I’ve finally moved into the ranks of people who have actually read their copy of Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola and George Barna. And I’ve also got to the point where I have the energy and time to get back to blogging here at Postkiwi, after 3 months of relaunching Duncan’s TV as The Inspiration Room. So here goes with my summary and, after the break, my critique of the book.
Frank wrote the original version of the book back in 2003. He aims to challenge most of the practices of regular American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, claiming that they are postbiblical, postapostolic and mostly influenced by pagan culture. Joining him for the January 2008 edition is George Barna, following up his critique of the Protestant obsession with Sunday morning worship in Revolution.
I agree with the need for critiques of what have become standard church practices: the church building with the concept of “sacred space”, pastor’s chair, stained glass windows, Gothic cathedrals, steeples, pulpits and pews, the Sunday morning order of worship, altar call, written liturgy, choir anthems, the concept of a contemporary sermon, the concept of clergy and laity, contemporary ordination, title of pastor, special standards of clothing for church attenders, special special clothing for celebrants, tithing, clergy salaries, collection plates, ushers, infant baptism, sprinkling rather than immersion, baptism separated from conversion, the sinner’s prayer, use of the term “Personal savior”, the condensation of the Lord’s supper.
While the critique provided by Frank and George is in many cases over simplified, the point is clear. Nearly all 21st century church practices are human inventions, developed in the years since the writing of the Scriptures we claim to be based on.
Frank often says that he is no armchair theologian. He time and time again refers us to the practice followed in the fellowships he has been connected with, in which members spontaneously choose songs, share insights and concerns, and pray for one another.Frank’s focus reminds me of The Open Church, published by James Rutz back in 1992.
I’ve just had the pleasure of hosting Tony Jones on his short visit to Queensland. Tony’s the national director of Emergent Village, a collective of theologians, artists, poets, philosophers based on friendship and honest engagement with emerging understandings of being church in the USA. He’s in Australia at the moment primarily to speak at Black Stump festival near Sydney.
I picked Tony up from the Brisbane airport on Wednesday morning and dropped him back there on Friday afternoon. We turned up together to a gathering of Baptist church planters, a couple of ecumenical gatherings in Brisbane, and a Uniting Church conversation on the Gold Coast. I got to hear four versions of the Emergent Village schtick, which Tony kindly varied each time for the sake of keeping my interest up.
Here’s a few of my impressions on the Emerging Church, which I wrote for Ashmore Uniting Church newsletter this weekend…
Freedom to Explore Questions
One of the most common questions I’ve heard people ask Tony is, “How would you know if you’ve become unorthodox?” That’s because a number of authors from the Emerging Church movement have challenged readers to reconsider what we mean by the Christian gospel? Is it all about God dealing with our sin? Or are there other ways to describe the good news of the kingdom of God? And what are our blind spots when it comes to the way we run our church?
Wells rather than Fences
One of the hallmarks of the emerging church movement is a tendency to be relaxed about who’s in and who’s out of activities run on behalf of the church. People are invited to connect with Christian community who may not consider themselves as followers of Christ. People are accepted as friends of Jesus rather than assessed on correct doctrine or behaviour. It’s a bit like the difference between keeping animals behind fences and attracting them to watering spots. Of course, as one of the Baptists pointed out, that concept has been around for a while and is not monopolized by the Emergent movement.
Relationships Count
Tony talked about the role we have as ambassadors of the good news of reconciliation. As Christians we tend to associate with people who agree with us. The easiest way to keep the peace is to choose a pre-determined set of beliefs and try and stick to those. When we start to get to know each other more we find that there’s a lot more variety in the way people think and act. And as a result we have a lot to learn about being honest and respectful with one another. I liked Tony’s response to a question about “testing the spirits”, in which he talked about assuming the best about God’s action in other people, as a way to avoid blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
Generations in Conversation
While there’s a higher number of Gen X leaders involved in the ‘emerging church’ movement, it’s become clear that people of any age are interested in exploring different ways of being church. The Emergent Village connection grew out of the Gen X leaders called together by the Leadership Network in the USA. The initial hope was that these young emerging leaders would show us how to attract the next generation. Conversations made it clear however that generational distinctives are dwarfed by the more significant changes that come under the “Postmodern Turn”. So while it’s a group of Gen Xers who bring the generational values of cynicism about authority and a search for authenticity over excellence to their conversation, there are many older and younger people who share their journey.
