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Christian Politics

Normally I am allergic to modifiers. I find them deeply suspicious.

Why reference someone as female comedian or author? You don’t call Stephen King a male author or Jerry Seinfeld a male comedian.

Randy Woodley is often referenced as a Native American theologian. That is fine… but why am I not introduced as a white theologian?

The worst is ‘biblical’. Every time I hear it used I think to myself, “this is probably going to be inaccurate and untrue”.

People talk about biblical marriage but that is an imaginary. There are between 9-15 types of marriage in the Bible. It is the same with a ‘biblical’ worldview. There are 6 different worldviews in the Hebrew and Christian testaments. People want to say that scripture speaks with one voice … but have you read it ? I wish it did!!  It just doesn’t.

All of that is to say that I DO have one modifier that I find helpful: Christian.   Not like christian bookstores, or christian radio stations, or christian colleges.

I find the modifier ‘christian’ helpful when it comes to politics and the underlying motivation behind them.

Watch the short video and let me know what you think.

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Believe Different Things Differently

A short video (5 min) about how  progressives and liberals not only believe different things than conservatives and evangelicals … but they believe them differently.

From Missions to Eschatology -they both believe different things and they hold those beliefs differently.

Let me know your thoughts.

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A ‘Kind’ of Conservative

Three encounters in the past month have opened my eyes to a ‘kind’ of conservatism that I am suspicious I was not hip to previously. In the heated spectrum-thinking cultural climate that exists today, it is easy to get distracted by the exaggerated and inflammatory. What is more difficult to perceive is a kinder, gentler conservative mentality.

Here are 3 places it showed up recently:

  1. In fielding some criticism about our interview with the Cambridge Intelligent Design guest.
  2. In my tussle with the Aquinas crew (and their follow up blog posts)
  3. In conversations with two different pastors that I have known for decades – both inquiring as to my new progressive/emergent take on two thing quite ‘foundational’ to them (creation & evangelism).

The sentences are subtle – but once you pick up a pattern you begin to hear them more clearly.

“Since God is not a ‘he’ or a ‘she’, we gain nothing by using feminine pronouns for God … so let’s just stick with the tradition we have and the way it is in the Bible.”

That was the one that caught my attention. Then I started hearing that same formulation in other places.

“No one has ever provided iron-clad proof of macro-evolution … in the lack of definitive conclusion,Biblical creation is just as valid as any other ‘belief’ since we can’t prove it either way”

or

“You might be right about these cultural changes and the future of the church … but who is to say that your fancy new way will be any better than what we have now?  We might as well not tinker with anything since there is no guarantee it will fix the problem – and might possibly create different or bigger problems.”

This is a subtle type of conserving. It is not the blatant ideological animosity that gets all the press and dominates the airwaves. It is a more quiet concern that we not move too far too fast.

Here is my fear: it seems to me that this tactic is employed by – and born out of – a status quo that seeks to protect / preserve itself.  It is neither aggressive or egregious but is potentially just as harmful as it’s venomous counterpart. MP9004065481-196x300

“I get what you are saying Bo … but what’s not to say that 10 or 20 years from now your new-fangled ideas don’t look just as dated and flawed as those you are criticizing today?”

See how it works?  Since my innovation today might seemed cliché to the next generation … let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves and think that we have it all figured out. In fact, why change anything?

This ‘kind’ of conservatism doesn’t necessarily have a radical agenda. It doesn’t need one. It would be just fine if things stayed mostly as they are. It is perfectly suited to the current conditions. Stasis and a romantic reflection on the past is a perfect incubator for its ongoing preservation and, consequently, promulgation.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. 

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‘Atheist Churches’ are more traditional than Emergents

I am loving the conversations that have come out of the publicity tour of Sunday Assemblies. The feedback and pushback that is being generated by these ‘atheist churches’ is proving very informative. I am actually learning a lot about how people think of church, atheism, tradition, and community.

If nothing else comes out of their moment in the spotlight, it has been very enlightening. I do, however, think that some more will come out of this.

The most illuminating resource that I have found so far was an interview with co-founder of Sunday Assembly, Pippa Evans on the Nomad Podcast ep. 55. Nomad is based in Britain – as are the comedic co-founders of Sunday Assembly – and Nomad comes out of the ‘fresh expressions’ branch of the emergent movement.

