In yesterday’s Daily Herald, they did a nice story on Jerome Bettis (aka “the Bus”) returning home to Detroit for the Super Bowl. They described his whole journey and how he had bought a home for his parents on a golf course in suburban Detroit in his first year of Pro ball. But he didn’t stop there. I quote:

“When Jerome found out we were going to the laundromat, he said that wasn’t acceptable and told us to go get a new washer and dryer,” Johnnie Bettis said. “But I kind of liked the laundromat because you get to meet so many interesting people.”

Mrs. Bettis’ comments reminded me how changes in technology can change the inherent “goods” inherent in basic practices that we may lose when there is no longer any need to go to the laundromat any more. We lose the “good” of meeting and engaging interesting people in our lives. We must therefore discern "whether buying a washer and a dryer is a good idea" with more than just the capitalist normative reasons, “it is more efficient,” “it saves time,” or “it just looks and feels so good.”

The same of course is true of worship. Not every technological enhanced “improvement” is necessarily an improvement of our worship. The flashing of the Lord’s Prayer on the screen with a powerful graphic may disable us from all bowing as a community and saying it from our soul’s memory - in submission together as a Body of Christ.

The brilliant Albert Borgmann in his book Power Failure narrates for us how technology can change a reality that was once a “commanding reality” and turn it into a “disposable” reality” (p.28). The music symphony that took so much time, effort, tuning up of instruments, the staging of a concert hall … is now as handy as a CD player that we can play at our convenience and command. He talks about how that changes us. Borgmann describes how technology can make certain wonderful “goods” in our lives disappear without us even knowing it. Example: how the central fireplace is replaced by the invisible central air furnace. In the process the family no longer gathers round the fireplace to get warm before heading off to bed. The family no longer talks about the day, tells stories or prays together. We lose what Borgman calls a “focal practice” (p.22). We lose a concrete formative simple practice that changed our lives without ever noticing.

The question is obvious. Have we lost worship as a focal practice? By turning it into a “worship experience” have we made it a disposable reality whereas once it was a commanding reality? Last night at the worship/spiritual life meeting we talked a long time about the use of technology, the graphics arts and its use in our worship service this past Sunday. We want to retain the concrete nature of the formative practice of art in our church, as it once was prevalent in earlier times and in Eastern Orthodoxy. Any art that shocks or produces a disposable experience we try to avoid. Art is really important in our church, but we must not produce disposable experiences. We must retain the focal practice of worship.

These are things we lose if we are not careful when we buy a washer and a dryer. These are things we lose when we turn worship into a Disney show for the masses. And so we must be careful with the application of technology in worship, the internet chat rooms. I am not saying don't use them! I am saying let us be discerning. I believe we need the candles, the wonder and mystery of the concrete embodiment of Christ’s work at the Lord’s Table, we need to kneel (if our knees will hold out) on our hands and knees before God with all our brokenness on Sunday. And we need to use the marvelous technologies of our day in worship and life, in ways that resist making God, community and worship “disposable.”

The church community of which I am a part of is very much in the suburbs, the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Strangely as these suburbs have become more diverse (conspicuously more Hispanic, Asian, as well as other ethnicities) they have become more starkly spatialized - in turn isolating each family unit in its own house with fenced in yard and automatically-opening garage with direct access into the house which can be driven into and all contact avoided with the outside world. David Matzko McCarthy in his wonderful book, Sex and Love in the Home describes the myth of this suburbia:

The dream of the suburbs is a self-sufficient home, inhabited by affable kin and grace with plenty of yard to provide a buffer between neighbors. The aim of suburban life is to choose a home and neighborhood where we can be happy, where people work hard and respect the ways of others, and where families get along on their own and come together for recreation and leisure. … The great pleasure of home ownership is freedom and autonomy (p.80).

