So you’re wondering about the address of this blog (http://gordonsemerging.blogspot.com). Is there any significance to the title? Why yes, there is. I’m sure that numerous posts will be dedicated to the subset of Christianity called “Post-Modernism,” but I will attempt to explain my disdain for it as briefly as I possibly can.
The entire PM movement in Christianity is centered around shifting world views, “post-Christian” schools of thought, evolving “Theological commitments,” new styles of worship, a search for a more “authentic faith,” and an attempt to reach a generation of people through “modern evangelism” who have never heard the Gospel of Christ, and who don’t want to be in “Traditional Churches.”
There are many books on the topic, and are worth your time whether you’re for PM or against it. A few good resources are:
http://www.vintagefaith.com/
http://www.emergentvillage.com/Site/index.htm
http://www.youthspecialties.com/ (not solely “Emergent Church” based, and an overall good resource)
http://www.vintagefaith.com/longer.pdf (a teaching on the “Emerging generation”)
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My problem isn’t the fact that there is a quasi-new Christian “movement” (we have one of those every three months). My problem isn’t that we are writing book after book about PM evangelism, church in a PM world, etc. My problem lies in the fact that post modernity doesn’t exist. It can’t exist as a “new thing,” because it’s existed from the beginning. We don’t have anything new to “emerge” from.
Websters: emerge
Main Entry: emerge Pronunciation: i-'m&rjFunction: intransitive verbInflected Form(s): emerged; emerg·ingEtymology: Latin emergere, from e- + mergere to plunge -- more at MERGE1 : to become manifest2 : to rise from or as if from an enveloping fluid : come out into view3 : to rise from an obscure or inferior position or condition4 : to come into being through evolution
You can argue with me until you are blue in the face, but to suggest that Christianity, in it’s purest form, is “com[ing] into being through evolution” confounds me. People have evolved. “Religion” has evolved. Cars have evolved. Home appliances have evolved. Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Truth doesn’t evolve. Truth isn’t now becoming. Christ isn’t now suddenly “coming out into view,” nor is He rising from an obscure or inferior position. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Nothing about Christ has changed, nor will it ever.
So what’s emerging here? Kimball would have us believe the “church” is emerging. Maybe. I can agree to a certain extent that a new generation is “emerging,” but that’s nothing new. All generations emerge at some point in time. That’s redundant. To speak about an emerging generation like it’s a new concept is insane on the level of a “man who calls himself a poached egg” (C.S. Lewis).
Therefore, I’ll emerge. I’ll emerge from my shell and talk about the things that matter. I won’t simply bash anyone’s view, rather, I’d like to discuss them. If you’re reading this, maybe you agree, and maybe you don’t. I encourage you to wrestle with these things just as I am. We’ll find the answers together.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Six years Six years
Six years. Six years man. I wish I had a great story about the last 6 years of my life. The fact is, I don’t. Six years today. SIX YEARS. What’s the next six years going to hold?
My ten year high school reunion has come and gone. I missed it. Next will be my ten year college reunion. . .I’ll miss that too. It will just be as if everyone (including me) has swelled.
Sorry. . .I’m on a Gross Pointe Blank kick. . .
I miss Jennifer.
My ten year high school reunion has come and gone. I missed it. Next will be my ten year college reunion. . .I’ll miss that too. It will just be as if everyone (including me) has swelled.
Sorry. . .I’m on a Gross Pointe Blank kick. . .
I miss Jennifer.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
When We Lost
I remember when Jim Bakker had an affair with Jessica Hahn. I clearly recall Mr. Bakker’s PTL (Praise The Lord) ministry being torn to the ground. Jim Bakker was what I knew of religion. Religion, to me, was an occasional hour on an occasional Sunday (mostly holidays), and television preachers that rarely gained more than a moment of my attention as I swept past their channel on my television, while I was presumably looking for cartoons.
I was 9 years old in 1987 when the Bakker scandal broke, and almost 20 years later, that incident remains in the forefront of my mind as a moment that shaped the country’s (if not the world’s) perception of Christianity and Christians in the twentieth century. I don’t recall a conscious decision to abstain from the practices of Christianity or to avoid It’s followers, but looking back, I think the Bakker affair certainly tainted my view of Christians, and their “religion.”
Growing up in the south, “religion” was everywhere. Protestantism was predominant (I don’t even think I met a Catholic until I left the South), but there was no predominant denomination. In a 10 mile stretch of road in North Carolina, one can pass Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Charismatic, “Gospel,” Church of God, Assembly of God, and “Helaing” churches (an on a summer night any and all of them may be having a “revival”). Where should an unbeliever stop? What makes the Methodists different than the Baptists? They all use the same Bible right? Why so many different denominations? Who is right? What makes them right? It’s so much easier to just not stop at any of them.
Let’s suppose, for argument’s sake, I did stop. I walk up the steps, under the steeple and through the great wooden doors. What would I find inside? Would I be welcomed with open arms? More often than not, I would have been greeted at the door by an elder or that Sunday’s assigned greeter, and I would take a place in the rear of the church. Maybe I would sit where a patriarchal family normally sits, and would be asked to move, or, just made to feel guilty for the tenure of the service through only slightly muffled grunts and damning stares. After the sermon, I could easily stand, leave the church, having met no one, and return home. Maybe, I would be richer for the experience. Maybe, I didn’t attend during the middle of a capital campaign or during “youth Sunday,” and I heard a compelling message. Maybe, I didn’t over-hear a spat about the music, or the preaching, or about how things “used to be,” but that was never the case for me. I am willing to accept that I may have been subject to “Murphy’s Law” and if it could have gone wrong, it did. The prevailing question in my mind, Sunday after Sunday, was: “Am I the only one experiencing this every single time I step through the doors of a church?” It was no wonder to me that people despised Christians, and wanted no part of their ritualistic Sunday gatherings.
