Category: random thoughts

Friday I posted an email from Jeremy Hegi in response to last week’s original discussion topic of progressive discontent. I’m sure many of you are getting tired of this subject, and I promise to be done with it soon. I think in many ways it is such a fertile ground because it is a symptom of a much deeper problem, as my additional thoughts here to Jeremy reflect.

I agree that one of the primary issues we will deal with in this transitional period is the distinct difference between two groups of people – one group which is comfortable with the dynamic tension you describe, and one that is not. I think there will be some middle ground between the two groups – people perhaps like us who are “bi-lingual” to some extent, but in general I think people gravitate toward the extremes and forget the middles.

The most disturbing thing in all of this, which we’ve talked about before, is that these people who style themselves progressive really aren’t any different in their core theology from those they are fighting against. When the goals of some of the major change agents within our fellowship are geared primarily toward changes which lack real substance, we’re spinning our wheels and wasting time in a day and age where we need desperately to find our way. Altered worship styles have little if anything to do with a community of faith being transformed into a more organic body of Christ, and little if anything to do with effecting substantive change in individual’s transformations into the image of Christ. If we spend the next 30 years fighting about worship styles and baptism, I fear we won’t be around in another 30 years (not that I necessarily think that would be the worst thing).

As I’ve thought more about the entire discussion, there have been a few additional thoughts I’ll bounce off you.

First, it seems to me that such a worship-centric approach to God is dangerous in the same way as a physically-focused dating relationship. When you start dating someone, you may start to show physical affection in small ways at first – holding hands let’s say. Holding hands is fine, but you long for that day when you have your first kiss. One day it happens, and it’s wonderful – everything you thought it would be. All is good for a couple of weeks, until you become desensitized to that level in some ways, and you want to do more, go farther. In some ways this discussion sounds reminiscent of teenagers talking about their desires for extended sexual exploits – “How far do you want to go”, “No, we shouldn’t go there”, “I think it’s fine to go this far”, “You shouldn’t kiss before you’re married”, etc. I titled my blog post yesterday “ten questions of a ‘progressive’ discontent”, and I think in many ways it’s not the “progressive” (even in quotes) that is the eventual problem as much as the discontent. Do we have any reason to believe that once we attain this ephemeral change that we’ll be happy with it? In this regard I think the “traditionalists” are very correct – praise teams lead to praise bands, praise bands lead to something else, and pretty soon we’re on the slippery slope to who knows where. Where I disagree is that praise teams are a coordinated effort to get us to praise bands. I think it’s just a simple part of the human equation.

So how do we “fix” this? If we look back to the relationship example, I think one of the key parts to checking the physical relationship is balancing it with the emotional, spiritual, and mental side. If the foundation of your relationship/marriage is based on sex, there will be clear problems there. Physical intimacy is a wonderful thing, but it’s not enough to sustain a meaningful relationship. In a similar vein, corporate worship is a wonderful thing, but it is not enough to sustain a meaningful relationship with God. If we encounter God only during emotional worship highs and other “orgasmic” experiences, we are ill equipped to deal with the rest of our lives, and our spiritual journey becomes a quick dash from false summit to false summit, seeking the thrill of our last mountaintop.

Staying with a dating theme, it’s also interesting to look at what our outward appearance (and our attention to it) implies about our true worth. We tell our daughters not to dress like a hooker, because when they do they attract sleazy guys who are only interested in their bodies. Something I typically want to tell girls I overhear lamenting how guys just want them for their bodies, “If you don’t want to be treated like an object, don’t dress like one.” I feel in many ways like our attempt to alter our worship style is analogous to putting on a low cut shirt and showing a bit of cleavage in the hope of getting more guys to look at us.

