on making space for people
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
There is an interesting article about L’Abri on the Christianity Today website. (I should note that it is not uncontroversial — see the response by Douglas Groothuis — but that is not directly important here. HT for both of these links to The Christian Mind blog.) It got me thinking that a key aspect of L’Abri has (as far as I understand) always been that it gives people an non-judgemental space in which to ask/wrestle with questions about Christian beliefs and doctrines.
Interestingly, this seems to be one aspect that L’Abri shares with Alpha — people are invited to come and discuss; with a key component being that they will not be preached at. (I guess that another aspect is community — reports from both frequently cite the community aspect as significant, perhaps even key. This raises interesting questions about whether profession should preceed inclusion in community, which I know have been debated elsewhere, but that is another story…)
It seems to me that, via Alpha, we are very good at taking this approach with people exploring Christianity from the outside or perhaps those who are looking at the basics, but we are less able to maintain this within the core church community. Experience suggests that we can quickly become uncomfortable when people ask hard questions and are often quick to give them the ‘right answer’ without properly listening or engaging. If we are not careful, people asking questions can feel excluded — asking the ‘wrong’ questions can make you feel like an outsider (again), as if simply by asking you have become suspect.
I might have been happy to accept this comes from a few select experiences in my life. But, the article on L’Abri suggests that part of the attraction, even for Christians, is that it remains a place where you can go and discuss with a freedom not always found elsewhere.
My concern is that people have different approaches to belief. For some, perhaps, doctrine comes easy; for others it takes more to make it ones own. We must be careful not to shape our communities so that only the first approach is accepted. We need to make space for those who take the longer route to work things out, re-question, re-examine, etc. without condemnation. We need to accept that these people are just as genuine in their following of Jesus. They are not (necessarily) trying to escape doctrines that they don’t like, nor does questioning of something mean that they don’t understand (which can sometimes be the implication). In many cases, they may simply need to go for a Jacob-like wrestling to come to terms with this aspect of belief and to work it in more deeply. It may even be the case that they are going for more depth than others need. And maybe that depth will produce benefit for the church community in the end.
I guess the key is that we must be slow to judge and quick to accept. Sometimes, when I read Paul on law & grace I wonder if we don’t use doctrine like the Law — a measure of who is in & who is out. The question then is: is it by getting your doctrine 100% pure that you were saved or was it by grace? Not that I am saying that doctrine is unimportant, just that we need to have grace for those in our communities who are wrestling. After all, Paul was insistent that true doctrine is taught, but also had the freedom to say ‘if any of you see this differently, the Holy Spirit will make it clear to you’ – not ‘if any of you see this differently pull yourselves together’.
It worth remembering that the purpose of doctrine is to take us on the right path and lead us on in our walk, not to decide if we are ‘sound’ or not. I wonder if a serious wrestling with doctrine has the potential to takes us onwards in a way that simple assent cannot always do. At least for some people.
So, I guess I’m asking that we give people space and conversation in their questioning; that we don’t jump to correction and judgement. But, also that we don’t immediately assume that the questioner is immature or ignorant. It is likely that these responses will not give the aid required.
[As an aside, I remember a friend suggesting that teaching in New Testament times was less the preach-from-the-pulpit that we envisage and more closer to mentoring/discipling. So, perhaps when we think of true doctrine being taught, we need to envisage a far more relational transference, not simply a list of truths laid out, but a working through together. A path that take into account the learners difficulties and struggles.]
Tags: apologetics, church, L\'Abri/Francis Schaeffer, provocations
Considering Culture (finale)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
As we finish up this set of posts (at last), I want to use two quotes. The first is from an article by Craig Bartholomew (quoting Tom Wright)
We have to tell the story in our communities and allow it to challenge our traditions, to ‘stretch our reason back into shape, and to reform our world views that are always in danger of becoming like the world’s world views.’ In respect of this last point Wright is clear that we need to allow Scripture to norm our world view:
When we tell the whole story of the Bible, and tell it … by articulating it in a thousand different ways, improvising our own faithful version, we are inevitably challenging more than just one aspect of the world’s way of looking at things … We are articulating a viewpoint according to which there is one God, the creator of all that is, who not only made the world but is living and active within it… who is also transcendent over it and deeply grieved by its fall away from goodness into sin … The story … will function as an invitation to participate in the story oneself, to make it one’s own, and to do so by turning away from the idols which prevent the story becoming one’s own … Evangelism and the summons to justice and mercy in society are thus one and the same, and both are effected by the telling of the story, the authoritative story …
This takes us back to our starting point — the biblical story. However we shouldn’t view this as a staid and static base; we listen to the text, ‘tell the story in our communities and allow it to challenge our traditions’. We have to continual keep in mind that our communities will never completely and faithfully embody the text. We have to make a conscious effort to allow our story to ‘stretch our reason back into shape, and to reform our world views’; otherwise we may find that our worldview starts to blend with the ones around us. If the salt loses its saltiness…
We then allow our re-stretched reason/imagination/worldview to spill out into our cultural life. We must chose to tell and live according to the real story and invite others to participate in that story with us. And it is by living the real story that our cultural activities are transformed to fit with God’s plan for creation.
