Competing Christianities

In a recent column for the ABP (Associated Baptist Press), David Gushee wrote an excellent article on the issue of Christianity vs Christianities. I think he makes an extraordinarily good point. Given the ways in which some Christians abuse the message of Christ (just think of the recent attempts to burn qu’rans as one example), it’s important for those of us who are trying to find a way to be Christ-followers in the 21st century to state clearly that there are different versions of Christianity out there.

Gushee writes:

I remember the first time it became crystal clear to me that there is no such thing as Christianity, but only competing Christianities. It was when I was working on my doctoral dissertation on Christians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. During that time I attended a most remarkable conference in New York on hidden children of the Holocaust. This gathering brought together the now-grown adults who had hidden from the Nazis to survive. Some of these children were saved by Christian families.

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Worshiping Personalities

This post was originally uploaded onto the earlier version of this blog on 25 August 2005

Looking at my posts recently, they’ve been a bit “heavy” on the theology side. So, to break that a bit, I decided to write up a thought that has been running around my head for the past few weeks. It has to do with how worship leaders help people to connect with God (I also think it applies equally to preachers/teachers as well).

In analysing how people learn, researchers have come to recognise a shift from intelligence to intelligences. No longer do we have a traditionalist view that recognises only a single ‘intelligence’ (usually related to linguistic or mathematical ability) and which varies in its development from person to person. Rather, we should see people as having multiple ‘intelligences’. Add to that the fact that people have different personalities, cultures, genders, etc, and you create a seriously intense environment for education and connection.

There are many tools that can help us get beyond this complexity – mainly these are frameworks which help us simplify, without becoming simplistic.

In the light of this, my thought is simply this: we should take these differences much more seriously when we plan a time of worship.

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Welcome new readers – a quick intro to the conversation thus far

Every now and again I’ll do a quick overview of my favourite posts – and that can act as a nice introduction for new readers and a navigation tool for those who want to “catch up” with some of the thinking and conversations on this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to help Christians and those seeking faith to find new ways to think about what it means to be a Christ follower. I have been writing and blogging on this topic since 1995, and this blog includes a selection of new and old stuff I have been working on. Some of it I’d die for, but some of it is purely experimental (I try and let you know which is which). The point is not to present a fully worked through systematic theology, but rather to allow you to enter into an ongoing conversation with me. If you like, this is just my journal – and you get to look in…

So, with that said, here is a brief intro to some of the posts on this blog:

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The role of women leaders in the local church

This article was written in April 1996, when I was a theological student. It was a review of the arguments in relation to women leadership in the church. The Baptist Union that I was a part of at that time had a very ambiguous view on the issue, and as a student I was trying to show that an alternative to the traditional “no women leaders” view was possible while still remaining Biblical. Looking at it now, I was obviously constrained by a hefty word count limit, but still think I touched on all the right issues. Maybe one day I’ll get the time to flesh this out…

A theological and Biblical exposition of the role of women and their relationship to men within the church, with special reference to authority and teaching.

1. Introduction
The role of women is an issue of vital importance to us today, not only as this issue is tearing churches apart, but also because of the large number of women actively pursuing ministry opportunities in churches. The doctrine of humanity as espoused in Scripture is the basis of any solution to whether women are allowed to teach and have authority (i.e. lead) in local churches. This issue is intricately bound up with the general issue of women’s submission to men and male authority, especially within marriage.

This assignment will deal only with general human relationships and marriage where it has a direct bearing on the issue of women teaching and leading in the church.

2. Approach of This Assignment
Realising that the traditional conservative position of not allowing women to teach or have authority in the local church has been defended from Scripture for many decades, I will not concentrate on defending this view. Neither will I attempt to totally discredit it. What I wish to do is to show the possibility of alternative interpretations, while remaining true to Scripture, that would allow women to teach and lead in a church. In doing so, I shall highlight arguments on both sides, indicating their strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully in the process, demonstrate the consistent witness of Scripture. This assignment is based loosely on a response to Piper and Grudem’s book (see bibliography below).

