Letter to Christianity Today

I wanted to share with everyone a letter I wrote to Christianity Today. So here it is:

William Lane Craig is 99% right in "God is Not Dead Yet", but I believe his take on the impotence of post-modernism needs correction. He falls into a common trap—equating relativism with post-modernism.

Relativism is just one aspect of post-modernism, and not even the most defining aspect of it.

Although I would agree with Craig that “modern” apologetics will always be vital, he does not recognize the amount of damage done to that faith by modernist thinking.

And by damage, I am primarily referring to the reduction of a faith which values both certainty and mystery, into one which we have a right to thoroughly categorize and systematize for human consumption.

Post-modernism has, in my opinion, the potential to correct this mistake. Granted, it also carries numerous dangers, like relativism, but fortunately it is not a package deal. I believe that relativism is beginning to wane, even as the post-modern point of view is spreading rapidly, especially among those under 35.

Walking on Eggshells

Last Sunday morning one of the things I talked about at The Core was some of the things we can learn from other religions. I know this thought sends shivers down the spines of many Christians, and to others it's too little, too late.

If you know me at all, I don't have to assure you that I haven't gone soft. When it comes to the Bible, Jesus, etc, I still believe basically the same things I have believed most of my life. But even if we Christians are right about the most important aspects of spirituality, do we really need the arrogance that often comes along for the ride? Is it right to treat all other religions as if they are full of morons (no... not Mormons. There is actually one religion which is full of Mormons.) who managed to get everything wrong? Or do we have the humility to learn from our "enemies"?

It made me think of (surprise!) a metaphor. Namely, holding a belief is a lot like holding an egg. (You may have heard this metaphor used with parenting.) If you hold it too loosely, it will roll off and break on the floor. If you hold it too tightly, it will bust in your hand.

My point to the post-modern crowd is, there's nothing wrong with a little certainty. And to the modern crowd that there's nothing wrong with having an open mind. Because the danger of rejecting certainty is that, rather than validating all beliefs, it actually refutes all beliefs... considering all of them unworthy of really believing in.

And the danger of rejecting open-mindedness is that you can come to protect your beliefs so savagely that you actually weaken them in the process. Let me explain.

A true belief is able to stand up to scrutiny and skepticism. When we shield our beliefs from all such attacks, we insinuate that they cannot endure the onslaught, and thus, may not actually be true.

Either way, your egg is a goner. The only question now is... do you want it scrambled or fried?

Now Taking Questions...

Last Wednesday our QAF Sessions focused on gathering questions from participants, to be used in future QAFs. Here is the list I took down. If you are plan to participate in the QAF Sessions in the near future, please add a question to the comments. If you can't join us, feel free to add a question anyway, but I will probably be quicker to use questions from participants than non-participants.

I am not a Bible Answer Guru, and I don't know any. So conclusions and right answers are not really the point here, so please don't try to answer them in the comments. The point is that we are able to ask these questions, and able to discuss them openly, with no fear of dirty looks for being honest. So here are the questions that were asked Wednesday night.

• Is there a feminine or female side of God? Does God have a gender at all?
• The Bible seems to imply that we are judged by what we do. How does salvation by grace fit into that?
• Is it wrong to be so content with life that you don't care what happens to you after you die?
• How reliable is Scripture? Have human hands compromised it in the inscription or translation process? How perfect can our translations possibly be?
• Why does Biblical history seem absent from academic history books?
• Is it wrong to focus your education on attaining job security?
• Is it a sin to do what you want if you don't know what God wants you to do?
• Do we have to suffer in order to serve God?
• What is the point of suffering?
• Does God cause disaster, as it seems to say in Isaiah 45:7?
• How do we reckon with some of the disturbing character traits of God?
• How can we say God is good when he instigates massacres like the flood?
• How literally should we read the Bible (i.e. "Bind these words upon your head...)

+

Reality Bites

Here's the scoop.