The interview with Pippa (Sanderson Jones, the other co-founder, comes in at the end) is 100% worth your time. The two things that stood out the most to me were:

  1.  Pippa talks about and has adopted the ‘form’ of church.
  2. The Nomad hosts hated it – but for the opposite reason you would think.

1. The Form: Pippa was very clear in several spots about her background in church. The telling part for me, toward the end, was when she mentioned being in Soul Survivor. If you don’t know what that is, you may have missed the reference. Soul Survivor is a very charismatic movement that has developed worship leaders and a style that has been imported around the world – including by US American evangelicals & charismatics.

Pippa explains the formula – it is all about flow:

  • Start with two high energy songs – one of them needs to be familiar and singable
  • A short presentation of poetry or reading (this is like the opening prayer or scripture equivalent)
  • A slower song
  • The offering
  • The sermon (presenting an idea)
  • Response / Confession of thanks (stuff your are grateful for)
  • A big song so that it ends with a bang

Pretty standard stuff! What it reminded me of was the hilarious parody video from a couple of years ago (which started out an in-house joke for a worship conference) about the formula for contemporary evangelical/charismatic worship services.

2. Traditional. The fascinating point that made by the Nomad hosts was that walking into and sitting through a Sunday Assembly was painful because it was reclaiming and repurposing all of the things they disliked about going to traditional church! The whole reason they are into ‘fresh expressions’ is because they found so little in the forms of the church.

They were horrified to walk in and find:

  • people sitting in strait rows
  • everyone facing forward
  • huge screens at the front with song lyrics
  • one person doing all the talking
  • passive participation by the audience
  • it was Sunday morning

My favorite part was when they asked Pippa about the possibility of conversation at future Assemblies.  She was not hopeful or  excited about the idea. She said that some people have asked for a Q&A segment at the Assemblies and that is not likely either. Her point is that things like conversation and Q&A’s happen in other places. That is not what the Sunday Assembly is for.

It was at this point that the Nomad hosts made the observation that – at least in this sense – the ‘atheist churches’ are more traditional than their emergent (fresh expressions) gatherings which have de-centered meetings and deconstructed elements. That was an epiphany for me.

I am so glad that Sunday Assembly is doing this – and even more pleased that they are so approachable about what they are doing and why they are doing it. I have already had more than a dozen conversations about ‘why we do what we do‘ with people. IMG_2181

I can tell you this though – now that I have met in the round and been in conversational church … I don’t know if I could go back to  everybody facing the same direction and not have interactive sermons Sunday after Sunday. I’m pretty sure that the future of the church is de-centered and conversational/participatory.

Let me know what you think – as you can tell, I love hearing others thoughts and being in conversation.   -Bo 

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Apple Updates & the Church

I have been thinking about the church and technology a lot lately. Part of it comes from planning to update a sanctuary constructed in 1951. Some of it has to do with recruiting a team to handle all the tech stuff at ‘church plant’. A bit of it came from the odd analogy that was used repeatedly about the ‘glitches’ related to the initial launch of the Affordable Health Care Act website and all of the sigh-up problems. People, including the President, said “yeah but even Apple has glitches when it first launches a product”.

An inexact comparison to be sure.

One of the questions that we are asking at the Loft LA, as we enter into our second year, is:

“What does it mean to use the Ancient-Future model of church in West LA?”17-85-BE3-134-08.0006-John Wesley

We come out of a United Methodist Church – which is a classic and beautiful expression of the Mainline tradition of Protestant Christianity.  The Loft is attempting to reclaim and hold onto the best of that inherited tradition … while at the same time engaging the culture around us in way that is contemporary and appropriate.
I’ll confess. It is a tricky section of water to navigate.

To use my favorite bowling analogy, there are gutters on each side that you want to avoid.
On the one side, you have a temptation to cater to the culture and concede so much of the Christian tradition that you have basically assimilated to the surrounding culture that you are nearly indistinguishable from it! This can happen in patterns of consumption, political views, sexuality, financial matters, or any other number of areas.