Two things come out of this line of thought for me – first, are we really interested in the people who are going to look at us because of our “boobs”, as it were? Certainly we are interested in the world coming into relationship with Christ and experiencing his transforming power, just as a girl is interested in finding a man who will enter into a relationship with her, love and cherish her. Certainly that noble man might come along because he’s attracted to her body, but the majority of men are attracted to her body *and nothing else*. No matter how much time she spends or how much love she lavishes on them, most of them will never want her or see her as anything else, and when there’s a newer, more attractive girl available, they’ll jump ship and flatter her instead. The transient nature of people who are attracted to the next “new idea”, or “cool worship style”, or even “cool theology” is the same – while we hope to be a part of the transformation of the transient, we are both foolish and naïve if we believe men will be consistently transformed in meaningful and positive ways, or that true love will enter their hearts by looking at a woman’s body.

Second, what does it imply about our own perception of the spiritual worth of our community if we feel like we need to present a sexy image in order to attract someone? Like I’ve said before, there are multiple reasons why people will buy a product. People may buy iPods because they’re cool, but they certainly don’t buy motor oil for the same reason. No, rather they buy motor oil because it’s useful – they don’t want their engine to blow up. Most kind, sincere, intelligent, fun, caring girls have no problems finding guys who want to date and marry them, even if they don’t dress provocatively – precisely because there’s something more substantive than just the way they look. In fact, most girls who fit the above description don’t dress provocatively and draw attention to themselves because they recognize that the guys they’re interested in aren’t looking at their physical appearance. I’m reminded of what you mentioned a few weeks ago – that the early church made converts wait for potentially years before they were baptized. For anyone to join such a group – indeed for anyone to join a group where the likelihood of death came with the territory – there would have to be something there deeper and more attractive than the songs they sang while they were in the stinky catacombs.

My fear is that the main reason we feel the need to “sex up” our external image is because there is little to attract people on the inside. If we preach a gospel of morality, or of self-help, or of political action, do we really have anything to offer people other than a pep-rally? If not, then the questions we’re discussing here become exceedingly important – maybe the only important ones. If we have not been transformed inside, our only recourse is to make the outside more attractive. If over 50% of our marriages end in divorce, if Sunday morning is universally regarded in the restaurant industry as the worst time to work, if 91% of people surveyed say that they think of Christians as primarily anti-homosexual and judgmental, if the only picture of Jesus people have is Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps, are we really surprised that nobody wants to come in?

The problem is not with our external appearances but with our internal transformation, or lack thereof. The unfortunate thing is that discussions like this one about primarily external matters serve as little more than criminal distractions in the pursuit of real change.

In wake of the recent discussion, Jeremy Hegi and I have also been in a running dialog, which I think adds a slightly different, and very useful perspective. With his permission, I am posting an email I received from him in response to the original ten questions. I’ve put paragraph breaks in, as well as a minor edit here and there without affecting content. I’ll post my reply Monday.

Thanks for forwarding me that email. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last couple days and I think this argument isn’t anything new – but something that goes all the way back to the early church.

I think the heart of what goes on in these conflicts is the Christology (how people view Christ) of the people involved in them. Some people like traditional songs, pious/”rigid” lifestyles and approaches to scripture – all of which really kind of take emphasis off of the humanity of Jesus (what he has most in common with us) and make Jesus more distant and divine. These of course are many of the old people who grew up in the 30’s 40’s and 50’s who are often times labeled as “conservative.” At the same time there are others who like casual, emotional, experiential meetings where the presence of Christ is felt in the room with them – a rather emotional experience – where the divine Christ is exchanged for the present human Jesus whom we can all experience and relate to. I guess we would tend to call these people “progressives.” DISCLAIMER: I always hate assigning people to categories – but for the purposes of this argument – it’s helpful.

Anyway – so then the question that many ask (especially the people in both groups) is “which is correct.” And the answer is they both are correct and they both are lame … or rather limited. Neither side fully encompasses who Jesus is or what it means to be Christian – but what happens when we let those live in tension with each other? Perhaps, if this is done in a healthy way, the best of both worlds can be seen.

