The End of Myth

How can we each have our own truth? If your truth is different from my truth, one of us is wrong.

The end of myth? That would surely be a loss for the church and humanity in general were it true.

I think the newfound freedom you are pointing to is the freedom to create myth, to play with the story. I’ll leave it to others to ask how “new” this freedom is and what’s missing in your read of Catholic history, but it seems that the vitality and renewal of the church has always been bound up in myth-making: in the capacity of individuals and communities to creatively imagine themselves as part of an ongoing drama.

And if myth is dead, so is God dead.

If myth is dead, I am going to have to actually trust the Holy Spirit…crap, that’s gonna be difficult!

Jonathan, while I agree with your hopeful spirit regarding truth prevailing, I am not so sure I go along with your use of “myth”.

As I see it, myth is anathema to modernity, which defines it as “falsehood”. I grew up with a modernist education, and it took me decades to unravel the confusion incalcated in me by rationalistic scientism. I eventually started to grasp the scriptures not as a textbook or set of methods for living, but more as a poetic narrative.

Likewise I gradually came to see myth as story, and not as untruth. Writers like Joseph Campbell, who I would describe as a mythographer – a collector of myth – did us a tremendous service in writing down myth from all corners of history. He gives the biblical stories an interesting slant, which I have benefitted from. The tools of thought given us by Jung, Thomas Moore and the likes of Campbell are very valuable as we sojourn beyond the modern, and start to take responsibility for our myth, rather than allowing it to be handed us by those “in authority”.

Of course, many of the things you decribe as myth; abuse of power, willing ignorence, all kinds of priestly beastliness, must surely be transcended by the Emerging movement, at very least. But if we can reinterpret myth as a force for good rather than for bad, I’d propose that the emerging church is in fact ushering a new age of myth, rather than ending it.

I think “myth” is being confused with propaganda here. The end of myth in the Church is the day I leave the Church. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “The story of Jesus Christ is simply true myth.”
The end of myth in Christian though would be the collapse into draconian dogma, the very thing you argue against in the post. Instead, as Daniel notes above, you are more likely calling for the end of propaganda, power, and the “information war” waged inside the Body of Christ. The Kingdom of God, the hope for a new world, the hope for Christ to reign, the hope for a better place, the hope for peace, love, truth, and compassion—-this is the foundation of our true myth, that Christ the King has invaded this world and won victory over death and evil, and to “end” it would take all of the metaphorical and salvific significance out of the great work of God in the world.

Myth needs to be redefined as its initial concept was known for: something that people and communities construct when they don’t have all the answers to a story, a phenomenon or something unknown.

I think au contraire. EC has tried to redefine myth as the original pre-modern era concept it was, but now in a postmodern context.

Bob says, “How can we each have our own truth? If your truth is different from my truth, one of us is wrong.”

I’m not sure, but I think what the essayist is saying is that Jesus is truth. Not me. Not you. Not our institutions. Not our theology. Not our airtight and cherished opinions and understandings of truth.

This is the freedom that Jesus talked about. Freedom from the tyranny of religion – freedom from the self-centered need to be “right.” Freedom from holding on to our own understanding of truth. Freedom to let Jesus be Lord, that we would be free indeed.

Thom quotes C.S. Lewis, and it bears repeating: “The story of Jesus Christ is simply true myth.”

I hope our modern, shallow definitions and understandings of myth die. But in that death I hope what comes to life is the beauty and power of myth as they are meant to be.

The best definition I have heard of “myth” came from my OT prof in undergrad. He called myth: A story that conveys a deeper, larger, more profound truth than the story itself (think Gen 1-3).

That sort of myth I hope never dies but continues to awaken our imaginations and transform us by God’s Spirit.

However, without myths we hold collectively as an assembly of believers, we head down a road that is gnostic- all “Jesus and Me” individual spirituality. I think Augustine said something about how the ultimate test for scriptural understanding is that it must help to bring about the reign of charity. You could put myth in that definition as well. If myth divides us and brings about less of the fruits of the spirit (love, justice, compassion , etc) then yes, it should end. But lone wolf spirituality, IMHO , can come about from no communally-held or shared or experienced myths.

However, without myths we hold collectively as an assembly of believers, we head down a road that is gnostic- all “Jesus and Me” individual spirituality. I think Augustine said something about how the ultimate test for scriptural understanding is that it must help to bring about the reign of charity. You could put myth in that definition as well. If myth divides us and brings about less of the fruits of the spirit (love, justice, compassion , etc) then yes, it should end. But lone wolf spirituality, IMHO , can come about from no communally-held or shared or experienced myths.