He then proceeds to describe how the suburbs are built for the idolization of the affectionate family as the end and purpose of all life.
The problem? When the family becomes another form of life separated from God and the church, it too becomes another form of self-imploding narcissicism focused on consuming more stuff for the perfect home, and contract services to make home life easier. There is nothing but contrived affection left to keep the home together. And our children who learn they are the center of this universe from us parents actually develop character that believes “they actually are” the center of the universe. Years later America is left with families split by divorce, kids leaving in rebellion, and millions on various drugs to relieve the emptiness due the loss of purpose left as the idolized family turns out to be a myth apart from its mission in Christ. But I digress here off the issue of hospitality.
There is a real problem here in the spreading of the gospel for Life on the Vine and other emerging churches who live under the imposed conditions of the hostile suburbs. If hospitality is to be a central way of life for the spreading of the gospel, the alienation of the suburbs is a condition of our exile we must overcome. Elsewhere I have said:

… evangelical Christians must consistently invite our neighbors into our homes for dinner, sitting around laughing, talking, listening and asking questions of each other. The home is where we live, where we converse and settle conflict, where we raise children. We arrange our furniture and set forth our priorities in the home. We pray for each other there. We share hospitality out of His blessings there. In our homes then, strangers get full view of the message of our life. Inviting someone into our home for dinner says “here, take a look, I am taking a risk and inviting you into my life.” By inviting strangers over for dinner, we resist the fragmenting isolating forces of late capitalism in America. It is so exceedingly rare that just doing it speaks volumes as to what it means to be a Christian in a world of strangers.

And yet this has proved so much harder than we had ever expected for the reasons I started out this post on. Inviting someone over for dinner in the suburbs is regularly considered pathological in these suburbs. Suburban people are either too busy, too self-protected or too worried what your agenda might be to ever come over. Likewise, I as a pastor and others in our church are regularly so busy, it hardly seems possible.

Do I believe it is impossible? No. We must continue to pursue a relentless practice of being hospitable as a distinctive subversive Christian act in the suburbs. I must change my life to live more simply, have more time and practice neighborhood acts of cooperative living. I must ask my neighbor, co-worker or friend in the park over for dinner "70 times 7" times if that is what it takes. The city seems less afflicted with the problems of the suburbs. So they say? Yet I lived there for many years and I cannot say there is too much difference in at least the increasingly larger wealthier gentrified parts of the city (where many of the emerging churches are camped out). What I worry about here is that the inner city has become the hip place to live as more people reverse commute in Chicago. Just as the rich fled the city 40 years ago now they flee the suburbs for the inner city. And of course emergent churches seem to be more attracted to the hip of the city. I however plead for a truly subversive Christianity that practices hospitality in the hostile worlds of the white washed suburbs. I plead for more emerging communities of faith in the suburbs. Let us seek to be faithful combating the overwhelming Walmartization of Christianity by a vigorous and relentless practice of hospitality.

I have long resisted the recognition of certain national holidays in the church. National holidays such as Washington’s Birthday, July 4th Independence Day, Veteran’s Days/Memorial Days when they extol allegiance to the nation-state and its wars as opposed to the allegiance to Christ as Lord (This does not mean that we should not support the healing and restoration of our troops who have been through such horrific circumstances in many cases). “Heck,” I’ve even warned against recognizing “Father’s Day” and “Mother’s Day” because too often they have allowed the idolization of the family above Jesus Christ as Lord over the family within the people of God. I fear Father’s and Mother’s days have been occasions for the promotion of economic activity as opposed to Jesus as Lord over the family. I have resisted the temptation for protestant evangelicals to form our calendar around the agenda of our nation-state (in USA). I have been protective towards the forming of our corporate life around the sense of time and calendar and the progress of days we Christians have always recognized as holy days: advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, post Easter days (ascension), Pentecost. I have come to deeply appreciate that we are formed by all of these special days we recognize as holy days.

