Way way back last March I started a series of posts on the two issues of a.) women in ministry and b.)the normative status of Gay/Lesbian sexual relations, and their relation to each other theologically in the post-evangelical landscape. (The entire series is here) I saw the post evangelical landscape as divided between the NeoReformed missionals (NRm) and the postEmergent Coalescence(pEC). In relation to the church’s position on GLBTQ relations, one side (NRm) took what has commonly been termed the “Welcoming but Not Affirming” position while the other side took the “Welcoming and Affirming” position. I viewed both positions as inadequate for our post-Christendom times. I asked if either position was missional? See that post here. As an alternative, I wanted to explore the incarnational logic of Missional community, a logic I believe drives the Neo-Anabaptist missional engagement of culture. I called (with the help of Brad Sargent) this position “Welcoming and Mutually Transforming” (WMT).
I left off the last post by saying that the only way to witness to and to live this WMT position was through a “welcoming and mutually transforming” community (WMT) of sexual redemption that finds its very identity “in Christ” for the Mission of God in the world. I want to flesh out what this might look like in three posts, this one and the next two to follow. I want to propose that such a sexually redemptive community is based on three commitments that reflect the embodied (incarnational) posture of such a community in the world.
1.) We All Come Broken
2.) We Make No Pre-Set Public Statements on What We are For or Against in Sexual Relations (please do not jump to conclusions on this).
3.) We Embody Spiritual Disciplines that Nurture the Life in Christ for God’s Mission in the World including Listening, Reading Scripture Together, Confession of Sin, Repentance, Dependence Upon the Spirit and other practices that affirm Life, Sexuality, Friendships, Creation and place them all within what God is Doing for Restoring the world and Reconciling it to Himself (missio Dei).
For today’s post, I offer some comments on commitment 1.). Then I’ll go quickly to 2.) and 3.) in the next two posts.
WE ALL COME BROKEN.
The overriding assumption of the “Welcoming and Mutually Transforming” community is that all are welcome, and everyone who comes must come to it as broken, in need of transformation. If there is no acknowledgment of our brokenness, of our sin and need for God, it is not possible to receive the Kingdom of God. “Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” If we say we are not broken, if we have no recognition of our need for transformation, why then come?
As I said here in this post, the condition of transformation in Christ, i.e salvation, is that all of our desires are submitted to Christ for renewal, orientation transformation. This is the beginning of discipleship. This is not to say apriori that all our desires are corrupt and inappropriately ordered. It merely acknowledges that there are desires in our lives that are broken and in need of healing, and we do not always know which ones these might be. Furthermore, all desires find their rightful end in God and so all desires are in essence incomplete til they are ordered in this final way.
Yet this posture, of coming to Christ as broken, must be modeled before the world in community. We, the church must be first in the confession of our brokenness. This is not just a tactic. This is the first and necessary step towards the redemption, the dying and rising with Christ, that births the renewal of all things. We must be living this “way” that we are inviting the whole world into.
The biggest problem with the evangelical church’s witness regarding sexuality among our society, nevermind among the GLBTQ, is that we ask others to change their sexual behavior without seeing the duplicity in our own sexual behaviors and orientations. We therefore come into a context, whatever its sexual issues are, from a power position, claiming everyone else is screwed up but us. This defies the incarnational logic of Christ, and the way the Triune God works in the world in Christ by the Spirit.
In the case of evangelicals and gays, evangelicals have typically baptized all heterosexual attraction as good and then offer “getting married” as the solution to anyone who cannot control him/herself. We never deal with the stunning amount of screwed up heterosexual/monosexual desire that lies resident in our churches which heap abuse after abuse upon one another and sap our sexual lives of God’s purposes.
As the community of Christ, i.e. a “welcoming and mutually transforming” community, we must lead the world into redemption by first leading the way into humility, brokenness and confession. This communal embodied posture is the defining starting point for missional engagement with a culture’s sexual issues in Christ, no matter what they might be. It embodies what it is we are inviting all people into including those who call themselves “gay.”
