Summit Week began in chapel here today. It's IWU's version of spiritual emphasis week at other schools. If I understand correctly, the speaker brought his own praise group. The presentation was really done professionally, although I must be getting old--it was way too loud for me. One prof actually stayed outside in the stairwell until after the music part of the worship.
I kept thinking of Irwin McManus' The Barbarian Call throughout the service. It was a "be a revolutionary" type tone to the message... nothing wrong with that. I chuckled to myself that instead of the old Byzantine icons on the screen he should really take a picture of Mel Gibson running on the warpath from Braveheart in a kilt and transpose the face of Jesus on it. Funny how every generation paints Jesus in its own image.
But the thing that kept jumping out at me was the way he used the word religion. Like so many emerging leaders today, he used religion in utterly negative terms. Like McManus, Jesus came to start a revolution, not a religion. For these types, following Christ is hyper-individualistic and church structure and organization is anathema. Russ Gunsalus remarked after the service, "Didn't Jesus say something about on this rock I will build my church."
Fifty years ago, if a person "got religion," it meant they became serious about following God. They cleaned up their life and started to live differently. But the same word today increasingly means an empty, hypocritical, passionless form of faith without sincerity or power.
The talk this morning was about conviction--committing deep to Christ. It was a good talk for sure. But as a watcher, I note that the revolution is a religion. It's not a group of individuals all just doing their own thing apart from each other. It is a body that works together in its revolutionary activity. We work out our salvation together with fear and trembling, not as isolated individuals.
It's true that Jesus didn't start a religion. God started the religion before the foundation of the world. Jesus fulfilled it and will bring it to completion at his return.
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Thanks for giving an "eyewitness" perspective rather than my easy chair in front of the TV one! In my mind I'm really talking about ideas far more than specific individuals. I believe McManus is a great servant of the Lord and have never been to Mosaic. And let me say the same of today's speaker--I'm sure his community in Atlanta puts me as an individual to shame!
But here's my gambit: that a lot of what we see in emerging worship and philosophy is "parallel play" in some ways. The individuals are together, but to some extent they're doing their own thing next to each other. They're doing great individual missions for God beside each other. The Braveheart thing is the impression I got from The Barbarian Way, a group of individuals each doing their own individual revolutionary thing... together. Maybe McManus balances this image out at Mosaic with a substantial corporeality.
For my ignorance, I ask forgiveness... (but will no doubt eat another mushroom next blog entry :)
I kept saying to myself throughout the speaker's message: "Sure, Jesus didn't come to start a religion, if you define religion as nothing but regulations and political positions. But what about the "rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say? Do we detach Jesus from the rest of the New Testament? If so, would he be mad at Paul for all his 'religion'?"
It is also interesting because I see to sides to the "emerging church." One side rejects empty "religion" and embraces individual worship in a corporate setting (the hyperindividualism?). For some odd reason, most big time speakers and authors act as if every person under the age of 35 falls into this category. The other side of the emerging world embraces creeds and other forms of liturgy that are hardly individualistic at all and place worship in the middle of a deep history rooted in structure and well...religion. It's almost as if the speaker assumes you can't have religion and be relevant anymore...which would be the opposite message that many people my age have come to believe. So while Erwin and others are speaking the "language of the people," the category they reach is much more acute than I believe they see it as.
Wonderful conversation! It seems to me like Contantine's 312 conversion marked the shift in the Church from missional to institutionalized because for the first time, the Church became directly tied to the state. The lack of autonomy is a dangerous thing for the Body of Christ as it precludes us from acting as fully devoted followers of Christ. It seems like the Church of England's fossilization is the result of a similar bond begun by Henry VII and perpetuated through his daughter Queen Elizabeth I's Via Media policies. Whenever the church is controlled by the state, it cannot help but become institutionalized for it only mimmicks what it is tied down to.
That being said, I can say that my high church friends are horrified at the lack of continuity and unity among "emerging churches." The dismembering of denominations, while liberating, only enhances doctrinal differences and further excoriates the unity of Christianity as a whole. While I admire the emerging church's unique and protean creativity, it seems almost contradictory that emerging church members are told to embrace diversity and Christian "one-ness" around the world and yet refuse to affiliate with a larger group of churches in the nearby area (aka a denomination). While not perfect, I think denominations offer the best chance we'll get at being "one church" and acheiving "macro-community" If one of the marks of the Church is "a community rightly ordered" then a denomination of some sorts is a necessity. Please note that more people who broke off from a larger church eventually formed cults and not simply "ortodox non-affiliated churches"
Finally, I'm tired of beating up on the word religion because we must realize that a few years down the road we'll be beating up on the next sexy phrase we come up with to replace the "religion" we threw out. If Christianity is not a religion, then I would ask what it is to be classified as? What is its true ontological nature? Once we find that out, perhaps we'll come up with a word that we won't beat up on so much.
Boy you and I are thinking along the same lines tonight... I did it with pictures of Jesus (and a bit of writing too)... but we are thinking very similarly, though parallel I think. My “Jesus pictures” thing is at http://www.drurywriting.com/keith/jesus.pictures.htm
Keith
The pictures are great Keith! Each one deserves a commentary on an era!
James, Mike, and Kevin, you all and Keith sparked some thoughts so I think I'll make a quick new entry and maybe get another line of thought going too. Thanks... this is great!
To add to Drury's pictures and line of thinking from a collegian/progressive Christian perspective...see Relevant Magazine's article in last month's issue entitled: "The Evolution of Jesus." It is right on, and uses many of the same pictures. It even dedicates a half to a full page to describe each representation of Christ in culture/art. I'd post the link, but Relevant's website doesn't have an archive for some odd reason.
What a great conversation. I think it's interesting that for most of its history, the church had been organized with a rigid structure. I wonder why now in this "emerging church" we eschew 'religion' and 'structure' and to a point, 'doctrine'.
We only have to look at the example of the Eastern church to see how believers can be together in a community and still be effective in their ministry, etc.
Thanks for inspiring words, Jay. What's in a name...? We're saying the same things with different emphases.
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