The Organ of Meaning

I read this article on a Christian defense (not a proposal of it necessarily) of Socialism.

But let us pretend, just for a moment, that I am calling for full blown socialism. I don’t think I am, but let’s just pretend. Is that the worst thing that could happen? Would that be un-American? Unbiblical? Let’s think this through a bit. Don’t start throwing stones at me or anything, but I would like to respond to some of the most common objections I have received in regard to my current political affiliations. Come on! Just for kicks and giggles.

Take a look – at the Burnside Writers Collective (quite the socialist sounding name).

Last night I was catching up on my feed reader and came across a link to this humorous post called You Might Be Emerging If…

The post is quite funny, and to be honest it doesn’t bring up a contention with the Emergent movement within the church as much as people’s “need” to draw lines and create camps of Christian (and other) thought.

This is the portion that bothered me the most:

You use these words in a positive way:

Missional, Liquid/Aqua, Ancient-Future, Post ___________, Jesus, Community, Derrida, Liturgy, Global, Creed, Experience, Social Justice, Conversation, Spiritual, Ritual, Beauty, Art, Blog, Ooze, Journey, Discussion, Open, Random, Culture, Technology

You use these words in a negative way:

Foundationalism, Absolute Truth, Church Growth, D.A. Carson, Calvinism, Modernism, Fundamentalist, Bush, Seeker Sensitive, Preaching, Pulpit, Doctrine, Innerancy, Power, Enlightenment, Rationalism, Meta-narratives, Universal, Judgmental

As I look through this list of words I identify positively with a number of them on both lists, and this is what kills me. The Emergent and anti-Emergent movements like to cast a lot of these things as if they were mutually exclusive, and they (quite simply) are not. And to be honest, there are some that I’m not even sure what they mean… (Ancient-Future, Foundationalism or Ooze anyone?)

The list of ones that I use in a primarily positive way are:

Missional, Liquid, Jesus, Community, Global, Creed, Experience, Social Justice, Conversation, Spiritual, Ritual, Beauty, Art, Blog, Journey, Discussion, Open, Random, Culture, Technology, Absolute Truth, Church Growth, Calvinism, Modernism, Seeker Sensitive, Preaching, Doctrine, Inerrancy, Power, Enlightenment, Rationalism, Meta-narratives and Universal.

What I don’t understand are what it is about lists like this that make people feel that the things on them need to be mutually-exclusive. In my understanding of the world at-large there are constantly beliefs and truths that seem to be exclusive and irreconcilable, but they often are. While I probably fall into a category that some would call Fundamentalist, it doesn’t mean that I don’t value people’s stories, experiences and artistic and subjective expressions of faith that are personal. While I lean towards Calvinism, I am convinced that it does not have to be something that is off-putting to people struggling with personal meaning and direction as we all perceive life as being self-directed and therefore find a need for personal meaning to our actions and our beliefs.

We must strive more towards unity in the worship of Christ regardless of it’s expression. Where I will largely credit the Emergent Movement (I don’t really hate it) is that they seem to strive to understand others’ perspectives moreso than Christians who are Modernist, Calvinist and Fundamentalist… and that moves toward unity. Our unity needs to be in Christ, not our church or our doctrine, but Christ himself.

Charles Spurgeon, the Puritan Baptist Mega-Church pastor from the 19th century had it right when he said that we all have fellowship and communion in the sacrifice and body of Christ – that we are united (even when we don’t like it) by our common love and reverence for Jesus Christ.

This past weekend, on “Holy Saturday” to be exact, I was in a Family Christian Bookstore and was really pretty upset by the sheer amount of Christian kitsch and fluff that was around me… not to mention the things that don’t have any place in a strictly Christian bookstore. There are crappy little bumperstickers, weight-loss books, American flag t-shirts and lotions that happen to have the word “Eden” on them.

Then there was the shelf labeled “Christian Classics,” books that have been around for centuries; the books that set fire to the Reformation and to revivals for the past 500 years. The shelf was a grand 6 feet of space sparsely filled with the “cheap” books. I decided that, for at least 6 months, I am cutting out the Christian fluff from my life. I am declaring a fast from anything that has been written in the past half-century (with exception).

There will be no Left Behind, or Purpose Drivenness. No books about how rock music is evil or how this regime or that is the Anti-Christ, and (unfortunately) no Piper (despite his non-fluffness). I’m pulling out (from the library and my own book shelf) things written by people named Spurgeon, Bunyan, Lewis, Calvin, Edwards, Foxe, and Chesterton…

Right now I am reading a book of Spurgeon’s sermons, next will be some of the Chronicles of Narnia, then Pilgrim’s Progress and perhaps the Practice of the Presence of God…. we’ll see.