Chad – well put. I find specifically with the parables of Jesus a bottomless source of truth. The only way I could be reading the same text over and over and not get bored is if what you say is true – that the truth behind those simple words is infinite.

And again, you bring the word imagination into the discussion – that is key. Myth adresses imagination and faith, and dogma intellect.

Tim, you must feel quite sure of yourself to say it twice :)

I agree. I like your last line: experienced myths.

I am reading Richard Hays’ Moral Vision of the NT and one thing he and the gereral ethos here at Duke Div talk about is the need to “perform the text” or, in this case, the myth. Truth is not truth unless it is embodied (Jesus teaches us this). IOW, we must experience what we claim as truth and perform it in our particular contexts. This is why I think we can say truth can look different in different places. Truth is messy because it is incarnational.

Just a thought

I am always skeptical of anyone or any group,”those of us,” who appoint themselves as a “magisterium.” After reviewing the past histories of these controlling persons and groups, who would really want to be included in their number? For an intruging perspective on “myth” and social power, I commend to you the writings of Renee Girard and James Alison. In short, when we follow Jesus on his way in this world, we are inhabiting a much different social “myth,” meaning truth, than the social myths that need magisteria: “You know that those foreigners who call themselves kings like to order their people around. And their great leaders have full power over the people they rule. But don’t act like them. If you want to be great, you must be the servant of all the others.” Mark 10:42-43 CEV

Aside from the semantics of what “myth” actually is, as one who is trying to work within a particular tradition (Methodism) and rejuvenate it with the new, vibrant life and creativity I see within emergent/ing circles, I really resonate with the overall thrust of this post. And really, that’s what I see in Jesus—radical freedom and responsibility. Thanks for sharing this Jonathan.

I am thankful for the piece of the Truth which I have and for that piece of the Truth which you are able to share with me that we may know more of the Truth together than on our own!

Blake – good to meet a fellow Methodist :)
Which seminary? I am at Duke.

All of the is built on the presupposition that language is trustworthy. Furthermore, most forms of Christianity, as my pastor friends agree, is equally gnostic: unveiled truth revealed to those “lucky” enough or “chosen” to receive.

Hi Chad. Good to meet you too. I’m at Boston University.

I agree with several of the comments above, to the effect that “myth” is not a bad word—because full knowledge and understanding of God is so far beyond our grasp, and we honestly can’t really describe “what” God “is,” we HAVE to have myth—that is, a common yet dynamic framing story—if we are to chart any sensible course through our experience, rather than simply experiencing randomly. Jonathon is right, though, that the most important question is who tends the myth? I think this is why Brian McLaren’s discussion of framing narratives in relation to Jesus is critically important.

I agree with the article. The myth is that I, with my credentials and titles, am over you…and better than you. Jesus had it all and he served from down under – a lowly birth, etc…
Our churches today suffer from the same excesses of Jesus’ day:
elitism, abuse of authority and power for its own sake. Greatness comes thru humble service. We have yet to grasp that truth. Paul counted all his ‘credentials’ as dung. Leadership in the church still loves a string of letters behind one’s name, titles and distinguishing robes.
Jesus was about empowereing people to walk in God’s ways…not the ways of another man. We need to find a way to surrender to God’s husbandry among us as a community. We are God’s field…not the field of a hireling who wants to use us as a step to his next ‘greater’ position.

I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.

I’d like to propose that ‘myth’ is one/many’s source of truth. Quick example, when Plato is trying to define his epistemology, he starts with math (unity of 1, etc.) and then moves to Myth (story).

Thus, Myth isn’t dead, it was just made rational to-the-extreme (in the West) over the last few hundred years.

To spin a cliche – “I’m bringing myth-y back.” (Well, not me, but the natural flow of human, Western history. I’m not that powerful!)