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Challenges Facing Youth Ministry in the 21st Century

This paper was originally published in 2003 in the Baptist Journal of Theology (South Africa). It has not been updated – some of the website references in the footnotes may be out of date.

The paper was a collaboration between Dr Sharlene Swartz (read her bio at LinkedIn or in her current position as HSRC researcher) and Dr Graeme Codrington.

Challenges Facing South African Baptist Youth Ministry in the 21st Century

A Crash Course in Post Modernism

It’s all around us. But most of us can’t concisely describe it. It’s the philosophy of the age which follows modernism. Modernism is basically the world view which drew the line between science and religion, faith and superstition, truth and veracity. It demanded technical, scientific answers to questions of faith and science. Non-ending proofs and evidence. Modernism required that everything be rational, observable and repeatable. It was in one sense a return to the scholasticism of the thirteenth century but without a supreme deity as its anchor. “God does not exist until proven otherwise” could be a foundational principle for its atheists, although Christianity too flourished in the modernist milieu. For modernists, the truth exists objectively; things must be explainable, we must be able to demonstrate and understand it. Modernism takes it as axiomatic that there is only one true answer to every problem, from which it follows that if we can correctly formulate those answers, the world could be controlled and rationally ordered. That’s why we grew up on Creation – Evolution debates, Disco (very tangible beat and structured dance form), long theological debates, proving the existence of God and cerebral reasoning. Modernism has ruled supreme in Western thought for the last 500 years. But since its beginning, a new approach has been gathering momentum, and as this century ends, it claims dominant position, not only in the intellectual corridors of power, but is pervasive throughout society in all corners of the globe.

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The Challenge of An Aging Population

In 2001, I was editing a magazine on the future of church ministry. I approached respected author, academic and church consultant, Richard Kew to write about what he thought was a critical future trend the church needed to be aware of. This is what he wrote. Now, nearly a decade later, it’s still important, and his advice should still be heeded.

Last weekend I was invited to speak at, and participate in, a consultation on ministry among the aging. It was a fascinating weekend. I learned a lot, met some interesting people, and (I hope) was able to make a small contribution to the process. This weekend I sat down with the November 3, 2001, issue of The Economist, and found a major survey of the near future by Peter Drucker that has me questioning — as well as building upon — some of the things that I said last Saturday!

Drucker is venerable in every sense of that word. Now 92, his mind is still as clear as a bell, and for someone who is highly unlikely to live long enough to see some of the things he is talking about, he is obviously very engaged with what tomorrow might look like. At the heart of some of his projections is his recognition that the developed world’s population is aging to such an extent, that the social safety nets all western democracies have put in place are utterly inadequate.

Here’s a nugget to ponder: “By 2030, people over 65 in Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, will account for almost half the adult population, compared with one-fifth now. And unless the country’s birth rate recovers from its present low of 1.3 per woman, over the same period its population of under-35s will shrink about twice as fast as the older population will grow. The net result will be that the total population, now 82m, will decline to 70m-73m. The number of people of working age will fall by a full quarter, from 40m to 30m.”

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A bit of fun: Why New Ideas around the church WON’T WORK

Quick reference List…

for Why New Ideas around the church WON’T WORK

Somebody’s always suggesting new ideas around the church, like adding on to the building, or switching Sunday school to after worship, or changing the times of services. No sooner than such ideas surface, objections swarm up like spring mosquitoes. In order to proceed in a more orderly and organised manner, why don’t we all begin expressing our reasons for why these new ideas won’t work by simply citing the objections by number, as in, “I’m against it because of 11, 26, and 44”.

