on January 25 2012

Are “The Neo-Reformed” Reformed? Or Are They Puritans? And Does it Even Matter?

As a follow-up to the post last week on Mark Driscoll’s escapade with Justin Brierley on his British radio program, Unbelievable, I’d like to respond to two substantive objections voiced in the comments (typified by Scot McKnight’s comments in the post). The objections were: 1.) It’s time to stop calling the Neo-Reformed people Reformed. Call them Puritan because they are not Reformed (Kuyperian) in the purest sense. 2.) Mark Driscoll is an outlier in the Neo-Reformed movement (er Neo-Puritan) that, in his excesses regarding sexuality and crude language and behavior,  does not represent the Neo-Reformed/Puritan movement.

1.) Are The New-Reformed Reformed?

I don’t know if I agree with Scot on this one. The fact is that the group as a whole has dubbed themselves as “Reformed.” By and large, they have not been challenged by their purist brothers and sisters in Grand Rapids or elsewhere. Why then should I not continue to use this nomenclature? Collin Hansen perhaps began the nomenclature when he wrote about the movement for Christianity Today (see here) and then wrote a book with the same title as the CT article, The Young, Restless and Reformed. Then Time magazine did a cover story basically lopping them into one group named the “New Calvinism” (see here). Since then the great majority of their organizations including the Gospel Coalition, various bloggers (for instance Tim Challies has “Reformed” in his blog title), and speakers accept the moniker. I recognize there is a difference between the Neo-Reformed and the purist Reformed, but isn’t who gets to garner the name an in-house squabble? Isn’t it up to the purist Kuyperians to defend their turf? If the more purist Calvinists (or less narrow culturally) do not want to be associated with this movement, isn’t it up to them to challenge them instead of ignoring them? Until there is some clarity, then, most people know what I am referring to when I say “Neo-Reformed” and it’s a term I have to use. Right?

Secondly, is not the alternative name Neo-Puritan confusing? Is not Puritan family a member within the Reformed family? In fact it is at times hard to distinguish the Puritans from the Reformed because they do overlap (the emphasis on the depravity of humanity for instance). Tim Keller seems to be of the Reformed camp and Don Carson of Puritan camp and yet they speak together here for the Gospel Coalition (one of the main forum sites for the Neo-Reformed bloggers/pastors etc.). Again, isn’t it picayune to differentiate? And if it isn’t, and it is important, isn’t this a job best left to those inside the camp? Please, work this out (Kuyperians from Grand Rapids and the Neo-Reformed), come to an agreement so I don’t have to worry about his any more :) . What say u?

Third, despite the differences between Reformed and Puritan camps, I would like to propose a linkage that I think is undeniable and also illuminating. As I and others have argued, there is a linkage between European Reformed theology shaped under the Majesterial Reformation in Europe and what now appears as this kind of Puritan Evangelicalism in N America?

As I see it, when Reformed theology was uprooted from its cultural moorings in the Majesterial Reformation and transported to N. America, it lost what it was “reforming.” It’s reason to be – reforming Catholic Europe- was gone. It had to find an integrity in itself. Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, and Sola Christus had to stand alone. Sola Scripture no longer stood as a reforming princple reforming the corrupt traditions of Catholic church structure. It had to stand on its own as an adequate understanding of Scripture’s authority and principle of interpretation unto itself.  Sola Fide no longer stood as a reforming principle against the corrupt sacramental systems that fostered abuse and a works righteousness in Roman Catholic Europe. It had to stand on its own as an adequate understanding of God’s saving operations in the world. And Sola Christus could no longer stand on its own as a reforming principle against a monolithic church structure that made all salvation take place through her structures. It had to stand on its own as an adequate understanding of the church. The developments here, so I suggest, eventually led to an individualization of Christian faith, one that is inherently aligned with modernity and certain democratic capitalist culture systems. (Read C. C. Pecknold’s brilliant and concise narrative of how this all took place in ch.5-8 of Christianity and Politics).  It looks a lot like the Neo-Reformed Neo Puritan evangelicalism of my brothers and sisters in the Neo-Reformed camps. I don’t know if I want to give this linkage up. It’s a main part of the questions I have concerning whether Neo- Reformed theology can lead a Missional engagement of the church into N America. I hate to obscure that linkage.