I think this idea of living with “tensions” is so important in churches today – we tend to think in terms of right in wrong – but if we paid closer attention to scripture we could see that many times it’s not a question of right and wrong – but of how do we let these tensions exist and how do we manage those polarities.

To bring scripture into this – we should study the Book of John more. Many times we tend to read selected stories from John and focus more on the synoptic (Matt, Mark, and Luke) Gospels. Or, if we read John we force what we see to correspond with Pauline thought. I think we should take John as it is and see how he introduced tensions about who Jesus is, what salvation is, etc. Of course a great example is John 1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” That is tension right there – God becoming flesh — how is that possible, how can those two things coexist? There is something there that we have to learn to live with – and obviously Christ lived out that tension and is a great example for us to look to in order to see how we should deal with tension in our communities. He also introduced them – i.e. Salvation is now and also in the future (again in John). A lot of this stuff isn’t easily explained away – but I think in recognizing that the Bible doesn’t have a unified theology of …. whatever – we should see that there is a conversation going on about who God and Jesus are. And I think it would really help us out quite a bit – to introduce that to the churches around us.

This is the third and final installment of my initial response to this list of questions I received in an email on Monday. As in the previous posts, this is a copy of my text, verbatim, though in this instance, the name of the sender has been removed to protect anonymity.

When I look at many of the most conservative people in our churches, it’s perhaps hard for me to understand the reasons they believe what they do, but it’s easy for me to understand why they continue in that belief. If it is difficult for me at 27 and you at 33 (34?) to really change and examine what we believe because of our investments, how much more difficult will it be for people who are 70 and have invested so much in their particular paradigm? While that does not excuse them from their call to grow and encounter Christ, it does, I think, provide me with a certain measure of understanding of why they act as they do, as well as giving me a reality check of my own. May we never be so invested and entrenched in our own views that we are not able to be challenged ourselves. May we never view ourselves only as the challengers, but also view ourselves as those who need to be challenged. May we never feel like we are the ones with answers, but be constantly searching for new questions.

With that in mind, I would like to pose two questions of my own. They are based on two of your questions – specifically questions 3 and 9.

In question 9, you ask “are we limiting ourselves to the most easily offended”? I wonder if it is truly necessary to offend people in order to challenge them. You will note that the people Christ offended didn’t turn toward him – in fact they crucified him. That didn’t stop him from calling them out, but it did not produce the result we’re looking for in this case – namely it did not turn their hearts toward God. Is there some way we can effectively challenge without offending? If not, is division an acceptable price? Are we willing to sacrifice “the most easily offended” (the needs of the few) for the “future of our community” (the needs of the many)? You follow up in Question 10 with the bold phrase “whatever it takes”. I know you did not intend that phrase in this context, but I wonder (especially in light of my next question) if “whatever it takes” is an approach we really want to consider.

Finally, in question 3, you ask “Is it worth spending time arguing over something like this when we could be spending time telling the world about Jesus?” I think we would both agree that the answer is, “Of course not.” My question is whether your email is in fact an argument in the affirmative. In other words, if these issues are really not worth arguing over, and if it really were more important to spend our time telling the world about Jesus, how much time have I “wasted” writing this ridiculously long email back to you? I use wasted in quotations because I think discussions like this are tremendously useful, at least for keeping our minds open. However, we must remain vigilant that we do not, as Nietzsche would say, “become the monster”. “He who fights monsters,” he says, “must take care not to become a monster himself. For when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.” At what point do we, in our desire to bring people to a deeper and more fulfilling relationship with Christ, become that which we fight against by our own inflexibility and inability to compromise? At what point do we, as leaders who want everyone to walk in the footsteps of Christ, cease to walk on that path ourselves in the name of “helping others”? At what point do we begin to “do evil, that good may result”? There are not simple answers to these questions, and they are questions I must ask myself every day. I’m not always sure I like the answers.

