Merging Lanes

Dear readers: Be warned, this is not a short post. And much of it has probably been said better by others; I confess I am not well-read enough to feel redundant. But I beg your patience, as I really desire your feedback.

My heart is for what Christians have referred to as “missions”, but I want to frame the mission of God within the postmodern pool I’ve been swimming in. Being a postmodern Christian does not require me to humbly submit to rampant relativism in a pluralistic reality. In other words, there is STILL a mission, a story to be told, people to be convinced. There are still people who are living their lives without Christ, people who are in need of a restored relationship with the One True God.

So here’s what I’ve come up with, tentatively, to bring it all together. There aren’t novel ideas here or anything that someone else hasn’t said, but in my own words:

The Christian mission from a postmodern viewpoint cannot obsess on the triumph of truth over error, but rather, the advocacy and glorification of the compelling story out of individually and corporately held convictions about Christ. The message of Jesus is more effective and arises more organically when imaged into the story of life, not gripped as a bludgeon of intellectual argument. As the Christian mission is being accomplished, the motifs of the Christian story will manifest in at least three ways: (1) more self-described Christians; (2) a mobilization of people to meet physical needs; and (3) zealous advocacy of the oppressed against the unjust forces in the world.

These are not just positive side effects of Christian influence or signs and symptoms of Christian presence. Imaging Christ through evangelism, compassion to the needy, and justice for the oppressed IS the mission itself, uniquely Christian and Biblical, because it all displays Christ.

I. This is more than letting your actions speak louder than your words.

It is that, in essence, but there’s more. For too long, I’ve heard mission strategists using “good deeds” as simply a channel through which we can establish a relationship with the ultimate goal of a moment of conversion. So, good actions ENABLE good missions, but the acts of mercy and justice are not THEMSELVES missions… but I would argue to the contrary. I believe that acts of mercy and justice are, in and of themselves, the very same task as evangelism in the mission of God.

II. These are not SEPARATE aims of traditional missions; they all serve the same purpose: to biograph God’s character into the living drama of human history.

Mercy and justice are not separate from the mission of God to glorify Himself as the greatest good of the universe. We can look at them that way, but we may run the risk of portraying them to be inferior purposes not tied to the very personhood of God. We must understand that if someone knows God, then he will instantly know grace. If someone knows God, she will instantly see love (1 John 4:7). God is not reduced to those qualities, but He is the ORIGIN of such qualities, and it is horridly incomplete to preach the “good news” that God sacrificed Himself so that we might be in a restored relationship with our Creator without showing off, with great flair and gusto, the abounding love, joy, kindness, justice, mercy, and sacrifice that is at the core of His character.

I think we should move away from preaching a forumlated “gospel message” and starting preaching (and displaying and singing and painting) God Himself!

III. This is not an exhaustive list.

God is infinite! Portraying His character will be the task of eternity, as we live out (and not just sing with harps, etc., but LIVE OUT) worship in the renewed and glorified world. But that task begins TODAY, as we pray for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. So to do justly and to love mercy are not the only qualities of Christ to show off as we proclaim His story in our lives.

• Proclaim that He lays down His life for His beloved by chasing after people with sacrifice. (1 John 3:16)
• Declare the wonder and mystery of incarnation, God made into the nature of a servant, by obeying in the face of suffering. (Phil 3:10-11)
• Preach the depths of God’s grace by displaying radical, grace-filled, undeserving forgiveness. (Eph. 4:32)

IV. Finally, this view of incarnating Christ in how we live and love is in addition, and not the preclusion, of what we have learned through traditional Christian missions.

I used to dismiss as slow-paced the notions of demonstrating Christ through the imaging of His great qualities. How could we try to be fuzzy and unclear about a message in the face of the urgent cry of the unreached people groups, ancient tribes who have never heard the name Jesus uttered and have never had any part of the Bible in their own language? How can we sit around and try to be do-gooders when people are dying without the message of Christ?