I'm too much of a post-modernist to believe that every question has, or needs, a pat answer. Or that only those with sufficient and acceptable education should have a voice. Or that the arts are nothing more than helpful illustrations in an otherwise serious book.

But I'm too much of a modernist to believe that nothing is really true, or that certainty has no place. Because what I'm about to say is something I will not let go of.

The way I see it (there I go, talking post-modernese) we each have three choices as we attempt to discern the nature of reality:

A) Reality is a shape-shifter that morphs and customizes as it travels from person to person, and from one day to the next. No one has the right to speak with any certainty about it, and by no means does anyone have the right to correct anyone else's perceptions. (This is the one and lonely dogma of post-modernism.) We each define our reality, allowing it to flow to us fresh with each new whim and situation, and we listen to the observations of others like we would read a good novel, or view an abstract painting.

B) Reality is the easiest, most comfortable solution to my particular quandaries. There is indeed a solid floor to stand on, but I know I have not found it until it truly makes me happy. Nevermind that one man's truth is another man's heresy. Nevermind that every last satisfying belief I hold dear makes someone else bristle with irritation. Apparently the universe was shaped and molded to meet my expectations, and help me to sleep soundly every night.

C) Reality is full of hard truths, and hidden truths. There is no need to despair, because hope is present and powerful. But in order to know what is real, we have to be prepared to accept some ideas that seems unfair, or unreasonable, or downright ridiculous. Truth is stranger than fiction, and often harder to swallow, and no one finds it without a substantial dose of humility.

If you know me very well, you may be tired of hearing this stuff, but as I said, I just can't let it go. If you want to accuse me of skewing the choices, go ahead. Feel free to re-write them, or tear them down entirely, in the comments.

But whether you comment or not, at the very least, THINK ABOUT IT.

A Post-Modern Righteousness

C.S. Lewis is always good for a painfully simple, yet completely overlooked insight.

If there's one thing that our culture likes to fight, it's the idea of commandments, righteousness, or thou-shalt-nots. Fortunately, I think post-modernity is starting to grow out of the idea that rules are stupid and useless, and there's no such thing as real truth. That proposition is just flat-out self-defeating (as many Christians have clumsily pointed out over the past ten years, either with some cliche question like "so there's absolutely no absolute truth?" or by stealing somebody's iPod and scolding them when they get mad.)

So by now I'd say that most people are okay with the idea that there are some good rules out there. But the thing is, they have to be reasonable. You have to be able to explain to them in very practical terms why such-and-such is forbidden, or mandatory, or whatever.

And in some ways this is an abandonment of the spirit of post-modernism. It is a concession. Not because post-modernism is essentially relativistic and mushy, but because such intense practicality, and such a mathematical approach to morality, is essentially modern, and did not really exist at all before the Enlightenment.

Some Christians would like to see post-modernism defeated, or extinct. Personally, I have a lot of hope for it. I think it has a certain latent power to re-align our cultural mindset to biblical constructs, and repair the damage done by the Modern Era. Not by itself, of course, but it is a good container for such a movement, in my humble opinion.

So what's a post-modern to do with all these rules that Christianity tries to impose on us? Do we retreat to modernity and filter out those which seem to have no practical, logical bearings? Or do we appeal to spirit, to love, to mystery, to antiquity? Take a look at this verse ...

"If you love me, you will obey what I command." -Jesus speaking in John 14:15

And this is where C.S. Lewis comes into it. In his science fiction book entitled Perelandra (which I blogged about a few weeks ago) the main character, an earthling, is talking to the female lead, who is like the plant Venus' version of Eve. She is being tempted by Satan, in the form of another earthling, to disobey God's only commandment to her. Much like in the story of Eve, this monolithic Venusian Don't does not make any real sense. There is a statutory consequence (death) but no logical consequence. And because of this, she begins to consider disobedience an option.

