After 90 minutes of discussion of Hillel, the talmud, the Rigveda, and confucian thought (Mr evangelical said nothing during this entire dinner conversation), I turned the discussion to
Christ and his assertions. At that moment MrE turned to me and said "what are you?", I asked him "what do you mean?" He said he thought I was "into Eastern Philosophy", and I told him that I was (i'm also into Lattes btw). His confusion continued, because I was representing Christ's message, so I told him I was a Christian, this confused him even more, how do you know that other stuff, why do you talk about it - he asked. I told him because I am interested in people and what they think and believe. He then asked me what kind of Christian I was, and I hesitated, other than "heretical", I never really had a label on where I had arrived at philosophically/spirtually. So I said "post-evangelical". He asked me what that was, and I said "picking up the pieces of the last 50 nightmare years is what that is".
When the Hindus told him that they supported "Focus On the Family", he nearly he had a coronary. I told him that marriage and family were universals, lots of people were "into families". Two years later somebody talked to me about the emerging church. Thankfully I never saw him again.
What I like about the really good emerging people (Fitch & Franke come to mind) is that they are trying to understand where the people/culture are and speak to it. In my past experiences of evangelicalism I felt there was a HUGE effort to define what they should become inside some fantastical institutional/cultural mileau centered around 1950 Levitown or something, and to get them there I had some kind of MentalLogic/Incantation to do with them. How does one have a conversation and relationship in this I wondered.
When I talk about the Maronite Catholic Church, worshiping in Arabic, and using Allah
as the name for God, things can get ugly in evangelical america, but tell me this isn't worship of the Triune God at least personally for the singer
http://tr.youtube.com/watch?v=
There is a little more out there then what is in the Evangelical books, I suspect that simply don't have a big enough imagination and don't want to leave their carefully controlled arenas of experience. This is probably akin to the white western missionary showing up in your favorite missionary country where the "natives" need to be taught the proper sexual postion - man on top aka "the missionary position".
I don't think the the missionary position was prescribed, but observed. Wasn't it in Hawaii?
ReplyDeleteOne problem is that we are still trying to answer questions that nobody's asking.
Dan
I believe that my church is working through a question put forward by Fitch on leadership. Remembering that this church is ana-baptist in tradition but led by a dyed in the wool traditionalist Nazarene.
ReplyDeleteDoes the Holy Spirit move the church or "just the Pastor" as to what to do. Is the "leadership" (i'm using that word because the BIC does), a peer to peer, communal group or is it hierarchy?
Not being particuraly spiritual like you guys, in general when someone says "God told me to do this", in the context of church or family I am biased to believe that this is a logical fallacy, specifically "a call to an illegitimate authority". While I want to be careful in using Acts, when I think of the Apostles i see "we and the Holy Spirit" (even if they were wrong) as a more communal bias.
More theological is the question of the work of the Holy Spirit and giftedness. Do I believe that the one gifted with a "pastor/teacher" gift is also gifted with "prophecy" (undefined for now), and "discernment" - rarely. Ecclesiology is tough stuff.
When someone says 'God told me...' I usually think B.S., but I'm not very spiritual either I guess. How do you know God told you? Because you felt it? Maybe it is really your idea? It very well may be the guidence of God the Holy Spirit, but we need to be extremely careful with the way we communicate these types of things.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to balance 'leadership' and community. I think both are important and essential. In all periods of history, God has raised up and used individuals as leaders. But the community is where vision is fleshed out, brought into perspective and shared.
In the end, I believe that vision belongs to the community more than the pastor. If a church is looking for a pastor, they should know what their church's vision generally is and not wait for a new pastor to import his own.
Just my ramblings...
Just a little pushback here. . .
ReplyDeleteI have more to say than I can possibly post here. Setting aside the issue of leadership for now, I want to comment on the "God told me. . ." bit. While I must admit, I too am skeptical when folks make that claim I am more often than not inclined to hear them and then begin the process of discerning whether or not they are accurate in attributing God as the source.
On a more personal note, however, I go through this exact process every time I preach. I don't know how you gents approach it, but I am keenly aware of the fact that if God isn't directing and giving the message, I've got nothing to say (and shouldn't presume to say anything). My criteria then isn't just, "Does what I'm preparing resonate with my sense of where the Spirit is leading?" but sometimes it's even more dramatic; i.e. "Would I have come up with this on my own?" If the answer to the latter question is "no," then I'm pretty confident I'm speaking a message that is Divinely inspired.
Of course, the check is Scripture, and the balance is prayer. Can I be sure that God is the one who gave me the message? I pray to this end each time I prepare a sermon, so I'm willing to make the leap (not so huge, sometimes) that He has answered that prayer.
As for labels, Mike Z. and I had a conversation about that this past week; we'll have to share at one of the meetings. I did come across this quote from a guy named Jonny Baker in the Book "Rising From the Ashes" edited by Becky Garrison (who I'm not really familiar with). Baker says, "I personally don't use the term evangelical or postevangelical - I prefer to be Christian - that's enough for me."
Without elaborating too much here, I must say I definitely hear myself in Baker's comment.