuse our idea(s) of God with God?”  The answer, regardless of our approach, is YES. We are human beings, therefore it is impossible we will (in this life), have a pure, unfiltered view of who God is.  To say anything less is dishonest.

    Does that mean we are in the dark? Not at all. We do have the Scriptures, we have the witness of various theological traditions through history, and so on.  But it is only honest to acknowledge that there exists, and has always existed, a multiplicity of such traditions, even in biblical times.  The Bible itself is not always in agreement with itself.  Vriesman notes, “Some churches present Scripture as human writing…” as if this is some sort of indictment.  Scripture is human writing!  Perhaps he forgot his seminary training, that a Reformed view of the inspiration of Scripture is organic:  God’s Spirit at work through human beings, including all of their own personalities, character, humanity, and setting.  And of course, humanity is humanity. Broken, flawed, with a perspective inescapably rooted in one’s own self. To pretend that we don’t have to say, “Paul said… this,” but “Isaiah writes this…” is to miss out on fully understanding the very means God chose to use to communicate himself to us!  To simply say, “God says… ____,” without doing the hard work of understanding what God was saying originally in and through the very human authors, in and through its very context and to its first hearers, is to endanger one to presumptively miss out on what God is saying today, all the while claiming to speak for “the real God.”  (See my earlier post: What I meant to sayfor a discussion on the complicated reality of communication and interpretation, then and now).

    Young people can see through such unnuanced approaches, and are decreasingly satisfied with them.  More and more young people do want to know God as he really is, which is why they aren’t satisfied to sit in the pew and be told that we know exactly who God and what he is like. They are not satisfied with being told: “you’re not allowed to do any spiritual exploration on your own outside our own doctrinal boundaries, because that is ‘dangerous’.”  Such fear of exploration may well betray the fact that one doesn’t really believe what one claims to believe. And of course, the implication that conservative churches are the only place to encounter ‘the real God’ implies that any other sort of church will only connect you with something less. My experience (and many others), would say that God can be met in a variety of settings.
  1. Young adults hunger for meaning beyond themselves.  The mainstream culture’s gospel of toleration and acceptance is loud and constant. While this can be a smooth elixir to swallow, the net result is a sour stomach of uncertainty and meaninglessness.  Is there anything that is truly right and wrong?  Is life’s ultimate goal just being nice to everybody and never rock the boat?  Hearing about the ultimate truth from God’s own Word gives a measure of meaning beyond popular opinion and greater than our own selves.  Truth that confirms what we already feel and believe only betrays itself as our own personal truth. Truth greater than ourselves by definition will challenge our views, prick our hearts, cause us to humble ourselves and submit to God’s way. As awkward and unpopular as God’s way might be, its superior source and loving purpose is compelling.

    My response. 
    “The mainstream culture’s gospel of toleration and acceptance is loud and constant.”  Good!  Then perhaps the message of Jesus has been getting through.  Jesus tolerated and accepted people, people who were regularly dismissed from access to God through the religious institutions of the day: the poor, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, those labeled “sinners.”  The people he had the most problem with were the religious ones who didn’t practice the ‘toleration’ and ‘acceptance’ Jesus knew God extends toward all his broken humanity.  Apparently it gives this writer a ‘sour stomach’ to imagine that we should practice such love, tolerance, and acceptance.

    To go from this initial point to asking, ‘Is there anything that is truly right and wrong?’ is a complete disconnect. Extending God’s love doesn’t mean anything goes. It means everyone is welcome. It means we become the love of God on display.  And as we do that, people begin to experience healing to their brokenness, and consider ways to begin living in wholeness and newness.  And, this writer forgets, when we act in this way, it does rock the boat.  Jesus accepted and loved such people, and was constantly berated by the institution that claimed to speak for God: “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.”  “This one is a drunkard and a glutton.”

    I agree with his final point, that truth greater than ourselves will challenge our views and prick our hearts.  I’m simply wondering whether such truth is ever spoken in the kinds of communities he seems to be representing.  Would Jesus, himself a young person, be welcome in these churches with his radical displays of love and acceptance?
  1. Young adults resonate with sin. They are familiar with the suffering that comes from broken relationships, dead-end jobs, brittle commitments and love with strings attached.  Even a self-centered and narcissistic generation like mine has burning questions about why so many awful things happen in the world.  Preaching the reality of sin has a way of bringing light to the elusive suffering that is so apparent everywhere.  Some churches might call for awareness, dialogue, or assistance programs in response to the world’s problems. Some young adults are attracted to this because they feel the ache of sin and want to solve its problems.  But such human efforts mostly produce fatigue and frustration.  Sin, according to the Bible, is actually a spiritual problem that cannot be defeated by human efforts.  The truth, pure and simple, is that we need a Savior.  Instead of trying harder, we conquer sin in ourselves only as much as we trust God to work through us.  This leads us to open ourselves to God’s grace that comes by faith.  Grace calls for human activity, but activity that is motivated by thanksgiving and love for God, not a better world as an end in itself.