I think the major objection to this from the GLBTQ advocates in our midst is that “this is a power play.” By saying all desire must be submitted to Christ, the argument goes, you are pre determining our sexual desire as sin. I’ll address this more in the next post. But for now, I wish to say that Jesus and the entire New Testament insists that those in power and those with the gospel must be those who give up power, in essence go and inhabit the world powerless, live in submission to one another, and to the “other” in submission to the Lordship of Christ. Instead of saying to the gay/lesbian “you must confess your sin ________, let us instead say “let me confess my sin to you” and invite you to join in with me (discerning sin in and among my life), as we seek what redemption might look like as we submit our lives to Christ. To anyone who might seek that a particular desire be classified as sacred over the supremacy of Christ, to those who are not yet ready to enter into the death and resurrection of Christ, we grieve. This, nonetheless, is what we live incarnationally as witnesses to. This is all we have to offer. The Triune work of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The way of renewal through the death and resuurection of Jesus Christ. We are not demanding that anyone follow this path. We are not pre-judging anyone. We are merely witnessing to (and offering non-coercively) to the world what God is doing and in and through Jesus Christ.
My question to y’all, is this posture of the WMT community a power play? Is the very giving up of power a power maneuver? If so, how?
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I dont think I want to say that giving up power is a power maneuver.
But I do want to question if "giving up power" is the same thing as biblical submission. I'm not sure that it is. In biblical submission, one is not abandoning their power or pretending they don’t have it anymore, rather they are allowing their power to be put toward the good of another. We see this in how Jesus submitted to the Father – he still had the power to heal and command, but he wasn't grasping it for his own comfort.
I'm usually suspicious of people who say they have given up their power, or that they don't have any power. What that usually means is that they are unaware of the power they still hold, and therefore can't manage it well toward the good of others. To say that you don’t have power is really just saying that you refuse to recognize and manage your power.
If that got played out in a church, I would be very nervous for the vulnerable people in the situation because not only are they facing those with power, but they are facing those who refuse to acknowledge their power or manage it well – a far more precarious situation.
Isn't that the point. Jesus submitted to the Father in the sense of Phil 2, and then in essence was used to accomplish the Father's will not out of His own earthly power, but out of the Triune activity of God by the Spirit. He divested of power (that was rightly his – again Phil 2) and in so doing entered the world humbly accomplishing nothing out of His own power, but in and through Him, God accomplished His work for the world.
So I have to push back on your statement – "To say that you don’t have power is really just saying that you refuse to recognize and manage your power" – I would say the act of submitting one's power to the Lordship of Christ and in submitting to another in Christ, is both to recognize one's own human propensity to abuse and sieze power … and it is a refusal to be the final manager of that power.
This way of power confounds, subverts and turns on its head the way the world exercises power. The world wants to keep clamouring and reaching for more power. Having said this, I admit, this "way" can be used as a tactic if there is not a community of confessional relational accountability, where everyone, especially charged leaders of a congregation, are not "willing to yield (James 3:17).
Peace DF
Jesus didn't cling to his power for his own sake. But it would be incorrect to say that Jesus had no power. He had power to heal, to teach, to draw people to himself – he wasn't doing these acts agaisnt hisown will, as if they were the Father's will only, and not his at all. Jesus retained power, he just harnessed it for the sake of others.
When a leader says they have no power, they are not submitting to the community, they are putting a burden on it – asking them to manage the power of the leader in an "invisible" way.
When leaders can name their power and be aware of it, they are able to put it to use in service of God and the vulnerable. When they can't, they are still using their power, but without awareness they can't manage it well – and even in a confessional, relational community abuse of unacknowledged power is a verry dangerous thing.
I would much rather be led by someone who is aware of their power, but harnesses it in the way Jesus did – not by pretending it doesnt exist, but by using it for the benefit of others.
Although this off the topic here, let me say that Jen, that I see you using power in a way I'm not, in fact, the way I see it, I think the very root problem is your description of power – power as something leaders can name and put to use … but, because we wondered off the topic here, can I suggest we can carry on this conversation elsewhere? Would that be alright?
No problem.
Perhaps you can blog on this peripheral topic, as I find myself very curious as to your continued conversation.