First, I have found that God Himself is a far greater motivation for me, at least, than the cries of the unknown and unnamed. Yes, my heart breaks for those people, but my heart more easily is overwhelmed and overjoyed by the greatness of Christ in such a manner that it spills over. Missions is not ultimately motivated by pity; it is founded in worship, which means it begins with God’s great overwhelming worth.

But secondly, and I write this with great liberation, the urgency IS real; people are dying every instant without even the opportunity for a relationship with Christ. That does not take away from how the Christian mission is accomplished, or how the story of God is told. We absolutely should target the 10/40 window, the unreached people groups of central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. We should not deter our desire to go there and plant house churches.

Now, more than ever, I believe the Church has an opportunity to go into those places and shine Christ brightly by imaging His compassion, justice, grace and love.

Conclusion

It is organic and observably natural to simply be people who bear witness to the amazing God that has moved in our lives, and to imitate His qualities so as to show Him to others. And without more, that should be enough. However, I have found great assurance that the way we love, share, advocate, empathize, lavish compassion, and fight evil will display the elements in the unique story of Jesus in a way that invites people to engage with the reality of the God that we serve.

It happened while I was driving to meet my mom. We had made plans the evening before to meet for breakfast the next day, but I hadn’t heard from her. I didn’t even know where we were supposed to meet, but I got in my car and started driving with the assumption that she’d call eventually.

While making a left turn, I felt the vibration. I reached into my sweatshirt pocket fishing around for my phone, but it wasn’t there. What the … ? That’s when I realized, it wasn’t my phone vibrating, but my stomach. Grumbling.

Am I that out of touch with my body that I can’t even recognize whether or not my stomach is grumbling? This mini-event launched me into a long and still-lasting inner dialogue with myself about my body and my connection to it. What is my body? Is it simply a vessel carrying the more important part of me, my soul? or is the body also something that is “essentially” me, and I use the word essentially in the philosophical sense, in the Aristotelian sense. Is my body the essence of my being? Or do I subscribe to the ideas of dualism–that mental processes are not of my body, but solely of my mind and therefore, my body is unimportant and my soul is the real.

Slowly, I am coming to the conclusion that the body is a truly important part of my spiritual self. I’m a little miffed, to be honest, by mainstream evangelicalism’s neglect of the body and physical elements as essential to spirituality. I really wish I had grown up in a church that practiced the seven sacraments and spoke of the elements as real conduits of spiritual realities in a physical world. How much more significant might communion be, for example, if I was told that these physical elements–the wine and the bread–held within them real, spiritual significance rather than just symbolic meaning? Instead, I’m given welch’s grape juice and a piece of hawaiian bread and told to pray and think upon the meaning of what Christ did for me thousands of years ago.

I’m not saying that I subscribe to transubstantiation, but I am here to ask us to question the body soul dualism that has permeated modern Christian thought. What are the ramnifications of church teaching that says this world is simply a waiting room, a holding place for those just passing through and moving on to paradise ahead? How devastating could such a soul embalming, mind calming teaching be?

Pretty darn devastating, in my opinion. It has bred a generation of Christians who have no sense of reality, no feeling of urgency to confront the physical maladies of this world. Global poverty, AIDS, economic disparity in the classes, suburban sprawl, warfare, persecution, abuse of the earth’s resources–all of these world-wide disasters are simply physical and therefore insignificant to a group of people just passing through on a heavenbound train.

But this ideology is not reminiscent of the Jesus I know. My Jesus fed the hungry, not symbolically, but he literally gave them a pick of fish, which they put into their mouth, chewed with their teeth, and swallowed in order for the food to fill their empty stomachs. My Jesus healed the sick, by touching their leprous skin, so that the weeping sores closed with new skin, as cuts miraculously do.

The healing was immediate, it was physical, it was visible, it was tangible, it was real. And if we claim to be followers of Christ in this world, then our work and our worship must also be just as immediate, physical, visible, tangible and real. So, while speaking about spiritual life can be a largely figurative endeavor, I’m here to advocate for a newfound acknowledgment and appreciation for the truth: that in Him we LIVE and MOVE and have our BEING.