Solomon’s Porch
A number of people found it helpful to explore what ‘emerging church’ might look like in reality in one of the communities associated with the Emergent movement. We looked at Solomon’s Porch, exploring the connection between relational theology, liturgy and couches. I suspect some were quite pleased to find the occasional flaw in the methodology. These “Emergents” are human after all.
Personal Reflection
Tony and I quickly became fellow travelers, sharing the challenges of transition. We spent time chasing a missing suitcase (see photo above), left by the flight attendant on the tarmac in Sydney. We went to the gym together, spent time walking the beach, and shared a few meals. In that time, I observed humility and honesty along with a passion for exploring truth. I picked up a few new phrases and words, like “ontological superiority” (our obsession with clergy), and discursive (Tony’s tendency to keep talking when asked questions). Tony’s a provocateur (look that one up) who gets people thinking. Good on ya mate!
See Tony’s blog at tonyj.net for his reflections on his tour of Australia, and check out his latest book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.
Postcards Emerging Church Network is hosting a conversation with Tony Jones, the national coordinator of Emergent Village and a doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Tony is the author of many books, including Postmodern Youth Ministry, The Sacred Way, Soul Shaper, focusing on spiritual practices and everyday life. His most recent book, The New Christians, provides an introduction to the Emerging Church movement in the United States.
We’ll be discussing with Tony how Christianity is changing, the spiritual practices that are necessary for the journey, and how we might follow Jesus into our villages and suburbs for mission today.
The Gap Uniting Church, Brisbane, Wednesday October 1, 7 - 9 pm.
Tony Jones, the national coordinator of Emergent Village in the USA, is visiting Queensland in October in conjunction with his sessions at Black Stump in NSW.
Tony has a background in youth ministry, Christian spirituality, postmodernism and the emerging church and will be picking up some of these themes. Tony’s approach will be focused on conversation rather than lecturing. See more on his blog, tonyj.net.
Mark Driscoll, known for his role as pastor at Mars Hill Church, Seattle, is visiting Brisbane in August. He’s speaking at Burn Your Plastic Jesus, a men-only event being run by 300 Men for Jesus. He’ll also be speaking on Biblical Theology of Mission at Queensland Theological College, the Presbyterian theological college in Brisbane.
Mark is described in the promotional material as a “theologically conservative and culturally liberal” pastor, holding Scripture firmly in two hands, while grounding two feet firmly in his culture.
Driscoll is disturbed by those who view Jesus as a “limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes.” Mark’s keen on cultural relevance and clearly has a commitment to reaching the “man’s man” culture by using strong language, wearing trousers (as do most men I know), using firm handshakes, using just shampoo, and drinking strong coffee.
“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity”. (Relevant Magazine)
The open agenda here is that Mark is distancing himself from his earlier emerging church days hanging around with the likes of Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren in the Young Leader Network (now known as Emergent).
Mark is known for his complementarian views. He teaches that men should practice headship and women should practice submission. Mars Hill Church has a policy of having only men in positions of authority or leadership. That’s a policy consistent with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. What concerns me is that this view is presented as the norm for the Reformed tradition. Most denominations within that tradition have moved on in more recent times - as can be explored in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches site.
The Burn Your Plastic Jesus event is being run by Mitchelton Presbyterian Church on Thursday, 28 August at Northside Auditorium, 151 Flockton St, Everton Park. See the 300 Men For Jesus site for more details. See Mark’s Wikipedia article and Resurgence Blog.
Doug’s well known for his role in Solomon’s Porch, a ‘holistic missional Christian community’ in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s one of the founders of Emergent Village, a social network of Christian leaders based in the United States.
A Christianity Worth Believing is a solid introduction to theology in development, carefully crafted with story, personal reflection and quotes from the Bible, the creeds and Protestant confessions. Pagitt begins the whole book with the story of his family background (explaining his need to stir) and his conversion. It’s the conversion story that sets up the tension that runs through the book. Deeply moved by his experience of a gospel play, a sixteen year old Doug responds with a life changing faith. But within two weeks the guy’s been introduced to the narrow version of Christianity contained in brochures, diagrams and statements of faith focused on Jesus dying to deal with sin so that God can connect with Doug.