But there is something unique about Martin Luther King Day. For here is a “saint” of the church (yes I think we can say he was a saint despite some problematic faults) not necessarily a figure of the nation-state. I think I can safely argue that King worked for a justice born out of the history we have been given in the nation of Israel, Christ, the cross and the resurrection. Therefore, remembering Martin Luther King rehearses for all of us the impact of the church in the world for a justice that comes from the cross. My own personal belief is that the secularization of King’s work, in some cases by his own comrades, diminished the civil rights movement. For me this is all the more reason for the church to claim him as our own! I certainly realize this is up for debate. But even if I am wrong about the specific history of it all in its details, I am convinced the church, especially the evangelical church, would be well served in its mission and witness for Christ, to reclaim Martin Luther King for the church of Jesus Christ from those who wish to purely define his work as an advancement of a secular politic,

Yesterday, in church, before the passing of the peace, I read a few updates on various Christian justice efforts our church was either participating in or seeking participation in. Then Michelle Lewis, an African-American member of our congregation came to the front, explained the significance of Martin Luther King for the Christian church and then prayed that Life on the Vine church would become a place for the furthering of Christ’s justice. Way to go Michelle! We then invited our congregation to share “the peace of Christ” with each other. Rarely has “the peace” meant so much.

What follows is the response I had to Scot McKnight's wonderful two week long review of the Great Giveaway on his Blog. He changed it up a little to put the critique of him up first (which is fine). But I wanted to poke some fun at my own spelling problems right up front. So this is my original version. I post it for those who don't regularly visit Scot McKnight's fine blog.
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What I learned from Scot McKnight and His Review of the Great Giveaway by David Fitch

First, I learned how to spell Scot with one “t,” Just figured it out. Also learned that I misspelled Doug Pagitt’s last name in the book ("Evangelical Giveaway 6" post), It should have been two ”t”’s and just one “g.” And I already knew to call J.D.G. Dunn “Jimmy” ("Evangelical Giveaway 7" post) because I was close to my old professor Bob Guelich (who passed away too young) who always called him “Jimmy.” But I only put “-y” at the end of names of guys I play hockey with (that’s a comment only my Canadian friends will understand).

Second, I learned the importance of interpersonal dialogue. Scot (with one “t”) e-mailed me a few weeks before he started to review the book. He wanted to meet with me. We made an effort to get together that didn’t yet work out. But the fact that he went to this effort, busy man that he is, speaks volumes to me. And his continual pushing for personal engagment with people as diverse as James McDonald and Ron Sider, as well as the way he continues to dialogue with people on his blog blows my mind! In light of the now infamous exchange between Andrew Jones and Don Carson, and the accusations towards prof. Carson on the lack of interpersonal dialogue on the emergent church question, I am so impressed with the need for dialogue between evangelicals, between emergent people and “non-convinced of emergent” people and between all Christians in these times. Let us talk together to further the church. When I wrote "the Great Giveaway" I was aware I was saying things that could be antagonistic to my “mega church brethren.” I tried to open dialogue with mega church folk in the Introduction. I also sent a copy of a particular chapter that particularly pointed a finger at some mega church practices to a prominent mega church pastor. I said, “please read and give me feedback where I have been unfair.” “And if you have time to talk, please let’s do it.” I am paraphrasing the letter I wrote. Of course, I did not get a reply and I in no way am chastising this pastor for not replying. These pastors are so busy and so overloaded with correspondence, that I respect the pressures they have to deal with. But looking back, I wish I had done more of that. In the future I hope to follow more of the example of Scot McKnight in keeping dialogue flowing, especially between myself and the mega-churches whom I know are seeking the way to go on from here.

