And so it continues…
December 21, 2009
It has been a heartfelt belief around this blog that the queer controversy embroiling the Episocpal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America will eventually also embroil evangelical and conservative churches. Homosexuality isn’t going away (even if you ban it (like a certain American fundamentalist influenced African country), it just goes underground, not away…kind of like the Church). Up until recently, there has been a relatively consistent stance concerning homosexuality amongst the evangelical crowd–maybe because evangelicals that question a black and white biblical interpretation find themselves in other communions–but, now, read this story of a church firmly in the evangelical tradition which allows openly gay people to fully participate in the life of the church, including in leadership roles. Very interesting indeed:
What The Hell Is A Post Evangelical Tea Party?
July 31, 2009
A simple google search for “post evangelical” will return a plethora of commentary on the term (some of my favorites: the very straight forward wikipedia entry, the standby internetmonk, an open source theology thread from 2003, and our fellow ccblogger notes from off center).
It would be very silly of me to launch into a comprehensive series of posts on the idea when so much has already been explained by those more capable (and internet savvy). However, the term displays prominently at the top of our blog right next to ‘tea party’ as if we all sit around counting doilies and discussing Mr. Darcy all day long and as far as I can tell, we’ve never actually sussed out just what that means.
I am especially guilty since it would seem I consistently use this slippery word as an adjective for my position on various issues right now and just smile coyly to myself as people sitting across from me as they scramble to figure out if that’s a postmodern, emergent, postdenomentational missional thing or whether I just made it up on the spot. (In truth, it gives me an inherent sense of superiority to be “post” whatever the person is whom I’m discussing things with. Post-girlfriend anyone?)
For some odd reason probably having something to do with either Shawn Wamsley or my slick redo of our sidebar, our traffic has increased in recent weeks and I’m delighted that many of our new readers and commenters come from worldviews outside the Christian sphere. If you’re new and reading this, I hope this post is useful for you.
Everyone who contributes to this blog came to Christianity in an Evangelical movement in the United States. None of us have remained.
This is the simplest use of the term on this blog and if nothing I say after makes any sense, I suggest we just stick to it. Some of us have found new movements to join, some have left conventional Christianity altogether and others are lost somewhere in the clouds.
Our reasons for leaving are as variable as our tastes in beer, which is to say, surprisingly not quite so varied—however, full of tiny quirks unique to our own persons. Shamelessly borrowing formatting from the wikipedia article because I’m on vacation and too tired to be creative on my own, I’d like to list some of these frustrations to which many of us can attest (I’ve also decided to add Exclamation points because most of us live in Minnesota where people really don’t show enough emotion):
1. Politicization of Faith!
The G Dub years were hard for me. I was a loyal supporter before I could even vote but by the end of his eight year reign, I couldn’t figure out why people kept telling me he was Christian, and why that necessarily meant I had to vote for him. An astute reader of the blog might observe that we still discuss our political convictions using Christian rationale, just often from the other pole. I would counter that such explanations are often more complicated than simple blind “good vs. evil” comparisons and that likely a particular politician we might support involves our reasoning of “shared goals” rather than “shared convictions.”
2. Unreasonable view of Scripture!
One of the two issues on this blog that will never quite go away. I don’t have much to add here. Look around, you’ll find it.
3. Inadequate Response to Homosexual Christians!
The other of the two issues that is never far from our recent comments list. There are a variety of stances on this issue on our blog—which is something, I’m proud of.
4. Militant Exclusivism and Preoccupation with Eschatology!
For those of us who grew up in a church or movement with a vibrant missions or Evangelistic focus, this issue remains difficult. Just what does it mean to share the good news? Am I accountable if I don’t “witness” to every single person I meet? Does hell exist? Are Christians the only people who go to “heaven.” And just what is heaven? And hey, what about my Muslim friends, I like them and I think that their faith is pretty cool and I’d rather they don’t change to be completely honest. Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?
5. Emphasis on Personal Piety over Social Responsibility!
Disgusted by mega church opulence and prosperity nonsense, post evangelicals are afflicted by the tension between holiness and justice. Maybe those hippies who joined the Peace Corps instead of the missions trip were on to something. And seriously, just how does my memorizing another scripture verse help people dying from Malaria in Africa?
6. Disconnect From Church History!
I’ve discussed this elsewhere. Old stuff matters and Evangelicals seemed determined to separate themselves from it.
7. Separatism and Alternative Culture!
More a personal pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand alternative Christian culture, music, movies, books etc… I find it to be a cheesy and crude attempt at unnecessary and harmful separation from “the world.” Seriously, why are Christians so weird?
8. Other Stuff!
Which I’m sure you guys will add in the comments.