For all the reasons above then, I think one has to stick with “Neo-Reformed” until my friends in the movement itself and at Calvin/other Reformed institutions give me the signal to change (by hashing this out at a conference or something?). I’m waiting.

Is Mark Driscoll an Outlier?

Several people argued in the comments that Mark Driscoll is an outlier in the Neo-reformed movement. His behavior, brashness, excessive antagonistic outbursts should not be seen as characteristic of the Neo-Reformed group as a whole. In Scot’s words, Driscoll’s “brash and crude edges clash dramatically with the sanity, care, caution and focus of the Puritans.”

I agree with Scot on this one. I do not think Driscoll’s personality issues should be attributed to all of the good ministers/thinkers within the Neo-Reformed movement. But I wasn’t saying that. I was suggesting that Driscoll’s outburst may reveal a weakness in the theology itself and the practice of it. The defensive outburst may (or may not) be a clue to understanding this weakness. In the post I tried to show a disconnect between Driscoll’s theology (which I argue is canon Neo-Reformed thinking) and the post-Christendom context he found himself in (in Britian). He did not understand the context and therefore got defensive. But is this not emblematic of a larger reality? Again, take his personality out of it. Look at my analysis of what got Driscoll upset? Then ask, whether Driscoll’s explosion is not a symptom of something larger. Is there a reason why his defensive insulated yet bold posture seems to wear well in the Neo-Reformed world?

This is what I meant when I asked in the post, “is Mark Driscoll just an outlier for the Neo-Reformed movement or is he the truth that lies at its core?” Is he an eruption on the skin (thin skin) of the Neo-Reformed movement. I suggested that this episode at least warranted the Neo-Reformed taking a closer look at this episode, at the disconnect between the Neo-Reformed theology and practice and the post-Christendom context. This is where a conversation with the more purist cultural Reformeds from Grand Rapids might be able to help. I closed by saying, how Neo-Reformed leaders/bloggers respond to Driscoll, like Tim Challies,  Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, Collin Hansen,  James McDonald, will reveal more about the reality of this possible disconnect with post-Christendom. It will tell us whether they totally agree with Driscoll and therefore also don’t understand what just happened? Or whether they see that Brierley has some things to say and perhaps they will interact better than Driscoll in a way which is promising for future theology. In other words, how they react will indicate whether their theology can engage the post-Christendom context from where Brierely’s questions came from.

In summary, I sincerely hope the Driscoll flare-up, my post and all the other hundred or so posts on the Driscoll flare-up lead the Neo-Reformed movement to these kind of discussions for the furtherance of Christ and His Kingdom in the world.

In the meantime, what do you think? Should we have to change what we call the Neo-Reformed? or should we let them figure that out?

 

 

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Filed under Mark Driscoll,Missional Theology,Neo-Reformed,Uncategorized 24 Comments

on January 19 2012

The Mark Driscoll Fiasco: What the Latest Flap Teaches Us About The Neo-Reformed Movement

You can stop reading this post if you think I am going to review Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book Real Marriage. I have a much more boring post in mind.

Driscoll’s Real Marriage book is to the NeoReformed what Rob Bell’s Love Wins was to the Emerging church last year. They both stir up humongous sales with a media frenzy and in the process reveal the “cracking” (to use Scot McKnight’s word) taking place within the mainline N. American protestant evangelical church. As with Bell’s book, so also with Driscoll’s book, each brouhaha (to use Bill Kinnon’s word) reveals something of the theological pulse driving their respective movements.

This time the Driscoll fiasco revolves an interview done by the Driscoll’s about their book with Justin Brierley on the British radio program Unbelievable (here’s the podcast of the entire hour-long interview with Mark Driscoll). There was a “dust-up” on the interview. Driscoll was offended. He then calls it “the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective” interview he’s ever had. And now it’s all over the internet driving up sales of his (and his wife’s) new book.