The second quote is taken completely out of context, but I love it and it sums up for me the motivation behind all of this. It comes from the song ‘So Long Sweet Misery’ by Brett Dennen:
…
if I could I would wash all these wounds away
I would surround your room with sentiments of grace
I would paint your portrait over everything mundane
…
That surely is our goal — to paint the portrait of Jesus over everything, mundane or otherwise, to declare in our actions the beauty, justice and truth of the way God intends the world to be.
Tags: art, culture, Culture Seminar, story, worldview
Considering Culture (12)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, the penultimate post on my culture seminar…
We’ve started looking at how our understanding of culture within the biblical story affects how we act and how we think. We have to begin by realising we always live and think within a story. As Christians, we should consciously think within the Biblical story; to let the Bible interpret the world.
But there is another side. We must also keep in mind that not everyone shares that story/worldview. This can be corresponds to John Stott’s assertion that we must learn to listen to the world around us. This is vital to keep in mind so that we can be wise in our influence of culture, to have the necessary understanding to allow us to act and to communicate with those around. What are the keys for understanding the stories around us? Middleton and Walsh do a simply breakdown into three components: stage setting, problem/conflict and solution. So, as an example, for Cinderella the scene setting is the ball, the problem is her lack of carriage and ball-dress, the solution is the fairy godmother. (In fact, there are two applications of this formula in Cinderella — the other is the overarching story with the problem of her oppressed life and meeting the prince/going to the ball as the solution.)
In The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness, Opitz & Melleby give examples of how modernism and post-modernism can be characterised with this pattern:
Modernity has been the culture-shaping story of our time. It is not a story of creation, but of matter. It is not the story of the fall (of sin); it is the story of ignorance. It is not a story of redemption, but one of human progress. the story-frame of modernity (matter-ignorance-progress) is so compelling that most of us, even though we espouse the Christian story, live the tale of modernity.
…
The post-modern story begins not with creation or matter, but with culture. Rather than creation-fall-redemption (biblical) or matter-ignorance-progress (modernity), the story-frame of postmodernity is culture-oppression-expression.
We can also learn something about the stories that others live by, by looking at the particular stories that they tell, whether books, film, TV, etc. I gave examples of this in an earlier post.
We could take listening to the stories of others in many directions, but let’s just try one here: By taking this approach, we begin to understand the clashes and misunderstandings that occur between people. Often there is mis-communication in our discussions that can lead both sides to see a mis-representation of the others position. I’ve heard Michael Ramsden make this point well. Often when discussing moral issues we have in mind, for example, God’s justice or plan for authentic human life, so we happily point out the constraints He places on us. Those we are talking to see choice as the highest goal, so any constraints get interpreted as due to a kill-joy God. Through misunderstanding we have communicated almost the opposite of what we want to say. So, we listen, amongst other things to ensure that what we say is heard as intended.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, worldview
Things I found this week…
Posted by Paul | Filed under web sights
I stumbled across a number of great web sights this week…
First, Byron Borger has a wonderous article Why we are open to the Emergent Conversation: My journey, and books along the way. A sort of reading-biography following his path from Schaeffer, via Os Guinness, Middelton and Walsh, etc., to recent Emergent publications. A good discussion of Chistianity-in-all-of-life and a defence of why conservative Christians can happily read emerging books.
I am not exactly ready to brand myself emergent and I have deep loyalties to conservative Reformed doctrine, evangelical para-church ministries and institutions, and rather mainline expressions of congregational life. We’ve lived in intentional community, been arrested in peace witnesses, and lived in the inner city; we’ve read critiques of Enlightenment rationalism before anybody knew who Derrida was, and we’ve loved rock and roll culture even when our best friends were listening to only Larry Norman and LoveSong. Does that make us emergent? Not exactly. I’m not bragging at all, not even saying we’ve been right in all of this, just saying that to me, this emergent stuff makes sense to be talking about.
…
They ask big questions about hard Biblical matters and want to be authentic and real, without any churchy pretense. They want to impact the world, and are gladly moving towards social justice concerns, getting involved in human rights initiatives and social action missions.
This made my week. Not only does he run the bookshop I always dreamed of starting, Borger is a hero — truly generous and thought-provoking.