On the other side, you have the assumption that the inherited tradition, the given forms, are inherently relevant and effective in every place and in ever time since they were divinely delivered and historically proven. What this impulse to conserve leads to is reification of some previous era or expression of church that was culturally appropriate by which has since expired in its effectiveness in doing so. For a group whose gospel is, at its core, about incarnation … this is unacceptable.

This is why we think that the ‘Ancient-Future model’ of church is the best way forward for a young community.
Here is a short video about my recent experience with an old Apple TV that was given to me and why it triggered some thoughts about christian community for me.

Apple Updates and the Church from Bo Sanders on Vimeo.

In technology, when you fall enough behind on your updates, you can actually trap yourself with the inability to update. This is the definition of irrelevant. The christian spirituality that is employed in much of the North American church may be in this kind of danger. I am nervous that we are looking to get resources (updates) from sources (servers) that don’t exist anymore.

We are looking for solutions in things that don’t exist anymore.

The danger, for a religion that is at its core incarnation, is that the inability to be conversant with the surrounding culture in the epitome of irrelevance.

__________

Ancient-Future is a model that was popularized by Robert Webber before he changed his emphasis, focus and tone at the end of his life. His books on Faith, Worship, Evangelism and Time are supremely helpful and informative. 

My quoting him does not imply a wholesale endorsement of all of his works or thoughts. 

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That Liberal Label

It has been a while since I posted here and part of the reason for that is that I have embroiled in a bit of a kerfuffle. I didn’t go looking for it but it came and found me. Anyway, here is a part of my response to all of the hullabaloo.
Once is an incident. Twice is a trend. Three times is a pattern.

This the now the 3rd time this thing idea about shying away from the label ‘liberal’ has come up.

  1. I heard it for the first time almost 10 years ago: “Emergents are just cool liberals”. This came from conservative, evangelical and reformed folks who were squawking at the Blue Parakeets that were new to the yard.
  2. More recently Fitch & Holsclaw leveled the accusation in their new book Prodigal Christianity and Tony Jones took exception.
  3. Then last week the idea was suggested on a different blog that Tripp & I were really just closet liberals who where afraid of the label because of its intrinsic baggage.

I tend to bury my big point in the final quarter of every blog post. For the purpose of clarity I am going to begin putting them at the top of the post. Here is my main point:

There is nothing wrong with being liberal. It is one of many valid ways to participate in the christian tradition. If I were liberal I would be so proudly. I am not liberal. Liberal approaches do not go far enough to combat capitalism, address colonial consequences or repent of the Constantinian compromise that led to Christendom it’s subsequent horrors.

I am not liberal. While Tripp and I are left-leaning. We are progressive. We are postmodern in our approach. We are emergent in our expression. We are playfully heretical (in a good way) and we are innovative where appropriate given our christo-centric hyperTheism.

But I am not liberal. Liberalism doesn’t go far enough in addressing five of my biggest concerns:

  • Critique of Capitalism and Consumerism
  • Post-Colonial consequences
  • Continental Philosophy’s reflection on late modern thought
  • Criticism of Christendom (Western and Constantinian)
  • Our cultures’ dangerous cocktail of Nationalism and Militarism

I have written extensively about how Progressive is not Liberal and even got taken to task over at Scot McKnight’s blog for trying to make that distinction. I will say this again:

There is nothing wrong with being liberal. It is one of many valid ways to participate in the christian tradition.

If I were liberal I would be so proudly. But alas I am not.

One last thing in closing:  I understand the historic drift of the term ‘Liberal’. I know what it meant in the 1700’s (specifically as it relates to individualistic epistemology) and I understand what it has become in the late 20th century (a constellation of loyalties and identity markers). I also know about it’s demise as an impotent political approach and I get why some evangelicals are allergic to the term and thus why some would desire to shy away from it. I get all that. I even recognize the unique draw of its individualistic epistemology. 000_0008

What I am saying is that calling me a closet liberal who is afraid to be identified by the label is like saying that I don’t wear ‘medium’ sized T-shirts because I don’t like the letter M. It is to miss the point. I don’t wear medium sized T-shirts because they are not big enough and don’t cover some essential areas that I deeply care about.

i.e.  It just doesn’t fit.