My only exceptions (besides what I have to finish) will be thus: unChristian which has been reccomended by a lot of people as very good and books assigned for the classes that I’ll be taking this summer.

If all of this goes well, I may extend it another six months.

First off, for those of you who don’t care much about the internal bickerings of people in the Christian church you can go to the next post in your feed reader. This one won’t be very interesting…

Before I get into it, I want to note that I am not a part of the movement that is under scrutiny and I have my own issues with it. My biggest beef here is the way that this person who is (sigh) part of my same family of faith comes at it.

Today I came across a blog post sharply criticizing the Emergent Movement within the Christian church on a blog called Jesus Only a two word “quote” from Matthew 17:8 (KJV of course) that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in context.

Before I begin to critique his critique I want to point out that taking aim at a movement like the Emergent one and making sweeping generalizations is a lot like generalizing about Protestants – you can’t very well. Compound this by the true fact that much of the Emergent Church does have a postmodern bent. The generalizations that “REV” makes are simply too broad. Oh, and he doesn’t document or back up any of them, and as we will see neither do his “sources” (ie. his Blogroll).

Off the bat he uses the buzz word of all buzz words in faith discussions – “heresy”. I know that I used it a small number of months ago and I stand by that post completely. The thing that bothers me most is that he uses it in a similar fashion, but he doesn’t define what he means by it and seems (in the context of the rest of his post) to use it in the sense of something that is literally damnable – as in “going to hell as a result.” He immediately compares it to Al-Queda (sic), tell me that’s not overstating the case… I mean, really, who is the Fundamentalist here?

Next he attempts to compare the Emergent Church to a specific heretical movement (perhaps in both previously mentioned meanings of the word), the Aquarian Gospel movement. Let’s walk through Wikipedia’s list of their distinctives:
The “Aquarian Gospel” makes the following claims, among others:

• Jesus was distinct from Christ, or “The Christ.” By making himself, through effort and prayer, a fit vessel, Jesus enabled The Christ to dwell within him.
• Jesus was conceived by a human father.
• Jesus came to earth to show the way back to God via his lifestyle and teachings. He is the example we must model our own lives after, if we seek salvation.
• Reincarnation exists, and is the explanation for various seeming injustices. Reincarnation allows people to settle debts they have incurred in past lives.
• Humanity has forgotten God and is currently working its way back to fully remembering God.
• Time is separated into ages. These ages last approximately 2,000 years. We are now nearing the start of the Aquarian Age.
• All souls will eventually mature and become perfect, like Jesus, thus ending the cycle of reincarnation.
• No soul is ever abandoned by God.

I can say pretty certainly, that I have never heard any Emergent that I’ve encountered (in person, print or podcast) express these beliefs. The only ones that I might buy are the third one which isn’t entirely heretical, except if the meaning is that we can find Salvation by our works; and the last one, but even then only in this life which isn’t heresy but Arminianism.

Then he begins to bring in his sources, a blog dedicated to “refute the Emergent” named Zits Emerge Truth Abides… hey, I see what you did there! They’re pustules, right? And then talks about how he “didn’t pay enough attention then to even find out what the term meant”.

Again, he compares them to Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… wait, what?! He then talks about how Emergent Christians don’t like to talk about the Gospel and hope that people will merely come to Christ through their good works. Isn’t this the the antithesis of Fundamentalist Islam?! Bro, you’re breaking down into incoherence.

Then, my absolute favorite. He links to a newer edition of the Bible (note, not a new translation it’s NIV, a relatively accepted translation) one that removes some stuff… like chapter and verse numbers (not added until 1551 A.D.), supplementary material besides book descriptions, a reordering of the books themselves (there is no universally accepted order anyhow) to “an order that provides more help in understanding, based on literary genre, historical circumstance and theological tradition” and combines books that were probably unified originally (Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Luke-Acts) and (travesty of all travesties) a single column typesetting! Seriously, our friend here gets mad about this stuff even though none of it detracts from what the book actually says… oh and he notes that it “appears” to be linked to the Emergent Movement but provides no basis for that, he just references “a blog.”

Then the sarcasm begins, “This will fix everything that is wrong with the church!”

Finally the post abruptly ends.

