In the coming days I am going to begin a new series of posts looking at what I consider some of the best youth ministry books. The list at this point includes:
Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones
Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mike Yaconelli
The Godbearing Life by Kenda Creasy Dean
The series will include an introduction into why I found the book helpful and then subsequent posts on each chapter in the book. Look for the first post soon.
This is just a quick observation that I seem to have noticed. It seems to me that popular evangelical leaders read books by people like MacArthur, Warren, Hybels, Swindol, Lucado, and Stanley: practitioners and pastors.
However, it seems like emerging church leaders are reading books by Hauerwas, Wright, Brueggemann, Volf, McKnight, Moltmann, Franke, and Grenz: theologians and academics.
I have no statistics to back this up. It is just a cursory observation based mostly off of blogs I read and visiting the ever-exciting Christian bookstore. So, my observations may not reflect reality. But for the sake of this post, I will assume it holds true.
Is the emerging church the manifestation of the academy and the church coming together? Are the ivory towers finally being brought into our sanctuaries? It seems to me to be so. If it turns out to be true, I think there would be some pretty massive implications:
Maybe the list is a little bit over the top. I’m pretty much saying that the emerging church might be able to turn the decades-long slide of people leaving the church just because they read some theology. Well, to me, it seems like a natural progression. I could be wrong; time will tell.
If someone were looking for a research project, I think this would be an interesting topic to pursue. If it turns out that emerging churches in general are paying attention to professional theologians more so than the average evangelical leader, that might quiet down some of those people who accuse the emerging church of being theologically void.
I know my personal interest in the emerging church has nothing really to do with trying to reach a postmodern generation, but with trying to simply be a proper church again, which has led me out of the realm of pop-Christianity and into the rich world of theology. I wonder how many others share my sentiments.
My birthday was last week. And, as birthdays go, I got some pretty decent birthday money. So, what did I do with it? Buy an iPod? Surround sound? A bluetooth earpiece? Heck no. I bought some books. And they are:
Of course, I didn’t spend all my birthday money on books. I guess I could though…
Wow, it’s been while. I was pretty much non-existent in July, being gone for two weeks on mission trips, taking some vacation, and spending time with my wife as she was out of school. Hopefully, I’ll get back into a semi-regular blogging pattern. Here’s my first attempt to get back at it.
I remember growing up and having lots of debates about beliefs versus actions. You probably experience the same thing. What’s more important: belief or actions? Typically, in contemporary protestant Christianity, beliefs win. We tend to go back and proof-text Ephesians 2:8-9 to support our claim: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
With such an approach, the emphasis in churches turns to doctrinal orthodoxy. We want to make sure that we and our friends are believing the right things because we know that actions cannot save us. To not believe rightly would make us a heretic, and no one wants to be a heretic.
Well, I’ve got news for you: we’re all heretics.
This summer I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no difference between belief and action. James chapter 2 and the words of Jesus (among other things) seem to make this pretty clear. You can tell what someone believes by what they do. And you should be able to tell what someone would do by what they believe.
Obviously, for many of us, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We say we believe that Jesus has forgiven and reconciled us, but we have trouble forgiving and reconciling with our family. We say we believe that following Jesus requires giving him our whole life, yet we are greedy, materialistic, and covetous. We say we believe that we should love our neighbor and be generous, but most of us barely blink an eye at a needy person or organization. So, it seems that our beliefs and actions are not congruent.
I say: we don’t really believe those things. Our actions provide a snapshot of our current beliefs at that exact second. It’s easy to say we believe that human beings are made in the image of God when we are studying Genesis, but a little more difficult when we are interacting with that really weird kid. But, it is within our interaction with that really weird kid that we learn our true beliefs.
If we really believed that sex outside of marriage was wrong, then it wouldn’t happen (And as a youth minister, I’ve heard plenty of times, “I know it’s wrong, but…”). If we really believed that Jesus forgave us of all the crap we have in our lives, forgiving others would be a snap. If we really believed that our treasure was in heaven, we would have a lot less stuff. But we don’t.
To me, orthodoxy is an eschatological reality towards which we are all striving. In the end, we will finally be “orthodox” and believe as we should. Until then, we are all just heretics.
I do believe that it is helpful to tell ourselves that we believe “X”, even if our actions don’t reflect it, because it reminds us of who we are trying to become. However, if actions and belief are the same thing, we will not be prideful and arrogant that we believe “X”, because in reality we simply do not.
Such an approach leads us to a humble orthodoxy. It seems to me that the truest form of Christianity will also be the humblest. And, I believe that 100%. Well, kind of.
So, over at the Faith and Theology blog a meme has been started; it is spreading quickly. Sounded fun.
I confess: I watched Kent Hovind videos as a child and argued with my fourth grade science teacher about the age of the earth.
I confess: In junior high and high school I thought denominations that baptized children were heretical.
I confess: In high school I attended a Bible study on Revelation that took a premillenial, pre-trib, dispensationalist view.