But the main character, in a stroke of true post-modern beauty, pleads with her to respect the commandment. He says (to paraphrase), "You have said that you love your God... and that to live in obedience to him is a joy. But what is love when it's easy? If he commanded you not to cut off your hand, you would gladly obey... but not necessarily out of love. You would obey because you clearly understand the consequences and pain that would result from disobedience. Therefore, genuine love does not occur. Perhaps God has given you this commandment as your only real opportunity to love Him. Because trust only comes into play when you don't understand things fully for yourself. And love is dormant until you make a choice that is unpleasant or illogical."

Some people do what they want because they want to do it. And I actually respect these people... at least they're honest. But so many who claim to follow Christ reveal their true motivations by shaping his words to fit their lives, and not the other way around.

Some have tried to throw off the shackles of modernity by rejecting rules entirely, and discovered the futility of such an approach. If you are one of those people, now preparing to click your shackles back in place, let me plead with you to reconsider... to make the wild, irrational move of putting actual trust in God, even when you don't see the reasons behind his requirements.

This, to me, is the heart of righteousness. Not to be show-offy or pious... but for your heart to be so broken with the love of God that you are completely at his disposal. Righteousness rings harsh to a lot of people, because the prefix "self-" has been unwittingly applied to so much of it. But I want to be the kind of righteous person that never causes the word "righteous" to arise in people's minds.

I just want people to think, "Man, he sure does love God. Apparently he really loves me, too." That's righteousness.

A Domestic Foreign Culture

This morning I gave a presentation to the Women's Missionary Union of Second Baptist Church. I chose to speak about reaching out to a post-podern generation. I called the message "A Domestic Foreign Culture" because, even though post-modernism is now ever-present in our society, it is like a foreign culture to so many, who are rooted in modernism.

Towards the beginning of the presentation, my mentor Bill Baer helped me in a reading of a dramatic dialogue I wrote to introduce the post-modern mindset to those present. Bill read the part of "Mod", the Modern Evangelist. I read the part of "Post-Mod", or the stereotypical Post-Modern guy. Let me head off a few comments by pointing out that these are both stereotypes, and I know that they do not necessarily represent even a simple majority of Moderns or Post-Moderns. But I do think their conversation is informative... and hopefully interesting. So here it is:

A Failure to Communicate

Mod: Hi, I’m Tim.

Post-Mod: Hey. Lucas.

Mod: So… do you… go to church anywhere?

Post-Mod: Hm. I’m at church right now, man.

Mod: What?

Post-Mod: You know… I carry the divine spark within me… and so do you. So you and I are sitting here at the bus stop… and we’re at church.

Mod: OK, well… what do you know about Jesus?

Post-Mod: Oh, dude! I love Jesus, man! He was this killer peace-loving rebel. Hardcore, man.

Mod: So, have you ever accepted him as your Lord and Savior?

Post-Mod: Um… never said it like that.

Mod: Would you like to?

Post-Mod: OK… I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. How was that?

Mod: No, I mean… do you want to pray to accept him?

Post-Mod: I just did.

Mod: Excuse me?

Post-Mod: You know… the divine is in me, in you… in that half-empty bottle of Bud Dry on the curb. All those great mystics and gurus of the past are listening in, man! I’m talkin’ with Buddha, Mohammad, Jesus, Confucius, all those guys! So why do I have to close my eyes and use all your Thee’s and Thou’s… your churchy language?

Mod: I don’t use Thee’s and Thou’s.

Post-Mod: Well, you know what I mean… Big, Bible words, I don’t know, uh… idoltery, and… versimilitude. You know how you all talk.

Mod: Well, you can speak to God in your own words.

Post-Mod: Great! Cause I already did that.

Mod: But…

Post-Mod: Look, man… I know where this is going, ok? You don’t just want me to pray a prayer. You want me to quit drinking, quit smoking, quit cussing, quit foolin’ around. You want me to dress like you, talk like you, and go to Bible studies every week.

Mod: Well, that’s not…

Post-Mod: Hold up, man… You know what? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stomp on your spirit like that, right? You’ve obviously got something that works for you… and I think that’s great, you know? I mean… you’re workin’ that cardigan, dude. I’m happy for ya.