I see there are a lot of misunderstandings going on here. :-) Maybe I can help. There is this myth in the Church at large that if I sit in the service, give my money to those who are out there being Christ to the world (ie, “missionaries,” pastors, etc) then I am doing my part in the Kingdom of God. When in fact we are all called to live the Kingdom message all the time, ourselves, as well as empower others to do the same.
Also, he is addressing the dogma that groups of believers tend to hold that cause division in the Church at large. For instance, one denomination we are acquainted with stands firmly on the belief that they have the perfect balance of truth and practice – essentially that they have it “right.” They literally have a document that states that. But that brings division between them and another group of people who feel they too have it “right.” And it brings even greater division between them and a group who humbly states they do not have it “right” but are following God the best they can, and loving it. An example of an issue that divides them is this: the one group interprets Revelation in such a way as to feel they must stand on street corners with bull-horns and preach “turn or burn” messages as often as they can. They literally feel that people cannot be “saved” unless they literally hear or read the gospel message in the Bible. The other group believes that since God is everywhere, He is constantly holding His hands out to a people who do not acknowlege Him (Isaiah discusses this in the OT). So their approach to evangelism is more lifestyle-based and relational. They feel that the whole world is their mission field, just like the first group, but this manifests itself in very different ways for each group. That is completely acceptable, as Jonathan discusses above. What is not acceptable is when the one group starts labeling the other as operating in the spirit of the Anti-Christ because they allow for the fact that God can save anyone He chooses, whether they literally hear His story or not. It may sound like I am making this stuff up, perhaps, but I am referring to people I actually know, and circumstances I have actually experienced first-hand.
The thing is, you can’t put God in a box. His truth is far greater than we will ever fully realize (at least in this life). And for the “institution” (ie, the Church) to tell us we must believe one certain interpretation over another, or to create an atmosphere in which we pay others to do the stuff of the Kingdom but fail to do it ourselves, actually creates a set of myths about what it means to “be the Church.”
I am so very glad you posted this, Jonathan, and Emergent Village is the perfect place to have done so! Kudos to you, and my prayers are with you.
Lord, please open our hearts to the changes You want to bring about in Your Kingdom. Please help us to live the lives You have given us to its fullest, now and evermore, trusting You and loving You, and finding joy in You… Also loving our “neighbors” and finding joy in them. This world, this mission field, You have created for us is beautiful, although corrupt and decaying, but we are thankful for it and praise You! Please, Lord, bring unity within the hearts of the people who love You and are called according to Your purposes. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

I agree with the commenters who have noted that the author has falsely conflated myth & propaganda.

Furthermore, I question this statement: “But with the immense flow of information, new ideas and imagination will arise. And with the flow of information, the best will rise to the top. The BS will get squashed in 2.3 seconds with a quick iPhone reference to Google.”

This is a modernist myth of progress if I ever heard heard it. “Technology will save us.” In reality, although the printing press gave us much benefit, like many Bible in the common language, it has given us much harm as well.

The people are just as capable of abusing power as the magisterium. We are not saved by empowering people with technology. We are saved only by Christ, in taking his humility and self-sacrifice, with the constant recognition that we can never save ourselves, just as we can not be saved by any magisterium.

Finally, it should be remembered that “the people” and “the magisterium” are not real entities with the ability to exercise power. Only individuals exercise power. So if we take the power of teaching authority from Pope John (who can use to to oppress Jane) and we give it to Layperson Jim and Layperson Jane, we have gained nothing, because Jim and Jane are equally capable of oppressing one another. (And When they do so, who do we look to for peacemaking? How do we settle the dispute in a way that allows Jim & Jane to continue in community?)

Take this along with the author’s statement: “Yes, there will be some abuses. There have always been abuses.”

I am only left to wonder: If abuse is unavoidable either way, why is no-authority better than authority? On what basis is Google.com better than Vatican.va ?

(For the record, I am speaking as a non-catholic currently working through my own issues with problems stemming through the lack of authority in American Protestantism)

Perhaps the ‘myth’ that has been transcended is the one that claims its own understanding of truth is absolute. If ‘myth’ is not ‘that which is not true’ but perhaps ‘truths that are eternal expressed in terms of time’ or ‘truth that transcends the single self’ then do we not need to come to the Table together to hear – in silence – the Word ‘made flesh’ among us?

I’m going to have to give props to Chad at post #9 above. It’s our sad, limited understand of myth that’s the issue. And what we need to awaken to is a myth that is so much more epic.

I’m going to have to bust out a little Joseph Campbell here:

“When the story is in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what’s happening to you. With the loss of that, we’ve really lost something because we don’t have a comparable literature to take its place. These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with the themes that have support human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide-signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself. But once this subject catches you, there is such a feeling, from one or another of these traditions, of information of a deep, rich, life-vivifying sort that you dont’ want to give it up.”
—The Power of Myth

I am new to the emerging conversation and I am just getting up to speed here but I seem to recall reading something that Rob Bell wrote about ‘truth’ being everywhere and we have to learn to find it[ I realize this is a simplistic paraphrase]. That being said, I would venture to say to those of us who wonder whose truth is the acceptable as well as right one would be found in the words of Christ. After all we are veiwing his words through whatever our lens may be and in the end it is God who has spoken- through Christ- and the rest is commentary[ Bell again] right? Speaking for myself I see the beauty of the Emerging is the finding, and subsequent agreeing, of the TRUTH that transform us. IMHO

Thanks Jonathan for an honest critique of power dynamics in Christianity. History – and myth – is always written by the victors. I saw a news article today that discussed how, in the midst of the current Israel/Palestine conflict, a very active “battle” is taking place in the online forum you just described – the battle of ideas, stories, traditions, and yes, myths – that will help win the ground war one way or another.