My take (and the angle I want to pursue) on the interview is that Driscoll’s “act” simply doesn’t translate well into the very post-Christendom context of Britian.  In fact the whole encounter reveals the Christendon assumptions that drive his theology. There are three missional “bugaboos” that he clashes with Brierley on. Each bugaboo represents a theological position we Missionals fear/resist because of the way these things work against mission.  In this interview, these bugaboos  are a.) Driscoll’s singular obsession with penal substitutionary atonement, b.) his commitment to hierarchical male authority in the church, and c.) his blind belief in the importance of preaching/successful preacher to the church’s identity. These bugaboos represent the Christendom assumptions behind Driscoll’s theology and way he operates. Yet I think we can make a case for interpreting Driscoll as  a symptom of the wider Neo-Reformed theological movement. So I think this episode reveals more than just Driscoll’s Christendom theology and mode of operation. I think it speaks to why the current Neo-Reformed revival and its theology will have a hard time leading missional–incarnational-externally driven church. So I put this theological psychoanalysis to the test before all my neo-Reformed friends. Let’s converse. Here goes!

(FYI: I’m riffing off of the account of the interview here and here, Driscoll’s response to the interview here, and Justin’s response to Driscoll as reported here).

1.) The Focus on the Substitionary Atonement. Towards the end of the interview, Driscoll asks Brierley if he believes in the penal substitutionary atonement. When Brierley affirms it as one of many ways to view the cross, Driscoll suggests he’s being cowardly about it.  Driscoll then insists on singular commitment to penal substitutionary atonement is essential to the success of the gospel.

To me this speaks to the singular focus on the penal subtitutionary atonement that is central in many parts of the Neo-Reformed matrix regardless of contextual considerations. Am I right? Driscoll is blind to contextual considerations concerning salvation. In other words, the atonement is many faceted (read McKnights Community of Atonement for example). One size does not fit all. It could be argued that penal substititionary atonement makes the most sense in Christendom, amidst a culture shaped under Medieval Catholicism, it’s theology and penitential system (Driscoll grew up Catholic). Moral guilt, you could say, was (and is) the singular Christendom condition into which Reformed theology was born. It is not however as universal in the West as it once was. If we insist on being locked into this one view of the atonement, we will in essence be narrowing our context for mission.

The atonement is wider, bigger and more multitudinous than substitionary theory. And the hurts and pains of the world we are engaging cannot be put fit into this one theory. I believe in the substitionary theory of the atonement. But it is limited. The work that God is doing in the world includes reconciliation, healing, restoration, justice, and the victory and authority of Christ over Satan, evil, sin and death. It is in short God at work through Christ making all things right.  A narrow focus on substitionary atonement disables the church from engaging the world outside Western Christendom culture. It discounts the manifold ways God in Christ has come to set the whole world right. Mark Driscoll can’t understand this. And so when he enters a post-Christendom context he gets frustrated.

Does not Drsicoll’s frustration then reveal the atonement myopia at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement. Does it not reveal the weakness inherent in Neo-Reformed theology for those of us minsistering in post Christendom contexts (like Brierley’s Britian)? Does not his whole fiasco reveal how the singular focus on subtititionary atonement hinders missional engagement? Yes? no?

2.) The View that Authority is Hierarchical. Towards the end of the interview the issue of women pastors came up. It caused a bit of a flare-up in Driscoll’s intensity. Driscoll ends up suggesting that the reason why more people did not show up at Brierley’s church was because of a woman in leadership. To me, this has been a subtle persistent theme within Neo-Reformed ecclesiology: that men should be over women in authority in the church. Now it explodes on a radio interview in the UK. This I suggest is a Neo-Reformed habit learned and sustained in Christendom.

Authority in Christendom is viewed in hierarchical terms. Hierarchical patterns of leadership exist readily in established church systems where you have Christianized people who are already conditioned to respect clergy authority, where things can get done, goods and services distributed, decisions made, disputes arbitrated more efficiently among Christians who already submit. It is because of these ingrained habits of hierarchy that most Neo-Reformed views of church authority have struggles with women in authority over men (OK this is at least one of the reasons). Take hierarchy out of the authority question and it becomes much harder to interpret Scripture in a way that excludes women from leadership in the church.

