I’ve been suggesting recently that there is a parting of the ways in the post evangelical landscape. This terrain, once dominated by the all encompassing rubric of “the emerging church” has parted into different ways, exacerbated most recently by the publishing of Brian McL’ New Kind of Christianity. This is all good because it enhances conversation as long as we do not demonize or casually dismiss those among us who disagree with us.
In a post last week, I was setting up how I think these three emerging ways play out in relation to two issues: the women in ministry question and the GLBT question. Some have contended, both in the comments on the blog post and off, that the word “missional” should encourage a wider inclusivity – that to define positions towards gay/lesbian sexuality is to exclude – to hijack the word “Missional.” Others suggest that doing any of this kind of parsing is polarizing. Over against these folk, I’d like to argue (put forth for discussion) that there are some inherent theological impulses in the Missional way that – if adhered to – lead not only to some unique positioning on these two questions but a new kind of inclusivity as well, one admittedly different than the one most associated with (what was) the emergent church as I articulated over here. So before I actually outline pos. 3 on these two questions, I’d like to show why Missional argues fr a new vision of inclusivity. Here goes.
This “new kind of inclusivity” is driven by the logic of Incarnation – one of three core ideas that drive Missional Life ( along with Missio Dei and embodied Witness). This logic of Incarnational implies four principles about the way disagreements/ disputed matters are engaged. In each, I contend there is a potential for a new kind of inclusivity.
Principle 1 – On The Ground: Incarnational means that the gospel takes root on-the-ground in concrete real life. This is where truth is manifest. Just as orthodoxy has been worked out in the midst of historical contingencies in the past, it will always be worked out in pastoral situations involving real people and real issues in a people of Christ. DISAGREEMENTS THEREFORE WILL BE WORKED OUT IN THE CONTEXT OF OUR REAL LIVES, engaging one another in mutual listening, communal prayer, study of Scripture, submission to one another and the Spirit. This is the place where God works. This is where Jesus comes saying, “there am I in the midst … what ever you bind here is bound in heaven.” We don’t work our lives out through books/theology detached from real pastoral engagement. Books come after pastoral engagement. If we do not meet with a resolution, we go an as before until the Holy Spirit works a new consensus. On the other hand, we can’t put off issues of injustice and pastoral care indefinitely for these are our real lives we are discerning. People are hurting! This approach, I suggest, breeds “a new inclusivity.” Because we see all disagreement – not as the means to antagonize – but as the place where God is taking us further into places we have not yet figured out. This breeds a new openess to what God is doing. We must be open to what God is doing here to manifest Himself incarnationally into new territory.
Principle 2 – No Power. We enter the world with no power – at least power as seen in the flesh. We come to all disagreements as in Christ, weak, humble and vulnerable. God is the one who exalts (Phil 2). We submit one to another. There can be no violence. There can be no presumption. Indeed we dialogue because we know “Jesus to be Lord.” This demands that we dialogue with an open mind to others believing we have stuff to learn. This is what it means to believe Jesus is Lord. Any other posture is Constantinian. This breeds “a new inclusivity,” an openness to the world. It is not an imposing of truth, not a rejection of the truth of our well-worn history in Christ either (orthodoxy). It is a diligent pursuit of the truth that extends Christ (and the historical work of Him in the church through orthodoxy) into new territory humbly inviting others to become partners with us in this.
Principle 3 – Open Discernment We enter the world not to reject the world but to be transforming agent of the Kingdom. We can neither reject all desire and culture nor embrace it all. We cannot be set off and apart from the world because the church is in the process of becoming that very world renewed in Christ. Neither can we merely blend into the world for then all Mission and renewal is lost. This is what it means to take on the incarnational nature of Christ. It is this very incarnational nature that requires the church to be a discerning community which at times both refuses conformity with the world while at other times joining in (with what God is already at work doing Missio Dei)). As Yoder puts it, loving the world as well as refusing conformity to it are “two sides of the same coin” of incarnational presence in the world. This breeds a new kind of inclusivity because we do not just blend with the world, nor do we merely reject/exclude the world, but as one of them in the world, we seek to participate in God’s transformation of the world in the Kingdom.
Principle 4 – Communal Enfleshment (Embodied Witness) Lastly truth and salvation is best communicated by being enfleshed in a community. We are His flesh – the body of Christ in the world. Through our own repentance, restoration, reconciliation, the renewal of all things begins in this social space of our communal life together. His reign has begun and through the visible reality taking shape here, His Lordship is extended in our lives and into where we live where God is already at work. This community however provides the hermeneutic for people to understand in embodied form what God is doing in the world. This social embodiment is incarnating Christ in the world. Through the ministry of this gospel among our neighbors the Reign of God begins (but does not end). And so we always look at ourselves first, never making judgment on others, yet always inviting others “to come see.” This breeds a new inclusivity, one enfleshed in a community, not one enforced by procedural rules of democratic tolerance.
