The Vineyard & The Great Emergence

Phyllis Tickle, in her 2008 book The Great Emergence, calls the Vineyard movement "one of the few--some would say the only--examples of more or less traditionally structured emergence Christianity."

She goes on to mention a few long-time Vineyard catchphrases that have come to be central to the Emergent movement. The first is authenticity, and the second is "belong-behave-believe" (a common expression of the center-set approach to church membership).

Tickle then says our church movement "is entrepreneurial in governance at the congregational level, is egalitarian to a fault, regards itself as non-creedal, and uses "tribal" as an adjective of choice for describing its singular form of group affinity and affections."

I am simultaneously excited, refreshed and concerned by her opinions.

I am excited because Tickle lumps the Great Emergence in with the other 3 major upheavals of the church in the last 2000 years (The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD led to a three-way church split, The Great Schism culminated in 1054 with the rise of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Great Reformation centers around the year 1517 when Luther published his 95 theses). Her point, which is new to me, is that emergent Christianity is no more a sign of the death of the Church and the complete and utter moral decay of Western society than any of the three previously "new" streams of Christianity were. Therefore I'm excited, because she believes the Great Emergence is a good and inevitable thing, and because she thinks the Vineyard is one of the movers and shakers of said Emergence.

I'm also refreshed by Tickle's assessment of the situation. In my opinion, she manages to be objective, fair and quite balanced, while also striking to the heart of some of the big and controversial questions surrounding the emergent church in a powerfully insightful way. For example she points out that some critics of the emergent church are alarmed by its response to (or 'profit' from) the demise of capitalist economics, the Protestant church's dramatic shrinkage, the erosion of middle class and family values, a shift from cash to information as the base of economic power, and the disappearance of the nation-state occurring simultaneously with the rise of globalization. Yet Tickle points out that each of those factors contributed, as they developed, to the rise of Protestantism during the Great Reformation directly because Protestantism became both the reflection on and the expression of those values. Therefore it is only natural for the Great Emergence to gain momentum, authority and relevance as each of those factors that helped create Protestantism gets thrown out or re-invented.

I am concerned, or maybe just disgruntled, with Tickle's treatment of Scripture. Writing on the perennial question that besets the church during periods of upheaval ("Where, now, is our authority?") she argues that the Great Reformation's doctrine of sola scriptura is now dying and will soon be dead. In other words, the Bible as the church's source of certain truth is about to get thrown out the window. She begins with the Civil War, when American Protestant churches split violently over slavery as an issue that the Bible seems to neither explicitly support or condemn. She follows that with the story of World War I and women's suffrage, which seems to undermine the Bible's stance on gender roles. She writes, "Although we may argue with some success that the Garden of Eden does not really make woman subject to man, it is impossible to argue that St. Paul does not operate from that principle." I disagree strongly with this assertion, based on my reading of The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight, who I think does a fantastic job demonstrating that Paul may have argued for the submission of women in church because of a particular cultural situation, but by no means should his teaching be interpreted as a mandate for all times and all churches. Yes, the church probably messed this up for centuries, but that does not mean that women are subject to men as a Biblical principle.

Read more about why Paul wrote that stuff in 2 Timothy (on account of the new Roman woman) from another Vineyard guy here.

Next Tickle talks about the church’s teaching on divorce, which has changed radically in the last 100 years. And I would argue again that the church has screwed up royally in its interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on divorce (see Matt 5:31-32), which was again, specific to the cultural (my thanks to Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy for helping me understand this). Therefore it’s not the Biblical principle that has been wrong and needs to be tossed out the window, but the church’s poor interpretation of the Bible.

Finally Tickle turns to the question of homosexuality, and in my opinion misses it entirely. For her, the question of homosexuality in the church is merely the last remaining tribute to a nearly defunct era of sola scriptura. It will go the way of female priests and divorce as things the church once denounced but now tolerates and even welcomes. But to me, homosexuality is simply a sin--not a grey area like divorce or women in ministry which ought to be contextualized--which we must never accept as normative, but that we have (once again) misinterpreted and mistreated for many long centuries. Men and women who have homosexual feelings or homosexual tendencies are not better or worse than I am. Their sin is no better or no worse than my sin. Their redemption is no less complete than mine. The church has been mistaken in its harsh (to say the least) treatment of homosexuality, but it should not make the mistake of now being overly indulgent with it.  If it were up to me, I wouldn’t ordain someone who winks at homosexuality, but nor would I ordain someone who winks at greed. I guess this is where Tickle and I differ; she doesn’t think Pauline passages on women can be culturally contextualized, and I don’t think NT passages on homosexuality can be culturally contextualized. I believe the contextualization of the former is necessary and good, and the contextualization of the latter is inappropriate and wrong. For her, there is no contextualization, there is only the demise of sola scriptura.