In the post-Christendom world, authority is flattened in the church and pushed outward (Read this post for more info). Positional authority of anyone over someone else is not the way things work in the Kingdom (read Mark 10:42). Instead we work alongside each other out of our giftedness in the communities appreciating one another gifts and mutually submitting one to another in each one’s gifts (read Eph 4, Rom 12:3-8). The authority lies in one’s recognized gift. The idea that women are over men is as unthinkable as the idea that men are over women.

Flattened authority structures push leadership out amidst the organic work of ministry in context. Hierarchy pushes church ministry inward and upward for approval. Hierarchical authority inhibits dispersed missional engagement. Its structures will miss with people who submit to authority only as encountered via authentic relational engagement. Driscoll seems blind to these issues. He’s absolutely frustrated with Brierley’s inability to be impressed with the importance of top down male leadership. My question is: are these assumptions part of the larger Neo-Reformed movement as a whole and does this mean that the Neo-Reformed will always be inhibited somewhat from true missional engagement? (Can I say “just asking?”). It will always be a movement prone to attracting Christianized people who are already habituated to submit to a pre-established hierarchical (male) authority.

3.) The assumption that “success” is best measured by the number of people who show up to hear a male preacher preach. When Mark Driscoll finds out that Justin Brierley’s wife is a pastor and is questioned on the validity of a wife whose husband supports his wife’s leadership, Mark asks about the size and growth of his wife’s church.  He says among other things “You look at your results and you look at my results and look at the variable that is the most obvious.” In other words I have thousands in my church, and you have a few hundred. That proves female leadership is inferior.

To me this is more than blind Driscollian machismo. This reveals something deeper in the Neo-Reformed ethos. There is a tendency in the Neo-Reformed movement to put a large emphasis on the gathering to hear preaching. I believe in preaching! But I see its function differently in the mission of the church. For the Neo-Reformed – correct me if I am wrong – there is a confidence that non-Christian people will still come to church to hear a good sermon. There is therefore a default tendency in Neo-Reformed churches to see success in terms of the numbers of people gathering on Sunday to hear a male preacher preach. This is a missional bugaboo. Success in mission will not always look like big numbers listening to a preacher (has Driscoll ever heard of Fresh Expressions in UK?). I see preaching as formational for a missional people, not a place where mission actually takes place (although I am uncomfortable with making that split). As a result, though often unintentional, the Neo-Reformed movement often devolves into a male led preacher attracting already existing Christians to come hear a good sermon. It thereby mistrains the congregation to think this is what church and mission is all about. That’s perhaps an over-characterization. But is there any truth to it?

Again, I think Driscoll’s question about the size of his wife’s congregation is more than a slip of the Driscollian machismo, I think it reveals something at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement that will hinder it in the formation of congregations for mission. What say you?

In Conclusion

I see in the Mark Driscoll dust-up with Justin Brierley a revealing of some of the Christendom habits deep within the Neo-Reformed movement although often covered over by the many good things they do. The fact that Mark Driscoll’s flare-up happens in the UK – a very post Christendom place – only reinforces my case.

Some have said in response, that Mark Driscoll’s church is in Seattle, the most post-Christendom city in the US. But here, in this post, he says boldly admits going to Canada or the UK is much harder to do ministry than even in Seattle. He states “You are in a cultural context that is more non-Christian, and even anti-Christian, than even the most liberal cities in the United States. I’ve taught across Scotland, Ireland, and England. Each one is more difficult to reach than my hometown of Seattle, which is one of the historically least-churched and most secular-minded cities in America. I’ve said for years that Britain and Canada are more secular and difficult than the United States.” He basically admits that he himself with his particular approach to ministry would have difficulty succeeding in his own approach to ministry. Does this then not reveal what I am saying here? Driscoll is largely dependent upon the harvesting of already Christianized populations in Seattle area (what’s left of them)? Is this then why he then goes with video churches to go capture other such populations elsewhere? Does this then reveal some things that my Neo-Reformed brothers have to examine about their own theological modus operandi? I genuinely ask these questions for the furtherance of God’s Mission in our times.

