Learning to cry…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I recently stumbled on another interesting Francis Schaeffer-related article at Christianity Today: Learning to Cry for the Culture.
Schaeffer was the first Christian leader who taught me to weep over the world instead of judging it.
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Instead of shaking our heads at a depressing, dark, abstract work of art, the true Christian reaction should be to weep for the lost person who created it. Schaeffer was a rare Christian leader who advocated understanding and empathizing with non-Christians instead of taking issue with them.
The normal human reaction is to hate what we don’t understand. This is the stuff of prejudice and the cause of hate crimes and escalating social evil. It is much more Christ-like to identify with those we don’t understand—to discover why people do what they do, because we care about them, even if they are our ideological enemies.
Jesus asked us to love our enemies. Part of loving is learning to understand.
Tags: apologetics, church, culture, L\'Abri/Francis Schaeffer, provocations
You are the message
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
All art involves an intimate union between form and content.
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In Christianity, the content — the gospel of salvation through Christ — is mediated through the form of the church. The perennial temptation for Christians is to believe that the message can be detached from the community of believers in that message. But the content of faith is precisely that we are members of one body, that Christ is made manifest in our coming together in faith.Gregory Wolfe in Intruding upon the Timeless
Tags: church, praxis, provocations
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
debating performance
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Apologies for being overly obvious and repetitive, but I wanted to link together two previous posts: not to interpret the text, but to perform it and hermeneutics and, umm, hermeneutics (and probably also interpretation and living and living proof — see what I mean about repetitive?)
The on-going thought is how we display the truth through the way we act when disagreeing. We noted that the modern view point focussed primarily on knowledge. If you take that as the key to everything, then there are limited constraints in the way you treat those who disagree with you. You primary goal is to ensure that they, and your listeners, end up with the correct knowledge in the heads at the end of the debate. So, the approach is not as important as the end result and there is no inherent need to take care and be respectful along the way. (I know, this is exaggerating and there are other constraints, but you get the point.)
On the other hand, if performance of the truth also matters, then the way we argue is as important as getting the information across. I guess we’re saying ‘the medium is the message’ in a conversational way as well as in a purely media sense. We need to be sure that our performance in the face of disagreement is honouring the the truth we follow.
An obliquely related point that has intrigued me for a long time: both Francis Schaeffer and Richard Dawkins(*) abandoned debates as a vehicle for their respective apologetics. For both, it seems that the problem with debates is the possibility of winning the argument, while losing, or having no impact on, the person…
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(*) I realised after writing this that Dawkins has done debating of some sort recently. I was thinking of the story — I think in the introduction to ‘The Blink Watchmaker’ — where he debated someone on creationism, then found out that they didn’t believe in the position that they were defending. This apparently made him disillusioned with the whole debating process. My understanding is that he found he wasn’t really in a position to persuade others of his position, but was simply taking part in a sophisticated game. Possibly now that he is debating genuine opponents in a way that spreads his message, his view has altered.
Tags: apologetics, church, hermeneutics, provocations
influencing culture
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been thinking more about Stanley Hauerwas’ criticisms of how the church engages the world (see, e.g., Resident Aliens). Simon Chan picks up on this in ‘Spiritual Theology’ with the following summary:
…the real problem is that for much of Christian history, the church operated on a monolithic understanding of engagement with the world that was based on the Constantinian model. The church has to take out citizenship in the world in order to exercise influence in it. Then, as a respectable world citizen, the church has to play by the rules set by the world. Stanley Hauerwas put this model of Christian engagement under deep probing and found it wanting. He offered an alternative model for Christian engagement based on the Anabaptist concept of the church as an alternative polis, the church as a colony of “resident aliens” on earth whose real citizenship is in heaven. Hauerwas believes that such a church, far from being irrelevant to the world, can actually challenge the world by offering a “real option” to the world through its own disciplined life (a “community of character”)
My thoughts on this were provoked by reading a letter to a newspaper implying that the church had lost its moral authority. This got me thinking where we get our moral authority from. In the past it was an accepted part of western culture, but it seems that the accepted-ness is now passing.
So, we have a choice. One possibility is to become another pressure group — one slightly out-of-step with the culture. Hauerwas’ problem with this is that we are forced to play by the rules laid down for us. At that point we lose something significant. If nothing else, the rules do not assume a post-resurrection world. It seems to me that the message of new creation gets distorted — lost in translation. It seems like the distorted message often comes out sounding negative and reactionary, rather than positive and new-creation-like.
Another option is to act as an alternative community. To model new creation; to ‘practice resurrection’ (W. Berry). If we really believe that what we have is the true way to live, is really ‘new life’, then should we expect that a community living that way will attract and will find its own moral authority from its fruit. Then, when people come to us, we have a position from which to speak. If you think this is fanciful, then take it up with Isaiah — it seems to me that this is something like what he is describing when he says
In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”
It’s not about trying to put our agenda on others, but having fruit sufficiently attractive that others come and ask how it works.
I shouldn’t leave before pointing another sub-option. Discussing Can Church transform the culture?, Graham Tomlin talks about the church being a place where people are formed who can positively influence society. Again, he has Hauerwas and associated observations in mind.
to be continued (probably)…
Tags: church, culture, Resident Aliens
adventure
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In honour of the new addition to our family, an appropriate quote from Resident Aliens (Hawerwas and Willimon)
It is our privilege to invite our children … to be part of this great adventure called church.
Tags: church, Resident Aliens
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...