We Christians follow a Savior whose earthly ministry consisted almost entirely of teaching, speaking, and acting against the dominant Judeo-Roman myth of his time. Subverting dominant myth/power structures is not just an interesting pastime for us, it’s the heart of our mission!

Teresa,
I agree with your post 24 given the way you have defined the terms. However, and I think you and Jonathan would agree, we who claim to be involved in ongoing conversation must be forever mindful of our words. Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to define “myth” in the pejorative sense. You say that there is this, “myth in the Church at large that if I sit in the service, give my money to those who are out there being Christ to the world (ie, “missionaries,” pastors, etc) then I am doing my part in the Kingdom of God.” This amounts to myth = bad or false.

I have found that I can use the word “myth” and get different reactions based on my audience. At school, surrounded by those who are theologically and biblically trained, “myth” is met with great respect – myth is transformative. Conversely, if I use the word “myth” in my rural, conservative church congregation or to my secular friends I find I have do a lot of explaining.

Some friends of mine suggest we not use the word “myth” at all but find some better word to desribe those stories or narratives that are too profoundly truthful to be literal. For me, the jury is still out on that.

peace.

Brian I find Campbell interesting and even important, in that he helped us see the power of myth. But I also find it important to help render myth for what it is, an ungrounded story.

The dictionary provides five distinctions for myth

1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

The basis of myth is not in truth but in fictitious conclusions.

I find number five to be deeply important in understanding this post and the shift we are seeing.

Substituting propaganda for myth misses something important. The problem is not with a widespread meagre understanding of the word or concept “myth.” The author doesn’t suggest substituting the oppression of Laypersons Jim and Jane for the magesterium.
What is being advanced here is a dialogical methodology (see Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed) which JB is fruitfully grounding in a palpable, technologically facilitated possibility of Martin Buber’s I-Thou. The allusion to a fact checking recourse to Google from an Iphone posits the diminsihing significance of wealth, hierarchical position and staff for acess to the kind of knowledge which was once the functional domain(as opposed to dysfunctional domains of opression) of the magesterium.
It is rich and energizing to contemplate the course of world history had Mary Magdalene’s accounts of Jesus’s ministry been as validated and widely circulated as the Markean and derivative texts. There are over 100 contemporaneous gospels which were not canonized by the Constantinian enterprise which was quite removed from contemporaniety.
Gnosticism, other than the theological equivalent of calling someone borderline in psychiatric terms or socialist in political terms, is the almost everpresent danger of a non dialogical approach to understanding the revelation of our sovereign God, Lord, Provider, Shepherd, “big rock following” in history.
For the danger of the non dialogical approach see Alvin Gouldner’s seminal work “The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology.” It is not theological, but it looks at the problems of the relationship of power, presumptive authority and the transmission and desimination of knowledge.

Great thesis Jonathan (by name, at least, son of the traitor yet dearest friend of David the King to whom was promised an eternally enthroned lineage).

Jonathan,
I think I am beginning to understand better. Is it safe to say that you are differentiating between scriptural myth and modern myth?

Listen to the parable of the Emergent Village. Some people just seem to lurk around the Village looking for people like us to fight with, believing they are doing right by God to do so. They are like the seed scattered on the sidewalk that gets trampled under foot before it is even watered. Some just want to fight even if they are Emergent in their thinking. They are like the seed planted in the rocky soil – they are not deeply rooted and quickly wither. Still some just don’t get it, and they quabble about our choice of words. They are like the seed planted near weeds, and those weeds grow up and choke them out. But some come to hear and speak God’s love over one another, and to explore better ways of being the people of God. They are like the seed that is planted in well cared for, fertile ground, which eventually grows to produce a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has internet, let him blog.

I think the article confuses control with myth. And he is not defining myth in the generally accepted manner. Myth is not inherently false. I think I agree with the basic point of the article, but it confuses things by seriously misusing the term myth.

I wish I could share your optimistic outlook, Jonathan, that the shift of power to the people will put an end to the abuse of power and to the formerly unquestioned authority of institutionalized magisteriums which relied on certain type of tradition and legend building to perpetuate their influence.

What will not change, in my view, is the continuing need for socialization and guidance on the basis of myth (neutrally understood as stories which seek to transmit transcendental and sacred truths through the finite means of story telling), tradition (the kind of wisdom we all would want to be passed on to future generations) and through ritual (symbolic enactments of the central truths of those stories).