It may seem unfair to stigmatize the entire Neo-Reformed movement with the likes of a Mark Driscoll temper flare-up. But I’ve learned that these kind of escapades are the best places to look at the cultural forces at work in theology and poitics. For myself, Mark Driscoll is an irruption of sorts on the skin of the Neo-Reformed movement.  His flare-up, if closely examined, can reveal some of the theology at work and the forces behind these theological allegiances. How other leaders in the movement respond to him, like Tim Challies,  Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, Collin Hansen,  James McDonald, will reveal perhaps even more. Is Mark Driscoll just an outlier for the Neo-Reformed movement or is he the truth that lies at its core?

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Filed under Acts 29,Mark Driscoll,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Missional Theology,Neo-Reformed,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom,Rob Bell,Soteriology,Uncategorized,Women in MInistry 116 Comments

on January 16 2012

In Retrospect on this MLK day: Things we can learn about non-violent demonstration

For all those who ask what place non-violent demonstration has in our society (i.e. Occupy Wall Street etc.) and our participation in it as Christ’s church, here is a helpful reflection from MLK on the day named after his honor. Here, in this broadcast of Meet The Press, Dr. Martin Luther King responds to the statement by Harry Truman “the march of Selma was silly.” I think all missional communinities have to ask the question, how is God working (or not working) in the demonstrations we see in the world today, and how do we bring the authority of the Kingdom of Christ into these places when these demonstrations come into our midst. The rest of the piece (on just and unjust law for instance) is food for much discussion as well. Enjoy!

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Filed under Justice,Uncategorized 2 Comments

on January 12 2012

More Ekklesiaphobia Post #3: The Fear of the Colonialist Mistake

Continuing on the theme of ekklesaphobia from the past few weeks, I often encounter a version of it when I’m speaking somewhere on my (latest) favorite theme – How “sentness extends the authority of Christ.” I try to show how whenever we enter a context, a new culture, and practice the Eucharist or Reconciliation (and other church practices), God’s authority is extended into His Mission, Christ’s presence takes up residence. Upon saying this, some is usually offended. So they will come up to me afterwards (or during the Q&A after the presentation) and object saying something like “but that sounds colonialist” meaning that imposes a preconceived practice/authority on a context. Medieval practices of the Eucharist and Penance probably come to mind and that approach disregards the culture of that context. It dismisses what God is already doing in the midst there. It is coercive, presumptive. Upon which I emphatically agree that these are dangers with all Western forms of church. But I also see here a symptom of what I have been calling ekklesiaphobia, a excessive fear of traditional church practice in mission.  I observe this fear as infecting a lot of missional church types and so it’s healthy to deconstruct this fear and take a closer look.

A Fear of Repeating the Mistake of Colonialism:

“Colonialism” names that process by which the Western church once sent missionaries to other countries and, under the auspices of bringing the gospel, imposed their own language, customs and church institutions on the new converts. The end result was often not the furtherance of the gospel but an extension of an institution (their denomination of church) and an unhealthy dependency upon the West. Making matters worse, these institutions were often aligned with imperialist nations who used the church allegiance to exploit countries foreign to it. The so-called “foreign” country became a client of the colonialist nation.

Today, in these post-colonialist times, we nonetheless see colonialist tendencies even in the way church/mission are done in the North American church. We plant churches as extensions of a particular (denominational) form of church. We enter new contexts, set up mega-church programs, video venues assuming the singular presentation of the gospel that we preach in say Seattle is equally valid in a thousand miles away, say Albuquerque.  We hold conferences falling into the temptation to extend the institution as an end in itself. We continually fall into the bad habit of identifying our own particular Christianity as determined by our own cultural experience as “the gospel” itself for all peoples in all contexts. There is much to discuss in this malady and many versions of it, but this in short, is the Western temptation of colonialism.