Your questions have blessed me. They force me to examine myself, to examine what I believe, and to again ask uncomfortable questions I often cannot answer satisfactorily. Thankfully it is not the answers, but the questions I think Jesus wants us to have. When we rely totally on him, and not on our own wisdom, we will truly understand what it is to have faith, to love others, to be perfect. Until then, we look through a glass, darkly, on the image of perfection we will be in heaven.

Tomorrow an email response from Jeremy Hegi, and a follow-up to that on Monday.

This is the second part of my response to this list of email questions I received on Monday. Again, text is verbatim from my email response.

At any rate, your questions.

While I don’t want to go through the list of excellent questions you’ve posed in bulleted form, I do want to make a couple of comments on some of the general form of questions you’ve posed.

The first type is the question: “Do we really believe it is wrong to ___?” I think, unfortunately, the answer in many cases is yes. While this may be incomprehensible to some of us, there truly are people in our church who feel, with what they believe is biblical basis, that it is wrong to have a quartet, it is wrong to have a female speak, even on a video, that it is wrong even to separate communion and the offering. These positions seem absurd to us, of course, but to them they are very important, very real, and very grounded in “scriptural fact”. We, based on our interpretation of Scripture, disagree, but here comes the hard part – how do we conclude that one of us has the correct set of Scriptural facts, while the other group doesn’t. Both sides would of course say that the other side is somehow being dishonest, or at the very least looking at things inconsistently or starting from bad assumptions – but therein lies the problem. *Both* of us are using the same set of reasoning to say that we’re right, and the others are wrong.

One of the most difficult spiritual questions I’ve been grappling with over the past 6-8 months as I’ve been in discussions with a variety of my friends is how to resolve this dilemma – in some sense, any scriptural interpretation by a community of faith actively examining scripture and honestly seeking God is valid in their context. While “actively examining scripture” and “honestly seeking God” are certainly somewhat subjective terms, and while there is a very thin line between syncretism and discernment, this is both a very disturbing and liberating statement, and it may perhaps form the basis for a post-modern Christian context. Simply because we have chosen to interpret Scripture in a pseudo-historical/critical nature doesn’t mean that is the only way Scripture can be interpreted, or even that it is the best way. The uncomfortable thing for many of us is that this idea reframes the question of “Who is right?” and answers it with the rather odd statement: “Both are, or can be.”

Let me explain with a more concrete example: you ask the question “Do we truly believe it is wrong to listen to a choir, etc?” Let me reframe that question: “Do we truly believe it is wrong to believe it is wrong to listen to a choir?” In other words, we may believe their particular interpretation of scripture is incorrect (i.e. we believe it is fine to listen to a choir, have instruments, take the Lord’s supper on Tuesday at 3:40AM), but do we believe they are wrong for believing it? This ties in closely with Question 7 you’ve posed. As I’ve visited other denominations and churches, I am clearly convinced that unfortunately, the answer is a resounding “yes” – but not only for us. This is a subtle point, but I think an important one – obviously *everyone* believes their interpretation is correct – everyone believes they are right. The best we can do is Brian Mclaren’s now famous and attacked statement – “I know there are many things I am probably wrong about, but I don’t know which things they are.”

Also, it is important to remember that there are many ways in which we ourselves may be perceived as allowing “fear to hold us back” in how we live our lives. Even among those who call themselves “progressive”, I think the discussion of whether or not it is acceptable to drink alcohol in any quantity or situation would be a divisive issue. We *must* be able to work together and worship God with people we sincerely and profoundly disagree with. I will not lie that there are many times I don’t enjoy the thought of this proposition – most often on Sunday mornings, the time of the week when I generally feel furthest from God, the time of the week when I see just how far my goals and desires are from the people who stand around me. Some Sundays I want to walk away and never come back – like the first Sunday of the semester when Kelly spoke about the waitress and there was general laughter from the left side of the auditorium. But then I speak to someone who was listening, who was open, and whose perspective was changed, at least for a moment, by those words. If some of us do not remain, there will be no voice, and all our efforts, hopes, and dreams will be for naught.