1. It’s not in the budget.
2. I need more time to think and pray about it.
3. What we’re doing now is working just fine.
4. I know a church who tried it and it didn’t work.
5. They never had to do that in Bible times.
6. We don’t have the power to act on that.
7. Let’s assign it to a study committee.
8. Some of our best givers would oppose that.
9. It’s a good idea, but several years ahead of its time.
10. This sort of thing could cause a reaction.
11. It might work in America, but not here.
12. The older people would never accept it.
13. It would never produce any tithers.
14. We’ve done OK all these years without it.
15. We couldn’t do it until we have a new building.
16. It is too expensive.
17. It could ruin our carpet.
18. The timing’s just not right.
19. Let’s not be the first to try it.
20. Let’s put it on hold for a while.
21. I need to see more details before I can vote on I.
22. It’s too charismatic, [and/or] liberal [and/or]
social [and/or] _______ (add your label here)
23. It doesn’t fit in with our long range plan (see 51).
24. Some of our newer people won’t like it (see 52).
25. I don’t see any long term value in it.
26. That’s what we hire the pastor for.
27. We’ll lose people; why I know several…
28. It doesn’t fit the culture of the people around here.
29. Good idea, but we’re just not ready for it yet.
30. Our people are already overworked.
31. It doesn’t jive with our mission statement.
32. That would be too radical a change at one time.
33. Our church is too small to try that.
32. Our church is too big to try that now.
33. It is a worthy goal, but quite frankly it’s impossible.
34. Jesus didn’t have to do that to minister.
35. There are people who will stop tithing if we do it.
36. There’s just not enough time.
37. In a larger city that might work.
38. Perhaps it would work in a rural area, but not here.
39. Our facilities just couldn’t handle it.
40. It’s too much change too fast.
41. I think all we need is to do what we’re doing better.
42. It needs done, but we’re not the ones to do it.
43. Let’s let it marinate for a few months.
44. The trend right now is exactly the opposite way.
45. Something just doesn’t feel right to me.
44. Everybody’s not on board yet.
45. Bill Gothard teaches against it.
46. Our people are stretched too thin.
47. Our people have been asked to give too often.
48. The woman’s group would be against it.
49. This could be divisive. We could get sued.
51. Do we have a long range plan for this sort of thing?
52. Some of our older people won’t like it (see 24).

From an anonymous email

Five Things Every Adult Christian Should Know About Youth Ministry

It is God’s design that His Gospel, the Good News of salvation for all who believe in Christ, should be passed down throughout history by each generation reaching and teaching the next. This was clearly spelt out in Deut. 6:6-12, repeated in Deut. 32:45-47 and in Joshua 24. Yet, one of the saddest verses in Scripture is the indictment in Judges 2:10, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (NIV). The indictment is not against the wayward youth, but actually against the older generation who failed to correctly nurture them. It appears as if this indictment may be repeated in our own day. Today, the church is on the brink of a major crisis as many young people are rejecting it as irrelevant, boring and superficial.

The church is always only one generation away from extinction. If Satan can win the soul of just one generation, then he wins the souls of all that follow. The role of youth ministry in a local church is therefore one of the most vital aspects of that church’s existence, and certainly the key to its continued survival. With this in mind, there are a number of critical areas in which churches appear to be failing the generation of young people at the beginning of a new millennium. These can be characterised by five serious misconceptions regarding the role of youth ministry in the local church:

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Being Incarnational in Youth Ministry – a theology

An assignment completed in 1998, as part fulfillment of the requirements of the Youth Ministry Major at Baptist Theological College, South Africa.

NOTE, July 2010: This article could probably do with updated references to popular culture. If you’re going to use it, please make the effort to replace references to TV shows, movies and music with more up to date references. For example, if Jesus were around today, I’m sure he’d have a Facebook account, and would be happy for any and everybody to be his friend.

1. Introduction

In his book, The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren devotes a chapter to Jesus’ model of ministry that attracted crowds. His purpose is to show that a strategy that aims at large numbers is Biblical. In doing so, however, he also makes some important general comments regarding the nature of Jesus’ ministry. Towards the end of His ministry, Jesus instructed His disciples, saying “As the Father sent me into the world, I am sending you” (John 17:18; 20:21). Jesus is our model of operating in the world. But Jesus was God – so how exactly can He be our model?