 

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Liberal Question part 2: Jesus Creed

I had the honor of guest blogging for Scot McKnight a couple of weeks ago. It was a good opportunity to try something out with a different crowd. It was  instigated by last weeks post in response to Roger Olsen and Scot McKnight.Facade of St. Vitus Cathedral

It was a fantastic conversation and I learned several things that I will take with me into future engagements. Here are some observations:

  • I learned to clarify the difference between people in the pew and theologians.

I go to a mainline school and work at a mainline church. I have an amalgamation in my mind of the ‘average liberal’.  But if you are in the conservative camp, your main engagement and concern is with Liberal theologians who have a high profile.

If was starting the post over, I would address this up front and make an early distinction. I think that would have helped.

  • I learned not to use the word ‘versus’ if you don’t mean adversarial.

Neither Scot nor I think liberal is necessarily  a bad thing. Roger Olsen does. But some of the readers at JesusCreed think in adversarial binaries. I was not trying to say that progressives are good and liberals are bad. I was simply trying to distinguish the two – not pit them against each other. The argument culture is so strong – especially in conservative circles – that I should have preempted that.

  •  I learned that those in systematic approaches struggle to recognize non-systematic approaches.

This is an obvious and inherent problem. If you value systematic approaches, of corse you will criticize something as ‘not systematic’ and think that stands alone are a critique. I was trying to point out that conservative, liberal, evangelical, emergent, and progressive are not 5 categories of the same thing. Some are positions. Some are loyalties. Some are approaches.

Here is what I ended up with: 

Since my Cobb quick-definition was not working for folks I thought I would ‘shift’ the emphasis and see if this language worked better:

Liberal – a constellation of loyalties inherited from the Enlightenment that is settled/assumed.

Progressive – an approach that integrates such influences as Feminist, Liberation and Post-Colonial critiques explicitly.

I’m open to help refining this – ESPECIALLY  if you are a self-proclaimed  liberal or progressive

My favorite response came from TJJ and it has me smiling ear to ear.

Qualities of a progressive ………as viewed by an evangelical……….

A. See more “grey” in their approach to scripture issues: inspiration, inerrancy, revelation.
B. Allow for more of a continuum on doctrinal/theological issues: hell, salvation, sin, depravity, exclusiveness of Gospel, etc.
C. More open ended on social issues : gay marriage, illegal immigration.
D. Trends more democratic/progressive politically
E. White, college degree and often more, affluent, alcohol, NPR, Toyota/Honda, MSNBC/CNN

Oh my. That is good.

At first read you may say “yeah – of course”.

But look at it again. It’s actually pretty helpful to see it all in one place.

I would love to hear your thoughts on any part of this whole episode. 

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What is going on IN religion when we talk about God

This weekend I will finish reading two books that we were given through the podcast (thank you publishers). The first is Peter Rollins new on The Idolatry of God and the second is Phil Snider’s Preaching After God. MP900405058

I have recently edited podcasts with both of these authors. [We put out the Phil Snider TNT last week ]

It is very clear to me that we have an emerging situation (trying not to say problem) on our hands. With the introduction of a new wave of postmodern or ‘radical’ theology [listen to the Caputo introduction here] – progressive and emergent christians are drinking in lots of innovative and challenging concepts about God that may not have a real God behind them.

This is fine IF the listener/reader knows what they are imbibing. What is increasingly concerning for Tripp and me is the consequence when people don’t know that the god of the 21st century philosophers is not exactly the god you hear about on Sunday morning.

Is there a danger in people reading a ‘how (not) to speak of god’ and then just quoting it from the pulpit like they would quote any other historical person?  Folks in the deconstruction camp are not real eager to answer this one.

I have some thoughts on the matter so I thought I would throw them out here for consideration.

 Intro: It is severely unhelpful to frame this in an either/or way. “Either God is X like the Bible/Creed/Tradition say OR Religion is the equivalent of Santa Clause &Tooth Fairy and we might as well all go home.”

That reductive approach is foolish and silly.  There is far too much going on in religion – and the Christian religion specifically – to say things like that.*

 I propose that there are – at least – 5 things happening IN the christian religion:

  • Experience
  • Formation
  • Event
  • Mystery
  • Potentially Something Real

Experience – People who were not raised in the faith convert and/or have crisis experiences that powerfully impact them.  People experience the presences of something they interpret as bigger than themselves.

