emerging mosaic

So in response to the recent USA today article about people turning away from religion I have had several conversations mostly in cyberspace with Christians who give me way to understand why our culture is moving into being post-religious.

First, there is the knee jerk reaction and immediate assumption by some of us Christians that if people are not religious they are anti-Christian. (Oh and by the way if you are anti-Christian you are also anti-American). In fact the article suggested that all religions and religious tribes are losing ground.  Instead of looking at the context and seeing that though these folks are not interested in religious institutions (and remembering that Jesus was not either)  they are spiritual ; there is the immediate defensive posture that they are hostile to religion and so hostile to us and so hostile to God. There is no consideration of the idea behind Dan Kimball’s book that they might like Jesus but not the church (i.e institutional religion) .

Secondly there is what seems to me to be a weak confidence in God’s word and Jesus message that feeds the fixation on personal salvation as all that matters. I need to get heaven and the rest be damned. Religion is the ticket to heaven. Not faith mind you religion. So if we are losing our religion then we are shaking the very foundations of the faith. Never mind that Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the the church. I believe that God in control and will ways be in control and though the church or religion may be shaken, the faith of Abraham, Jesus and Paul will not no matter what craziness we mixed up messed up human beings get into.

So I don’t blame the average pew sitter in this. it is some of our religious leaders that truly worry and scare. Watch the video that was sent to me to rebut my thoughts about living faithfully in a post-religious world.

john mcarthur’s religious views on the emergent church

But there is blame to go around on all sides there are some folks with new perspectives on the faith that seem intent on disconnecting from the historical biblical Christian faith.  It gives dogmatic people fodder for their views and lets them paint anyone not agreeing their dogmatic views with the same brush and leads to responses like the one below to my above thoughts.

Either or propositions? What? Are we all Hindus now too? Truth is ALWAYS an “either or proposition.” You yourself cannot follow your own line when you refer to truth as being Scripture. (No relativist ever can live his own propositions.) I do agree that salvation is “holistic” (I really hate all these goopy trendy words) - spirit, soul, body. But the great, overwhelming emphasis in Scripture was on the spiritual, the eternal, the Kingdom that flesh and blood cannot inherit.

Years ago church consultant Bill Easum suggested to a group of church leaders that one of the biggest challenges for Jesus followers moving into the future was going to be the question how can I follow Jesus without being a bigot. I think he was asking us to consider how can we stand for Jesus without blowing off the very people Jesus calls us to reach.

So I wonder what will faith look like in post-religious world? Will there be a church for the post-religious or will we all be heading to hell in an hand basket?

I wonder if defenders of the truth will descend on this blog to prove their point and share their view, we will see.

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Scott McKnight has a great conversation on atonement going on over at the Jesus Creed blog. The question is what do you do with the current theories of atonement when you live in a culture that doesn’t get sin? McKnight shares some excerpts from Alan Mann’s book, Atonement for a ‘Sinless’ Society.

“atonement is ultimately about the restoration of human/divine relations via the re-storying of the storied self                    

McKnight reports Mann’s book is broken into three sections concern (1) Sin as shame, (2) atonement as story, and (3) the use of Mark’s passion narrative as a story for converting to the atonement story of Jesus. another clip of McKnight’s quotes from the book

Mann contends that the operative word for the postmodernist is not “sin” but “shame,” and he defines shame as an “absence of mutual, intimate, undistorted relating that ultimately leads the postmodern self into a lack of ontological (or narrative) coherence” (19). Lots of verbage here, but the sense is this: postmoderns are not guilty of law because they don’t tell that “story” of sin; instead, there is an overwhelming sense that the “ideal” self and the “real” self are so far out of whack that they are “shamed” and afraid to disclose who and what they really are. A lack of inner coherence is what this shame is all about; the lack of a meaningful story or narrative that tells “my story” truly

I find this train of thought fascinating just this past week I was talking with a colleague and member of the Mosaic Life community about my take on the role of shame and guilt in relation to sin.

My take: shame is an internal marker of our sin (brokenness and disconnect from God) in response to grace that is activated by the Holy Spirit as the image of God in us comes to conscious awareness of our need to be more like Jesus. Guilt is the external measure of behavior in response to the expectations of others and motivated by adherence to the law. 

Then this past Sunday I tried to communicate atonement from a post Christian perspective in my message at Mosaic Life.

