For those who do not check my other site (Emerging Christianity) I am printing this article here on worldspeak as well. Not that I can blame anyone for not checking there - I'm a pretty mediocre blogger when it comes to... well... actually blogging!
The following is part of an essay I am working on for my application to George Fox Seminary in Portland (which I'm very excited about!). Next year, I'll actually have the opportunity to take a class taught by Brian McLaren AND one by Len Sweet the following semester! Whew... it's like a theo-intellectual-brain-SPLOSION!
Ahem... moving on...
Glimpses of my Spiritual Pilgrimage
“Truth is the opposite of grace,” my pastor began this morning’s sermon. I jerked my head up from the church bulletin and looked around to see if anyone else seemed bothered by the statement. I must have said “no it isn’t!” a little too loud. The woman next to me leaned in and said, “it’s really profound when you think about it. Truth keeps grace from going too far!”
Going too far? Grace? Does God want to keep grace in check? Should we make sure Jesus doesn’t extend more than is reasonable? I bit my tongue and tried to sit still. Questions rolled through my brain all morning, and while my pastor was only trying to demonstrate the need for both in a balanced Christianity, his verbiage placed grace and truth in opposition to one another.
I attend the closest thing to a megachurch in Albany, Oregon. First Assembly of God boasts about 1,400 members and more than 2,000 attendees each Sunday. The church has a state-of-the-art sound system, dynamic PowerPoint presentations, and nine full time pastors on staff...
Every Sunday I leave that massive building filled with frustration, sorrow and an increasing sense of disenchantment.
By most accounts I’ve achieved what any church status-seeker (myself in younger years) could hope for: I’m known by everyone in our congregation, I volunteer in a successful youth ministry, I lead drama ministries for youth and adults, I sing with our praise and worship team on stage each Sunday. I am popular!
But each day brings desperation for authenticity closer to my lips. Every Sunday coaxes my frustration nearer my tongue. I fear such indignation might move me beyond balanced criticism, toward radical rebuke. One day I’m afraid my heart’s cry for genuine community will erupt and I’ll lose all the respect and esteem I’ve gained. But Jesus had little esteem in His life, and respect? I don’t think His closest friends and family ever offered the unending honor and reverence He deserved.
God, help me never come to think that I deserve respect or esteem in light of the life of Jesus Christ!
But back to the journey - the pilgrimage our Lord is walking me through. I think it begins and ends with more love. I guess you could call it my nonviolent battle cry. I find myself getting caught up in hyper-intellectualism and endless exegesis, and then look up from my books and notes and realize how long it’s been since I sat with old non-Christian friends over a beer at McMennamin’s Pub and listened to the stories of their lives. How long has it been since I sat in a tight circle of young men from my church and poured out my heart, in turn receiving theirs, growing and supporting and praying for one another? Sometimes it’s only been a few days. Other times, it’s been weeks, and I know I must return to more love.
Genuine community: that is where Christianity manifests this love at its best. Sharing and caring. Sadly, I often feel that Sunday mornings become the greatest enemy of authentic Christianity. It’s hard for me to get into others’ lives when their cautious response is always, “I’m fine.” Big plastic smiles, nice cars, clean homes... white-washed refrigerators filled with non-alcoholic beverages.
Now, before I come across as overzealous or unstable (is it too late for that?) I want to talk about why I love my church and why I could manage to keep attending at the same place for another ten years without having a meltdown. It’s easy and it comes back to loving people: more love.
I love the Body of Christ. On Wednesday nights I have the incredible privilege of leading a Bible Study for highschool youth. Over the last six months we’ve been venturing through the life of Jesus in four different translations/interpretations. I’ve found that it’s not so much the profundity of newer translations that give these kids a better view of scripture. It’s merely hearing things in a way their ears are not yet accustomed to. By breaking through cultural and generational walls, I’ve watched young eyes light up at the wisdom and truth canonized in the Gospel. It’s exciting and validating, and it keeps me going back to church on Sundays, just so I can maintain the privilege of leading on Wednesdays (it’s Sunday evening now, as I write this, and much of my fire from the morning has softened. Again, I’m looking forward to ministry in the coming week).
I don’t know where my spiritual pilgrimage will take me. Sometimes I expect to find myself behind a pulpit. Other times I think the monastic life looks pretty appealing (though I would desperately miss my fiancé!). Always, I am trying to run from the extremities of fundamentalism, dodge the temptations of universalism, and reach toward the pure audacity of unconditional love.
And I can never move from certainty that all the inherent fruits and textures of absolute love converge, in every way, with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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7 comments:
"Truth is the opposite of grace" Wow - that is an amazing statement. Call me naive, or uneducated, but I have always thought of Truth and Grace as a person - Jesus.
"And I can never move from certainty that all the inherent fruits and textures of absolute love converge, in every way, with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." Yes, me too.
Pete:
Man, oh, man, at times when I read what you've written I swear you've lifted the thoughts, despairs and irrepressible hopes straight from my mind and heart. My latest blog has addressed these concerns for a deeper, more authentic Christian experience and community as well. (I'll advertise for anyone reading this post who isn't you or me): http://javascripture.blogspot.com/
I need to send you a quote from George MacDonald. He has written something that will resonate with your comments at my blog site. Here's a taste:
"While the mind is occupied in inquiring, 'Do I believe or feel this thing right?' the true question is forgotten: 'Have I left all to follow Him?' To the man who gives himself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come right; the Lord Himself will see that His disciple believe aright concerning Him."