Doug takes us on a journey with him as he reimagines what Christianity might be about. He introduces us to contextualisation through the Celtic adoption of the wild goose when talking about the Holy Spirit (rather than the traditional dove). He traces the modern obsession with uniformity back to the Greco-Roman adoption of Christianity in the time of Constantine. Today, he says, we’re still interpreting the story of Jesus through the lenses developed for a world dominated by Greek dualism and gods that needed to be appeased.
I like the way Doug writes about the Scriptures. “It’s in the way that you use it”, he says. Why is it, he asks, that the inerrancy concept is hauled out when we talk about certain emotive issues such as homosexuality but is abandoned when discussing other critical matters? When Paul talked about the Word of God being a sword did he really mean for us to use it as a weapon in our efforts to show that we are right and others are wrong? Doug is inviting his readers to think, really think, about the way they read the Bible, not as a one-dimensional instruction book, but as a resource that brings meaning and inspiration to us at different times and places.
Doug challenges us to take another look at what our focus is about. Is it about getting up and out of here, off to heaven, or out of the world into a safe place? Is that what God is about? Or is it about being down and in, thoroughly integrating faith with every part of our lives in a way that leads to being embedded in our communities? Do we take the incarnation (in the flesh) of Jesus seriously enough that we put it into practice ourselves?
Doug takes a crack at the atonement debate by beginning with the concept of original sin brought into mainstream theology by Augustine of Hippo in the fourth century. He suggests that the new Christendom model needed a compelling reason for citizens to turn up at the church. What better than to say that everyone was totally depraved and heading for hell without the intervention of Jesus, and of course the church as agents of Jesus? As Doug points out, even those who talk about original sin find it difficult to reconcile that approach when visiting maternity wards.
So is Doug a wishy washy theologian who now believes that Jesus was just a nice guy who had some useful things to say about life? Doug doesn’t think so. He admits that he’s had to do some hard thinking about alternatives to the penal substitution (Jesus died to take the punishment meant for us) explanation of Jesus’ life and death. He does this in the book by going back to the Jewish roots of Jesus, exploring the Hebrew concept of Messiah in contrast to the Greek understanding of Christ. Jesus is the fulfilment of what people are meant to do and be (The Human One or Son of Man). But more.
The final chapters deal with our historical obsession with heaven. Once again Doug grounds Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God in the Jewish concept of integration of all life together, here and now. He suggests that the Jewish scriptures don’t point too much to the future. In some ways I disagree. The Apocalyptic writings, and some of Jesus’ teaching, do indicate an interest in the long term future of the world. However we’d be hard pressed to find much in the Bible that focuses on what happens to us as individuals after we die.
Doug’s final chapter on future hope and heaven in some ways was a disappointing end to the book. It was like a chapter in progress, not as fine tuned as the earlier work. But maybe that’s a useful framework in itself. Doug’s presenting us with where he’s at now, recognising that he’s still exploring. As the father of a little girl who died at 18 months, I resonate with the story Doug tells in this section. I have a confidence that as we finish in this dimension we are held by God. But I’m not preparing for an ethereal bodiless stint in the heavenly choir.
Doug often refers to the Greeks as the ones who have given us the narrow faith perspectives we have today. I wonder what his Greek friends think of that! The reality is that society has moved along a little since the time of Augustine (as have the Greeks) but still is informed by some of the frameworks established then. The whole modernism/postmodernism phenomenon is in some ways an expression of a society that is critiquing the assumptions provided by those frameworks.
I imagine that A Christianity Worth Believing will be a useful tool for people wanting an alternative to the pre-packaged fundamentalism they’ve encountered in the church, not only in books but in the preaching, songs and explanations of what it means to become a Christian. I’d be interested in seeing or even developing a discussion guide for people talking through the book as they read it. Doug has a Facebook group set up for this purpose.