I think Jen is right. People who claim they have no power, or claim to not use their power aren't submitting to anything because in order to submit you have to have something with which to submit. A false humility is more hypocritical than out right pride. People who don't own their own power are much less likely to acknowledge their sin because they have convinced themselves that they didn't have any influence upon the situation.
As you describe it, I do not believe it is a power play. This is how we have functioned at Little Flowers Community. However, I can see a dual risk that we face. On the one hand, I can see our community using such a practice to avoid ever addressing certain aspects of desire- that is, this approach could be used as a guise of faithfulness hiding an unwillingness to ask certain hard questions. On the other hand, this approach could be used as a guise for faithfulness while ultimately still perpetuating the same power dynamics of exclusion as are currently the norm.
That being said, neither of these possibilities are inherent in what you are suggesting, but rather inherent in our own human sinfulness. So I fully affirming the direction you are suggesting, only citing how easily this approach could also be abused.
Jamies, insightful, the dual risk is real … I have hope it can be avoided because the incarntational dynamic continually pushes us towards discerning the issues in our midst … thanks!
I agree, which is why this only works in the context of the other aspects of ecclesiology, etc. that you have explored in other posts (and your book). This "approach" won't work without asking some fundamental questions about our presuppositions and practices. You've done this well here and elsewhere.
It is only a power play if the motive for this posture is insincere, in which case it really isn't a giving up of power at all.
David, nice post. I've been following this series with great eagerness.
Honestly, I'm not sure how what you're saying squares with Paul. Specifically 2 Co 13:10 – "This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down." Clearly acknowledged authority (power?) put to use for the sake of the individual/community, not "given up" or divested. In fact, this is love. It is the love parents have for their children and put to use when regulating the household and engaging in acts of discipline. Right?
So are you saying that as a pastor (pastoral team?) you UTTERLY don't use "power" in your relationships with those entrusted to your care. What if a person is abusive to their wife but wants to serve in X, Y, or Z capacity on Sundays? Do you let them? (No power?) Or do you use the authority God gave you for pointing out sin and preserving the body?
My concern is that we avoid duplicity in our dealing with LGBTQ folks. It seems duplicitous to all of a sudden (with them) start claiming we have no power or are "laying down" all of our power with regard to them, when in fact with other things we might more readily acknowledge as sin, we are ready and willing to use it (rightfully so).
Andrew,
Can't go into it in detail here, but Paul models the use of authority as servant … in submission… in things like he not demanding a salary, instead working as a tent maker, not demanding, but putting his leadership out there … to be recognized and engaged in … sorry I don't have all the references handy and am in the middle of some things here at my work. But I'll cover em in detail here in future.
None of this however assumes we do not exericse our authority in the giftedness that God has given. The power ios in Christ, the authority is exercised within a givenness of the community a a sphere of the Spirit (1 Cor 11). To note how this works communally .. see my post here – http://j.mp/aIMlZl – hope this helps. I know this model of authority is unsettling the normal ways of authority as conducted and concieved in the evangelical church.
Agreed that it's unsettling, and no doubt Paul models "authority as service", etc etc. I'm a Yoderite and you and I are in substantial agreement on many things here. I'm just curious to see how the "philosophy" of WMT translates into a workable pastoral "convention" that leads people towards the truth of our sexuality in Christ and away from sin. What does it actually look like in practice? And is this intended to be a thoroughgoing way of dealing with our many "brokennesses", sexual and otherwise? If a person wants to meet with me b/c their issues with anger are getting the better of them, do I all of a sudden start confessing my sins with anger/contempt to them? Is that wise or even helpful to do? And if I'm having such struggles with anger/contempt, am I really the best person to be having this conversation with them?
Forgive me if my comments are overly focused on the concrete. Just hoping to gain a few handles on how we actually make conversations such as this work…
Peace
Is the very giving up of power a power maneuver?
This question brought a wry smile, as I have occasionally run across similar questions arising from the language of bondage and dominance. Is a person’s “submission” to the “control” of another actually a form of controlling the controller? I’ll leave all that alone, as I think the question and comments about power here are more relevant at the moment.
It seems to me that the term “power” often ends up being limited in its application to situations focused on social and political power, when in fact, it’s far more complex than that (in my opinion, at least).