[Pause]

Mod: You like Jesus, right?

Post-Mod: Yeah, man.

Mod: And you believe you have God inside you, right?

Post-Mod: Definitely.

Mod: Well, do you know Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God except through me.”?

Post-Mod: That is awesome, man.

Mod: So… don’t you want to just follow Him, and not Buddha, Confucius, et cetera?

Post-Mod: You are so CERTAIN, man! I love that. Don’t ever lose that.

Mod: Well, don’t you want to be certain, too?

Post-Mod: Nah… I’m down with uncertainty. Y’know… mystery, searching, questioning. That’s really more my bag. Wup… here’s my bus.

Mod: Oh, yeah… mine, too.

Post-Mod: Where you going?

Mod: Uh… Kearney… Street?

Post-Mod: Then why don’t you take that Camry you drove up in and stop pestering me… Before I lose my…you know, karma.

What the Hell?

1. “You’re doing a hell of a job.”
2. “I had a hell of a day.”
3. “It’s cold as hell in here.”
4. “It’s hot as hell in here.”
5. “I’ve just been through hell and back.”
6. “See you in hell!”

One of the beautiful things about the English language is that we have a way of coming up with words (most of which contain exactly four letters) that can mean just about anything you want. Their only real purpose anymore is to add a hard edge to what you’re trying to say. In the six sentences above, the word “hell” means something different each time:

1. great
2. terrible
3. the coldest place you can think of
4. the hottest place you can think of
5. someplace that makes you wish you were dead
6. someplace that makes you wish you weren’t dead

As it were, whenever a word can mean anything, it essentially means nothing. And it’s just as well, because nobody really believes in hell anymore, right? I mean… how old-fashioned is that?

This is where all the self-proclaimed Post-Moderns should sit straight up and take notice. What are the two main reasons people give for not believing in hell? 1) Because a loving God would never send people to a place of torture, and 2) Because the idea of hell is so old-fashioned.

To deal with those in backwards order, the concept of disbelieving an idea just because it’s old is one of the most ridiculous things that Modernism has handed down to us. So if Post-Modernism is going to do us any good, it needs to start by putting all the old ideas back out on the table for reconsideration. “New” does not equal “better” and “old” does not equal obsolete. Just look what that concept has done to our historical buildings and, conversely, to our great-outdoors-come-suburban-sprawl.

Now to take a look at number one. If you believe in a loving God, but have never wondered how he could banish anyone to eternal torture, then I say the hell with you. The rest of us have all lost at least a little sleep over it, and no matter how much we rebuke our doubting spirit, the question remains.

But before we can even go there, we ought to take a look at why we believe the things we do. When somebody says, “The whole situation in Iraq is a disaster”, do you believe it because you tend to identify with Democrats, or because President Bush really annoys you, or because you trust the mainstream media’s reporting? Or maybe you disbelieve it because you tend to identify with Republicans, or because you have a loved one in Iraq and you’re hoping for the best, or because you think God wouldn’t let America make a mistake this big?

Are any of these good reasons for believing anything? The fact is, we believe what we want to believe. That’s why most Americans believe in Heaven, but not in hell. It just isn’t pleasant to think about people going there, so by ignoring it, perhaps it will go away.

I’m not here to whip out the Big Book and change anybody’s theology. Mostly, I just want everyone to take a little harder look at themselves, and whether they’re really prepared to accept whatever God has to say about things.

Because wishful thinking is a hell of a way to search for the truth.

T(t)ruth

The Emerging Church has taken a lot of hits for its relationship with the Postmodern mindset, largely in regards to the "softening of truth."

Although it's obvious that some have abandoned the historic faith, I believe that there are plenty of people in the EC who believe and live out the propositional, orthodox truths of Christianity.

I also believe that a mistake made by many modernist Christians is confusing the obligation to believe these propositional truths, with an obligation to communicate them propositionally in every circumstance.