However I am sure that A Christianity Worth Believing will also become one more weapon in the ongoing culture wars of the church. The book will be quoted as evidence that Emergent and anyone associated with the emerging church really have gone off the rails and become liberals (read apostate). Those who take all their cues from the Westminster Confession will be thoroughly cheesed off by the number of times Pagitt points to the distortions found within. However many Presbyterians will be in total agreement with Doug! It was for this very reason that the Free Church of Scotland in 1892 passed the Declaratory Act.
Final thought. As much as Doug’s book is about belief, I get the sense that he’s presenting us with a Christianity worth living and worth sharing.
Tony Jones, national director of Emergent in the USA, has started up a video series on YouTube, featuring some of the people and thinking found in his book, “The New Christians”. The first features Trucker Frank, a guy who tells it like it is. Frank discovered that Jesus focused on what we do now rather than life after death. Frank got kicked out of the church he was pastoring for talking to the people who had left. The act that tipped the scales was throwing down a fake plant, in its pot, and telling the remnant that they were as fake as that plant…
Being a prophet is an exciting calling but it’s hard to find people who will pay you to live it out.
Tony will be in Australia in October, for Black Stump Festival in Sydney. We’re in conversation about the possibility of a visit to Queensland.
This was the video that got Steve and Kathy banned from GodTube. The senior pastors of World Revival Church of Kansas City (formerly The Smithton Outpouring) have cut out a niche in spoofing the excesses or potential hypocrisies of the Christian churches in the United States. Of course, now that their work is booming on YouTube, the couple themselves are vulnerable to the same ego-related excesses faced by any high profile speakers and writers.
Rob Bell is author of Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, and Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality. He’s known for his tours of the United States: Everything is Spiritual, and The God’s Aren’t Angry.
Andrew Jones, known online as Tall Skinny Kiwi (after his blogging identity of ten years), was the guest speaker at tonight’s Forge Grassroots Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Andrew grew up in Orewa, New Zealand, before moving to Perth in Western Australia. Tonight we heard about Andrew’s early fundamentalist street evangelism days - the importance of having a go and having encouragement to try things out. Since those days in the early 1980s Andrew has spent time working in and out of the United States, in Prague, in a campervan travelling around continental Europe, and now living in the Orkney Islands, Scotland.
Andrew is one of those guys who has you on the edge of your seat, wondering how it’s all going to turn out. He’s self-deprecating (as Kiwis know how), witty, and insightful, sometimes appearing to be surprised by the gems of understanding he passes on to us.
Tonight’s gems came from an exploration of what church planting looks like from a rhizome framework rather than multiplication model. He talked about the diversity of rhizomes, and the spreading wide rather than building high approach to sharing ideas, values, beliefs and action. We heard about the connection Gilles Deleuze made with the rhizome biology and philosophy, and how that inspired the World Wide Web framework.
Andrew’s thoughts on being prepared to risk reputation and associate with weirdos was a timely reminder to the Australian missional church movement not to be afraid to associate with those American Emergents who have been slated for their sloppy theology. Not that Andrew said that directly. But the message was there loud and clear in his own experience of moving from the position of a fundamentalist Baptist to a more relaxed Baptist who is available to work with whoever God places him with.
Tony Jones has published “The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier”, an insider set of observations on the Emergent movement in the USA. (Jossey Bass)
Tony is the national coordinator of Emergent Village and is working on a doctorate in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He’s known for his earlier books, Postmodern Youth Ministry and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life.
Leaving the Old Country
I found the first chapter a bit hard going, to tell the truth. Tony sets out to explain why there’s a need for an alternative to the mainline denominations (Episcopalian, United Methodist, United Church of Christ and Presbyterian), and Evangelical protestantism (the loosely aligned born again Christians who tend towards literal interpretation of the Bible, emphasise personal conversion to Christ). No mention of Catholics here. Maybe the USA is more polarised than here downunder but my experience of the Uniting Church in Australia and Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is that the tension between left and right is found within those denominations. In smaller countries there’s more likelihood that people will have attended conferences together, perhaps trained together at Bible College, or served together in an interdenominational organisation such as Scripture Union.
I appreciate Tony’s first two ‘dispatches’ from the Emergent Frontier:
Dispatch 1: Emergents find little importance in the discrete differences between the various flavors of Christianity. Instead, they practice a generous orthodoxy that appreciates the contributions of all Christian movements.