I want to talk briefly about his friend, I’ll just call him “Bluto“. Man, this guy has an axe to grind! He does everything he can to undercut the message of the Emergent Church and admits it in his first post:

At times I will simply argue points. Other times I will expose the real nature of the Emergent. Sometimes I will make great fun of their language. This is extremely easy because they cannot talk in a coherent way–the natural outcome of dogmatically holding tightly to the irrational. Case in point: their silly hatred of propositional truth–about which they are constantly making………………drum rolllllll………….REALLY BIG PROPOSITIONS. Still other times I will take on an author line by lie. (No, that was not a typo.)

Okay, so the criticism of postmodern philosophy is something about it that bothers me as well – even if it is overstated; often “postmoderns” are more “pseudo-postmodern” in that it’s less that they don’t believe in truth but that nothing can be taken for granted without investigation. Which was also true of the Anabaptist movement which has passed down to us big portions of modern Evangelical theology and practice. Seriously though, this guy isn’t beyond low blows (even as he criticizes this movement for doing the same thing) – hypocrite much?

Epilogue: I’ve browsed some of Bluto and REV’s other blogs and found two posts that are amazing in their misunderstandings and Puritanical Fundamentalism…

This just in: “postmodern intellectual.” That’s a phrase I just read at another blog. Al Mohler was describing Stanley Fish as a leading “postmodern intellectual.”

He’s right. Fish is an intellectual and he’s postmodern. However, it seems absurd to me that those two words go together.

A postmodern says that we shouldn’t believe much of anything absolutely. Thus, negating the need for any sort of intellectualism at all. It’s like buying a bucket of coal to run your electric razor. If nothing much can be known, why be big on knowing?

Have to go now……I’m going to the store to get ice for the oven. I’m baking a bin of 3/4 inch, fine-thread hex nuts and a ham with Pinse-sol glaze for Passover.

Is it just me or is that last part completely unintelligible?

Their method is to turn the traditional church on it’s head embrace all heresies as authentic belief.

Emergers are reported to congregate in bars and house churches when no established church will host them. They trade traditional communion for house parties, and some of their members report widespread use of hallucinogenic drugs within their ranks.

Embracing all heresies? Is that even possible?! Oh, and we can’t have house churches like they did in the Bible! Oh and don’t forget we can’t drink alcohol just because none of the church fathers did. Oh, and the “widespread use” of drugs… yeah, one post from one blog talking about people in a negative way who “give slight attention to Christ and church” as well as smoke marijuana – yeah, real widespread.

Okay, I think I’ve written about enough. If you’ve read this all the way through, just shoot me a comment so I know if my past two hours were worth it… cheers!

Once again, I am indebted to the wisdom and knowledge of Wayne Grudem.

This past week I had the opportunity to sit down with a student at Bowie who threw out some questions about the Trinity that I had a hard time answering. Honestly, I am okay with my faith not being rational, I don’t believe that any worldview is completely rational (people who think that you are completely rational – keep asking “Why?” to your belief system and you will eventually get to circular reasoning), but at the same time I want to be fully informed in my faith and have a need for it to be completely internally consistent.

There are things that I’ve pondered deep in the recesses of my ENTP brain that have never completely come together that reading the chapter on the Trinity in Grudem’s Systematic Theology has helped me more fully synthesize (my brain really is like a computer that is doing something on the screen, but running programs in the background – it’s constantly working on something even if it’s not apparent).

When we realize that the New Testament authors generally use the name “God” (Gk. theos) to refer to God the Father and the name “Lord” (Gk. kyrios) to refer to God the Son, then it is clear that there is another trinitarian expression in 1 Corinthians 12:4–6: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.”

Similarly, the last verse of 2 Corinthians is trinitarian in its expression: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). We see the three persons
mentioned separately in Ephesians 4:4–6 as well: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

All three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together in the opening sentence of 1 Peter: “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be
sprinkled with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2 NASB). And in Jude 20–21, we read: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

I have, for a long time, wondered if the New Testament writers (particularly Paul) were purposeful in that way of speaking of the Divinity. It has seemed to me that in contemporary Christan culture (whether it’s “Christian” at a heart level or in some nominal way) is specifically referring to God the Father when they say “God” even when God is all three persons of the Trinity in orthodox Christian doctrine. Even in my own prayers (verbally, in my journal and even in my silent prayers) I feel that I am addressing different members of the Trinity when I use “Lord”, “God”, and “LORD” – Jesus, the Father, and the whole of the Trinity in that order.

Thanks Wayne, for helping me understand more… again.