For you readers who think that those a part of the Emergent conversation/emerging church are still heretics and heathens, here is a diplomatic response written by Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, Chris Seay…

Our Response to Critics

Some “highlights”:

…As we have always said, we hope to stimulate constructive conversation, which involves point and counterpoint, honest speaking and open-minded listening…

…We would only ask, if you accept our critics’ evaluation of our work, that in fairness you abstain from adding your critique to theirs unless you have actually read our books, heard us speak, and engaged with us in dialogue for yourself. Second-hand critique can easily become a kind of gossip that drifts from the truth and causes needless division…

…no, we are not moral or epistemological relativists any more than anyone or any community is who takes hermeneutical positions – we believe that radical relativism is absurd and dangerous, as is arrogant absolutism…

…yes, we believe that Jesus is the crucified and risen Savior of the cosmos and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus…

…we will continue to love and respect evangelical Christians whether or not we are accepted by them as evangelicals ourselves…

…if our work has been helpful to you, please join us in seeking to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace by not becoming quarrelsome or defensive or disrespectful to anyone – especially those who you feel have misrepresented or misunderstood you or us…

…With millions suffering from hunger, disease, and injustice around the world, we hope that all of us – including our critics – can renew our commitment to “remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10) rather than invest excessive energy in “controversies about words.”…

I know many of you will have no interest in this matter. But I ask that you take some time to consider my thoughts.

Today, I went to the TED website (which is pretty amazing) and listened to Yochai Benkler talk about how markets and central power structures are losing their grip on the economy by open-source structures: Microsoft vs. Linux, Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia, RIAA vs. p2p networks, telecomms vs. Skype. This was most apparent in the choice of servers most e-commerce websites used. The open-source Apache server completely overtook Microsoft as the choice for a lot websites. The Ubuntu OS is growing slowly but surely as Linux strives to be more user-friendly. Record companies are desperately fighting off the masses in gaining control of profits. So on and so forth.

And this is the direction Christianity may be (or is already) headed.

After the early church sprang out of the miracle of Pentacost, The Way was a radical movement that seemed to threaten and undermine the Roman empire. Fast forward several hundred years and the Roman Empire has made Christianity its state religion. In the midst, the Great Schism occurs between the Eastern and the Western churches. Throughout this transitional period you have the historical councils dictating what texts and theologies are orthodox and heterodox. But these councils, joined by the government, were symbols of power, much like the Microsofts of today. And for hundreds of years after, these power structures held till other power structures rose (i.e. Protestanism) to compete in the Christian worldview.

In contrast, what we see in the early 21st century is the waning of such monolithic theological centers. In its stead, with new manifestations like the Emergent conversation, New Monasticism, and young evangelical movements, new standards of faith are arising. Communities are affirming local and contextual theologies that hold place within the local body’s environment. The likes of John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Dom Crossan are just voices (albeit important) in a myriad of many to be studied. Communities are learning what it means to put their faith to their feet in new and innovative ways as the Spirit leads.  And this is a threat to theological powers. It is a threat to the Vatican and the Reformed institutions. And it is even a threat to the structures of our own understanding of faith communities.

Spencer Burke mentioned that the way we share sermons with one another may change. Instead of the same voice every week, people may opt to share voices with one another via mp3s, live video, or a re-imagining of itinerant preaching. Future communities may be more fluid and city-centric. Does this sound scary or exciting to you?

The two biggest questions that may arise are: What about heresy? How do we know what is of the Spirit and what is not?

If you notice in these open-source communities, the bad bugs in programming, or bad data in articles are found and sifted out. Open-source communities are actively engaging with others in the community about ideas and often tweaking the software or information to give the user the best product possible. The same could happen with theology in the future. Heresy, of course, is a concern. However, communities can communicate knowledge and information much more quickly and more critically than ever before such that faulty logic and information will be… ahem… buried (to use a Digg reference). Although monolithic structures may dissolve, faith that the true voice of the Spirit will carry through will be in play.