And while history provides plenty examples of reforms and revolutions to correct apparent wrongs, it also indicates a repeated willingness of the masses to follow leaders of much the same caliber as those who turned out to be deceivers before. Unfortunately neither the internet nor any other social web can safeguard us from those kind of developments. If anything, they’ll only help to spread them faster, and what may start out as a conversation between many voices, can easily turn into the domination of a few who rise to the top – not necessarily because of their excellence but certainly because of their popularity.

thanks for that Michael. As a newby to the conversation I see the idea of ‘myth’ as discussed as being more about the narrative, or what we are taught is ‘true’ or the ‘right way’ of being a Christian. I for one have only in the past year as a 5year old Christian come to the startling realisation of how much my worldview was not so much in line with the way of Jesus, but in line with my particular Christian denomination and church.

I think the power of what I’ve come to know as ‘emergent’, is, rather than being carried of by vain philosophies or intellectualism which I for one have been warned about specifically, (the basis I assume being Colossions 2), its an encouragement to break free from fear of losign one’s salvation or feeling the weight of disapproval from those in authority for questioning things and rocking the boat, allow some intellectual freedom, and ask some hard questions about the grand dissonances I think many people feel between the institutional, established church(es).. and perhaps what we read in ‘red’ or hear about what and how the first Christians believed and lived.
I think Josh makes a good point re the cycle of things, and I think its true that the church is in constant need of renewal. The moment we’ve got it pinned is the moment it slips through our fingers… I think Princess Leah said something like that to the General.

Jonathan
Well true to form you have raised a great debate. Someone called you a “fox” in a previous post concerning the minister who shut down his church … not! – You made that one all up but it really stirred people up. I think I am starting to grasp your calling.

This whole post is in fact supremely mythical. It may be true, it may be false, you may be right, or wrong, but the fact is you have got us all into a space of real reflection. You are indeed, a Fox of God, a Holy Trickster. Kudos!

Back to the grindstone then:
What dictionary are you using? I do not think these definitions are doing justice to my understanding. I don’t think Joseph Campbell would be satisfied either, and any discussion of myth needs to take his lifework in to account. The takeaways of your definitions are: ”(with or) without determinable basis in fact”, “invented”, “fictitious”, “unproved, false”. This collection of ideas gives very little credence to the positive faith power of myth, and are in fact deeply modernist. Do you agree?

In my view, myth is a way of knowing, and in fact the overarching way of knowing, of humankind. Our post-enlightenment epistemologies: rationalism (the belief that truth is found via reason), empiricism (the belief that truth is found via observable fact) and individualism (the belief that the centre of the universe is the individual) are the aberration, not the norm.

I believe we are being called to rediscover an ancient way of knowing, the way of the prophets and biblical authors, the way of many ancients, and that is Myth. Myth is sacred, and the loss of the sacred in our culture is very possibly due to our loss of Myth.

It seems to me that we should only rejoice at the dismissal of dangerous or destructive myth, rather than all myth. Wikepedia begins the description of myth as “a myth is a sacred story involving symbols that are usually capable of multiple meanings.”
There is good to be found in myth as well as evil.
What is exciting about the emerging church for me is that the world has reached the stage where we are comfortable to admit that we don’t know everything about the world that we see or that we don’t see.
We are no longer afraid of mystery nor do we need the magisterium, an authority to define what we should believe or what we shouldn’t believe.
We don’t need fear to love God.
Finally, we might have indeed the opportunity to discover the reality of Christ…

I want to recommend a book: THE LIMITS OF POWER by Andrew Bacevich. The book amplifies Brian McLaren’s thesis in EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE.

I like Daniel Pryfogle’s take (2): the freedom we are given – as human beings, let alone Christians – is the freedom to tell stories. The church has always been not just the guardian of a story, but the creator of that story.

I’ll leave it open as to whether the gospels are fiction or fact. Either way, their internal contradictions, and the way they contradict prevailing wisdom (no-one rises from the dead, surely?), press us to look deeper than face value, to a spiritual level. There we meet God, in whom all narrative tensions and paradoxes are resolved – because God is Love, and, as every Hollywood director knows, only Love resolves the contradictions.

However it doesn’t stop there. As I am coming to understand, the process of deconstructing ourselves culturally has left us, not only with an understanding of grace, but the bare bones of a cultural toolkit. Like the kid with the watch, we know how to build stories because we’ve taken one apart – either the story of our prevailing culture, or that of the counterculture which we have found in church. And it’s the stories we make with that toolkit that become our lasting contribution to each other.

