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Some Thoughts I Scribbled Down on the Plane About the Emerging Church Conference

Posted Mar 26, 09:23 PM | 7 comments | by Editor | Link

by Mike Todd

Preface Thought: All the speakers were in agreement – the label “emerging church”, sometimes followed by a TM is unfortunate, and we don’t care for it. Personally I’m going with Phyllis Tickle’s “emergence Christianity.”

Now my thoughts:

This was truly a historic event, and it was a privilege to be there. As Phyllis Tickle put it, this gathering of Catholics and Protestants may have been the culmination of the Reformation. Consider all the issues that we’ve been fighting over for the past 500 years or so. As Brian McLaren put it, we haven’t settled the fights, we’ve just lost interest.

This emergence Christianity is not another slice of the pie vying for market share. It’s more like the outer layer of a tree. The important points here are that the outer layer encircles the whole tree/pie (sorry—mixing metaphors) and reflects life in the current weather conditions. We were a gathering of “ring people”.

The question we were really grooving to was this: What would happen if we stopped delegitimizing each other, and instead legitimized, affirmed and encouraged each other?

Words fail, but this was truly an incredible event.

Here are some quotes from others that jump at me from my notes.

Phyllis Tickle:

* The central question that arises each time the church goes through one of these 500 year rummage sales is “Where now is our authority?” * Another important question: What does it mean to be a human being? Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” no longer cuts it * Sola Scriptura: Luther took a flesh & blood Pope and replaced it with a paper one. Protestantism’s great gift to the world was universal literacy. It’s other gift was divisiveness * Jerusalem is good, but the energy is in Antioch. We are here to serve the Kingdom of God, not the old or the new

Brian McLaren:

* What you focus on determines what you miss * Our traditional understanding of Jesus may not have been wrong, but partial * We must learn to see Jesus through the sight lines of his ancestors rather than his descendants only * Jesus went to Galilee. It meant something. If he came today would he go to Wall Street, Hollywood, the Ninth Ward… where?

Richard Rohr:

* With dualistic thinking, someone always has to be blamed. The system caves in on itself * The sun rises on the just and unjust. You can’t form a system of exclusion on that! * Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about humanity. He came to change humanity’s mind about God * We have fly-paper minds… everything that gets close sticks. Don’t call that ‘thinking’. It is narcissistic, egocentric, needy, and fragile * “I have no doubt that the Spirit was in the works of the Reformation.” But you can’t have the need to prove the other wrong (adversarial thinking) and be the contemplative mind * We don’t want to be contemplative because we have to give up control * Belonging/belief systems have come to replace transformation. We must turn from a belief system to an inner experience. Know them, don’t believe them * Recognize that I am living inside a mind bigger than my own. Someone is loving through me, and all I am is the conduit. * Francis didn’t run off and join the Franciscans – He just did it.

Alexi Torres-Fleming:

* God doesn’t call the qualified but surely qualifies the called. * Am I a fan or a follower of Jesus? * When we pray for God to ‘fix’ a problem, maybe Jesus kneels and prays for us to go out and be the solution * Maybe we’re given a little piece of God’s heart. We couldn’t deal with the entirety of God’s sadness for His children. (Note: Maybe this is what it means to be “made in the image of God”) * If we are free, and God’s poor are not free, then we are not free. * We cannot talk about church and theology without talking about justice. * We like our poor to look a certain way. The poor come to us in many different packages, and some may not be palatable. Some are angry. We must learn to see them as Christ sees them. (Note: Otherwise it’s just about us) * We must model incarnation: You cannot redeem what you will not assume

Shane Claiborne:

* Stop explaining/complaining about the church we have experienced and work at becoming the church we dream of. * We need to be relevant to the big questions of the day while retaining our cultural peculiarity * Fascinate the world with grace! * The church needs discontent. Don’t leave the church but submit to the authority of the larger Body of Christ * You can have all the right answers and still be mean. And if you’re mean, no one will listen to you

As I said, it was an amazing, historical gathering. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. Mark your calendars now for April 9 – 11, 2010.

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Welcome to the Reader's Forum

1Jeromy 03/27/2009 12:39 AM

“What would happen if we stopped delegitimizing each other, and instead legitimized, affirmed and encouraged each other?”

Sounds a lot like love.

2Josh Rowley 03/27/2009 05:49 AM

“Jesus went to Galilee. It meant something. If he came today would he go to Wall Street, Hollywood, the Ninth Ward… where?” Interesting quote(?) from McLaren. Place does matter. But I don’t think it’s a question of where Jesus would go; rather, I think it’s a question of how the place he went to (wherever it was) would influence his teaching and action (contextualization).

3Les 03/28/2009 05:43 AM

Jeromy,
Truth (dogma) without love is still truth. Love without truth is the worst type of hate that there is.

4Mike Todd 03/30/2009 09:40 PM

“Love without truth is the worst type of hate that there is.”

Dude, you’ll need to unpack that one a little.

5theophilogue 04/01/2009 12:32 PM

“Love without truth” :: So long as we are talking about loving other human beings, Love cannot be without truth, since Jesus sums up the will of God like this: 1) Love God, and 2) Love others. If we are supposed to love others because they are made in the image of God, then love itself carries with it an implicit truth (even for those who don’t understand it or want to admit it), namely, that the person is worth being loved because they are the image of God.

It’s also true that we should tell people the truth even if it hurts them initially, if telling them the truth will help them in the long run. But truth telling is only valuable to God if it is motivated by love. Love, therefore, is more ultimate than truth telling, and truth telling sucks it’s lifeblood from love like a leach. The value of truth telling hinges on the sincerity of love that motivates it. Otherwise it’s just noise.

Theophilogue.wordpress.com

6A_Drew 04/06/2009 07:31 AM

“I have no doubt that the Spirit was in the works of the Reformation.” But you can’t have the need to prove the other wrong (adversarial thinking) and be the contemplative mind * We don’t want to be contemplative because we have to give up control * Belonging/belief systems have come to replace transformation. We must turn from a belief system to an inner experience.

This is a quote listed above from Richard Rohr. If what he says is true, than we would have a plethora of heresy floating around the world of Christianity. Karl Barth made a point to try and extinguish as much heresy as possible and make a return to true scriptural theology. If Barth had not of done that we would have a melting pot of incorrect theology. Also, if we turn from a system of belief to our own inner experiences, we no longer give credit to Christ, but to ourselves. Christianity becomes about us, about the individual. Self help existential Christianity. We cannot forget our precious history from which the Christian system of belief came. Paul had a system of belief, Augustine had a system of belief, Calvin, and Barth alike, and countless others from the 1st century until now. It would be a travesty to turn Christianity into a religious inner experience and not hang onto the grassroots in which our faith was founded on.

7thebeach 04/08/2009 08:40 AM

From theophilogue:
“The value of truth telling hinges on the sincerity of love that motivates it.”

From Paul (from the Lord):
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter?
The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. [Php 1:15-18]

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