    My response. 
    Here I have a lot of agreement with the author. Many of us are indeed familiar with the suffering that comes from the things he notes.  Suffering that comes from inside of us, as well as suffering that is far beyond any one of us (famine, natural disasters, war, etc).  He notes that “some churches might call for awareness, dialogue, or assistance programs.”  His solution is simply to “preach the reality of sin,” because if we do all this hard work of increasing awareness, discussing solutions, and working toward improving things will result simply in ‘a better world as an end in itself.’  Imagine.  A better world?  Is that it?  Let’s stop before we get to that point.  Let’s instead focus on ‘spiritual problems.’  I agree that humanity is sinful and broken.  I agree that God brings healing through Jesus.  However, I balk at the notion that ‘a better world’ is not an end in itself, and that nothing can change unless we remind everyone that we can’t actually do anything.  In fact, if we paid attention, we’d see that non-Christians everywhere are working hard to effect real change in our world, and we would do well to begin to partner with them, rather than hide in our circles commiserating with each other over the futility of it all.
  1. Not all conservative churches attract young adults.  Some conservative churches simply attempt to hold on to the past.  Those that recoil at different ministry tactics or refuse to try the newer (or older) worship music reflect the idolatry of comfort zones, which undermines the gospel’s power even if it is accurately presented from the pulpit. The key component of conservative churches that attract young adults is the visible display of God’s love. Before and after worshiping together, the love of God is visible in the way people greet and speak to one another. People of a different color or socio-economic class are welcomed with the same smiles and greetings as everyone else. Truths are held without compromise but questions and discussions are always welcome because that is how we learn. The conservative moral standards are used to encourage sinners in their emerging faith, not as merit badges of superiority.

    My response. 
    Agreed!  Not all conservative churches attract young adults.  But neither do all progressive churches. Or all of any kind of church.  I also agree that the key component in a church attracting young adults is the visible display of God’s love.  However, I think it goes far beyond creating a welcoming environment over coffee before and after the service.  It comes not in simply being nice to someone ‘of a different color.’  It comes not by trumpeting our ‘conservative truths and moral standards.’  It comes by people living in genuine community throughout the week, people who can rely upon each other (and I know this often is practiced very well in conservative churches), but also by people living sacrificially on behalf of a broken world. People like the early church, who modeled Christ’s teaching by having everything in common, by taking in the poor, by suffering to declare that the way of a suffering Jewish teacher was superior to the way of Rome and Caesar.

    He notes in the end that ‘questions and discussions are always welcome because that is how we learn.’ This seems at odds with his earlier comments which dismiss dialogue in favor of preaching and ‘cold hard doctrine.’  I agree, we learn when we honestly engage views differently from our own, when we admit we haven’t figured everything out, least of all God. This approach, in my own experience, is refreshing to young people who have too often experienced the opposite.


The article closes as follows:
“At the end of the day, people need to see that God’s truth as well as his grace and love are more than theoretical beliefs. God is true and his Son Jesus Christ is mighty to save. Churches that show Jesus Christ is real will always attract people of all ages
.”

I might articulate something more along these lines:
“At the end of the day, people need to experience the reality of God’s love and grace through communities seeking to embody the way of Jesus, the prophet and rabbi who declared that the ‘Kingdom of God is at hand.’  Churches that really seek to follow Jesus will attract people of all ages, but will not necessarily be popular.”


What do you think?  Do conservative churches attract young people?  Can we make such sharp delineations as ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ among churches?  Is this a useful approach?  What might draw you to a particular community of faith? What might keep you away?

Pub Theology Topics April 19

A nice, low-key evening at the pub last night.  In the cask was the Aztec Gold, a porter with chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, and chipotle…  a spicy delicious combination.

We had some good conversations on the topics below:

1.    If the church is to have a future it must:
___________________________________.

2.    Without proper structures life will never grow.  Faith, naturally intuitive, cannot grow without a proper use of logic (structure).  Where there are lapses of faith, there are broken structures of logic.  Faith stretches our logic, and logic should create a space to experience our faith.

3.    “I relax and enjoy life.  I know that whatever I need to know is revealed to me in the perfect time and space sequence.”

4.    This offends me: _________________________.

5.  Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. But watch out if you are in a lifeboat and there are others who are younger, bigger, or smarter.