Admittedly this is a POSTURE OF INCLUSION as opposed to a CONCEPT OF INCLUSION. Nonetheless, I suggest that four elements of the logic of incarnation (and Missio Dei and Witness) lead to an approach to the women in ministry issue as well as GLBT relations that in essence amounts to a different kind of inclusivity and yet looks different than either the harsh exclusivity and/or bland democratic tolerance that we all have become tired of. I hope to post next week on Position No. 3 towards Women in Ministry/GLBT relations mentioned in this post.
Until then, do you buy this kind of inclusivity? It is admittedly Anabaptist. Does that turn off the Reformed among us? Why? Is it just a guise for another form of exclusion for “Emergent and friends” thinkers? Is it too soft? Any suggestions for improving/clarifying this incarnational logic of Mission?
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David, not only do I agree with your incarnational hermeneutic, but I find this to be a compelling vision for moving beyond the polarizing tendencies that run deep in the church today. I may have misunderstood your intentions with the last post, but it seemed that your caricatures were set up as “straw men” in order that you might then argue for an altogether different position that excluded the two you previously deconstructed. While I realize that, in a sense, this is what you have done, there is a significant distinction I recognize with the incarnational approach – by nature of its ethic of powerlessness it does not simply deconstruct the perceived “failures” of others’ theological positions and exclude them, but makes room for and receives the other at the table with a posture of humility. I agree with you completely that we cannot, nor should we try to, avoid defining the other. But as you argue, if we are going to be true to the depth and complexity of the other, this must only be done in the context of relationships.
Might we say that this “new kind of inclusivity” is experienced when we make the Eucharist our center, insofar as the Eucharist is both a common table and a way of life we embody with Christ and each other?
I like your proposal, but one question I always have is whether Paul can be read as an exemplar of these principles: he certainly was pastorally engaged “on the ground” and called people to discern the Spirit, but he is often seen as divisive rather than engaging in dialogue by folks who favor the more inclusive options. Thoughts?
I’ve been thinking through this in terms of hospitality and theology of friendship. Of course, the prospects here are incredible, but there is a lot of resistance by those who hold to “biblical authority” on such matters. Just this week I had a conversation with someone in leadership in my denomination who repeated used those words, as if he alone had hermeneutical power to decide what the Bible says.
It would be great to get feedback from a woman in ministry or someone in the LGBT community. Any conversation about our sisters and brothers should include them.
Hi David,
Good stuff here. I like Guder-and-friends understanding of the church as a bound-set community within a centered congregation. How might this understanding of a missional people speak to the 3rd option you’re raising in terms of inclusivity?
Professor. Thanks for these thoughts. I have long feared the terms “inclusive” and “exclusive” have been taken captive by the current culture, and have become in essence meaningless (your reference to bland democratic tolerance) with the resulting push back being a harder line being argued about who is eligible to be at the table. Your “posture of inclusion” seems to me to be a more consistent reflection of those terms as intended by the Christ (say in the parable of the Wedding Feast). An aside, your opening picture caught my eye as I am almost finished reading “Take This Bread” by Sara Miles, recounting her journey (as an active lesbian, lay deacon and social activist) and her church St. Gregory’s (Episcopalian) in San Francisco.
The epitome of incarnation, Jesus, functioned from a posture of inclusion. To an adultress, he said “neither do I condemn you.” To the tax collectors and “sinners,” he said, let’s eat together. To the Pharisees whose theology exclusivistically saw people as either “in” or “out” rather than as individuals with stories to be entered into, he said, “Woe to you.”
Kim,
I’m intrigued by your comment on Paul. As I re-read through this post, I have his character, protrayed through the epistles, pictured in my mind. Although Paul may seem “divisive” in some of the issues you mentioned (especially the two Fitch has mentioned), his example is one that Fitch’s model snuggly fits. How often does Paul speak from a position of powerlessness? The only time he speaks from authority is when others are attempting to exclude him from the conversation, and even then he points to Christ. When he’s writing about these ‘in/out’ issues, he’s writing to communities that he has intimately interacted with and lived with (Galatia, Corinth, Thessolonica, Ephesus, etc…) And Lastly, considering the long years Paul spent with the 12 in Jerusalem and Antioch before he began his own ministry, suggests that he comes from a hermaneutic of community (although this may be stretching it a bit).
