The Conversation vs. Argument
August 13, 2007 by Jonathan Brink
Today I was looking at books at Borders and ran into An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. It’s a compilation of essays about the emergent church, edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. I didn’t get to delve into it much other than the introduction and some of the first chapter. But one thing that I noticed is both sections spoke of the same thing. Friends. And what do friends do. They talk. Which is why part of the whole dialog about the emerging church has been called The Conversation. It was a conversation among friends about what was emerging.
I’m sure there were many disagreements along the way. Mark Driscoll was part of the original group and chose to distance himself from emergent labels and focus more on missional language. But overall the term conversation stood the test of time. I think one of the things that has drawn me to the change in the church has been the dialog and the conversation. The nature of it being that we’re exploring it together. We don’t and won’t always agree but what characterizes it is the ability to have a conversation, much like sitting at Starbucks curled up in a couch and sharing your heart.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that those who don’t agree with the emerging dialog/conversation tend to argue. The point seems to be to convert to some sort of systematic theological framework. Anything outside of that framework is evil and must be condemned. And the problem I see with that is that it appears to be rooted in fear. Anything they don’t agree with must be demonized or their position will be put into question. I saw this with Tony Jone’s interview on the Albert Mohler Radio Program. The guest host was Dr. Russell Moore. I don’t know the good doctor, but one thing that characterized his interview of Tony was argumentative inquisition as opposed to discovery. Conversations discover something. Arguments attack, which Dr. Moore did.
The interview got me thinking. Why engage the attack? Why try and convince those who don’t wish to believe. And then I began to realize that Jesus never chose to engage the Pharisees (I leave it to those who argue to determine if they are in fact Pharisees). He simply loved people and transformed lives. In fact it was the Pharisees that always engaged Jesus trying to trap him. But they couldn’t until the very end and only when God allowed it to happen.
I long for more conversation. I long for appreciative discovery. That is why I need people who want to engage God’s mission in this world. They don’t need to have it all together. They don’t need to have it all figured out. In fact, the people I know who are engaged in an emerging/missional dialog are comfortable not knowing everything. They live in the tension of not knowing, which often drives their journey.
So my question is, “What are people afraid of about the emerging/missional conversation?”
I don’t know a ton about the ‘emergent church’ other than what I read in A Heretic’s Guide to Christianity, but I am wary of anything that labels itself as ‘post-modern.’ Post-modernist Christianity has always been presented to me as being a philosophy that allows for the watering down of truth to fit the individual it is being presented to. Truth is relative; what is truth to one person may not be true for another, that sort of thing. It seems to end up being an almost universalist philosophy. I’m sure I did not word it the way you would have, but is that far from accurate?
Refe,
I would encourage you to read more. A broad range of books from both sides would probably be a better approach, no? But my assumption about your response is that you are actually looking for insight here so I will respond to that assumption. A good book to start with is, “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. Then try “They Like Jesus But Not The Church” by Dan Kimball. Then move onto “The Myth of a Christian Nation” by Greg Boyd.
The “truth is relative” comment is a postmodern thought, yes. But it is not a Post-modern Christian thought. The idea behind post-modern Christianity is to find the soul of what Jesus was offering, not what Christendom has offered us. We’re in what is called a “liminal” period, which means everything is being questioned. The only people who have to be worried in liminal periods are people who have built false structures. Those in the emerging conversation are simply exploring the fringes in trust that God is still there to bring them back when appropriate.
If you look at the history of the church, it dramatically changed under Constantine in 330. And in the process lost its soul. Over the last 1700 years we’ve lost what it meant to follow Jesus, instead relying on getting people into heaven. Discipleship became secondary. People were Christians because they were part of the state. And all that was left was to debate about theology and esoteric point out of boredom. When they didn’t agree, they split and created one of the thousand different denominations. It’s really a sad progression. And along the way we became the rulers of the Western empire, choosing to oppress instead of love.
The post-modern world is a response to centuries of oppression (from outside the church and within). Some of it has to do with the industrial revolution and the destruction of the family. Some of it has to do with the 50’s, which were the height of the modern world, and the 60’s which became the reaction to that world. The church, unused to change, relied on outdated forms that the emerging generations no longer responded to. That was the reason behind the “emerging conversation” started by The Leadership Network in 1998.