Finally on this question, the more I speak with these people, the clearer it becomes that they don’t believe these things because they’re trying to annoy me, or because they are simply stuck in the 50’s. They often have clear, thought out, logical reasons for thinking the way they do (though again, reasons I disagree with). It is easy to cast them as resisting change simply for the sake of resisting change, but I am less and less convinced of that as I’ve discussed with them.

Another form of question you pose which is closely related, but importantly different is “Why do we believe it is wrong to _____?” The why, I think in this case, is very important. I’d like us to consider the case of a particular very conservative man in our church. He did not grow up in the CofC, but was “converted” around the time he was in college. He turned his back on his parents and family, almost to the point of disowning them, truly believing to this day they were not saved because they did not believe what he does. This is a sad tale, and one that speaks unfortunately of just how far we have to go. Consider, however, this man, and what it would require for him to change his viewpoint. Think of the amount he has invested over his considerable life in what he believes, and think of what it has cost him. Think of the broken relationships with his family, all because of his desire to be “right”, and his certainty that he is. How hard do you think it will be to change his perspective? What will it do to the tapestry of his life to admit he was wrong?

I drove back from Dallas yesterday, and before I left I had 4-5 cups of coffee with my sister. I dropped her off at the airport and headed back. I wanted to get to Ennis before stopping, because I knew there was a gas-station and a place to eat there. The problem, of course, was that I really needed to go to the bathroom. I knew I needed to stop, but I was sure I could make it. As the miles ticked off on the odometer, my situation became more and more painful, but even though there were plenty of places to stop and relieve my burden, my original goal was still in my head, and I thought to myself “Well, I’ve already endured this much and come this far, it’s only a bit further…” Eventually, of course, I stopped about 15 miles short of Ennis to go to the bathroom, but the point remains – the further I went, even though I knew it would be better if I stopped, the more invested I became in my original plan, and the more difficult it became to want to change it.

Final installment tomorrow…

This is the first part of my response to this list of questions I received in an email. I am posting the text here verbatim, as sent in my email response.

Thanks for your well thought out email – I know you poured your heart into it, and it is clear how heavily the burden of our church, our fellowship, and our future weighs on you. I pray that you won’t be discouraged at the rate at which things change. When I was impatient for change, a friend of mine once compared the Church to a piece of taffy – if you stretch it slowly, you can make it do what you want. If you stretch it too quickly, it will snap. Because we do change so slowly, it can be very frustrating for change agents within, many of whom find it easier to jump ship and head to where people are a bit more “open minded”, at least about the issues we encounter so much resistance to. My prayer is that you would not go that way. We need good, honest, loving people who are able to examine and question the old ways, and who will lovingly deal with those who have come before. May you be one of those people.

I did want to answer some of your questions, though, perhaps with some insight I’ve gained in listening to the people who you’re discussing in many of your questions.

I feel like you know that much of what you mention is simply not an issue to me – either in the affirmative or the negative. I am not, by and large, interested in arguing about what we do on Sunday morning. Certainly that we *do* praise God is important, and certainly we want to be effective and meaningful in the way we do that, but we must also remember that *worship* is not meeting together on Sunday morning, but how we live our lives (e.g. Rom 12:1). My personal fear is that God looks down on us and is saddened to see us spend 95% of our energy arguing about something that occupies less than 2% of our time. Don’t get me wrong – there are certainly a host of things I would change about our corporate worship times if I could, but again, by and large, I am more interested in effecting change in the hearts of our people – change in how they live their lives, change in how they treat others, change in how they show their love for God and love for their neighbor. My personal feeling is that if we are somehow able to focus on creating people who love like Jesus did, people who truly want the best for each other, truly seek to honor others above themselves (Phil 2), then so many of these other problems would be solved.