Finally adding “tea party” to our blog tag line was really a throwaway thing I did when first designing the site. I suppose you could say its lighthearted or a reference to our mutual friendships and enjoyment of imbibing things but really, I just threw it in there on a whim.
10 Things Christianity Must Do
July 2, 2009
This list represents where I’d like to see Christianity go in the future. This list is not necessarily meant to be comprehensive, it is no particular order, and is solely meant to spark discussion and debate about the future of Christianity. Some of my views may be seen as controversial if not completely over the top. Please keep in mind that I’m not trying to be exclusively polemical toward a certain denomination or group, and whenever I mention the mistakes and downfalls of the Church or Christianity I fully include myself as a participant in those mistakes and downfalls.
Christianity must…
1. Re-affirm creedal orthodoxy. Restore the Resurrection to centrality of belief. We must root out heresies about the Resurrection which abound in today’s church. Some renowned evangelical leaders do not actually believe in the bodily Resurrection. Anyone who’s read N.T. Wright knows this is a big problem for a lot of reasons. Here’s my pet reason (a la Bishop Wright): The bodily Resurrection is God’s ultimate answer to the problem of evil. Without it, we don’t have much to offer the world.
2. Unite or die. We harp on the Pauline passages dealing with grace, we tread the great Roman road over and over again, and forget that Paul’s central message, the one that appears in practically all his letters (depending on how you count those) is the unity of the Church. We do not love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and therefore the world does not know who Jesus really is, and what it means to follow him. It’s that simple. Evangelism without unity is hypocrisy.
3. Renounce all violence, war and oppression and actively stand against it wherever and whenever it is found. In all things overcome evil with good. 2000 years later, don’t you think its finally time to listen to Jesus’ injunction to put down our sword. Jesus clearly taught that violence was something his followers would not participate in. Every time a Christian or a person claiming to be a Christian perpetrates violence our collective witness is diminished.
4. Forge a common bond and goal with Islam. Christians and Muslims do not agree on the nature and mission of Jesus. What we can and do agree on is many points of ethics and morals. Why not work together with Muslims to further these points of agreement and make a better world?
5. Re-align the mission of the church and the purpose of evangelism from “saving souls” to participating in the reconciling of all Creation to God. So much of the ideology and terminology of modern evangelism is a result of the uninformed theologies, and personal neuroses of the “great” 19th century tent evangelists. It’s time to abandon it, and return to the Church’s original mission of reconciling all things to Christ. This certainly involves people making an earnest commitment to be a follower of Christ, but it is much more comprehensive than modern evangelism wants to admit. It also involves taking care of natural resources God gave us, being stewards of the plants and animals God told humans to be in charge of. It means standing against and eliminating evil and injustice in the world.
6. Come out of the whore of nationalism (I borrow the imagery from Revelation). America is not and never was a Christian nation. It’s a great place to live, and I like it here (especially New Mexico), but damn it, I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God first and all other citizenship and obligations are a very, very distant second. Christians need to stop being a tool of American politicians so we can get on doing what it is Jesus told us to do.
7. Avoid strict Biblical literalism. Spend less resources “proving” that the Bible is true, and more following the ethic of Jesus. We need to get over the idea that in order to be a Christian you must swear on your life (under penalty of death) that every little detail of the Old Testament actually happened and is historically, archeologically and in other ways objectively verifiable. As all Creation groans for redemption are we really going to put that off while we argue about the seven literal days of creation? The idea that if you “disprove” one story or detail in the Bible then the whole thing is unreliable is so much modernist, Enlightenment BS. Let’s move on.
8. Stand against science & technology where they have stepped over the bounds of common sense. Our society is one blinded of its own idiocy by shiny and flashy trinkets (i.e. I-phones, and internets). We think scientific and technological progress must intrinsically be morally good. Some of it is, much of it is not. Nuclear technology is insanity, genetic engineering is madness (just to give 2 examples)! Do we Christians really think that God isn’t totally pissed about this Tower of Babel we’ve built?
9. Work with our hands; live simple lives. Try to get along with everyone. Us Christians have by and large been caught up in the “progress” of the world, in its industry, in its economy. At very least these things provide endless distraction from our work of building the Kingdom of God. However, many aspects of the world’s economy are downright wrong according to the upside ethics of Jesus. Paul’s advice to us rings so true: keep it simple. Don’t get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the world.