Think of a film director, real-life, real time, story-making. That’s a good model for Christian leadership in the 21st Century.

Steve, you said: “There we meet God, in whom all narrative tensions and paradoxes are resolved”

That is interesting. Can you say more?

I would say that God is the author of paradox, not necessarily the resolver of such. The Trinity does not do much for resolving paradox, don’t you think? Confessing that Jesus is “fully human” and “fully divine” is not a resolution to paradox – it is the epitome of it.

I am less concerned about resolving paradox as I am about living into it.

Perhaps you can tease that out for me some more?

peace.

Nic,

What is interesting is that I agree with the idea of myth in general that it is a deeply embedded story created over time to convey something. I find Campbell’s work very important. And this where I diverge. Myth can be very powerful in communicating truth BUT it can also be significantly abused. And that is what I believe is ending, the abusive nature of myth, which comes from the control and distortion of story.

It important to realize that we live post-Campbell. But much of the history and the power of myth is pre-Campbell.

I think it is fair to say that as much as we want to use myth it has an element and potential of fictitious nature. I don’t think any of us want myth. We want truth. We want to know what is real and true.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Myth, someone said contains, more meaning than we can ever understand. That’s its power. I’m glad God is a mystery, I’m glad that he made me, loves me and died for me, but why? Isn’t that a msytery worth exploring. So live the msytery.

Jonathan
I find myself agreeing more and more with you now.

Myth itsself, despite many of us who hold it in high regard, is in fact neutral, and can be abused. Think Hitler who aggrandised his cult to massive effect, via myths of racial supremacy.

Myth just is, like air is. It’s part of the world in which we live.

Some of our myths are anti-myth, like the myth of scientific objectivity, or of progress. Some of our myths are good, but not great.

What I feel strongly about is that we as the Ecclesia, the Tribe of God, can based on our vision of a supremely Loving Divine Parent, and can mould and carve His myth for Creationkind sake, through the gift of our creativity, imagination and faith.

I think Brian McLaren in “The Secret Message of Jesus” gave us some great pointers. Instead of just “church” which is a loaded, misused, misunderstood, cliched and questionably biblical concept, why not consider the following myths and metaphors:
The Network of God.
The Dream of God.
The Party of God.
The Dance of God.
The Revolution of God.

I like that, Nic. The beauty of the word, Ecclesia, is that we can’t do much better than the literal meaning itself: The Called Out Ones.

@ Bob: We each have our own truth because our insights are incomplete. As we walk, we see “new mercies” others do not yet see. And we overlook – or underestimate the importance of – parts of our faith that others may have mastered. We are discovering the infinite God as portrayed in Jesus Christ. We grow, as did Jesus, in “wisdom and knowledge.”
It’s probably wise to assume some of my “truth” is wrong, for there’s so much more to learn!

Monte, well put.

I heard a great analogy today. In many parts of the US if you have a pizza delivered there will be instructions on the box about cooking or reheating in altitudes above 3000 feet. In England, there are no such instructions (there are no such heights, so no need). Same pizza, different ways of being cooked depending on where you are contextually.

Truth is a like a pizza :)

I am always happy when I can relate anything to pizza.

I just wish the myth of redemptive violence could die once and for all. Unfortunately, some traditional (and emerging) Christian theology and churches are doing a lot to keep it alive. See Walter Wink for more on what the myth of redemptive violence is. For full disclosure, I am a Christian and have a masters degree in theology. So I’m not a lurking hater.

It just is sad to me to see the myth of redemptive violence alive and kicking.

Carol, amen. Wink’s “The Powers That Be” really impacted me. I agree that the myth of redemptive violence is a myth that must die.

Carol, you have captured a realistic example of what I’m talking about. Nice.

Carol
On that account, I have just written a piece entitled “Eternal punishment in Augustine’s City of God”. (http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/eternal-punishment-in-augustine%e2%80%99s-the-city-of-god/)

I’d be interested to hear if you thought it challenged the myth of redemptive violence as you see it.

The assertion that myth is dead is self-refuting: that’s one more myth – a bad one. Ignorance of what myth is and how it works only makes one vulnerable to bad myths. Ironically, the idea that the web can debunk bad myths (or at least some of them) would almost seem proven by commenters taking issue with the article here. On the other hand, the commenters disagree. So much for their magisterial authority. Self-congratulatory generalizations about what is happening at this transitional moment seem less congruent with the world that seems to be being born than the one that seems to be dying.

