Blogologue Part 2: Tony Jones Response to Bill Easum
By Tony Jones:
Bill, first of all, I’m honored that you’d take the time to read my book, and I’m pleased that you found it helpful. I have read some of your earlier posts about emergent, and I did find them surprisingly negative and critical—as you know, you and Tom Bandy were among the early influences on folks like me, Doug Pagitt, Andrew Jones, and Chris Seay. That my book helped in this regard, I find gratifying.
A lot has already written on your initial post, including many sentiments that I would echo and thus do not need to repeat. Particularly, Jonathan Brink’s posts (1, 1.2) and Nic Patton’s comments (5, 13), I think, reflect my answers. Further, some of your concerns are dealt with explicitly and at length in my book—like the fear of relativism and the concerns about certainties and absolutes—and if you remained unconvinced of my position after reading it there, I doubt that I’d convert you here.
So I’ll try instead to speak to some other issues and to pose some questions to you in return. But let me respond to one particular query of yours, taken directly from my book. Indeed, one of my “Dispatches” in the book is this: “Emergents start new churches to save their own faith, not necessarily as an outreach strategy” (p. 197). Honestly, that has been the most difficult Dispatch to defend, even when I’m speaking about it. So let me try to clear the air.
First, note well the word “necessarily,” for it is important. I’m not saying that emergents care not for evangelism and outreach—I’m just saying that’s not always the motivation for church planting. As I state in the book, many emergent folks I’ve met with confess that they were on the brink of giving up on organized Christianity altogether when they stumbled into an emergent church, and now they literally cannot imagine going to another kind of church. My Dispatch on this subject was descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, it’s just my observation based on anecdotal evidence, so don’t hold it against me.
Now, on to something meatier.
I remember, as I’m sure you do, too, an influential article that came out in the February 1997 issue of American Demographics (and later in a book). Authored by sociologist and marketing guru Paul Ray, it introduced to many of us the new category in our population—that of the “cultural creative” class. As opposed to the “traditionalists” and the “moderns,” cultural creatives tend toward these movements: “very strong environmentalism, the condition of the whole planet, civil rights, peace, social justice, new spiritualities, organic food, holistic health.” What they are, Ray argued, is a group of persons not primarily interested in preserving culture (traditionalists) or consuming culture (modernists) but in creating culture.
In a 2000 interview, Ray was asked why he landed on the term “cultural creative,” and he answered, “I saw the way they are innovating in American life: These are the people who are being very creative culturally—not technologically like the Internet, but with new kinds of businesses, new movements, new ways of life, new ways of seeing the world.”
I cannot overstate the influence this article had on the small band of us who, in that very year of 1997, started meeting together as the “young leaders network” at Leadership Network. That article, it seemed, spoke directly to us. We wanted to be the cultural creatives in American Christianity—we wanted to do theologically and ecclesiologically what our generational peers were doing in environmentalism, the peace movement, etc.
So we embarked on what has been an exciting adventure, albeit one with some twists and turns. We’re not, as you and others have wondered, trying to follow culture’s dictates, nor are we trying to impress philosophers. Instead, we’re still interested in creating culture.
But that means, Bill, that theology will be just as innovative as methodology. So here’s my first question: How do you get around Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that “the medium is the message”? In other words, how do you propose that we radically shake up the church without also considering how we have misunderstood the gospel?
And, secondly, I want to give you a chance to explain why you disparage emergent faith communities for being small (relatively speaking). It seems to me that all of the most innovative movements in history have started outside of major human institutions: Apple computer; civil rights; Martin Luther; Jesus.
Note: This post is part of a month-long “blogologue” between Bill Easum and Tony Jones.
Tony Jones is the national coordinator for Emergent Village. He is the author of a number of books, including The New Christians.
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I know this isn’t that important. But in case folks want to pursue Tony’s reference to “the medium is the message,” he misspells the author’s name. It’s McLuhan, not ‘McLuen.’
D’oh! Good catch, Isaac. I’ve fixed it in the original post now. Thanks!