10. Abandon fundamentalist eschatologies with vigor. I can (and in a future post, will) go on and on about this, but I’ll give just a few points to consider about the predominant pre-millennial-pre-tribulation-rapture eschatology of American Christians. 1) It was made up in the 19th century. 2) There are thousands of ways to interpret the book of Revelation, this eschatology is very presumptuous about there being one and only one way of looking at a very complex and confusing book. 3) The idea expounded by this eschatology that the world is going to end is not supported by the rest of Scripture. 4) This eschatology is a lousy excuse to let the modern state of Israel perpetrate all sorts of injustices on Palestinians (thousands of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ), and it is a shame that Christianity has mixed itself up with it.
A local pastor contacted me a few weeks ago about writing a guest editorial for our blog. He had said he wanted to share a few tips with aspiring Church Planters who might read theophiliacs. His article and portrait can be seen below.
By James Bromley, Church Planter
Honestly, if you want people to come to your church, you’ve got to be willing to meet them on their level. The internet, relationships, post-modernism, new generation, 360 degree leadership, electric guitars… these are the things the every day person cares about. Seriously, I was just reading in that new Donald Bell trendy church book Everyday Situations Are More Spiritual Than You Thought about how churches today need to be more emerging, casual, authentic, formal, simple, leadership oriented, communal, have cool videos, and attendee oriented. And that’s exactly the vision Hopewalk Christian Center is accomplishing in this community.
You can ask anyone in my po-mo (post-modern for those of you unaware) congregation, and they’ll tell you, Hopewalk has the coolest website and the elitist lobby coffee shop of any church in the area. And believe me, my people know. They used to attend your church, as well as 5 or 6 other none high-definition chuches in the city.
Get with it old guys! It’s time to get back to the 1st century church! Get yourselves a cool logo already and a book deal/twitter account for your pastors. If you haven’t released a series of video devotionals with accompanying discussion guide, you’re already out of touch. This is the information age and it’s time the church recognize it by posting on our blogs.
As the number of Americans attending church continues to fall and yet the number of mega-churches continues to rise it’s time to ask ourselves an important question. Why am I not one of those mega-churches?
There’s a reason I left Advertising to become a pastor. It’s because I had a burden to be in charge of something! In charge of something God would grow and bless to make me make him look awesome!
Some Thoughts on The Church
May 8, 2009
Well, as it so often happens online, certain topics get latched onto and engage more conversation than others. I guess it’s my fault since I posted this piece, which sparked this piece, then this one. Well now it has progressed, and before I move on with my seminary pieces I wanted to weigh in again on homosexuality, especially “marriage.”
I believe that this issue is easily and quickly gets entered into haphazardly and without a systematic approach, so I hope with my posts not to “seal the deal” so to speak, but I want to dust out the cobwebs of what seem to me to be lazy arguments, manipulative language, and un-theological frameworks of discussion.
But first, I want to start with a defense of the homosexual Christian. The reason that I want to do this is because I think that until gay Christians are free from the sin and hypocrisy of homophobia in the Church then I always want to assure them that I am not “out to get them.” So much Christian damage has been done on this because of what I feel to be reactionary fear-filled rhetoric and just plain immature and unChristlike “ick” factors.
I take it to be true that:
- Of course, a gay Christian is not “half” or “3/4” of a Christian. That is, by faith, baptism, faithful partaking of the Sacraments, and faithfulness to the Church’s teaching there should be no question of a “lesser” status.
- Any person who by fear, ignorance, hatred, immaturity or any other reason, ends up communicating anything less than the piercing love of God in Jesus Christ to a gay person has done what Christ condemned when he said that those who cause siblings to stumble are in a heap of trouble. There should be no “but” attached to any soteriology, either what Christ has done is what he has done, or we all have to start earning our salvation.
- Any speaking of gay relationships means ONLY completely faithful monogamous relationships. The Church’s teaching is that sex outside of marriage, regardless of “love,” is out of bounds.
- “How can I be wrong if I’m so sincere” is not a Christian maxim.
- Words and abstractions like “love” must be drawn from larger scopes of Scripture than the Johannine Corpus alone, and even these must take exegesis and proper theological interpretation into authoritative account. Christian theo-logia must be set within a Christian framework so that words and concepts do not lose their meaning.
- Just like those in favor of accepting homosexuality get to ask the hard questions, hard questions must be addressed to them in a thoughtful and respectable manner consistent with Christian charity otherwise this whole conversation is a conversation about emotions.
Having said that, and meaning every word, I want to move on to start clearing brush. And I want to get at this by a different route than is normally taken. Before I mention anything about homosexuals and the Church, I want to speak first of Christians. How is “diversity” and “different gifts” meant? How does the Body function? And how are people “equal and unequal?” Are these appropriate terms to be using? How has the surrounding culture perhaps warped our understanding of the Kingdom and our responsibilities?
We will cover a lot of ground, but I hope the end will refine the conversation, on this site at least.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