It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the exact nature of the incarnation (becoming man) of Christ. However, the basis of this paper is that the incarnation involved Christ, who is God, becoming fully human, yet without compromising his full divinity (John 1:14, Phil. 2:6f.). This being the case, let us examine some implications of Christ’s example for youth ministry.

2. Implications of the Incarnation

All of the implications of the incarnation are beyond enumeration or expression. The fact that God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Sustainer of all life, should reduce Himself to a foetus in a virgin peasant girl is beyond understanding. That the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob should subject Himself to human care as a helpless baby, grow up in Roman-controlled Palestine, and walk from one end of Israel to another, followed by a rag-tag team of social outcasts, eventually submitting to the cruel nails of crucifixion, simply to identify with me, is too great a thought to grasp. Yet, it is possible to glean some principles from Jesus’ earthly life, that can be applied to youth ministry. Just as Jesus took on Himself the form of a human being, we must take on the “form” of a young person. The following sections work towards a theology of Incarnational Ministry, which will explain how this can be achieved.

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Living in an age of transition

First posted in 1999, and updated in 2005

Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began.
Hauerwas and Willimon 1989:15 (see bibliography at end for details)

The world of today is caught in the crack between what was and what is emerging. This crack began opening in the 1960s and will close sometime around the year [2020]. Trusted values held for centuries are falling into this crack, never to be seen again. Ideas and methodologies that once worked no longer achieve the desired results. This crack in our history is so enormous that it is causing a metamorphosis in every area of life. Today, the fastest way to fail is to improve on yesterday’s successes.
For many churches, the most disruptive discovery of recent years has been that few of today’s teenagers were born back in the 1950s or 1960s. A new generation of teenagers arrived with the babies born in the post-1969 era. What worked well in youth ministries in the 1960s or 1970s or early 1980s no longer works. Why? One reason is those approaches to youth ministries were designed by adults for an adult dominated world in which most teenagers looked to adults for wisdom, knowledge, leadership, affirmation, expertise, authority, and guidance. That world has almost disappeared and today largely in the heads of people age twenty-eight and over.
Schowalter 1995:8

An age of transition

My grandmother was born in 1916, in East London, South Africa. When she was born she had a reasonable expectation of growing up, getting married, working, living and dieing in a world that remained largely unchanged. After all, although there had been changes in the decades before her birth, most of these took more than one person’s lifetime to work their way into society. But not now! Since about 1950, the pace of change has exponentially increased. So, to help us understand the rate of change,consider that my grandmother was born before inter-continental air flights, jet-aircraft, space travel and moon walking, before individual telephone lines, before computers, before the first commercial motor vehicle in South Africa and tarred roads, before Johannesburg got electricity, before calculators, before “the pill”, before radar, before Elvis, before calculators and ballpoint pens, before faxes, PC’s and cell phones, before photocopiers, before miniskirts and bikinis, before television, before video machines, CDs and DVDs, before satellites and before the Internet. (Yet, every Monday morning, she sends an email to her children and grandchildren, spread around the world).

Yet, it is not just these things, and the speed at which they have arrived, that separates the young from the old in the world at the beginning of the third millennium – today’s young people are separated from their elders by incredible, fundamental shifts in thinking. There is a yawning chasm between todays adults (over 30) and youth (under 30) – in virtually every country in the world. In the last 10 to 30 years major shifts in every sphere of life have fundamentally changed the world: in South Africa it is largely defined by before and after apartheid (and earlier, before and after June 16, 1976), in Germany by the fall of the wall (9 Nov 1989), in America by Vietnam and Watergate, in Britain by trade unions and the Iron Lady, in Iran by the Islamic Revolution (1979), in Portugal by the Carnation Revolution (April 1974), in Estonia by the Singing Revolution (June 1988), in Czechoslovakia the Velvet Revolution (November 1989), in New Zealand by the end of socialism (and by the Eden Park Springbok test match that sparked Maori resurgence), in China by Tianamen Square (June 1989), and everywhere by PCs and the Internet.