So we see already a tension between centralized structures versus decentralized structures. Traverse throughout the Christian blogosphere and you can see it. Hear about the different conferences held to defend one thing or to deconstruct another. Christianity as we know it may shift completely into a whole new paradigm of decentralized networks of faith.

Or Google could come along.

[As a post-script, here are some questions I've been thinking about that are by-products of this topic: Why are some things orthodox (as defined by the historical councils) and other things not? Weren't the Powers of the time involved in forming those central doctrines? What then of the "purity" of those doctrines? Is it the Holy Spirit's role to deem one thing "orthodox" and the other thing "heterodox"? Will this idea of open-source Christianity merely be a Western phenomenon? Moreso a phenomenon of the educated?]

So, I know we merging lanesters are trying hard to keep our identities as anonymous as possible, but I would like to divulge with you, dear reader, that of the 5 original writers on this site, I am the only female. And frankly, I’m kind of proud of that! I hope that I’ve done a good job of holding my own with the boys. Though my posts are admittedly more personal, narrative and less systematic in rhetoric, I hope that my own theological underpinnings have come through clearly, provocatively, effectively.

And I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging with my brothers on this site. Their thoughts and opinions are robust and challenging. Their exposure to various ideologies and cultural artifacts is invaluable to me. You boys are truly top notch.

All of my distant admiration of the brothers was somewhat ruffled, however, when one day, while in a chatroom discussing the future of merging lanes some of our brothers asked that we excuse them of their lack of involvement because they had just started dating.

ummm … seriously?

This seemed so strange to me. And yet, upon further reflection, I realized that a lot of my guy friends became unrecognizeable once they started dating. Their phone calls stopped. Their productivity dipped. Back in college, their grades slipped. We didn’t see them around ministry activities so much anymore. In other words, they went completely AWOL.

Brothers, what’s the deal?? I mean, I’m as romantic as they come, but are you seriously going to tell me that the woman in your life makes you completely … ahem … impotent in the other areas of your life? Bros before ho’s my friends! I mean, isn’t that your manly mantra?

On the other hand, I find that my female friends start dating and become superwomen. They work out more, they look better, take on more responsibility, clean themselves up AND their boyfriends. They pick up gardening. Start baking. Learn how to cook three course meals while simultaneously reading up on current events. They rock at their jobs and get promotions. They serve at church, visit their parents often and go on bi-annual missions trips with World Vision.

My theory is that eventually, the women surpass their men, their men feel threatened, and eventually leave them for someone a little duller, less interesting, less threatening.

Then, out of bitterness, the women become more and more productive (Note: After my own breakup, I took up sewing and German!). In the end, men die off and women rule the world!

Ok, I’m just kidding. But really, is there something you boys are trying to tell us? Is dating that stressful? Anything we can help you with to ease the pain?

love,

nieophyte.

By “really rich”, I mean, you never have to worry about the expense of anything reasonable, like pretty much any car or a house or sending kids to college or having enough in reserve to cover “retirement”.

By “very poor”, I mean, you make a living wage to cover rent and expenses, enough to keep yourself afloat and away from too much revolving debt, but any large purchase or investment would be extremely burdensome and you would not have foreseeable means to cover large expenses, like a car or a house or sending kids to college or having enough in reserve to cover “retirement”.

By “almost no free time”, I mean that your working schedule eclipses the schedules of others, that people can generally know that when they are free, you probably are not.

By “have a lot of free time’, I mean that you have MORE free time than most of your friends, that you have late afternoons and evenings consistently available for your leisure, and your weekends are always your own.

And finally, by “free time”, I mean exclusively time not spent working. Participating in other activities, family obligations, etc., all fall under the umbrella of “free time”, because they are activities that would cease to exist if work were interfering and assigned higher priority.

So, what do you choose?  And why?