More than a few of my recent conversations with fellow pastors and Christian thinkers have been focused on the subject of humility and mystery, of acknowledging the "I don't know" in things.
Many of these conversations have focused on a fairly new development in the Church known as the "emerging" or "emergent". Some describe emergent as a movement, others as a conversation. Recent books have been written attempting to nail down a specific theology and doctrine of emergent churches. This has proved quite impossible.
This is because what makes a church "emergent" is only one characteristic in many. It's like asking what a sad person's views on the environment are or trying to discern what Democrats like on their pancakes. It isn't the summation of something. The term itself means different things to different people.
I am most comfortable with the term "emerging" referring to a conversation rather than a movement. The defining characteristic of the emerging churches, it seems to me, is a willingness to admit that we don't have all the answers. A bit of humility, a bit of mystery, a bit of the "I don't know."
In fact, the major complaint against the emerging conversation (of which I would consider myself a part) is that those of us taking part in it don't believe anything, that we're impossible to nail down, that we won't just come out and say what we mean.
So let me just say to our critics, in some cases, that's true.
The emergents work sort of the way postmodernism works -as a corrective (to fundamentalism or modernism) they're great, on their own, they're much weaker. The problem with fundamentalism and modernism is that they both claimed to have all the answers. The way that the emergents and postmodernists act as a corrective is by admitting they don't even know all the questions.
However, both emergents and postmodernists can get so keen on humility and mystery that they become cagey and overly ironic. Everything could be true, no one really knows anything for sure. This is the complaint of the fundamentalist and the modernist against the emergent and the postmodernist.
The problem with the fundamentalist and modernist is that they think they know everything and they're sure they can prove it. The emergents and postmodernists were a welcome and necessary response to such an arrogant and outlandish stance.
However, the emergent and the postmodernist too often avoid any talk of anything true. We can get quiet and even shifty when asked about what we know. This is the mistake the emergents can make. We've overcorrected as correctives almost always do. We make the mistake of acting like we don't know anything simply because we don't know everything.
I love my wife.
Now, imagine the integrity I would lack if I took the approach that stated that I not only have never doubted our love for each other, I can prove, on paper, that we love each other. It would be absurd.
Now, imagine the hope I would lack if I took the approach that stated "well, I think I love my wife...I'm pretty sure she loves me...although how can you ever really know?"
What we need is another alternative, one that acknowledges the moments of doubt and has the faithfulness to push through them. One that has enough history to say with confidence "I love my wife" and know that it is true.
I know that God is real. I know that Jesus died and then rose up from the dead. I believe that forgiveness of sins and a new way of living are available to all who follow Christ. I can't prove it and I have moments when I question it, but I believe that it is reasonable, based on evidence and experience. It's faith, which means it has mystery, but it isn't blind faith. And I don't have to pretend that I don't believe what I do believe and call it humility. It wouldn't be humility if we were talking about anything else, why is it humility when we're talking about God?
The fact is, I'm not interested in a modern doctrine or a postmodern doctrine, a fundamentalist theology or an emergent one. I'm interested in being a Christian. As naive as it may sound and as trite as it may seem, I'm interested in continuing to discover who Christ is and what it means to follow him. I'm interested in a faith and a hope that can speak into every context but isn't defined by any of them. I'm interested in the "I don't know" and the "this I know", because they both play a part in what it means to be a Christian. And that's all I want to be.
4 comments:
i like. btw, I'd like some time with you at lectureship (if possible--i know you're pretty tied up) b/c I'm doing some research and would like an interview. i'm trying to see if there are any correlations b/t the initial impulses of the Restoration movement and current impulses of church plants coming out of that stream/tradition. I'm hearing the impulse of simplicity/organic here, and it's good.
--tyler thepriesthood@gmail.com
can do, and i think you're right. when cofc folks question our not calling ourselves a cofc as our "denying our heritage", i always say that we're not denying anything, simply trying to embrace a larger one.
which is, of course, very cofc.
Very thought provoking post, Kester. I often feel a tension in myself between modern and postmodern tendencies. A lot of my times of doubt result from my running up against age-old questions, particularly the question of why a loving God seems to do little to mitigate evil and suffering in the world. The modernist in me wants clear answers to such questions, suspects such questions are ultimately futile. Sure, we can develop some theologies on the topic, but we have no way to judge their veracity.
I find it interesting that modernism still persists to the degree it does, whether it's the materialist views of modern science or the fundamentalism of some Christians.
I think part of the reason some Christians recoil at the emergents' admission of "I don't know" stems not from a lack of humility but rather from the fear of appearing faithless. In my CofC upbringing, folks often placed a premium on believing the right things, that a steady belief was tantamount to faith. Although emotion and thought certainly play a role in faith, Christ's call is a call to transformation and action.
Somehow I managed to delete "but the postmodernist in me" before "suspects" in my first paragraph.
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