Emerging Church

Perhaps you all have heard of the ‘Emerging Church’ phenomena that is now popular among young (white, not that there is anything wrong with that) evangelicals. Brian McLaren is big in this movement (we talked about him in a previous post). Basically it is a ‘postmodern’ movement that supposedly has nailed a ‘postmodern’ way of doing church and evangelism. For more look at www.emergentvilliage.com for a sample.

I have mixed feelings about this, though there is a great church in Denver www.pathwayschurch.org that has intrigued me for some time.

Seed of the Logos

Tertullian and some of the 2nd century fathers looked at Plato and some pagan philosophy as containing the ‘seed of the logos.’ In other words, Christ could be found among the philosophy of the ancients, what Paul might call ‘general revelation’ (Romans 1).

I have found a similar phenomena among recent films:
The Matrix Trilogy
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
and Revenge of the Sith (and the other Star Wars films)
(of course the Passion of the Christ is overtly Christian)

It seems that these films have done much to explore deeper themes and do a better job of asking eternal questions than we Christians have done. What do the readers think?

Status Anxiety

We have a great discussion on ‘status anxiety’ among Christians that is occuring under the Star Wars post. Here is Gall’s salient post (and reflections on a book by Alain de Botton) that will carry the discussion further…

“I think what catches me about the topic is that so much of life feels like trying to straighten a paper clip; just as it bends nearly to straight, it pivots between my fingers and I’m suddenly bending it the wrong way. I think about that with wealth and poverty – how poor is poor enough, and at what point does the focus on simplicity become an errant idol of its own? Faith and works. Experience vs. the voice of the Church. Left brain vs. right brain. Knowledge vs. open-mindedness. The fine line between following Jesus and getting ahead of him.

I want to trust in grace, but I also want to respond to it. I want to experience the sublime, but I don’t want to fall in love with the voice instead of the speaker.

I think all of it comes down to an issue of adequacy, and even a well-crafted disregard for adequacy or inadequacy readily becomes its own claim to adequacy – or status. There was a time when I shaved my head to remind me that my only claim to adequacy was Jesus – no matter what looks I got from others. It worked for a while, but at a certain point that reminder became my badge of status; it proved that I wanted to know God enough to shave my head to learn something…cool of me.

The subtle and not so subtle pressures regarding status are pervasive and fluid – and it seems that even an effort to step out of the flow results in the loss of ground…and the lost ground is not so much a matter of social standing as it is a matter of self description. To the extent that those external pressures remain mysterious and stealthy, the ability to face them, choose them or reject them remains shackled.

Specialized knowledge is a comfort for a time: as you recall, Fr Neo, I bought the Nicene encyclopedia from you – and have read the bulk of it, and washed it down with desert fathers and Philokalia. It was – and in some ways continues to be – helpful, but it is not adequate to the task of living on its own…and neither are the giant thoughts and truths in that library. It’s fascinating, and it certainly is aimed at real and ultimate things – transformational things – but even such high order specialized knowledge is often primarily valuable only in corresponding specialized arenas.

When the moment comes where I recognize that I’ve built yet another island of specialized knowledge, I have to decide what to do in response. Do I claim that the island is the whole world? Do I claim that the island is the only spit of land that matters? Do I abandon the island and swim for some other island or the mainland?

What dazzles me is that I don’t think there’s much alternative to developing specialized knowledge – and even the effort against its development becomes a specialization in its own right.

I wonder if there may be some way to enjoy the islands, but to hop among them. I don’t mean to create some universalist or pantheistic structure with this – I just mean to live in a less self-conscious manner.

I live in a creative cycle of people – writers and artists and film makers and such. One night I went to dinner at this very fussy place with a very fussy, very elite-minded film maker and his wife. It was interesting, but the night was ruled by self-consciousness and specialized vocabulary (and the ability to use the vocabulary was less about actually communicating anything than it was about demonstrating the ability to use the vocabulary). I felt like one of the “cool kids,” but it was an exhausting, nerve-wracking, doubt-inspiring night.

I spent the next evening with a couple in their vinyl-clad starter home. The husband was excited about the cheap stereo system he’d installed, and wanted to show me everything about his new Tevo setup. We ordered pizza. We watched American Idol. AND THEY CALLED IN TO VOTE!

There was no showing off with the second couple, and I found them to be vastly more enjoyable – and better for my soul – than the first couple. And as I compared the lives of the two couples, I quickly saw that the second marriage was better, the couple was more invested in their world and was clearly more “salt” in it, and their interests were more diverse and their internal pressures were clearly lower.

They were just happy little consumers – but the key to their quality of life was that they seemed to be almost completely unaware of the pressures of status and adequacy.