Church had become a social gathering—a seeming “who’s who” in the community, or at least in a specific congregation. Church wasn’t about the love of Christ, the growth of a community, the growth of individuals, strengthening or establishing a relationship with God, but rather a collective gathering that was a break between morning coffee and doughnuts and post-service fried chicken and potato salad. The messages were watered down so as not to offend any particular member of the congregation. The music was bland and emotionless. The prayers were dogmatic and lacked any real passion. The offerings were obligatory and ridden with guilt. The pastors had a capped smile that never faded and bordered on psychotic. The congregations gazed off into space or read their Bibles on their own while looking at their watches as they anticipated the coming buffet style lunch in the “fellowship hall.”
Is this the “bride” Christ came to claim?
Churches split, congregations were torn, families suffered, communities turned on one another, children lost play-mates, co-workers no longer got along, best friends quit talking, and they did it all in the name of God, for their “church”. The saddest part, as an outsider, is the reasons that “churches” needed to split. I have been told that the two largest reasons congregations split is over money and music. Someone doesn’t like the way the church is spending it’s money (usually a large contributor), and they decide their time is better spent elsewhere, so why not start another church? After all, we’re required to go to church, so we might as well go to a church where they do things the way we think they “ought to.” Maybe the music could be louder, or quieter, or softer, or more contemporary, or maybe we just don’t like the music director. That’s enough reason to start a new church—isn’t it?
This can’t be the “bride” Christ came to claim.
I was 9 years old in 1987 when the Bakker scandal broke, and almost 20 years later, that incident remains in the forefront of my mind as a moment that shaped the country’s (if not the world’s) perception of Christianity and Christians in the twentieth century. I don’t recall a conscious decision to abstain from the practices of Christianity or to avoid It’s followers, but looking back, I think the Bakker affair certainly tainted my view of Christians, and their “religion.”
Growing up in the south, “religion” was everywhere. Protestantism was predominant (I don’t even think I met a Catholic until I left the South), but there was no predominant denomination. In a 10 mile stretch of road in North Carolina, one can pass Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Charismatic, “Gospel,” Church of God, Assembly of God, and “Helaing” churches (an on a summer night any and all of them may be having a “revival”). Where should an unbeliever stop? What makes the Methodists different than the Baptists? They all use the same Bible right? Why so many different denominations? Who is right? What makes them right? It’s so much easier to just not stop at any of them.
Let’s suppose, for argument’s sake, I did stop. I walk up the steps, under the steeple and through the great wooden doors. What would I find inside? Would I be welcomed with open arms? More often than not, I would have been greeted at the door by an elder or that Sunday’s assigned greeter, and I would take a place in the rear of the church. Maybe I would sit where a patriarchal family normally sits, and would be asked to move, or, just made to feel guilty for the tenure of the service through only slightly muffled grunts and damning stares. After the sermon, I could easily stand, leave the church, having met no one, and return home. Maybe, I would be richer for the experience. Maybe, I didn’t attend during the middle of a capital campaign or during “youth Sunday,” and I heard a compelling message. Maybe, I didn’t over-hear a spat about the music, or the preaching, or about how things “used to be,” but that was never the case for me. I am willing to accept that I may have been subject to “Murphy’s Law” and if it could have gone wrong, it did. The prevailing question in my mind, Sunday after Sunday, was: “Am I the only one experiencing this every single time I step through the doors of a church?” It was no wonder to me that people despised Christians, and wanted no part of their ritualistic Sunday gatherings.
Church had become a social gathering—a seeming “who’s who” in the community, or at least in a specific congregation. Church wasn’t about the love of Christ, the growth of a community, the growth of individuals, strengthening or establishing a relationship with God, but rather a collective gathering that was a break between morning coffee and doughnuts and post-service fried chicken and potato salad. The messages were watered down so as not to offend any particular member of the congregation. The music was bland and emotionless. The prayers were dogmatic and lacked any real passion. The offerings were obligatory and ridden with guilt. The pastors had a capped smile that never faded and bordered on psychotic. The congregations gazed off into space or read their Bibles on their own while looking at their watches as they anticipated the coming buffet style lunch in the “fellowship hall.”
Is this the “bride” Christ came to claim?
Churches split, congregations were torn, families suffered, communities turned on one another, children lost play-mates, co-workers no longer got along, best friends quit talking, and they did it all in the name of God, for their “church”. The saddest part, as an outsider, is the reasons that “churches” needed to split. I have been told that the two largest reasons congregations split is over money and music. Someone doesn’t like the way the church is spending it’s money (usually a large contributor), and they decide their time is better spent elsewhere, so why not start another church? After all, we’re required to go to church, so we might as well go to a church where they do things the way we think they “ought to.” Maybe the music could be louder, or quieter, or softer, or more contemporary, or maybe we just don’t like the music director. That’s enough reason to start a new church—isn’t it?
This can’t be the “bride” Christ came to claim.
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