One more question for you Jonathan – completely aside from the conversation about myth: you may have read Alan Hirsch’s post from today regarding geopolitical developments and the return of old power structures and confrontations. I’m asking myself (and you) whether the enthusiasm about the momentum of emergence and divergence may be as short-lived as the enthusiasm at the end of the cold war. Any thoughts?

Sorry … meant to say “convergence” not “divergence”!

My friend Jeromy found this amazing documentary around the myth of racism. This is to me a classic example of myth gone horribly wrong yet validated in many ways by the church.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02s42cq66&continuous=1

Josh, didn’t see your comment.

I actually found a post earlier that mirrored the same thing from a friend Rachel who suggested a return to Calvinism is on the rise. I would suggest this is to be expected. It’s a reaction in general, and perhaps a good one.

As Tickle suggests, these opposing opinions are good and necessary. The keep the body in check and in balance.

But I would also say emergence and even convergence (which is the response of emergence) hasn’t only happened but is happening, and will happen. It’s bigger than any person or group. It’s a response to social factors that have already happened but will also continue to happen.

Thanks, Jonathan! Regarding the PBS clips – all I can say is WOW!!! That was powerful, deeply disturbing and enlightening all at once! I was in utter disbelief when I saw that the whole scheme worked with the adult group as well. Which begs the question: how hopeful can we be that the power of the truth (which in this case was a guided effort by the magisterium of the teacher!) is able to defeat the apparent powers of feeling part of the elite on the one hand and the power of hopelessness and anger on the side of the discriminated? And at what point might that truth be put on its head when a time may come where the enlightened feel that the only way to educate the unenlightened people regarding the truth is by MAKING them walk in the shoes of those they have discriminated – which would bring about a whole new set of discriminatory prejudice and action.

Hi – chiefly in response to Chad (42), who picked up on my suggestion that only in God do we find the resolution of narrative tensions and paradoxes. Quite rightly, Chad, you respond that God is the epitome of paradox, the author of narrative tension, the Trinity. I like that: that God is both author and resolution of paradox seems both paradoxical and right!

Note however, that I’m keen to identify God with Love, even before the stories told about that Love. I’ve a background both in the evangelical church and in cultural studies, and I’d want to say that, regardless of whether you take the gospels literally, or as a mythologization of common spiritual experiences, the stories drive you to a personal acceptance of the reality of Love as a selfless out-giving, the greatest (though not necessarily only)incarnation of which is found in the figure of a man or woman motivated, real-time, by such Love.

The rest is the stories we make out of that truth, and though what we create may appear riddled with contradictions, and may stretch the reach of this Love firing us at our core, it cannot by definition extend beyond it.

For example, Jesus, never anything but the epitome of Judaism, by his life is brought to tear its structures down. At death he is as helpless as at birth. Though he does not feel its presence, all that holds him is Love. Regardless of what happens afterwards, the reality of Love, which has enfolded him, is revealed to us as sufficient. But if one narrative – Judaism – has been affirmed and deconstructed in the course of one life, then the lesson that follows from it is that all religions may be both affirmed and deconstructed.

Indeed, what we are called to do, perpetually, is to de- and re- construct our personal and corporate narratives perpetually. This make sense – the rot sets in when we feel trapped by a narrative we cannot escape.

So the christian message should be that no story, no myth traps us; on the contrary we are fashioned precisely to make new myths. How do we demonstrate this gospel? By becoming the most fantastic storymakers there are, using the most flexible and resilient material – the stuff of our very lives.

Okay Jonathan, and the rest of us commenting on this post, I have a question. The original post reads (about halfway down):

“Yes, there are those holding onto tradition. But the point is not to destroy the leadership in the church or even to ignore the value of tradition. The point is, as Tony suggests, to shift the responsibility to the people. When we abdicate responsibility, we offer ourselves up to the possibility of myth once again. But when we take up the role of the priesthood, as Jesus was trying to do, we discover that we don’t need others to mediate for us. God wants a direct relationship with us, as Father, as teacher, and as healer, so we can discover what Jesus came for.”

Here’s the question:
What does that look like, practically speaking? Let’s take for our example a group of people meeting at a large commercial building every Sunday morning, who, for the sake of our discussion, we will call “First Community.” Let’s suppose the members of First Community (FC for short, for ease of typing) read this post, and after years of searching for a better way to be the body of Christ, decide it is time to take the plunge. Now what? What does that look like, practically speaking?

Answers will vary greatly, and that is not only expected but necessary. After all, Jonathan also said above:

“But with that freedom comes the responsibility to be diligent and intentional. We can truly enjoy the priesthood of all believers. Jesus’ Great Commission will truly be given back to the people, the fisherman, the tax collector, the average Joe, and the even the average Jane.”

