In the face of dying paradigms, it is tempting to try to reassert the old ways of doing things and demand allegiance to what were once the normative patterns for governing our life together.
But, what if, instead of reacting to the winds of change by striving to reassert control and affirm traditional rules and regulations, we step back from our fears and simply listen to what is actually going on? What might we hear if we open to the realities of peoples’ lives and try to respond with sensitivity and respect?
Is it too threatening to let go of our accustomed ways of doing things for just a moment and encourage our churches to be responsive to the reality of what is, even when it does not conform to our prescription of what should be?
Our identity as church is a fragile shallow thing if it depends upon continuing to do things in the same old way. The key to being able to listen sensitively to the world around us and accommodating to that world in the way we do church, lies in our ability to find a more profound sense of identity. Our true identity as church does not reside in how we do things. Our identity resides somewhere deeper than conformity to a rigid belief system or the demand that there can be only one pattern for the unfolding of the spiritual journey.
Where did the earliest church find its identity in the days before normative patterns of doing church had become enshrined in dogma and church practice?
In the New Testament book of “The Acts of the Apostles,” while Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit came unexpectedly upon a group of Gentiles. This was clearly outside the Christian community’s self-understanding. It was a contradiction of their established sense of identity. They were
astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles” (Acts 10:45)
Their paradigm was shattered.
In response to the evident work of God’s Spirit, Peter asked,
Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? (Acts 10;45)
Peter was able to open to the new thing God was doing in their midst. Community identity was able to expand to embrace the new reality God was clearly bringing into being. The earliest Christians refused to enshrine their identity in laws and practices. Instead, they found their identity in deep trust and confidence in the work of God’s Spirit in unexpected and surprising ways.
Today Christians must acknowledge that God’s Spirit is at work in places we might find astonishing. God’s Spirit is moving in the lives of people we might have believed were outside the parameter of God’s embrace.
We are being challenged to find our identity in a place deeper than rules and regulations. We must open our eyes and discern where the wind of God’s Spirit is blowing, even when that Spirit seems to be at work outside the predictable boundaries of our traditional paradigms.
When we identify God’s Spirit at work, even in surprising places, we must cooperate joyfully with that work allowing our structures and our energies to serve the emerging work of God in the world. In this way dying paradigms become nurse logs for new life. As we sit lightly to our familiar road maps, new life will emerge and we will be empowered by God’s Spirit to live into a vibrant future as God’s people.
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July 14, 2012 at 7:45 am
Steve
As the title of this blog suggests Gods Kingdom is a spacious place but it is a place, it has boundaries. I think it is fear of letting in sheep that are not of His pasture that inhibits the church, especially evangelicals. Safety and security are found in the customary. The apostle Paul had to deal with the same problem, that of the false prophets. Not unsurprisingly, just before I started reading this I was reading 1 Corinthians 10 where Paul is discussing his dealings with false prophets. These, the false prophets I see manifested today in the new age religions. I think it is hard for an average Christian to discerned falsity. I spot it instantly but having identified it what do we do? Paul seems to suggest humility first and if I understand correctly letting the truth of the gospel stand on its own but on its own it is a soft voice. Then as today, as Paul suggest the false prophets “commend themselves”. Today we call that hype. But as Paul seems to suggest the truth of God restrains us and hype is not a tool we should use (though many of the televangelist show no reluctance). As was discussed in a previous blog, Paul would only boast of his weakness. Beyond that I was surprised to read Matthew Henry’s 15th century commentary on 1 Corinthians 10:
“Now the apostle reasons thus with the Corinthians: “Suppose it to be so, allowing what they say to be true (and let us observe that, in fair arguing, we should allow all that may be reasonably granted, and should not think it impossible but those who differ from us very much may yet belong to Christ, as well as we), allowing them,” might the apostle say, ‘what they boast of, yet they ought also to allow this to us, that we also are Christ’s.’”
So the big question in my mind is what should be “reasonably granted”?
July 14, 2012 at 8:41 am
Steve
Correction, that was 2 Corinthians 10.
July 14, 2012 at 8:48 am
Steve
Another humorous thought I just had was the point could be driven home much more effectively to southern U.S. evangelicals if one word in the passage from Acts were changed to read:
“astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the liberals”.
They would truly be “astounded” and if truth were known so would I. (I confess)
July 14, 2012 at 3:23 pm
jaqueline
To be frank. The sort of Christianity that the religious right in America has promoted is perhaps the single greatest reason seeking people are suspicious of and avoidant of Christianity.
July 14, 2012 at 11:31 am
tress
I have read this a little differently than you Steve.
God has no bounderies. The Spacious place is only limited by our perceptions ,our learned ideologies and our egioistic ingrained beliefs.
As St Paul says.,” Now we see through a glass darkly. and then face to face” the nearest that we can come to that vision in our everyday lives is to shed as much as possible the thoughts and views that do not reflect the beautyand love that has beenrevealed to us,and act accordingly.
July 14, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Steve
Tress,
Of course there is no limit on the love of God, He loves all His children unconditionally and He beseeches us to do the same. I was in no way suggesting we put boundaries on Gods love. The confusion between what you and I are saying is probably a good representation of the confusion in the church and at the root of many of he problems of the church.. I am speaking of the truth of God rather than the love of God and perhaps my comments are out of place relative to the topic. Jesus asked the Pharisees ““And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” and I think that is the error Christopher is suggesting the church is making and I agree.
But the truth of God is not malleable. There are false prophets and Paul is saying we should, as we say where I live, “cut them a little slack”. But what about those who teach or advocate things that are patently contrary to the truth of God? The example I pointed out, the New Age religions are an example. They tend to mix a little of this and a little of that into what I regard as a customized buffet religion which is nothing more than idolatry. This is an issue I labor over. Of course it is incumbent upon us/me to love them, to not be contentious, to win them over with love. But I will not compromise the truth. I do not want to deny Christ in anything I do or say. In the end, I am asking questions, this is a difficult issue for me and one I face in real life frequently and on both ends of the spectrum. On one side there are Christians whose ways are in error and on the other people who say things like what was recently said to me. It was something to the effect of I believe in Jesus but I believe he was just a great man like Martin Luther King. Do we not have a commission to teach the message of Jesus? Or is it more like there is a time and a place for everything? I’m looking for answers.
July 15, 2012 at 8:28 am
jaqueline
Of course it is incumbent upon us/me to love them, to not be contentious, to win them over with love. But I will not compromise the truth.
What do you think truth is Steve? Are you making truth into your image? Who decides what truth looks like? Thankfully Jesus does not ask us to identify truth as a set of standards, or principles but identifies truth as a person. ” I am the …truth.”
‘New Age’, post modernist expressions of spirituality are a reaction to the rise of aggressive fundamentalism. How do you know that those do not contain truths that conservatism fundamentalism. has deemed unworthy? I mean your statement earlier that you believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of all religion and that all religion has something to say about God , that was an idea first proposed by New Agers; the only difference is that Jesus was not necessarily considered the source of all religions but a prophet of one of them.
The truth of God may not be malleable, but the expression of it is.
There is plenty of evidence of that, via the variety with which God has chosen to form the world, let alone the variety of voices that are presented in the Bible.Therefore it is perfectly logical that a philosophy/theology that allows for variation of form and expression of spirituality may be consistent with God’s truth.
Besides it is not written that
“Faith, Hope and Truth will remain” but ” Faith Hope and Love”
If truth does not look like love, it is no truth at all.