At-one-ment is God’s love motivated action to bring us to wholeness and holiness (something we cannot do ourselves because we’re broken) in our relationship with God by Jesus sacrifice. Jesus sacrifice expresses God deep and profound love for humanity and desire to be in relationship. Ephesians 2:1-16Ephesians 2:1-16
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
From Death to Life ^{2 1} . In the past you were dead because you sinned and fought against God. ² You followed the ways of this world and obeyed the devil. He rules the world, and his spirit has power over everyone who doesn't obey God. ³ Once we were also ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds. We had made God angry, and we were going to be punished like everyone else. ⁴-⁵ But God was merciful! We were dead because of our sins, but God loved us so much that he made us alive with Christ, and God's wonderful kindness is what saves you. ⁶ God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven. ⁷ God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done. ⁸ You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. e treats us much better than we deserve: The Greek word charis, traditionally rendered

Head over to Jesus Creed and check out the conversation is something worth thinking and talking about

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Technorati Tags: apologetics, atonement, christian_perspective, emerging church, faith, faith & culture, meaningful_story, passion_narrative, reformed, shame, spiritual-practice, theology

It is no wonder that spiritually searching people tell me that they don’t think the church is a safe place.

When  Pat Robertson (founder of the Christian Coalition) says that the US government should take out the elected leader of another country because he doesn’t agree with the policies of the US.

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While browsing over at nykola.com I came across a reference to this song by Nick Cannon about what might have happened is he had not been a born. It is an interesting and straight forward exploration of  the abortion question in popular music

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Technorati Tags: christian_perspective, music

Dashhouse has got a good post about james mcdonald’s article about why he’s not emerging though I don’t agree with all his ideas mcdonald raises a couple good point about how the emerging conversaton is usually presented. For example "observing the bad is not a credential for guiding us to the good ".

I think he is right on this. Just as the democratic party can’t gain any traction by just being anti-republican,  emergent can’t really emerge until we start being for more than just anti-modern. We need to not only say what we value but begin to live  this out tangible ways that engage those whoa re not yet a part of the conversation or followers of Jesus for that matter.

There is some of this going in the UK, AUstralia and NZ but very limited in the US

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Can a person of faith be incarnational without attracting and inviting others. I’ve been exploring this with some other church leaders and I have to say the dichotomy between attraction and incarnation seems false. It feels like an overreaction to the spectator we have all the answers approach of many modern churches. I think being invitational and incarnational go together "come follow me and I will show you how to fish for others" If our incarnational tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it because we haven’t invited them then what?

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Jason Clark has posed an interesting question about the range of engagement in what is called the emerging church. I have to say that using his diagram mosaic life church and i am somewhere between c & d. i am intentional about decontructing some of western modernist garbly gook that we mistakenly call Christianity and encouraging people to take a serious look at the teaching of Jesus is scripture and not just by into modern interpretations of Paul writing as the basis of faith and life.

However I don’t feel that we need to leave everything behind. to me being a part of the emergent church is about renewing, reforming, and refreshing. we need to be constantly renewing our relationship with god not and not see god only through the existing doctrinal statements. We need to be constantly reformed by the spirit of God so we can see what god is doing in our world and how God is calling us to join in. we need to refresh our methods and separate from function realizing the forms themselves have not inherit power apart from God and the way they are used by God to fulfill God’s purpose. As one theologian Thelieke says the gospel most constantly be readdressed in each generation and time or it will not reach its intended address.

One of my beefs with some who are a part of the emergent conversation is they seems stuck in the A quadrant of Jason’s scheme. Lots of de-construction but no new media or forms. Or in many cases a return to forms of old forms (using hymns and liturgies) not ancient forms that tend to else the forms used in non-western Christian settings.

at any rate I think Jason has raised an important topic of conversation.

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Technorati Tags: christian_faith, christian_perspective, emerging_church

this recent article on the Monday Morning Insight Weblog: Bill Maher and Comedy Against Christians suggest that bill maher the host of the hbo talk show real time is anti-christian.

the article quotes maher as saying, many christians pray like they are asking santa claus for gifts. he also raises the inconsistency in many christians in their love of jesus and “love of guns”.

now i must say that maher show isn’t for everyone. but i like the show. he has some great guests on his panel. recent guests i’ve seen included michael eric dyson and cornell west.

i don’t know if any of this is anti christian, but it sure challenges followers of jesus to think about how the way that live our faith is perceived by those who don’t follow jesus.

anti-christian prophetic or just another maher miscue???

hmm…

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jimmy swaggart has said some pretty bold stuff but this is a stunner.

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there a lot of talk today about new this and new that. new church, new church plant, but do we need new evangelicals. i don’t much care for the word but evangelical does serve as a description of one stream of the christian faith. tom sine who heads up mustard seed associates with his wife christine is one of the most holistic writers on the subject of where the church needs reforming as we move into the future. he has posted a copy of his article In Search of an Alternative Future for American Evangelicalism from the current issue of prism magazine on the msa web site. check out this significant addition to the conversation on the future of evangelical christianity.

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Technorati Tags: christian_faith, christian_perspective, evangelical, evangelicals, evangelical_christian