In their case, I think they’ve never been aware of the pressures. What I want to know is how, as someone who has been very much aware of them and the games that go along with them, how do I break free?

What made me post the information about the book this morning is that as I’ve been reading the posts over the past couple of months (I think I’ve read everything posted this year), I’ve seen a specialized knowledge, and I’ve felt a certain pressure to use the vocabulary of the specialized world.

That’s not an all bad thing – especially given the fact that the discussions here, and the faith stripe represented in the people, have everything to do with moving in a direction the runs at crossed paths with what feels like a giant herd of American lemmings. Specialized knowledge and a specialized determination are critical to keep people from being swept in a direction they don’t want to go. But the catch is that it is still a specialized knowledge, with a specialized vocabulary and specialized pressures, and at some point my assumption is that it will all feel suddenly like an island.

I don’t think the trick is to stop growing the specialized knowledge; I think the trick is to know the island moment is going to come and to know what to make of the island dynamic not just when it arrives, but as the island is explored.

More from the back cover of the book: “a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents turns his attention to the insatiable quest for status, a quest that has less to do with material comfort than with love.”

That seems like a topic worth considering. I know where the answers will be found (and I assume de Botton won’t come to the same ones I will), but what grabs me about the book is that even though I know where the answers are going to be, I keep finding it darned difficult to manage the pressures I use on this bent paper clip of life, and I’d like to hear what someone else who’s thinking about it has been thinking.”

The End Times?

With the popularity of the ‘Left Behind’ series, much end time speculation is taking place. S79 gives us something to chew on that is buzzing around (ultra?)conservative Catholic circles. Here’s what he said:

“Saint Malachi of Ireland was born in Armagh, Ireland in 1094 and died in 1148. He became very well known on account of the prophecies he allegedly made regarding 112 future popes, while on a trip to visit to Pope Innocent II in Rome in 1139-40.

The prophecies concern the papacy. A total of 112 popes are listed, each in a very brief description, from 1143 (Celestine II) to the “end of the world“ (Peter the Roman). These short prophetical announcements indicate some noticeable trait of all future popes: their country, their name, their coat of arms or insignia, their birth-place, their talent or learning, the title of their cardinalate, the dignities which they held etc.

Pope John Paul II is said to be De labore Solis (“from the labor of the sun”). He was born during the solar eclipse of May 18th, 1920.

Pope Benedict XVI is named Gloria olivae (“The Glory of the Olive”). This Pope will reign during the beginning of the tribulation Jesus spoke of.

The last of these prophecies concerns the end of the world and is as follows: “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End.”

This final Pope, it is argued now by theologians, is likely be Satan, taking the form of a man named Peter who will gain a worldwide allegiance and adoration. He will be the final antichrist which prophecy students have long foretold.

Do you think God would allow this to happen to his church?

Your thoughts?”

I know that some dispy fundies have predicted that the office of pope would bring the anti-christ. I tend to interpret the end-times passages of Scripture with more of a ‘preterist’ grid, meaning many of them were fulfilled with the early persecutions and the 1st and 2nd Century Roman Empire. Having said that, I also think that prophecy has a way of ‘double fulfilling.’ For example, many of Isaiah’s prophecies have ‘double fulfillment,’ i.e they were fulfilled in Isaiah’s day and by the person of Christ. So, a number of scenarios could take place. However, when Christ says the ‘gates of hell will not prevail’ against the church, I believe him. I can’t see the antichrist in the see or seat of Peter. I tend to see antichrist more as a ‘system.’ Western secularism and Islam might make better candidates.

Epistle to Diognetus, can the Ecclesia of today pull it off?

Robert M. Grant describes the epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 2, p. 201): A late 2nd century apology addressed to a certain Diognetus who is otherwise unknown. It describes the Christians of the 2nd century.

Here are some direct quotes:

CHAPTER V — THE MANNERS OF THE CHRISTIANS.

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

CHAPTER VI — THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO THE WORLD.

To sum up all in one word–what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world. The invisible soul is guarded by the visible body, and Christians are known indeed to be in the world, but their godliness remains invisible. The flesh hates the soul, and wars against it, though itself suffering no injury, because it is prevented from enjoying pleasures; the world also hates the Christians, though in nowise injured, because they abjure pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and [loves also] the members; Christians likewise love those that hate them. The soul is imprisoned in the body, yet preserves that very body; and Christians are confined in the world as in a prison, and yet they are the preservers of the world. The immortal soul dwells in a mortal tabernacle; and Christians dwell as sojourners in corruptible [bodies], looking for an incorruptible dwelling in the heavens. The soul, when but ill-provided with food and drink, becomes better; in like manner, the Christians, though subjected day by day to punishment, increase the more in number. God has assigned them this illustrious position, which it were unlawful for them to forsake.