I process information in paradoxes and fractals, so I see socio-political power as a sort of external and corporate expression of a parallel internal and individual process – that of self-protection. This kind of self-protection involves all aspects of our being, and that is why it is so difficult to break through. It relies on:
* Intellectual denial of the truth that we are all sinners and that God has no “skyscrapers of sin” – it’s all a flatline horizon of death and debt – and we all need the transforming power of the gospel.
* Emotional self-deception that refuses the painful reality that we, too, have a problem with brokenness in our gender/sexuality to deal with (which EVERY person does, to a greater or lesser degree, even if they/we don’t feel like dealing with it).
* Relational posturing in ways that puff us up to appear superior. We inflate our self-importance while we deny the ultimate humanity of others, such as through negating their entire being by overfocusing on one aspect of their behavior or through denigrating their responsibility for their own lifestyle decisions by marginalizing their social status.
* Super-spiritualizing the situation, where we select particular verses that support our view while practicing selective reading that ignores passages that identify our own problems and forms of brokenness.
So, self-protection turned inside out in power plays creates some form of self-promotion for a group that also “protects” self … toxic … vain imaginings.
But, when we adapt a “welcoming and transforming” stance and truly work to integrate into all aspects of personal and social life, we choose to break the mental, imaginational, emotional, social, etceteral systems that perpetuate a toxic overpowering of others. Seems to me the WTM stance requires continual attitudes of personal repentance, corporate repentance, and relational perseverance. Maybe that means humility and meekness – power under control – are at the polar opposite end of the power scale from the proud and misused kinds …
P.S. My favorite quote on power comes from Frank Herbert, the author of *Dune.* To paraphrase, “It’s not that power corrupts, but that power is a magnet that draws the corruptible.” So, I’d suggest if we work at multiple levels of our being to reverse personal and social corruption, we are transforming the problem of power.
If I understand the question to be one posed to the GLBTQ context, and acknowledging that your next post will likely address this question directly, approaching a group that apparently has felt powerless for so long and asking them to now release what remaining power he/she/they may have to define for themselves what is appropriate, even to a group that features a flattened authority structure and is avowedly seeking mutual transformation, may seem like a situation fraught with power. “This is not to say apriori that all our desires are corrupt and inappropriately ordered. It merely acknowledges that there are desires in our lives that are broken and in need of healing, and we do not always know which ones these might be.” Maybe a quibble, but a priori aren’t all of our desires corrupt because they are not appropriately ordered? By asking that seemingly simple question, an element of power comes into play as it assumes there is an answer to what is appropriate and what is not. Even by pointing to Christ is setting forth potential answers to that question, and stating the table is flat raises issues not only of credibility (at least to the one who is releasing power) but also of a concern as to when will the power emerge and by whom from those sitting around the table. From what I gather from the earlier posts the question isn't whether we have power or whether we legitimately give it up but its do we use it within the appropriate bounds.
As you have presented it and as I understand it, the WMT posture is not a power play. An honest recognition that we all come to the community messed up moves us from trying to manipulate someone's sexuality to our own version of sexuality. It submits myself and my sexuality to Christ and invites others to join me in the pursuit.
However, I can see there will be some who try to use the WMT posture as an attractional tool to win over gay/lesbian individuals to being straight through Jesus. They'll go through the motions of what you've described, but the real motive will be to change others' sexuality. At this point it ceases to be WMT as you've described it.
Craig, that's a rich summary of the issues. DF
Our brokeness humbles and unites us in our need for Christ and must continue to be our confession. I agree with Craig obove on your question. It can be perceived/misperceived as such, especially if it is merely an "attractional tool" which can then be deceiving as well. However, I think power is something we who are the body of Christ are given. The Gospel is power, the descent of the Dove comes in power, preaching and healing are done in power, etc. That to me is the struggle we face. The misuse of power by the church and in our world today (not to mention each of us individually) has made us reluctant to relate with power and love to a lost and hurting world. We need to repent and forfeit many "power plays" that are being used today in the church, and, we need to recover the paradoxical definition and expressions of power in the Gospel.