We can talk about transcendence or phenomenology but what we can not deny is that people experience something in religion. As someone from a charismatic-evangelical background it is so clear to me that much of our talk about God and religion in progressive-emergent circles misses this very real component.

Is experience the whole story? NO! And those who reduce it down to that are equally as errant. It is not the main thing nor is it nothing. It does not account for everything but neither can it be dismissed outright.  People’s experience must factor into the equation.

At minimum do the Kantian thing and say that religious people’s experience is real but incomplete to understand the whole picture (noumenon) – like 6 blind people with their hands on different parts of the elephant – each thinking they are describing something unique: a tree (leg) a rope (tail) a wall (belly) and a giant leaf (ear) and an enormous snake (trunk).

Formation – I get in trouble for liking the post-liberal writing of George Lindbeck (Nature of Doctrine) but I think that this is exactly where it comes into play. The role that the christian tradition, sacred text and vocabulary plays is that forms us a people. It forms character within us as well as the way that we participate in community.

I am in dialogue with the work of Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue) for this very reason. While I disagree with his solution, I think that he is spot-on in his analysis and concern. Not only does our culture live in a chaotic time – but the very ethical assumption that would allow us to even HAVE the conversation have been eroded and now we can’t even debate! At least within the Christian church there is a common vocabulary. We may debate the definition of the terms but we have an arena in which to engage each other.

In this sense, the faith functions. As Elizabeth Johnson (She Who Is) is so good at pointing out: the words that we use function in our imagination, our communities and in the tradition.

Event – John Caputo (Weakness of God) and those who follow his Derridean ways prefer to speak of the name of God as an event. There is an event housed in the name of God the beckons us – we respond to this call … and are not that concerned wether there is a caller, or if we can know that there is one.

It is undeniable that something happens when God’s name is invoked. It triggers something in us. It calls for something from us. It makes some claim or demand to be dealt with differently than other words and concepts.

I like Caputo’s illumination of this shadow world. There is something deeply insightful about his explorations. Those who want to dismiss it because it isn’t enough on it’s own, are missing the point. Something happens if ‘God’ is invoked … and that would happen even if there were no ‘God’ per se because (as I said above) the concept functions. – it does something in us,

Voltaire said,”If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” That is because ‘god’ does something in us – demands something from us.  It maybe not ripping off our customers, it may get us through a tough time or help us to sleep at night – or even face the end of life with dignity. But in the name of God is an event that lays hold of us.

Mystery – I am fascinated with the apophatic tradition. I have no interest is appropriating it … but I am mesmerized by the fact that it even exists. Describing god by what she is not? Brilliant.

I also have been looking in historic understandings of analogy. Which works for me because I do not believe in univocal speech. When we call god ‘father’ we are using an analogy – god is like our best conception of father-liness … but it saying that is also included an understanding that God is not actually a father. Our use of the word is not a 1:1 equivalence.

Elizabeth Johnson challenged us over a year ago that every time we say ‘god’ that we must say it three times.  I do this every day now!

  • God beyond us.  This is that transcendent other or Kant’s noumenal real.
  • God within us. This is the experiential component.
  • God at work all around us. This could be the event.

When I say ‘god’ I always say God beyond me – within me – and at work all around me.

 Potentially Something Real – the final component in my 5 sided web is the possibility that there really is something to all of this – more than just phenomenon or imagination or tradition or vocabulary – and that the language of religion is at least getting some of it right.

If we don’t leave open the potential that something real is really happening – that a real god is actually acting – then we may be missing the biggest part of the puzzle and thus have an incomplete picture.

___________
* Just because YOU haven’t thought of the multiplicity of layered meanings happening in the Christian expression doesn’t mean that it is an all or nothing game.Don’t be that person who says “If Santa Clause isn’t real, then Christmas isn’t worth celebrating”. Or “If Creation did not happened exactly like it is described in Genesis then the whole BIble is untrustworthy and unbelievable.”
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Moving Toward Multiplicity

Listening to Howard Zinn (author of the classic A People’s History of the United States) at a town hall meeting style presentation recorded in 2007 (you can get it on Itunes from WGBH Politics) I was struck by the need to recognize the sheer complexity of issues and multiplicity of perspectives. complexity

To state it as simply as possible: Not everything is the same. When we attempt to represent EVERYthing as if it were represented by ONE thing, we often neglect the complexity and multiplicity involved in the matter.