I don’t know if these thoughts help you in your own reflection. I just wanted to let you know that your critical thinking has struck a chord with me. Thanks.
and Dave, thanks for giving us some headway into something which seems much more inclusivistic, acknowledging the individual within the diversive community without making a whitewash idol of tolerance.
oh…. and I forgot, should the epistles themselves, as letters, are Paul’s Dialogue rather than an authoritative decree?
I am perhaps most intrigued by the 2nd point. Powerlessness I think is often misunderstood as passiveness. I think as a whole many churches have traditionally interpreted that giving any room for alternative positions is stumbling into a passive, what ever, attitude. There is no room for Abrahamic dialogue between God, others and us to talk place.
Something I have learned when teaching others is that regardless of agreement with their positions we need to respect their experiences if life change and learning are to happen. The church has not been good at simply respecting the life experiences of others. I think this is because by and large the church does not accept experience as a valid source of spiritual truth.
Also, I think there are two definitions of powerlessness at work here that shape our interaction with scripture on these issues.
There is the anabaptist rooted position you state. But there is the reformed take on powerlessness which is total depravity. From a total depravity standpoint we can’t accept women and ministry or LGBT in any form because we are powerless to interact with scripture in any elastic kind of way. In this mode we are powerless because we are simply to proclaim the existent and accepted truth of scripture and shun any other influences. As much as we might like to have even have a posture of inclusiveness we can’t because we are bound by our depraved state and are utterly unable to speak to our own experience (works righteousness) or to their experience.
In one scenario powerlessness becomes a means of freedom. In the other scenario it is a binding and restricting powerlessness.
Solid articulation David. It is similar to our posture here. While gender has not been an issue, many come to us expecting to find two communities, helpers and helpees. To date the only one I have found who articulates what we are doing by living in community with the poor is Jean Vanier. From the start our sense was not that we would build a community for the poor, or build a community that would help the poor.. there would not be two communities, but one. We are in it together. Its amazing how much there is to learn from one another, not just from those who seem to have their lives together or who have advanced degrees. Sometimes we are the most needy, because of our pride and tendency to independence . Vanier is right that the poor are the real hope for the future of the church.
i really resonate with the open discernment and humility inherent in moving past rejectionist tendencies…and the yoder perspective is key to enjoining that journey.
If we integrate “mission-shaped” in Jesus Christ’s incarnation, it has to end up as a paradoxical both/and approach … not an either/or reduction. As I think about it, with the incarnation, we keep in dynamic tension so many elements that often get split:
* Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human, yet without sin.
* The spiritual/immaterial is permanently wed to the physical/material.
* The incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ covers the core issues on each of the three main categories of cultural context:
+ redemption of sin and removal of condemnation for those in guilt-based cultures.
+ restoration of face and face-to-face relationship for those in shame-based cultures.
+ defeat of evil and implantation of love that overcomes fear for those in power-based cultures.
This both/and essence of incarnation is why, I believe, forms of Reformed and Emergent theology don’t jive with the mission-shaped approach you’re outlining. The epistemology on which their theology is based on strongly either/or thinking. So, it seems to me that it’s natural, given their paradigm, to be upset with the paradoxical third way that you’re suggesting. It’s too inclusivist for some, too exclusivist for others, and it’s got its own difficulties for those who try to practice a not-so-quickly-conclusivist approach.
But, we shouldn’t negate one truth in order to promulgate another, even if it’s really hard to maintain the tension — and I don’t exactly find it easy myself. So, I think your insight about needing to move from concept to concrete is important, along with the suggestion between the lines that covenant relationship counterbalances abstract correctness. That’s why I find the “welcoming and transforming” approach trumps the “rejecting and condemning” and “welcoming and affirming” approaches, when it comes to conversations on LGBT concerns.
Anyway, looking forward to your post on the third way …
Dude! (Brad/futurist) … you’re writing my posts for me … stealing my thunder!! GREAT STUFF
OMG! Are we, like, Twin Sons of Different Mothers? Like Fogelberg and Weisberg? Guess that might be Twin Sons of Same Father … [Boomer joke, or if you're inbetween Boomer and Buster, maybe it's a bummer].
Anyway, if I stole your thunder, sorry. But you’re still en-lightning! It’s just that I’ve been thinking about all this stuff lately as I prep some posts related to “differential diagnosis” of emerging-Emergent-missional and “What if Gregory House Visited God’s House?”
Okay, then. Onward and upward …
Brad/futuristguy,
Thanks for your very helpful comments. I Love the idea of “welcoming and transforming,” as opposed to the other two alternatives. It captures so much, so succintly.
Gordon
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