If I truly loved other people the way Jesus did, would it bother me when we sing songs with archaic language like “On Zion’s Glorious Summit” which I’m fairly certain 95% of the church couldn’t explain to me if I spotted them the lyrics in poetic form and a dictionary? No. I would recognize that like me, they enjoy the way the song sounds, and it holds a powerful place in their memory, as it’s a song they grew up with, and have sung their whole lives. I would recognize that even though it is an extremely exclusive song in the sense that anyone who didn’t grow up singing it, and many who did, have no idea of what the words mean, it is inclusive in that it reminds us of the rich and beautiful tradition many of us share, and into which we hope to draw others. I’m not there yet. I hope to be.

to be continued…

Because the word progressive can be used in many ways in a religious context, I’ve chosen to put it in quotes for the title of this piece. Perhaps a discussion of the word progressive itself is in order, but for now we will use it for want of a better term.

When I woke up this morning, I was greeted by an email from a member of the church I attend, which contained ten questions of what I would call “progressive” discontent. Before I post my response, I thought it might be worthwhile to post the questions, and let us all think about them. They are sincere questions from a burdened heart, seeking to open others to a new perspective of worship. I’ve included the paragraph from his email that immediately proceeds the questions in order to maintain a bit of context. I’ve also maintained the original emphasis and bolding of text.

Be excited about this challenge or maybe you’ll be offended…but be honest as you answer these questions for yourself. Maybe this will touch something in your heart that needs touching…I pray it does. Most of us are members of the church of Christ on this email so these questions especially apply to us. So here goes the challenge…

1. Why don’t we use choirs or quartets to receive edification? Do we really believe it is wrong to listen to a choir?
2. Why is there any awkwardness in kneeling, lifting hands, or lying prostrate in our worship services when people all throughout the Bible did these things over and again before God? Do we really understand our humble place before Him?
3. Why are there some who think it is wrong to worship God with an instrument? If so, what do we do about this whole generation that is coming up that has contemporary Christian music on their iPods? What do we do with the kids from our youth groups that love going to Christian concerts? Don’t you think it is better for our kids to be listening to this music than top 40 songs laced with sexual innuendos? Is it worth spending time arguing over something like this when we could be spending time telling the world about Jesus?
4. Why do we think we have to take communion only on Sunday when in the Bible it appears the Christians took it on Monday and Thursday as well? Do we really think God will be upset with us if we remember Jesus’ sacrifice more often?
5. Do we truly worship God with the joy of the LORD? If so, why do you catch yourself sometimes just mouthing the words to songs without thinking about what you’re saying? Are you tired of going through the motions?
6. Why don’t we constantly share our stories of faith…in the corporate assembly? Why do we have issue with using the word “testimony?” God is still moving stones but we don’t know how God is moving in each other’s lives unless we share.
7. Do we (church of Christ) think we are the only ones going to heaven? If so, what should I tell my dear friends from other Christ loving Christian groups that fast more than me, pray more than me, read the Bible more diligently and have spent years upon years in the mission field feeding the hungry and telling the lost about Jesus? What did Jesus mean, then, in Luke 9:49,50?
8. Are we letting fear hold us back in any way in worship? If so, is that fear from God or the devil? Please, God, grow our faith.
9. Are we limiting ourselves as a church to the most easily offended? If so, does that mean that we never need to lovingly challenge those individuals to grow. Think about this. If Christ’s only and highest goal was not to offend people with what He said, what percentage of things he spoke on would not have come out of His mouth?
10. Do you want to do whatever it takes to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength?…I do too. Praise God.

My response is, as per the usual, rather lengthy, and I may break it up into a couple of parts over the next few days. For those of you who don’t relate to the Church of Christ nature of this particular post, I apologize. We have a lot of growing to do, but I think there are larger issues addressed in these questions and in the response that apply across all communities of faith, though the issues may not be identical.

More to come.