We are living in an age of transition, between what was (the Industrial Age) and what will be (as we work through the Information Age into the Biotechnology era we are only beginning to discover the new socio-polital-economic geography of the world). The older generations are frustrated because the young don’t seem to listen to their advice or follow their footsteps. The young are frustrated because they see no guiding light or words of wisdom applicable to the path they’re on. We are in a dangerous place at this moment of history. So, does the Bible have any assistance to give us in such an age?

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Blue Like Jazz

Originall posted on 1 June 2005

I am busy reading “Blue Like Jazz”, by Donald Miller (Nelson, 2003, ISBN: 0785263 705) (buy it at Kalahari.net or Amazon.com). The subtitle, “nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality” hints at the style – its collection of stories and reflections on experience of a person trying to understand what it really means to be a question on the 21st century.

He explains the title as follows: “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But sometimes you have to watch somebody loves something before you can love it yourself. But I was outside the Baghdad Theatre in Portland one night when I saw the men playing the saxophone. I stood there for 15 minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody loves something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way. I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before in the of this happened.”

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Journalists, free speech, blogs and the church

Originally posted on 30 March 2005

Reading an editorial in BusinessWeek magazine from March 28, 2005, it struck me that the business world and the church may share a similar problem: redefinitions of the traditional roles of stakeholders.

The editorial was entitled, “The Apple Case Isn’t Just A Blow To Bloggers“, and referred to the recent Californian judicial ruling that web loggers (bloggers) must reveal their sources for confidential documents posted on their sites. The underlying issue is really about the definition of a journalist — who is one, and who isn’t, and what rights and privileges this status may bring.

If a blogger is actually acting as a journalist, then that blogger and the contents of his/her blog should be accorded first Amendment free speech rights. I sense a similar problem in the church today, where, at one level, we’re trying to work out who has the right to develop theology.

I was recently told of a conversation between a young person and an older theologically trained church leader. As the debate ensued, the older person stated something like this: “I will only be prepared to believe and accept this new type of thinking if someone like a modern-day Martin Luther spent his whole life studying the topic, and then writes down the fully developed, systematised version.” What this person really wanted was a bombproof faith, with no unanswered questions, and only one answer to each question asked. And they were only prepared to hear the answers if fully qualified people were giving them.

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More on “cheap grace”

This was originally posted on 29 March 2005

Following on from my previous post, I wanted to add that this concept of “cheap grace” is one of the biggest problems facing the “established” church (by this I mean orthodox, traditional, and/or evangelical churches/denominations) is that many of them have a rotten image amongst non-Christians. I do not simply mean that they are not attractive to non-Christians (at one level, of course, the cross is an affront to non-Christians, and cannot be “attractive” in a simple sense). The problem goes a lot deeper.

In his excellent book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren writes a great introduction in which he addresses a number of different types of people who might be reading his book. Here is a short excerpt:

“You may not be a Christian and wondering why anyone would want to be. The religion that inspired the Crusades, launched witch trials, perpetuates religious broadcasting, present too-often boring and irrelevant church services with schmaltzy music – or else presents manic and overly aggressive church services with a different kind of schmaltzy music – baptises wars and other questionable political programs, promotes judgementalism, and ordains preachers was puffy haircuts… doesn’t make sense to you why anyone would want ‘in’ on that.

You may not yet be a Christian, and you’re thinking of becoming one, but you’re worried that if you do you’re become a worse person – judgemental, arrogant, narrowminded, bigoted, and brainwashed… Do I have to like organ music? Do I have to say ‘Praise the Lord!’ all the time? Do I have to vote Republican? Do I have to oppose civil rights for homosexuals?… you wonder if there is any way to follow Jesus without becoming a Christian.