I will use two examples that Howard Zinn illustrated well at the community forum, then address the issues that it seemed relevant to connect to.

Zinn takes on the idea of “Family values”. Some conservative political interest say that they represent ‘family values’. But he asks “Which family?” I think it is a valid question. There are families with single moms and multiple kids, divorced dads raising a family, there are foster families, adoptive families, multi-generational families living in the same house. There are lesbian couples with no kids and gay couples with kids. My wife are were D.I.N.K.s (double income – no kids) hen she lost her job while were trying to adopt (which fell through recently) and every permeation you can imagine.

Which family is represented by Focus on the Family’s values? It is erroneous to act as if there is one kind of family and that you represent their values.

That is, unless you are saying that you value only one type of family.

That would be fair enough but you would have to stop using the phrase ‘family values’. Some families value making money or achieving success. Some value conformity. Some value religious adherence above all else. Some value military service while others value independent thinking or even civil disobedience.

Zinn says the same thing about the ‘National interest’. I am a big fan of Paul Kahn’s Political Theology and both he and Zinn talk about President’s ability to declare war or even launch the nuclear codes should the President deem it ‘in the national interest’.

But which of the many National interests? The Nation is not interested in only one thing. There are hundreds or thousands of interests. Unfortunately the reductive mono-speak is code. These buzz-words become code-words for an assume-unstated single issue that clouds the true complexity behind the language.

Zinn touched another example which has been showing up in a lot of my reading lately. The phrase ‘We the people’ is a magnificent ideal. I admire the phase and the idea behind it so much. But I think that it is worth noting that when it was written – we the people were not in the room. At the time of it’s writing, not every ‘we’ was represented.

There were no native americans in the room, no women, no blacks, no commoners. Just land-owning white males. But they had an idea – and it is that idea that we love!

I actually think that this is the exact type of trajectory mentality that we see in a progressive reading of the New Testament. When Paul says in Galatians 3:28 that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He is doing this exact thing. He wrote in prophetic expectation using the 3 categories employed in his day were being broken with resurrection power. Barriers between nationality (or race), legal status and gender were being dissolved. My assertion is that it was not for the purpose of homogenization but for multiplicity! The former containers can not contain what it being poured out and welling up in Christ’s new life.

This is why I don’t sweat the fact that Paul appears to by anti-gay (though I argue that he was not anti-gay in the same way that those who quote him today are). You have to read Paul on a trajectory. Within the fruit of the Spirit of God is seed of liberation and transformation. So like ‘We the people’ – it looks forward to a greater reality than was present at it’s writing. Contained within the words is an ideal not yet realized. That is part of why I don’t want to conserve the reality of the time of it’s writing, but spring board off of it to be propelled to a greater one.

We can get caught up in reductive views that ignore the inherent complexity that we are dealing with. For instance, “Is the world essentially good or bad?” or “Are humans inherently evil or innately good?” That kind of simplicity is blind to the multiplicity of factors that we are dealing with in any conversation and allowing the conversation to be framed that way almost ensured that no progress will be made.

Good people still do bad things or even do good things with poor motivation. People who do bad things often love their own families.

We do ourselves a great disservice when we allow our media to talk about ‘the evangelical vote’ or even ‘the black perspective’ as if those parameters only mean one thing or as if everyone within designations voted the same way or believe all the same things, hold all the same values and act in unison. It is fictitious, deceptive and paralyzing.

You can’t even say ‘gun owners’ and mean one thing! Our language (and the dualism behind it) is crippling our culture.

There has been a great “De-centering” that has happened to humanity in the past 500 years. If you just look at the effect starting with Copernicus and continue to Darwin, the earth is not the center of the universe and neither are humans.

It would do us well to move from a reductive mentality (center/ order) to a dynamic interplay of emergent elements. When we recognize the complexity and multiplicity involved in the reality behind our ‘code words’, we will begin to access the real issues that face us.

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