Does this prove that I am not an orthodox member of the Vineyard movement, or that the Vineyard is not really the emergent juggernaut Tickle says it is? Probably neither, but it is an interesting difference.

 PS I really like that she used the word ‘tribal.’ :-]]]

Vulnerability

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Someone I respect very much recently recommended this Ted Talk to me while making the following observation: "We can't selectively numb our feelings. If we numb negative emotions like anger, fear or pain, we will end up numbing our joy, our ability to love, and our passion."

Since I am someone who almost constantly struggles to express my emotions, I watched the talk.

Brene Brown is a brilliant anthropologist. Some of the observations she makes about human nature and American culture resonated deeply with me; they are things I have been recently noticing and learning in my own journey.

A few gems:

1. We can't selectively numb our emotions. We want to avoid negative emotions like shame, fear, anger or loneliness. But if we avoid those emotions, we will also prevent ourselves from feeling the positive emotions like joy, gratitude, love and happiness. You can't do just one thing.

Therefore, feel the negative emotions. Experience them. Stand back and observe yourself reacting to life. Don't judge, just observe.

2. People who feel more lovable, worthy and connected feel that way because they believe they are more lovable, worthy and connected.

Therefore, surround yourself with people and places who will remind you of your inherent worth. Take the risk of defining yourself as a beloved creation of God, instead of defining yourself by your ability to earn, attract, perform, or control.

3. Perfectionism will only end in neuroses, years of therapy, failure, and lack of intimacy.

Therefore, let go of the need to control and manage the messiness of life. Surrender.

Radical Moderates

"Liberal and sophisticated groups are usually trapped in current social correctness, and just keep affirming peoples' selfishness. It is classic enabling and codependency, with too much false horizontal affirmation and almost no vertical truth-speaking. Most fundamentalist and conservative groups just threaten people with God's harsh judgment and their own, but do not normally teach people how to heal or how to make amends, or how to let go in practical, emotional, and mental ways (no teaching of contemplation). 'Jesus has forgiven it, so we can forget about it.' This is far too vertical with almost no horizontal dimension. Their guilt problem was solved and that is all that matters."
    (from Breathing Underwater, Richard Rohr)

Nice critiques of both sides, Mr. Rohr.  Of course, every church is erring in one of these directions. What do we do?  Seek out the radical middle. Become followers of Jesus who yield to the natural hierarchy that God created to exist in the church, while resisting the urge to become authoritarian, hyper-religious legalists.  Learn how to pray for the Spirit's authentic healing of hurts in ourselves and others, and how to achieve vulnerability in healthy relationships with others rather than ignoring addictions or enabling destructive behavior.

It's so tempting to let people 'live their own lives' or alternatively to make people 'behave,' but the radical middle ground somehow strikes a balance between the freedom of spiritual maturity and the virtues of spiritual discipline.

Priests and Pastors

Calling & Character

William H. Willimon

If we hold to the ‘priesthood of all believers' doctrine, do we need separate ethics for pastors? If so, what are they?

            The Protestant tradition has long emphasized the doctrine (Biblical or not) that all Christians are qualified and capable of performing the same sacraments and roles as priests do in the Catholic tradition. Martin Luther puts it this way:

Now we, who have been baptized, are all uniformly priests in virtue of that very fact. The only addition received by the priests is the office of preaching, and even this with our consent. […] Thus it says in 1 Peter 2, “Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, and a priestly kingdom.” It follows that all of us who are Christians are also priests. […] The priesthood is simply the ministry of the word. So in 1 Corinthians 4 it says: “Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.””[1]

Willimon is writing in the Protestant tradition, and after nearly 500 years there is still much of Luther to be found in Willimon’s Methodist theology of the clergy.  He writes, “My starting point for thinking about the ordained leadership of the church is baptism, the ministry of all Christians for which ordained, pastoral ministry is but a species of a broader genus called the ministry of the baptized.”[2]  Whereas Luther must argue against a special class of Christian ministers in order to raise the moral bar and stop many abuses in the church, Willimon is arguing for at least some special treatment of pastors and ministers in order to raise the moral bar and stop many abuses in the church. He goes on to say that his book “seeks to highlight those ethical challenges that are peculiar to clergy, the morality and virtues that adhere to the practice of Christian leadership today and the way in which clerical character informs those challenges.”[3]

            In light of what Luther says, I appreciate Willimon’s emphasis throughout his book on the pastor’s call to faithfully preach the Word.  If pastors are meant to be believers who are called to serve the rest of the priesthood, their most difficult and thankless tasks are to offend people with Scripture, to expose their own failures and messes, and to confront the most embedded cultural sins of our time.  Perhaps this is the ethic from Calling & Character that pastors most need to hear.