You may already be a Christian, struggling, questioning, and looking for reasons to stay in. Or you may have officially left the Christian community, but part of your heart is still there, and you wonder if you might some day return. So many of us have come close to withdrawing from the Christian community. It’s not because of Jesus or his Good News, but because of frustrations with religious politics, dubious theological propositions, difficulties in interpreting passages of the Bible that are barbaric (especially to people sensitised by Jesus to the importance of compassion), and/or embarrassments from recent and not-so-recent church history. Or perhaps it’s simply boredom – dreary music, blase sermons, simple answers to tough questions, and other adventures in missing the point. Or perhaps it’s fatigue – a treadmill of meetings in books and programmes and squabbles that yield more duties, obligations, guilt trips, and stress.”

And that’s just the introductory page…

The point I want to make is quite simple: I believe that in an attempt to deal with the declining image and acceptance of the church in general society, and, paradoxically, in moves by the existing leadership of churches to entrench their positions of power over laypeople, we have created churches that firstly make it too easy to become Christians, and secondly give too easy answers to the tough questions that fill the lives of people inside and outside their congregations.

We are currently living with the awful consequences of decades of cheap grace. There are many churches beginning to attempt to deal with some of the problems this has caused. There are many ways of approaching this problem and looking for solutions. There are many practitioners experimenting with new practice, many authors are beginning to write about it, a few theologians are attempting to systematise it, and some philosophers are trying to fathom it.

I find myself wondering between these different categories, continuing to look for questions, answers and markers for the journey. This issue of cheap grace seems to me to be an important marker.

Cheap Grace

A sermon outline originally posted on 13 March 2005

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his 1937 book, The Cost of Discipleship (buy it at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net), wrote: “Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has…. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because if calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son: ‘ye were bought with a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”

In the lead up to Easter this year, let us remember that “salvation” is about “justification” AND “sanctification”. To emphasize one over the other is unbiblical. To my mind, this is the single biggest failing of the church at the moment – to be so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good. To emphasize what Jesus came to die for, and to neglect all he came to LIVE for – the establishment of His Kingdom ON EARTH as it is in Heaven!

If we lived more like Christ’s intent, we wouldn’t have many of the issues I talk about elsewhere on this blogsite.

Here is a sermon I preached just before Easter a few years ago:

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Eddy Gibbs on the Emerging Church

Originally posted on 19 September 2005

In a lecture presented to the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa a few months ago, Eddy Gibbs, a long-term voice for change in the church, talked about his view of “emerging church”. What found really interesting in the report I received, was his list of emerging church characteristics. He since wrote a book on the topic. While it is now slightly outdated, I do think that the picture he presents of the “ideal” emerging church should be aspirational for all church leaders.

“For the past three years I have been working with a younger colleague at Fuller Seminary, interviewing around 100 emerging church leaders in the UK, the US, and other areas of the English-speaking world in an attempt to answer those questions. Here is our tentative list:

• Their churches are worship-inspired with everyone playing an active role in creating the worship experience.
• They are mission focused, committed to responding to the needs of their community and especially in serving the poor.
• They are shaped by context, i.e. seeking an indigenous expression of church that is culturally appropriate.
• They seek to contextualize discerningly, ensuring the integrity of the message and refusing to soften its radical impact.
• They disciple intentionally, which means that they are more concerned to challenge people to live as Christ-followers rather than gathering a crowd.
• Their churches are structured relationally rather than hierarchically. This means that everyone has their place to belong and ministry to which they can contribute.
• Their churches grow organically, which means that they are reproducible, much like a strawberry plant sending out runners that set down new roots and produce more strawberries.
• They network extensively, usually by means of regular contact with the internet, with chatrooms and blogs.
• They gather together periodically the smaller cell churches for times of celebration and re-tooling for mission.
• Lastly, they serve compassionately, in that they are committed to holistic spirituality, rejecting any separation of the spiritual from the secular, which occurred under modernity.

I like it a lot.