Ecclesial Practices as the Means for True Contextualization (and the Resistance of Colonialism)

The Missional church has done a great job of bringing the issue of colonialism to the forefront of N American church discussion. Missional church people emphasize listening, learning, exegeting, being among a cultural context. I love this kind of work.

But we also must remember that we who are sent by definition also bring something into a context. This is what “sentness” means. We are sent from somewhere, from someone with something. To bring this “something” (the gospel) from (and with) someone (the presence of Christ) we have to then contextualize those “some-things”. Some people call this “translation” (Lamin Sanneh). But I prefer incarnation, embodying the gospel and presence/reign of Christ in a place. This is where I’d like to say that contrary to intuitive wisdom, the practices of the church I have been contending for, not only resist Colonialism/de-contextualization, they actually make contextualization (embodiment) possible. They make possible the becoming visible of the presence of Christ and His reign in our midst in a way that is unpredictable and can only truly be understood  post facto, after it has taken place.

To just take an example or two.  When we practice the ecclesial practice of reconciliation in submission to Christ’s authority (Matt 18:15-20), God uses that practice to  bring into material reality the forgiveness of Christ and the “reconciliation of all things” into our social context. It contextualizes the forgiveness of Christ. It’s a simple process, but we must in fact figure out (“discern” is the Biblical word) in each broken relationship, what this reconciliation will look like, what the Spirit is saying, what it might mean to be faithful to the cross.  In this process, described by Matt 18, reconciliation gets contextualized! People get to see it and go “wow.” We start by practicing this reconciliation together as a people of God. But then, as we extend it into every area of our lives and our community, the gospel becomes contextualized into the context. We invite people in our world (outside the church) into reconciliation. The church is birthed anew. The practice of reconciliation actually enables contextualization.

In the same way, the practice of the Eucharist requires contextualization. It is socially disruptive and demanding (read 1 Cor 11: ) It is Kingdom in that our relational bonds with one another, the ways we are committed to one another under Christ’s Lordship, the living together under the victory and forgiveness of God in Christ together, the way our money is each other’s in Christ’s Kingdom, is all made manifest in this Eucharist communion. But this requires contextual discernment (read again 1 Cor 11:29). And this becomes the basis of a unique contextualized hospitality anytime we eat together and with anyone else. From Eucharist together as church, I go share a cup of coffee in McDonald’s and I actually share the forgiveness and the bond in Christ’s Kingdom (“I confer on you a Kingdom” Luke 22:29) with someone who may not know how to receive grace, forgiveness, love and communal bond.  This ecclesial practice undercuts injustice and the social bonds based on coercion, torture (and dare I say capitalism)., It demands of us contextualization.  Kingdom breaks out. I’ve seen this happen. Likewise with all the other practices including gospel proclamation, fivefold ministry, sharing life with the poor, etc. Each practice forces contextualization (For instance, it is not gospel proclamation if transmitted via a Video feed).

All of these ecclesial practices extend the Kingdom, Christ’s authority. But we are so right to recognize that we can not own these practices and make them our possession and use them to extend our power. We must recognize they can (and have in the past) become the instrument of colonialist evils.  On the other hand, properly lead, released from Christendom control, these same practices become the means for the continual contextualzition of the gospel in our midst. In their practice, the church is rebirthed, or as Darrel Guder famously described, the church is continually being converted.”  We therefore must deconstruct our phobia of church practice and recognize the dangers of the past allowing us to go forward into the world as instruments of his Kingdom.

What do you do with the colonialist temptation? How do you resist it as you seek to lad you church into Mission? Do you see how the fundamental church practices can shape community in mission as opposed to against it?

 

 

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Ekklesaphobia,Missional Ecclesiology,Uncategorized 8 Comments

on January 5 2012

The End of Evangelicalism? A Year Later: Thanks To Many

Whoah. It’s almost a year since The End of Evangelicalism? was released (February 2011 to be exact). I just want to say “thanks!” to the many people who reviewed it. There were so many reviews, helped along by Todd Littleton, and the good folks at The Ooze, and Homebrewed Christianity,  Scot McKnight and others, that I lost count and couldn’t keep up with them on the book’s page on this website.