Third, I learned that the issues of modernity/postmodernity are not at all obvious or valid to a large group of evangelical Christians. In fact I heard more than once that my over-riding critique of evangelicalism for its modernism might have been over done and simplistic. I hear that, receive it from my friend Scot McKnight and others of this blog. I realize even more from the work of Scot in his blog on my book, that there are whole sectors of evangelicalism that are quiet happy and content within modernity. More than ever I have no wish to disturb these folk. And of course I want to say that the work of historical evangelicalism in the past to make sense of our Christian faith in the last “emerging” world of modernity, democracy and capitalism, is legitimate and good (contrary to what my mentors in Hauerwas-land might say). I want to avoid at all costs the single brush stroke that denies any validity to all things modern. Thanks Scot, whether you meant to or not, I learned this once again here at your blog.

Lastly, my only remaining discontent about Scot’s review is this. If I was disappointed with anything, it was that I felt Scot’s review missed the central driving point of the book: the application of the critique of modernity to the current day manifestation of the evangelical church. The driving force of the book is to apply the work of McIntyre, Hauerwas and Duke school, Yoder, Lindbeck, Frei and Yale school, the findings of John Milbank and RO and a host of Continental postmodern philosophers, to the ecclesiology (or lack of one) of the evangelical church. The Great Giveaway is a trade book, so its academic edge is taken off, nonetheless I felt a response to this thesis would have been appropriate: Has the evangelical church “given away” being the church, the Body of Christ in North America? To me, this is the over riding question of our day as evangelical pastors, leaders, thinkers. For me, I could have used some focused dialogue on this question.

I remain convinced the massive and still growing critique of modernity is so powerful, so convincing that it cannot be ignored. That even as there is plenty of folk comfortable in modernity, there is massive shift in parts of our continent away from anything resembling the old Enlightenment consensus. And so this book will make most sense for people dealing with the question of “church,” evangelicalism and postmodernity” and asking … how do we as evangelicals go on from here.” I don’t know that the issues of postmodernity got enough of a play in Scot’s review.

So having said all this, thanks to Scott, ooops I mean Scot, and I hope to sit down and have a coffee with you real soon!

Blessings
David Fitch

It always blows my mind when young leaders, finding their way into leadership in their local churches (this is not meant as a reflection on any folk in our own church), are so ready to dump whatever tradition or denomination of the church they grew up in (or found Christian faith in) when they meet a major disagreement or an old opinion which resists change. We want to leave. Start something brand new. No constraints. Gianni Vattimo called it “the tyrrany of the new.” It is that part of hypermodernity we can’t escape. I fear emergent church folk fall into this trap.

This however makes little sense amidst the postmodern worlds where knowledge has become fragmented, loosed from foundations and can really only gain stability from within a tradition. In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argued for the inherent repository for proven truth in the progression of traditions. In the midst of the demise of science and objective reason as the arbiters of all truth, traditions become the central enclave for the testing and proving of truth. It is within a sustainable conversation that has lasted longer than twenty years that we move forward towards understandings of God that have depth. Sustaining a conversation within a denomination is a discipline that creates substance and richness in our conversations and theologies. I feel more and more the denominations are open to this. As more and more younger evangelicals look for historical depth to their faith, they leave the independent rogue community church for the Roman or Anglo Catholic churches. Why can we not begin to see our denominations as traditions which extend the ancient faith. When you think about it, the independent local community church can only survive as long as everyone believes having an inerrant Bible is enough to arrive at all truth. Then you can rely on the autonomous superstar pastor as the only authority you need. But of course this is idiocy. I'm not saying the Bible ain't inerrant, I'm just saying it needs a history of interpretataion to make that inerrancy worth something. We need traditions.

This is why I was encouraged by Maggie Dawn’s comments on the value of traditions for the emergent church. (I first noticed her comment on a blog entry of Jordon Cooper’s which I couldn’t find tonite.) This is why I think the association of emergent church with post-denominationalism may be premature. This is why I question the anti institutionalism of some emergent friends as misplaced. More and more I see the denominational leadership recognizing they are dead if they keep trying to be a franchise that just seeks to protect turf. I see more and more cooperation between the denominations in missions, church planting. And look at what the Salvation Army has nurtured with Pernell Goodyear up in my in my old hometown in Canada. Look at what my own denomination has nurtured in the birth of our brand new community. I believe there is much more, much more to come. What is happening? Based upon all this, I believe the emergent churches and thinkers who are within the denomninations must keep working within and keep working together across denominational lines. Am I just way too optimistic?