Tony
I’m fascinated to know that Paul Ray has been an influence. I heard him in the context of last years conference “Sacred Activism and the Power of Inclusion”, hosted by Wisdom University. How he brought sociological data and a vision together was very fascinating.
I find it hard to be positive about the categories “preserving” or “consuming” in relation to culture.
However, cultural creatives, especially in the spiritual sphere, are as part of their creativity re-ligionising (“binding-back”) to rediscover Tradition as a nourishment for the future; so preserving has a role.
Likewise I intuit consuming needs to be reclaimed / redefined / subverted by the cultural creative POV, but don’t currently know how to do that in light of the “in-fashion enemy”: consumerism. Any ideas?
Trotsky-ite creatives like myself chomp at the bit to make a commandment such as “Unless thou create, thou shalt not see the Kingdom of Heaven”, so there is the ever present danger of self righteousness.
So how might cultural creatives and/or emergents reach (speak to / help transform) those who at heart either preserve or consume?
Tony, I have too have a question,
What is the purpose, scripturally, of starting a church unless it is for, or because of, ‘outreach’?
Never once do we read in the book of Acts where a church was started unless there were new people to populate it; who once did not have Jesus as their Lord. The only reason Scripture gives us for church planting is for, or because of, ‘outreach’. Furthermore upon the starting of the church, what does Scripture tells us they did? They prayed, read Scripture, sang psalms and songs, and often took communion (observing the Lord’s death until he comes). They didn’t have conversations. If you could please, comment directly on this issue.
tony, Im in the process of bugging out of our island to get out of the path of ike. i will respond to your post soon. bill
Ryan Van Deusen,
I know your question was for Tony, but I would like to offer some clarity here as well. You asked:
“What is the purpose, scripturally, of starting a church unless it is for, or because of, ‘outreach’? Never once do we read in the book of Acts where a church was started unless there were new people to populate it; who once did not have Jesus as their Lord. The only reason Scripture gives us for church planting is for, or because of, ‘outreach’. Furthermore upon the starting of the church, what does Scripture tells us they did? They prayed, read Scripture, sang psalms and songs, and often took communion (observing the Lord’s death until he comes). They didn’t have conversations.”
I think we miss out on a lot of what God has in store for us when we overly simplify the messages of the Bible. We the people are the church, and we gather in many communities: local, global, digital…. And we do so to outreach, yes, but there is so much more going on; and there is so much more going on in the Biblical model as well. The list that you give showing us what the early church founders did shows that to be true. They, and we, get together to pray, read, sing, and commune with God. Of course they had conversations. Jesus started a conversation about the scroll of Isaiah that is still being discussed today. Also, since back then the Bible was not in the hands of everyone, but rather, the scrolls were memorized from an early age, it took much conversation to understand the Bible and glean its many meanings. How many times do we hear it said, “I have read this passage many times through the years, but today I read it in light of what I am experiencing and it came alive with new meaning.” The Bible was and is not just an owner’s manual, but a recorded history of people’s actual lives. People have been having conversations about these people’s lives since they were being lived. The Bible is full of conversations. Conversations are what Paul and Peter were having with the church at large in the Epistles.
What do you consider to be outreach? Did Jesus only outreach by telling people to repent? No, he also said (and demonstrated) that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He healed the sick, raised the dead, stood up to the Pharisees, saved the hookers from hell on earth, partied with the crooked IRS men, and more. He lived with these people. He did not only focus on training us in regards to what to do about our afterlife, but what to do in regards to our life. He fed the people, cared for children, called us to do even greater things than he did! Amazing. So outreach is more than just saving souls for eternity, it is about the Kingdom of God for today, for us, for now, here on Earth. That is the model we get from the Bible. Does that help at all?
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Tony,
I have questions.
In coming to view yourself and others as “creating culture” as opposed to “preserving culture,” how do you resist, as the creator of a new culture, the urge to preserve that which you have created?
By you own definition, aren’t you to be engaged in constantly creating instead of preserving, which means that the culture you have created or are creating, by your own admission, must not be preserved, but give way to an even newer culture? And if this is the case, you never really have a culture except the culture of change?
Haven’t you, then, just exchanged one tradition for another?
Do you ever arrive at true culture?