Elsewhere, I discovered lowercase people a very interesting on-line magazine from David Dark and friends. Subtitled “the on-line magazine for artists in action.”
lowercase people is a daring new endeavor to revolutionize the way we view beauty, truth and humanity.
…
lowercase people is the collective effort of a community of thinkers, musicians, artists and writers. We are humanity beautiful and broken. We want to see change. We want to dream bigger dreams. We want to collide. We want to make better art and better music. We’re curious. We’re moving outside of the lines. We’re thinking out-loud. We are the lowercase people. Consider joining us as we begin to dream and think out loud.
Finally, there is a new book out about faith and cinema: Faith, Film and Philosophy: Big Ideas on the Big Screen. Dallas Willards contribution is available on-line: Liberation Through Sensuality: Cinematic Moral Vision in an Age of Feeling. Definitely worth a look. In 10 pages he gets from Pleasantville to
…the person of good moral character does not stand back and hope for something to happen, so they won’t have to soil their hands. Rather, they act for the greater good in the situation—often, to be sure, “with fear and trembling”—but they do act. They act with genuine love, as a matter of the will and character, not just feeling. This is what it means to be responsible.
Tags: art, cinema, culture, web sights, worldview
Considering Culture (11)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, lets try to finish off the seminar write up before the end of the decade…
If you haven’t been following, then best to start way back here. But basically, we looked at how culture fits into the Christian story and some of the consequences.
There are many places we could have ended up, but I tried to have a brief look at how we should think about culture as a result. One problem have now is that I’ve just finished reading Everyday Theology (ed Vanhoozer et al). This is so good that it has pointed out loads of ways this bit of the seminar could have been improved. But never mind, let’s go for the original form and maybe when I come to discuss the book, alternatives will be clear.
We wound up in the previous section by concluding that our cultural lives should reflect God’s new creation and also that we should remember that the fall implies not every area of culture matches God’s intentions. All this leads us to conclude that we need to think carefully about culture from a Christian context. A prime reason is that understanding helps us in our involvement in the mission of God. One obvious example of this help is that we cannot communicate with the culture around us if we do not understand it, so our preaching, etc. will miss the mark. Another is that, is part of our mission is to work with God in the transformation of culture, then we need to be able to discern what fits God’s intentions and what needs work.
So, how do we think? In some ways, the whole seminar up to this point was an example — we tried to think about culture in general from within the Christian worldview or story. (The place of story in worldview or vice versa is a whole other discusssion. Suffice it to say, I’m keen on the story view at the moment. Perhaps because I spend many hours reading the Gruffalo to my children!)
More generally, we need to keep in mind that we all live/think within some overarching story (or worldview). The story that is influencing a person will have a direct impact on how they approach things. This works in two ways — first, we need to keep in mind the story that we hold to and, second, we need to realise that we constantly come up against cultural products that do not have that story as a basis. We have to find the way to negotiate these two components and act appropriately. For the starting point, we can go back to the quote from John Stott: we need to listen to the word and listen to the world.
So, first, we need to keep a very firm grip on the Biblical story and allow this to be the controlling narrative in our interpretation of the world. (Just to remind us, the key plot points of this story are Creation-Fall-God’s Mission/Jesus-New Creation.)
I think it is Eugene Petersen who said that the Bible is not primarily something we interpret, but is itself an interpretation of the world. We need to allow the story to shape our thinking and imagination; to ‘renew our minds’. I think perhaps we have seen how the thinking aspect works, but we need to go further & let the thinking filter into our imagination. Middleton and Walsh touch on this in the following quote:
A liberated imagination is a prerequestite for facing the future. Consequently, we need to ask ourselves some honest questions. Can we imagine a politics of justice and compassion in place of the present global politics of oppression and economic identity? Dare we imagine an economics of equality and care in place of the dominant economics of affluence and poverty> Can we imagine our work life to be at one with our worship — an act of service and praise, rather than a grim necessity of a means to an affluent lifestyle? Can we imagine a society which has broken through its morbid preoccupation with death and instead truly affirms life, both at the fetal stage and in all of its dimensions? Is a relatinship of friendship, instead of exploitation, with the rest of creation imaginable? Is it imaginable that the mass media could be an agent of spiritual awakened social, cultural and spiritual renewal, rather than the one thing that most numbs us into cultural complacency and sleep? And is our imgination open enough to conceive of a business enterprise that is characterised by stewardship, environmental responsibility and real serviceability, rather than profits, pollution, and the production and marketing of superfluous consumer goods? If we connot have such a liberated imagination and connot countenance such radical dreams, then the story remains closed for us and we have no hope.
Tags: culture, Culture Seminar, imagination, worldview
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...