In other words, if we start with intellectual propositions, creeds, doctrines, or the quoting of Scripture, even, we start wrongly. Scripture is worthless unless it drives us to the Father's arms, to fall into his lap empty and naked in order that He may fill us and clothe us. It is Jesus alone who will save us: not beliefs about His atonement, His righteousness, or His teachings. He saves: not facts or fancies about Him.
So is truth opposed to grace? Yes, if truth about Christ replaces the living relationship one has with Christ. Otherwise, whatever is truly true, that which we yearn for as Truth, is in no way opposed to Grace. In truth, Truth is as paradoxical and enigmatic as the Grace from which it issues....
Congratulations on George Fox Seminary. You hadn't told me you were going. I envy you...
God's blessings on you , my friend.
Yours, Pete Strobel
Theo-intellectual-brain-IMplosion is more like it. McLaren and Sweet are damned idiots. See here:
http://blog.johndepoe.com/2005/07/c-is-for-clueless.html
Interesting blog. Yes, I think it's true and relatively well-recognized that McLaren and Sweet and many of those who are approaching Post Modernity through Christian lenses are not philosophers (or historians for that matter). McLaren, especially, admits these things openly.
I WOULD disagree with the inference that their approaches are not valuable. Yes they are simplistic, but they are not worthless. They attempt short cuts and analogies that sometimes work and sometimes do not.
However, to say that a strain of thought is "wrong" or "damnably idiotic" seems very much outside of the Emergent conversation stream. It sounds more... fundamentalist. Which is exactly the antithesis of Emergence.
"A is for Abductive" is also, probably, the weakest book either of these men have written.
I appreciate the comment though. I admit openly that I am really just beginning to grapple with these questions, and I am a Journalism/Theatre major, not a philospher or theologian.
We're all trying, and in the end, it is not a degree that makes one wise or valuable. It is the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit.
Blessings,
Peter
Hi there! I stumbled upon your blog after giving up on it for awhile! I have to say that I recently left a church here in Missoula similar to the one you described, although I certainly was not popular there. I gave up trying to get involved after 5 months of attendance and not one response! Anyway, my experience with leaving each Sunday with a grimace that stayed put until at least Tuesday sounds similar to yours. Bravo for finding love in a big church like that, and especially for teaching the kids. I've gotten so much joy doing that over the years myself. I can't wait to start up again soon once I find a church out here.
I have not read A is for Abduction, but the overly haughty review by Mr. Michigan Philosopher makes me want to give it a try. Of course it isn't going to be textbook-quality philosophy, so don't be so snobby about it.
Meagan, you crack me up! Thanks for dropping by again.
BTW, in my experiences (so forgive me if this comes across offensively, I love my conservative brothers and sisters... but...) conservative evangelical churches are far too sexist to place young women in the "popular" role, the way they do with men. It has always been far easier for myself and my father to get the slaps on the back and the "attaboys" than it has been for my sister or my fiance or my mother to ever build a network of friends - a solid, posititve social circle. Strange.
(I spent my sophmore and junior years at a live-in hi-school in Canyonville, Oregon. My Dad was the Headmaster. It was the only two years he wasn't an Assembly of God Pastor. The A. of G. used to be so strict that I never attended a movie but once, at 16 years old, before I left home. We weren't to dance either. I was severely punished for dancing as a freshman at the prom I'd helped decorate.)
I do know the meaning of the terms "fundamentalist" and "universalist," only I'm not connecting somewhere with how you mean them. Technically, I'm both, though I don't like the associations in most people's minds that seem to be with those labels. If I believe basically like the earliest of the creeds, the (so-called) Apostle's Creed (from the Nicean Council), and 1.) I believe in the innerancy of scripture in the original documents, attested to by the 99%+ that we now have ---I could stop there and be "fundamentalist," I think.---But to continue briefly, I do believe 2.) the only strictly Biblical view of distant prophecy: "apocatastasis." If it takes a million years, God'll re-head all things with Christ, of which we are members (cf., Ephesians 1:9-10,) He'll purge everything of anything unlike Himself (cf., 1 Corinthians 15:25,) and there'll be "no more pain," (loc.cit., Revelation 21:4) else God, becoming "all in all" (1 Cor.15, the most distant prophetic word in Scripture, that is in a realm already [Colossians 3:11]) would always suffer pain. How could the first death be the last enemy? How could God ever be satisfied if He had to continue torturing anything for ever? "God..is the Savior of Mankind, specially of those that believe." (loc.cit., 1 Timothy 4:9-11) So many places in the Bible God is portrayed as owner and changer of everything in the future.
...but, I really must add one more thing. I'm convinced that Institutional Christianity (not all the people participating in it, just) the thing itself, is a part of "Mystical Babylon, Mother of Whores." D. Barton-Payne in his book enumerating all tht prophecies of the Bible, places, after "Christ," as the 2nd most significant topic of Biblical prophecy for number of verses, BABYLON (and 3 times ahead of 4th.) I would say it's Biblically imperative that every sunday-school kid should carry with him a book titled, "Mother of Whores." Oh, I guess that's already well-covered in the Bible. Jerusalem and Judea are called Egypt and Sodom in both Isaiah and Revelation, which is in turn equated with Babylon. (Sometimes I just get tired of looking up every verse to cite them, to prove "it is written.") Jerusalem sits on 7 hills. Rome never did. The 7 hills are across the Tiber from Rome. Rome may be one of the 2 elder daughter-whores of The Mother. The 2 women ("Jerusalm which now is, and is in bondage with her children" and the "Jerusalem which is above..." (cp., loc.cit., Galatians 4:24-26 !!!!!!!) ...as I say, the two women are portrayed before the collection of sayings of the wise and at their end in the book of Proverbs.
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