As Willimon points out, all the ethical issues that pastors seem to struggle with most—such as inappropriate relations with churchgoers, financial irresponsibility and impropriety, or obsession with church growth and ‘success’—are merely role confusion.[4]  If we think our job is to meet people’s needs as much as possible, or to sacrifice ourselves to the point of burnout and embitterment, or to cater to the demands of the nominal masses from the pulpit, we will inevitably fail. But if we keep in mind the core of the gospel and remember that Jesus is the head of the Church, then everything we do will be aimed at creating “love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”[5]

---

[1] Martin Luther Babylonian Captivity of the Church 345-6.

[2] William H Willimon Calling & Character 10.

[3] Ibid., 12.

[4] Ibid., 24.

[5] 1 Timothy 1:5.

Fools for Christ

Calling & Character, William Willimon's book on pastoral ethics, seemed to start out as a fairly tame, conservative and even banal exploration of how American pastors should behave.  Then, in the chapter titled 'Crossbearing and the Clergy,' Professor Willimon starts lobbing hand grenades.

On conformity:

"A pastor...is a living reminder that the gospel is not establishment but revolt, not settled accommodation but rather destabilization of present arrangements." (p. 98)

"The temptation to be 'conformed rather than transformed' (contra Rom. 12:2) is rather relentless. Church is forever in danger of degenerating into Rotary." (p. 99)

"I wonder if one of the ethical challenges for ministry in the mainline church is the sort of people we attract to ministry. We seem to have a high proportion of those who wish to keep house, to conform, and too few who like to play, confront, disrupt, revise, and foolishly envision." (p. 99)

On finances:

"I therefore consider it ethically significant that, in my denomination, we clergy publish our salaries. This is what we call collegiality. Unfortunately, we do not do much about the disparity in the salaries of the lowest-paid clergy and the highest-paid, nor do we hold in prayer those clergy (like me) whose relatively high salaries place in situations of greatest moral peril." (p. 101)

Comments with sarcasm on American individualism: 

"If I explain my actions on the basis of tradition, community standards, my parents' beliefs, or Scripture, I have obviously not thought things through, have not decided for myself, have not been true to myself, have not rebelled against the external imposition of a role, so I have not been moral." (pp. 109-110)

My thoughts:

This book is a great reminder that "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise." (1 Cor 1:27)  We are always trying to whitewash our faith in order to somehow make it acceptable to the world. People don't want to hear the stuff Jesus said, like "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matt 19:27)

Our society defines success in very clear terms: be able to get what you want when you want it, don't depend on anyone else, get the things you need to make you happy. Unfortunately this is not the message Jesus preached. People don't want to hear about the widow who put the two bucks she had to her name in the offering box.  And we certainly don't want to imitate it!  American culture is telling us this is foolishness.

But if pastors and leaders try to hide stuff like this, they are not only lying to people but also failing in their mission. They forget that the mission is to say and do what is true. The gospel will work for itself, right? There's no need to dress it up. Pastors should not be about trying to improve church attendance on Sunday or making people feel okay about their dysfunctional marriages or promoting unity at the cost of honesty.

Luckily the gospel is not just about selling everything we have to follow Jesus or forsaking our families to follow Jesus; it's also about God's justice setting everything right that is currently wrong with the world, and about God's power delivering us from evil, and about God's grace healing us from all our diseases and inner wounds and sins.

Don't misunderstand me. I think contextualization of the gospel is a really important thing. I'm not talking about some Ray Comfort style of preaching that overtly tries to piss people off.  I'm talking about contextualizing the gospel to American culture--because maybe Americans don't really need to hear about deliverance from evil spirits or material blessings. Most of them don't go around talking about the demonic attack they underwent last night or the curse that the neighborhood witch put on their kids.  Most of them have a roof over their heads and food to eat and cars to drive. I'm not saying these things don't happen in the US; I know plenty of people in my neighborhood who don't own a car, and some who don't have enough to eat, and a few who are homeless. And many are undergoing spiritual attacks, but most of them aren't aware of it. What I am saying is that many Americans are really comfortable, and when they go to church, maybe they should feel uncomfortable. Many other Americans (including a lot of my neighbors) are living very difficult broken lives, struggling with joblessness and addiction and broken family relationships and lack of educational opportunities (and significantly, all of these issues and their contributing factors are being supported and perpetuated by dark spiritual forces at work in our culture). Maybe when these people come to church, they should find hope and comfort.  But it shouldn't just be promises of jobs and counseling for dysfunction and so on and so forth--because "Church is forever in danger of degenerating into Rotary."  We need to address those underlying, foundational causes like evil spiritual forces, or sins of individualism and materialism. Because if the Church doesn't preach the power of God and operate in that power, we are just another social justice non-profit organization.

Fortunately for all those American pastors out there, Jesus preaches a gospel that is simultaneously discomfiting and yet hopeful. He says, "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'  For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon!'  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!'  Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." (Matt 11:16-19)

And then he prays, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to babes [...] Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn for me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my load is light." (Matt 11:25, 28-30).

Not bad for simultaneously preaching hard truth and hopeful truth.