I confess: Oftentimes I want to quit my job as a youth minister and pursue an academic career in theology.
I confess: My conviction that all good theology must be able to be lived out within the worshiping life of our congregations (as well as my love for teenagers) keeps me from doing the above.
I confess: I think the western church is in desperate need of an ecclesiological overhaul. Because of this, most youth ministry practice is beyond help.
I confess: I am enamored with Kevin Vanhoozer.
I confess: I haven’t read nearly enough Vanhoozer and I don’t understand him as well as I would like.
I confess: I have a horrible struggle with theological and intellectual pride.
I confess: I long for the day when people will be impressed with my bookshelves (see above).
I confess: I enjoy worshiping in a liturgical Lutheran congregation.
I confess: I dislike the hierarchy of the ELCA along with its stance towards ordination.
I confess: I am an emerging church aficionado.
I confess: I read theology much more than my Bible.
There’s lots more. Maybe I’ll add some later.
Well, VBS finished up last Thursday, and I was on a retreat with our youth this week from Tuesday until today. The theme was “spiritual disciplines” finishing off what was a yearlong look at spiritual disciplines. There wasn’t a whole lot of teaching. Instead, I had them do intentional exercises (via scheduling and a workbook I made up). Then in the evening we sort of reflected about the experiences around the campfire. I think this was a good method to use. I got some good feedback from those that went. I might use a similar rhythm and format for subsequent retreats.
I try to take theology seriously. It is helpful that I enjoy reading theology and listening to boring lectures by theologians and philosophers. However, I am deeply committed to the idea that theology is not for the ivory towers, but must be imbedded into the worshiping community. I mean, as much as I have respect for people like Volf, Vanhoozer, and Hauerwas, 99% of our churchgoers will never read them. It’s up to those of us who do read such theologians to do the work of translation for the rest of the laity.
So, I consider my work this week as a game leader for pre-k through 6th graders during VBS a theological task and try to take it seriously.
And tonight, I received this question during our debrief time after our game:
How did the devil get red?
A common thread in dueling schools of Christian theological (or philosophical) thought is to characterize “them” (whoever “they” may be) as embracing some sort of heretical position.
I’ve been reading a few posts recently that try to pigeonhole the emerging church as gnostic. I forget some of the other places I’ve seen this recently, but this post is the latest. I am at quite a loss. I don’t feel like writing a whole lot on the subject right now, but if the emerging church is in danger of any heresy, gnosticism would not be it.
Here are some characteristics of gnosticism (I’m being generous and using theopedia’s definition of gnosticism here):
Now, this is not a comprehensive examination of gnostic thought. But I think it is a fair characterization of gnosticism’s major points. From my experience, the emerging church is not even in the same hemisphere as gnosticism. Come on folks, show some theological discernment. Don’t just throw heretical labels our direction so that your following will stay away from us. It’s slanderous. And sinful.
At least characterize us correctly, even if you disagree.
This is an experiment in blogging. I get nary a blip of traffic on my blog, which is fine by me. As I outlined in my first post on the blog, this is really an exercise in discipline and an opportunity to keep my writing skills intact. Additionally, it is becoming a place where I process through things like youth ministry and theology.
But I was thinking the other day, “If I did want to increase my blog traffic, how could I do that?” Then I got a funny idea: I would write anti-emerging church rants. I would say things like this:
Brian McLaren believes in universalism. He denies the truth of the Gospel as the very Word of God. He is simply an unregenerate apostate. He uses Roman Catholic, mystic and eastern religions in order to help him “connect with God”. This is nothing less than blasphemy.
Tony Jones is a relativist. He denies absolute truth and makes postmodern relativism his choice hermeneutic. He advocates reading philosophy. Postmodernism is the God he bows down to. He also advocates lectio divina, centering prayer, the Jesus prayer, labyrinths, and other pagan practices.
Doug Pagitt does not rightly divide the Word of Truth. Rather than proper expository preaching, he would rather have a “dialogue” or “discussion“. He makes a mockery out of the preacher’s commitment to his pulpit. He denies the historic creeds of the church.
Great men of God like Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, and Calvin would be appalled at the apostasy present in these emerging (or emergent) churches today.
I might also do things like link to Slice of Laodicea, Christian Research Network, or Apprising Ministries.
Now, truthfully, I enjoy listening to and reading Jones, McLaren, and Pagitt. I don’t have a beef with the emerging church as a whole. But I am interested in seeing if my blog traffic increases because of the pervasiveness of the above key terms. Time will tell.
Wow. Apparently Chuck Swindoll is too “liberal” for some folks. He was dropped by a radio station (or network, I don’t know) for using vulgar language like “crap” and “balls”. They have kept a seven-year running tally of offenses:
I will say this: I am offended that a Christian outfit like the one at Slice of Laodicea would use language like “testicles” and “prostate exam” on their site. How inappropriate.
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