Let me give an example. I believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, and lives today. Although everyone has doubts from time to time, I can say from my heart that this belief of mine is true. However, the certainty of my belief does not give me the right to make dogmatic statements about it to everyone I meet. If I am talking to a fellow Christian who is terminally ill, I will remind them that Jesus was raised from the dead, and provided a way for us to share that life with Him. No ifs, ands or buts. On the other hand, if a non-Christian is showing an interest in who Jesus was, and keeps talking about Him in the past tense, I will share my belief that Jesus is alive today, and that is why I refer to Him in the present tense. But I will share that as my belief, not as an indisputable fact, in order to nurture our relationship. It's not lying, it's called respect.

Communication happens like this all the time, on every subject.

Where we err is in rolling to the extremes, such as:

1) Wearing your creed on your sleeve, and allowing it to define you to the world. This is the primary error of modernist Christianity. When we as Christians rely totally on propositional truth, we shield ourselves from the relational aspect of it. In other words, we are telling people to believe us because we are a) educated, b) experienced , or c) entertaining, and asking them not to check our lifestyles for confirmation. Also, we are denying them permission to ask hard questions and struggle through doubts.

2) Rejecting all absolute truth. This is the primary error of postmodernist Christianity. Either because we are trying to fit in to a doubtful world, or because we are more comfortable with fluidity, many of us have strayed from all things objective.

The wise person realizes that God has given us enough absolute truth to live on; to trust Him, and to make some sense out of life, but that everything else ranges from doubtful to probable.

As long as I'm alive, you'll hear me say this many times: We emerging church folks are always in danger of playing the pendulum, being first reactors instead of first responders. The road forks in front of us; one is a simple rebellion against whatever the conventional church does, and the other is the opportunity to follow God, with only step illuminated at a time. The choice is yours...

Part 3: Ancient-Future Church

Contenti n’andremo se un poco
Noie lo podessemo tocare
Lo podessemo toccar
E pero te nepregamo
Quanto noie, Siam pastori
De poco affare

Comments? Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

If you know what that little poem means, good for you. All I know is that they’re the Latin lyrics for a choral piece called (in English) the Shepherd’s Chorus.

It harkens us to an era when citizens were more or less coerced to come to mass on Sunday mornings and listen to songs and readings in Latin, which was completely foreign to them. Talk about irrelevant. We don’t know the meaning of the word anymore. On top of that, you might even describe the Medieval Europe religious experience with the words “malicious irrelevance.” The popes and bishops of the day preferred to have a corner on the scripture-knowledge market, just like any power broker. Thus, people like Wycliffe, who produced a huge chunk of what would later be known as the King James Bible, were promptly knocked off for putting Scripture within reach of the bourgeoisie.

Fond memories, eh?

I don’t accuse anyone of trying to take us back to it. But I do want to provide some perspective for those who foster a nostalgia for the time when western religion was sacred and mysterious. My phraseology should provide a hint as to what that perspective is… because I choose the words “western religion” carefully. I have no doubt that there was a certain number of true Christ-followers among the herds of Medieval clergy and laity. But the system as a whole, in my opinion, did not represent Christ at all.

Some will argue that today’s church establishment doesn’t, either. I would be tempted to agree, with caveats. But that’s a blog for another day.

My point is about the “Ancient-Future” movement, which has gone by many other names. If you refer to my recent post on Post-Modernism, you will understand the post-modern penchant for that which is Retro, Vintage. I personally think it’s great. So go ahead and sing the old hymns with a drum machine in the background! Go ahead and re-occupy some abandoned Victorian church house and breathe new life into it! These things are all fine, and there are many more. So don’t let me discourage anyone from finding and implementing the long-gone ideas that still hold value.

But just as Modernism proclaims, “If it’s new, it’s good!” it is tempting for those in the Ancient-Future movement to herald the opposite view. Old and mysterious and spooky—that’s where it’s at.

Congratulations to those who have seen through the veil of formulaic faith; the veil that claims that you, too, can have God all figured out and if you do x, y, and z then you’ll be His best buddy; the veil that conceals the majesty and mystery of Yahweh. But presented here is yet another opportunity to swing wide, sweet pendulum, and once again miss the point entirely.