I’d get on the bus fast and realize that the world is changing. I doubt the church will look anything like it does in 100 years. Why, because it’s finding its soul again.
Keep looking thought. My best to you.
What sort of thing is being done to find ‘the soul of what Jesus is offering?’
Refe,
I was reading the paper this morning thinking about how to answer your question. Then I happen to see an article from Leonard Sweet, who is a professor at Drew University and prolific writer in the post-modern Christian world, answer it for me. He says,
“People need a place for relationships and we’ve turned church into a place where you deliver points and propositions and principles and not a place where people can really be authentic, where relationships can take place.”
The soul of what Jesus is offering is restoration and reconciliation so that we can fully realize that we are loved and our capacity to love. We do this in real relationships, not just in passively sitting in the pew and hearing the guy up front. The post-modern world is desiring that fullest expression and has reached a point where it no longer will accept the old forms.
I look at your icon picture and see a man deeply in love with his child. That is the relationship the post-modern world seeks. To know, really know, that God loves us so that we can be like our Daddy. Not through proposition, but through experience.
I think I get what you are saying, but so far you have mostly given me concepts and ideas. I would like know more about what it is you guys actually do. What I mean is, what do these ‘real relationships’ look like in the real world?
The key word is “real”. In the modern church we’ve learned to create a plastic self that hides the real self, the one that is broken and not perfect. We attend Bible studies and learn to speak the right way, act the right way, sing the right way, so people won’t see that we don’t have it all together, all the while our heart is not being transformed. The modern church has almost created an attendance card that requires us to be perfect before we get in to the club (or at least look like we do).
The post modern church is simply chucking all of that and beginning with the reality that we are broken and don’t have it all together. It allows for our imperfections in the context of growth. Shame is not welcome because it essentially attacks the dignity of the individual. It looks much like the way Jesus did relationship. It also doesn’t create unlimited freedom because the person is coming under the context of following Jesus towards restoration. Anything doesn’t go. The practice is then how do we as a community help each other grow towards maturity and love.
I’ve been in one of these groups for over five years and it has been life transforming. It was the foundation of my ministry.
But what does it look like? It doesn’t sound very different from many things I’ve experienced, but so far you have only given the ideas behind what you are doing. I am curious to see what you are actually doing. Does that make sense? I hear your language and your concepts, but I would like to see some examples of how that translates into actions so that I can better understand what you and this movement are about.
Refe,
I’m gonna give you three examples, none of which happen in the church building. All of these happened after I began to engage God’s mission of restoration.
The first is simply engaging my family (my wife and three children) in the idea of serving the poor through the local soup kitchen. My children are discovering what it means to practice love out in the world and serve those who are just as important as us, but may be less fortunate than us. The dialog has been incredible.
The second is engaging my neighbor, who I would describe as a lapsed Catholic with little engagement in any spirituality, and inviting him into my men’s group. In this space he was able to discover the space to really heal his heart and discover his own dignity as a child of God and learn what it means to lead his family.
The third is helping a very good friend of mine work through his own wounds around his father and learn to forgive him for abandoning him. He was able to reconcile in a profound way through a real dialog with a group of men, without shaming him.
There’s an element of this movement that may not be that far removed from what you are already doing in your life. I don’t know you. You may be unique, lucky, or just connected already.
I think to a certain extent I may not be able to answer your questions to a deeper level in this form. If you want to continue the dialog, let’s email each other.
Refe,
I actually thought of another example that I think is what missional is about. I worked with a gentleman who revealed to me over a lunch appointment that he was a homosexual. He knew I was a Christian and then proceeded to tell me that he understood if I couldn’t work with him anymore (he was my client). To be honest I was floored. I became aware of the message he was hearing from the church. I realized at that moment that it was not his responsibility to change but my responsibility to love him as a person. The traditional church would have told me to shame/ignore/correct him.
[...] I really began to think about what this means. Why is it called the conversation? I’ve written about this a little bit before but Roger’s post helped me think about this a little [...]