Dispatch 2: Emergents reject the politics and theologies of left versus right. Seeing both sides as a remnant of modernity, they look forward to a more complex reality.
I’m reminded of the behaviour of my third child as a toddler. The older two had the seating arranged for television. Kristen found that she had to push them to the left and to the right to get a seat in the middle.
The reality is that our formative heritage biases us, despite our discomfort with blanket generalisation. And so the “liberals” throughout the book are described by Tony (who comes from a Congregational background) as people who are all required to conform to a politically correct orthodoxy combined with conservative traditional liturgical worship. Although I’m living a long way away, I don’t believe that the mainline churches can be summarised through the writings of authors such as Marcus Borg or Stanley Hauerwas.
I did enjoy the inclusion of the Jon Stewart episode on CNN’s Crossfire show - which I’ve written up on my Propaganda blog.
After Objectivity: Beautiful Truth
One of the common critiques of the Emerging Church movement is the perception that these postmodernists have rejected the concept of truth. Tony responds by saying that Emergents embrace the whole Bible, the glory and the pathos. Emergents believe that truth, like God, cannot be definitively articulated by finite human beings. Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story.
I enjoyed Tony’s personal reflections on the art of umpiring baseball and the difficulty of ‘calling’ and ‘naming’ what is true. I appreciated his consideration of the story of Jepthah’s sacrifice of his daughter. It’s a messy situation that calls us to consider our responsibility for our actions and God’s presence in great suffering. I like what Tony has to say about the way in which Christians qualify the word ‘truth’ with ‘absolute’ and other such adjectives. What Tony’s saying here resounds with my experience of attending a range of congregations in which the
Inside the Emergent Church
There are some great stories told here, with honesty. We’re taken behind the scenes at Jacob’s Well in Kansas City, Missouri, Journey in Dallas, Texas, Church of the Apostles in Seattle, Washington, and Solomon’s Porch in South Minneapolis.
Tony introduces us to the diversity found in these groups, the openness to newcomers, the commitment to dialogue, experimentation, and also the vulnerability found in small start up groups. Will they last? Does it matter? Will these groups get past the tentative dialogue stages and harden into something more definable such as Mars Hill Church (with Mark Driscoll) in Seattle?
Wikichurch
This is a brilliant analogy for the way any movement forms. Tony talks about the Emergent belief that church should function more like an open-source network and less like a heirarchy or bureacracy. He writes about attempts to move out of the clergy-dominated meeting structures found in most churches and develop an ‘Open Access’ approach to dialogue.
Tony points to the way Wikipedia trusts the collective editorial community to weed out abberations or rogue entries. In the same way he beloieves that the collected people of God, in community with the Spirit, will stay on track and engage with God’s work in the world. Two painful test cases are the issues of homosexuality and women in ministry. Already Mark Driscoll has parted ways with the Emergent crowd, now that it is clear that the Emergent crowd disagree with his hardline approaches.
Tony writes about the need for sustainability in response to criticism that the Emergent churches are not growing fast enough or making enough disciples. He suggests that the messiness of new startup groups can be a good alternative to highly ‘efficient’ congregations in which people burn out or are dominated by egomaniac pastors. Fear of failure is what stops movements like this starting or progressing.
Tony’s epilogue suggests that Emergent Christians are a bit like the feral camels in Australia, once domesticated, but now out in the wilderness pushing over fences, occasionally returning to bother the establishment.
Thumbs up Tony!
If you’d like to discuss the book further join the Facebook Group, administered by Sue McMahon-Jones and Doug Pagitt.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Frank wrote the original version of the book back in 2003. He aims to challenge most of the practices of regular American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, claiming that they are postbiblical, postapostolic and mostly influenced by pagan culture. Joining him for the January 2008 edition is George Barna, following up his critique of the Protestant obsession with Sunday morning worship in Revolution.
I picked Tony up from the Brisbane airport on Wednesday morning and dropped him back there on Friday afternoon. We turned up together to a gathering of Baptist church planters, a couple of ecumenical gatherings in Brisbane, and a Uniting Church conversation on the Gold Coast. I got to hear four versions of the Emergent Village schtick, which Tony kindly varied each time for the sake of keeping my interest up. 
Tony Jones, the national coordinator of 
Tony is the national coordinator of 