Part 1: Post-Modern Church (Everything & Nothing)

Let me begin by saying that I hate terms like “Post-Modernism” and “Generation Y” I’d feel the same way if I encountered a poem called “Untitled, Part 2” by Anonymous, Jr. We didn’t know what the last thing was enough to give it a real name, so how much less could we name the sequel?

But things are often defined by names; limited by labels. Such cannot be the case for the term Post-Modernism, since it doesn’t mean anything anyway. And it may be for this reason that Post-Modernism is so broad and difficult to pin down. But I think I’ve got the gist of it, in two parts:

1) A rebellion against Modernism. Although I cannot claim to be one of the few who can really define Modernism either, I can venture that it was an obsession with everything NEW, distinguished by its dissimilarity with everything that’s gone before. The value of anything is determined by its newness; its novelty. So it’s not hard to see why people would want to rebel against it. It became clear that the experience of history (both recent and ancient) should not be chucked out the window like so much moldy bread. Post-Modernism tends to embrace many, if not all, methods, paradigms, preferences, styles, etc. This sometimes excludes Modernism, as you might expect. Some use this sense of pluralism to seek truth in all corners, others use it to broaden truth into total relativism, or nihilism, which brings us to:

2) A rejection of absolute truth, meaning, or value. Although #2 has had little impact within the Church, it represents a veritable revolution in the world around the Church. Where once a Christian could debate with the world which idea is true, now the world rarely takes the bait. They are all true, or all false. Despite the influence of this facet of P-M on the transmission of the Christian message, I will devote the rest of this post to discussing #1, and the part it has played in the continual transformation of the Church.

But first I should mention that which gets called P-M, and is really not. I believe that a majority of those churches who have chosen to change from one generation to the next have never engaged in a true paradigm shift, which is the only way to become Post-Modern. Those churches which are committed to singing only the latest songs, dressing and preaching casually, running a coffee house, and staying up-to-the-minute with their sound and projection systems are really just practicing an extension of modernism, or “Hyper-Modernism” if you will. Although I haven’t researched this term yet, one might call it “Progressive Church.”

Now back to what a Post-Modern church really IS. I think we can agree that a P-M church is defined more by its attitude and philosophy than by how it looks, or what it says and does. I have discussed how P-M considers all perspectives. Since it’s obviously impossible to embrace and practice every method within a single church, P-M takes an infinite number of manifestations. One popular one is the “Ancient Future” church, which I may discuss in more depth in a later post. In short, the ritualism of the past is incorporated into a contemporary setting for the purpose of giving worship a sense of wonder and mysticism. Another approach is be forever exploratory, refusing to settle down on a particular form. This can be powered by the Holy Spirit (or what is perceived to be the Holy Spirit) or by counter-cultural trendiness.

Let me finish by expressing my opinion on the right and wrong ways that people adopt Post-Modernism. First, the bad:

Those who practice Post-Modernism wrongly seem to be driving just another float in the endless parade of Asking the Wrong Question. That question being: “How do we get more people to come to our church?” (or, similarly, “How do we get people to stop leaving our church?”) This is disingenuousness, clear and simple. And although a church may succeed in increasing its attendance/giving through this method, it is no way to please the heart of God. Another P-M pitfall is to let oneself be convinced of the relativity of truth; that one man’s interpretation of scripture is as good as the next. Or worse, that scripture has no transcendent value at all.

Conversely, it is a good thing when people who are already P-M in their mindset choose to approach the gospel in such a way, believing God’s Word, and looking for His truth to reveal itself in myriad forms. The best of these people understand that blessings and God-encounters cannot be “conjured” with formulas, since He works in mysterious ways. They are ready to abandon their comfort zones in order to follow Him anywhere. It is also possible (and good) for people inexperienced with this mindset to seek it out for themselves, in an effort more fully understand the way God works, and the nature of the world around them.

I think that’ll do for now. Thoughts?