The first topic was in light of Andrew Sullivan’s recent article in Newsweek about the crisis in Christianity.

What do you think?  Is the church in trouble?  What must it do going forward?

I have to say that I highly enjoyed a couple of response pieces:

Diana Butler Bass:  A Resurrected Christianity?

and

Scott Paeth:  The Power of the Powerless

Thanks to Tony Jones for pointing out those responses.  He has more on his blog:  Theoblogy:  What Crisis in Christianity?!?

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

Taken from chapter 1 of John D. Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct:

a good book

Posed in the subjunctive, what would Jesus do or deconstruct, the question turns on the structure of the archive, of memory and repetition.  How does the New Testament preserve the memory of Jesus?  I prescind from all historical-critical questions here, which open up another abyss (about the arche itself).  One abyss at a time!  I treat the New Testament as an “archive,” a depository of memories, which presents a certain way to be, a certain “poetics” —  not a politics or an ethics or a church dogmatics — that I like to call a “poetics of the kingdom,” which lays claim to us and which calls for a transformation into existence.

How are we to translate this soaring poetics into reality?  Were this figure of Jesus, who is the centerpiece of this poetics, or theo-poetics, to return today, what would he look like?  An illegal immigrant?  A child dying of AIDS?  A Vatican bureaucrat?  And what do we imagine he would expect of us here and now?  The question calls for a work of application, interpretation, interpolation, imagination, and self-interrogation, and all that is risky business.  To interpret is always a high-wire act, balancing oneself on a line stretched across an abyss and in constant danger of constructing idols of its own imagining.  The name of “Jesus” is too often a mirror in which we behold our own image, and it has always been easy to spot the sliver in the eye of the other and miss the two-by-four in our own.  The question presupposes the inescapable reality of history and of historical distance, and it asks how that distance can be crossed.  Or better, conceding that this distance cannot be crossed, the question resorts to the subjunctive and asks how that irreducible distance could be made creative.

cracks let the light in

How does our distance from Jesus illuminate what he said and did in a different time and place and under different historical circumstances?  And how does Jesus’ distance from us illuminate what we must say and do in the importantly different situation in which we find ourselves today?  The task of the church is to submit itself to this question, rather than using it like a club to punish others.

The church, the archive of Jesus, in a very real sense is this question.

It has no other duty and no other privilege than to bear this memory of Jesus and ask itself this question.  The church is not the answer.  The church is the question, this question, the gathering of people who are called together by the memory of Jesus and who ask this question, who are called together and are put into question by this question, who stand accused, under the call, interrogated and unable to recuse themselves from this question, and who come to understand that there are no easy, ready-made, prepackaged answers.

hurley!

The early church is a lot like the characters in the hit TV series Lostthe title is appropriate!-– waiting to be “saved,” which is the soteriological significance of that show where everyone is given a new being, a fresh start.  At first, the survivors hang around on the beach waiting to get “picked up” (in a cloud, St. Paul said).  After a while, they conclude that the rescue is not going to happen anytime soon and so they reluctantly decide to dig in and prepare for the long haul.  Hence the existence of the church is provisional – like a long-term substitute teacher – praying for the kingdom, whose coming Jesus announced and which everyone was expecting would come sometime soon.

But this coming was deferred, and the church occupies the space of the “deferral,” of the distance or “difference,” between two comings.  (I just said, in case you missed it, the church is a function of différance!) In the meantime, and it is always the meantime for the church, the church is supposed to do the best it can to bring that kingdom about itself, here on earth, in a process of incessant self-renewal or auto-deconstruction, while not setting itself up as a bunch of kings or princes.  The church is by definition a call (kletos) for renewal.

deconstructable

That is why the church is “deconstructable,” but the kingdom of God, if there is such a thing, is not.  The church is a provisional construction, and whatever is constructed is deconstructible, while the kingdom of God is that in virtue of which the church is deconstructible.

So, if we ask, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” the answer is first and foremost: the church!

For the idea behind the church is to give way to the kingdom, to proclaim and enact and finally disappear into the kingdom that Jesus called for, all the while resisting the temptation of confusing itself with the kingdom.  That requires us to clear away the rhetoric and get a clear picture of what “deconstruction” means, of just who “Jesus” is, and of the hermeneutic force of this “would,” and to do so with this aim:  to sketch a portrait of an alternative Christianity, one that is as ancient as it is new, one in which the “dangerous memory of Jesus” is still alive – deconstruction being, as I conceive it, a work of memory and imagination, of dangerous memories as well as daring ways to imagine the future, and as such good news for the church.

–Post any thoughts or comments below–

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