Just today, I got a question via e-mail asking why I am so obsessed with Marxist social thought.  To which I replied, I am not obsessed with Marx at all. I am however impressed with the study of ideology. There are multitudinous things to be learned in the study of ideology about the way we live our lives together (political formation, the church), why we say we believe one thing and do another (“the performative contradiction”), how we form into groups together in ways which work against the kind of politics that makes for life together in Christ. The study of ideology, like few other studies, I argue, can uncover motives and desires at work in the contradictions we insist on living from day to day.For the church today, a study like this is timely. Marx is the founder (in some ways) of the critique of ideology for sure, but I am by and large dis-invested in his economic theories.

One of my favorite lines from the book is: “Evangelicalism has become an ‘empty politic’ driven by what we are against instead of what we are for.” (xvi) I spend alot of time uncovering how we (I include myself as an evangelical) have got caught up in this kind of internal defining of ourselves over against someone or something we are against. I try to show how this is empty and self-imploding. I try to show how the ONLY way out of ideologizing is to source our life together in the Triune life grounded in the incarnate work of Christ (or how Anabaptist ecclesiology solves the problem of ideology).

All this to say, I know I crossed some boundaries in The End of Evangelicalism? The book can be easily mis-understood. It’s an academic read (sorry about that). Which is all the more reason for me to thank people who put the book in their Top Books 2011 like Dwight Friesen,  Scott Boren, Scott Emery , Mike Friesen, and of course Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed Books of the Year. Several tweeters twitted it as a favorite for the year. To all these people, I am grateful!

The book can still be purchased at a discount by going directly to Casade Books website and putting in the code as directed right here. You can get a free intro chapter on this page as well. You can buy the kindle version on Amazon’s site right here.

I apologize if I didn’t get your review up on my page yet. I’m working on it. And thanks for making what could have been an obscure academic book a wider read book. Hopefully for the furtherance of His Kingdom.

 

 

 

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on January 3 2012

Ekklesaphobia Post #2: The Protestant Principle

Warning: The following post is more theological requiring some interaction with theologians and church history.

My last post I started to explore the subtle fear and resistance to church practices so common in today’s missional church. I claimed there is often an out-sized reaction in and among the missional church against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church: practices like worship gathering, teaching evangelism postures, ordination of clergy. I called this “ekklesaphobia.” I freely acknowledged that there are abuses and malformation in all of these practices so a healthy caution is good (a quick glance into the archives of this blog reveals I write a lot about this). We need a reformation of church practice in the West so as to shape a church into God’s missional life. Nonetheless, this phobia, I argue often goes too far leaving us lacking in sustainable formation of God’s people for His Mission as well as a dysfunctional leadership. I named 3 sources of this phobia. 1.) fear of colonialism, 2.)  fear of the protestant principle. 3.) fear of being abused again by corrupt authoritarian church structures as many of us have been in the past. I want to “riff” a little bit on these 3 fears in the next few posts. I want to start with the fear of “the protestant principle,” the most difficult of the three to describe and see at work.

The Protestant Principle argues that we must challenge the church (or anyone else for that matter) anytime it acts like it in any way owns the privileged place of God’s presence and authority.  Because when this happens, the church will eventually use this authority for corrupt ends. We are human after all. We are prone to ego and self-serving motives. On the other hand, without the church as  location for Christ’s social body in the world, we are basically left alone to be little Christ’s. We must be an authority unto ourselves (even if we do look to the Bible as a personal authority) in the world to do/participate in God’s Mission. As intuitively American as this is, this still leaves us to be absorbed into society’s structures even when they are bad/evil/corrupt. We get rid of the church as corrupt structure only to be absorbed into the social structures of society (which may be corrupt themselves, or at the very least lacking in the reconciliatory power of Christ).