I'm not a missional person, so I lack the background necessary to appreciate all the tensions felt by participants in this debate. (I'm an Anglican, which is to say that I have no idea what I am at present.) But I still can't wrap my mind around how the WMT approach would play out in real life. It feels to me like a duplicitous approach: One believes there is a standard for sexual morality (otherwise, how could one confess to being broken?), but one is agreeing to set aside all rights? all ability? to interpret that standard in hopes of getting GLBTQ individuals to engage in deeper dialog. At some point in that dialog, though, is one not going to return to the question of just what is the standard for human sexuality? Or is the WMT approach a tacit agreement to never return to that conversation?
Isn't it easier to state up front what one understands the standard for human sexuality to be and then agree to engage in respectful dialog with people who have a completely different understanding? Maybe you will never come to a meeting of the minds, but at least you are being frank up front about what your a priori assumptions are. I'm using the power I have to interpret the standard for human sexuality to the best of my ability; I am allowing others to use the power they have to make what are to them equally valid interpretations. If we're not able to engage in civil dialog, the difficulty is not with our sexuality but our civility.
Or am I completely missing the point here?
Ugh … I think the whole issue here with me, which I hope to make clearer in the next post, is that we don't know what we are affirming by simply making statements on sexual standards for/against same sex relations. "Heterosexual" says minimally what Christians believe about sex, or what God is calling us into … in fact this is the whole problem with evangelical pronouncements. We simply don't know what we mean when we advocate for chastity, or hetersexuality. So for sure, as again I hope to clarify, there is historically embodied wisdom of the sexual redemption made possible in Christ that we must not desert. I suggest this wisdom in Scripture and Christ which rejects same sex relations is aboit much more than the simple prohibition. Indeed the prohibition all by itself might miss the point. Communicating it, living it, embodying that redemption in a world of sexual confusion or at the very least a lack of broad cultural consensus, requires we inhabit and relate and engage humbly from who we are in Christ.
When missionaries went into some parts of Africa, they encountered the regular practice of polygamy. They found that the worst approach for the witness of the gospel was to pronounce "no polygamy" without some serious engagement of the social forces and impact and embodied translation of what the Christian call to celibacy and monogamy was all about … in the process of engaging this issue over many years, there were many things that the missionaries did not even realize and in fact learned about the full implications of the Christian call to faithfulness within monogamy … This in no way denied the Christian norm of monogamy, it just meant communicating the depths of the wisdom of this norm made possible in Christ, took a humble posture of witness and learning as well.
In some ways, the situation is the same within the culture that has become America … for I do not even believe many know or understand what GLBTQ … might mean ?…even those who claim the label – How then do we deny it or affirm it? I hope to show that even for those who would "welcome and affirm" GLBTQ, it would almost be impossible to define what that would mean.
I think this is really good. As others have said, the difference b/n a power play and whatever change may happen through authentic interaction is love, which is a case by case, day by day pursuit.
A good friend of mine had a double life exposed a few years ago. He (a PK) was married with two kids for about a decade when it came out that he had been seeing several different women for almost the entirety of his marriage. He had led worship for his church. My point for this discussion is that just before it all came out, I had been reading a lot about addiction and God had me realizing how many idolatrous relationships I had with all kinds of things and people, and the multitude of motives that led me there. Now, almost all of my addictions are socially acceptable, so they lack the shock and awe of, say, a double life. But I was convinced that my personal strategy of choosing a diversity of acceptable idols didn't make them or me any more holy. My friend asked me at one point early on how I wasn't just appalled at him and just rejecting him out of hand. I told him that when I looked at him, I saw myself, which was the truth. There's more, a lot more, to this story, but I know that part of this discussion is that when evangelicals see someone who identifies as GLBTQ, far too few see themselves and their own brokeness, sexual or otherwise. That's part of what I see in Dave's "We all come broken" point.
Really great thoughts, T.
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"saw the post evangelical landscape as divided between the NeoReformed missionals (NRm) and the postEmergent Coalescence(pEC)."I can really relate to that in every possible way.
When I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I get four emails using the exact same comment. Is there any way you can eliminate me from that service? Thanks!