For the furtherance of Christ's Mission in North America through His Church

Often this charge has been hurled at the Emergent church: Emergents are trading modernity for postmodernity as the context into which it is choosing to be relevant. The problem then with this, such critics suggest, is that postmodernity is inherently nihilistic, relativistic and a context no one should hitch its boat to. Surprisingly, I don’t think I disagree with any of this.

Yet this has also been a charge leveled at the Great Giveaway (my book) as well as even the church I help shepherd, Life on the Vine Christian Community. Now, I can see how such an interpretation might be possible because the Great Giveaway overtly seeks to uncover the modernist assumptions of the evangelical church using the writings of postmodernity, and our church does for many people look and feel like many other emergent fellowships. Yet I believe what I am doing in the Great Giveaway is much more theologically robust than a simple contextualization, and what is happening at Life on the Vine is not near as sociologically naïve than a simple recontextualization to the meanings and values of postmodernity.

The Great Giveaway does deliberately deconstruct (not in a Derridian sense) evangelicalism’s indebtedness to modernist principles in its doctrine, life and practice. And I have tried to use some of best spokespersons for the critique of modernity, Enlightenment, democracy and capitalism to expose how much evangelicalism is built on the assumptions of modernity including McIntrye, Yoder (yes I think he is a subtle underminer of modernity), Hauerwas, Lindbeck, Milbank, as well as a smattering of Continental philosophers. I have done this for the purpose of showing the glaring weaknesses of our modernist assumptions about knowledge, life, and practice all the while the modernist consensus is disintegrating around us in N. America as it has already in Western Europe.

My solution in the Great Giveaway however has not been to accommodate ourselves to postmodernity! The solution of the Great Giveaway has been to reinvigorate an ecclesiology for our times. Like Hauerwas, like even Milbank and Pickstock on a different level, like John Howard Yoder and Lindbeck, the solution I have proposed is to ground our witness, and our life in the gathering of His people born of the Spirit to live the life we have been given in the death and resurrection of our Lord. I do not believe the further radicalization of modernity’s trajectory of self expressive autonomous individualism is the answer (read here George Barna’s Revolution). Neither do I believe we simply cast aside the critique of modernity as philosophically relativist or nihilistic (read Don Carson’s book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church). I believe the best response to postmodernity is the reinvigorization of communities of Christ as practicing the life we have been given before the watching world and into the world in terms of community, our justice, our hearing of the Word, our worship of the transcendent and mysterious God coming in Jesus Christ, our spiritual disciplines that form character in resistance to the consumerisms of our day.

So I offer a few challenges. A.) Can I ask people out there not to so easily slough off the critique of postmodernity towards modernity. It is real, it is powerful, it is big and unavoidable. If you havn’t read one of these authors, Alasdair McIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, John Milbank, if you havn’t read one of these philosophers, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault, Derrida, Levinas, Deleuze, Badiou, Ricouer or a sleu of others, then at least hold off judgement and read sertiously one or two authors of the grand critique of modernity that is well entrenched in today’s universities and intellectual leaders. B.) and to my emergent friends, I too believe modernity is crumbling despite what certain naysayers and apologists of modernity say. Let us use the opportunity of this great critique of modernity, not to defend and somehow make postmodernity better than modernity (which I don't think by and large anyone in emergent is doing), let us use this time to recast a vision for what it means to be the church faithful among the nihilisims and fragmentations of the current cultural malaise.

Hope this post wasn't too self-gratuitous.

For the furthernace of Christ's Kingdom in these times,
David Fitch