Paul Tillich articulated the protestant principle as that theological principle which must challenge all historical representations of the divine. In other words, we cannot expect that the transcendent, almighty and perfect God would be located (or limited to being located) in a human institution like a church. For human institutions are by their very nature corrupt and imperfect. And so when we give divine authority to such a structure the worst things imaginable will happen. Human beings will claim to be acting on behalf of God (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and/or the pope). Even worse, divine salvation shall be limited to this structure and be controlled by human beings to their own benefit (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and the transubstantiated Eucharist). In the lineage of the European protestants who have gone on before us, therefore, we must protest whenever we see this happening. God cannot be controlled. God only comes in His own freedom to us (as individuals). The minute anyone associates (in any way!) a human institution as the place where God works, bad things happen! Whenever the church makes any “claims to absoluteness” (Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 3 p. 245) in the name of Christ it rejects its own identity in Christ. For God in Christ cannot be contained or boxed in by the church or any other human organization. This principle was followed by H Richard Neibuhr, his brother Reinhold and carries on in many circles of American protestant church. (For more on the protestant principle see D. Stephen Long, who first introduced the concept to me,  Divine Economy 136ff. and my own The Great Giveaway note 17, in chapter 6).

Who can deny this? There is much truth here. Especially to those of us who have seen pastor-authority figures use the church for their own ends. And we must resist the notion that God works in, especially “only in,” His church. This is a big source of the problems we now face as a church incapable of being in the world where God is working.

BUT (please, hear me on this) we must avoid the other extreme in saying that the church is merely a group of individuals trying to be little Jesus’s, and we come together for mutual support, encouragement (and worse admiration). For this denies that God in history has chosen to reveal himself in the witness of a people before the nations. God in fact does come, in authority, to inhabit a people in a social and visible way WHEN HIS PEOPLE ARE IN SUBMISSION TO HIM AND RECEIVING OF HIM IN SOME BASIC CORE PRACTICES GIVEN TO US IN AND THRU JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.

Here is a primary example: when people gather (as in Matt 18:15-20) to submit to Christ’s authority as King (“in my name”) and be reconciled (“agree on anything”), Christ’s authority is made manifest (“what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”). He becomes present in a special way (“there am I in your midst”). His presence, and that inbreaking authority is carried with us whenever we bring this reconciliation of God in Christ into our everyday relationships, vocations and neighborhoods. This is real flesh and blood (incarnational) Kingdom authority of Christ breaking in our lives and neighborhoods. We do not control it, we cannot possess it, only cooperate with it and be instruments of it. But this is a practice of being His people in His church where God exerts divine authority and becomes divinely present by the Son through the Spirit.

The same can be said of many other practices such as the Eucharist (Luke 22:29), the proclamation of the gospel (Luke 10), of the fivefold ministry (Eph 4), Kingdom prayer (Mark 9:29, Matt 6:9ff)) and so on.

These Practices, When Practiced in Submission to Christ, Extend His Reign.  By gathering in the neighborhoods, via these practices, we bring the Kingdom into visible manifestation as a witness to His Lordship and rule over the whole earth. “Witness” always means we do cannot control or possess this authority (Karl Barth’s work on “witness” comes to mind here – Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3.2 par.71 #4) Instead we point to it and allow it to be manifest in our lives together into the world. These core practices, birthed out of the death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ as King, become the means by which Jesus becomes present and His reign breaks in. They do not need to ossify a people (like they have in the past) as a people set apart over against society. Instead they become the means by which we materialize the Kingdom in a contextualized way, offering in our midst His reconciliation (Matt 18), hospitality (Eucharist), freedom from sin, death and evil (proclamation of the gospel), leadership into God’s work in the world (5 fold ministry). It is no secret that I have a whole book in process on how these practices, grounded in Jesus Christ Himself as sent one, released through the Holy Spirit, become missional practices when they are released from the captivity of the Christendom institutionalized church.

Til then, what do you think about the protestant principle? Have you seen it at work in your church? your ministry? Do you see it as a deterrent to ministry in your neighborhood? Do you see it as a deterrant to the formation of people into God’s Mission? (P.S. should I keep more theologically intense posts off this blog? keep them in more traditional outlets like journals etc.?)

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