There are many ways to do a thing, and there are many, many different types of people out there. So there are no wrong answers.

THEOPOETICSNET

I’ve been following this thread with considerable interest for a number of reasons, and I have finally had the time to chime in.

I, as well as several other posters, take issue with what began this conversation, Bob’s post number 1: “How can we each have our own truth? If your truth is different from my truth, one of us is wrong.”

While others have addressed this in several ways, I wanted to add another voice to this conversation and perhaps introduce a term, and mode of thinking that might be unfamiliar to readers here.

At the core of Bob’s question, and any question of religion or myth that posits truth or untruth, is an understanding of the world as dualistic. Things are either true or not.

My push would be for a third ground that somehow falls outside of the divide that mechanistic prosaic-logical thinking produces. I’d offer up the possibilities of the theopoetic perspective as food for thought and encourage folks here to take a look at THEOPOETICSdotNET as it seems that much of the discussion here seems directly relevant to the material there.

On a related note, much of this conversation has been making me think of this Rumi poem:

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language – even the phrase “each other” – do not make any sense.

Jonathan Brink’s description of the demise of myth and the resulting renaissance of empowerment for the individual (a la Martin Luther?) seems to me to be more the renaissance of modernity than the midwife of the emerging/emergent church.

While modernity’s focus was on the individual, the emergent church’s focus seems to be more focused on networking, community and other relationships. Personally, I believe Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu – “I am because you are” – better describes the ethos of the Emergent church than the iconoclastic demythogizing of the abuses of power experienced in pre-modernity, modernity, post-modernity and what ever comes next. For more on Ubuntu theology, see my link on my webpage: http://home.earthlink.net/~beesknees/id415.htm

Please forgive me if I offend anyone or if am preaching to the choir here. The article to which we are responding and the responses to it are literally my first exposure to the Emergent idea. Below are various reponses that jumped out at me and my responses to those responses.

1) “How could the Magisterium be wrong? We trusted them.’ But that confusion gave way to the awareness that myth was essentially a lie.”

Myth is only a “lie” if one pre-supposes that the details of the myth are meant to be apprehended as literal truth.
One of the earliest errors of the magisterium was this belief (myth?) that the story details of scripture are literal truth rather than symbolic expressions of deeper underlying truth. The magisterium eventually told us that all scripture is “God-breathed” (i.e. infallible) but that only the magisterium could determine for us which ancient writings actually qualified as scripture. How convenient for the magisterium.
Traditional Protestants accept the idea of Sola Scriptura despite that fact that what constitutes “scripture” was established by an extra-scriptural source (i.e. Jesus did not commission the New Testment and the New Testament did not self-generate a Table of Contents page).

2) “God wants a direct relationship with us, as Father, as teacher, and as healer, so we can discover what Jesus came for.”

“Direct” meaning: beyond or aside from a relationship to an anthology of ancient writings known as the New Testament.

3) “Freedom to enjoy the glorious story of Jesus, unadulterated from filters that oppress us.”

The original filter was written scripture which was not Jesus or the apostles preferred method of transmission. The next filter was the magisterium who decided that certain scriptures were the only scriptures and that those scriptures constituted a divine policy and procedure manual and literal record of what actually occurred back then. A 2,000 year old police report, if you will. (“Just the facts, ma’am.”)

4) “All of the …. is built on the presupposition that language is trustworthy. Furthermore, most forms of Christianity, as my pastor friends agree, is equally gnostic: unveiled truth revealed to those “lucky” enough or “chosen” to receive.”

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, Yes!

5) “One definition of myth: an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.”

Notice the definition says “unproved” OR “false”. The gospel account can never be “proven” empirically (heck, we can’t even “prove” what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963). But just because something cannot be proven doesn’t make it false unless of course your whole bent is rationalistic/materialistic (i.e. Fundamentalist).

6) “It is rich and energizing to contemplate the course of world history had Mary Magdalene’s accounts of Jesus’s ministry been as validated and widely circulated as the Markean and derivative texts. There are over 100 contemporaneous gospels which were not canonized by the Constantinian enterprise which was quite removed from contemporaniety.
Gnosticism, other than the theological equivalent of calling someone borderline in psychiatric terms or socialist in political terms, is the almost everpresent danger of a non dialogical approach to understanding the revelation of our sovereign God, Lord, Provider, Shepherd, “big rock following” in history.”

Hallelujah! The truth!

7) We don’t need fear to love God.

But the “good book” sez “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Don’t mind me – just playing Devil’s advocate here).

8) “There we meet God, in whom all narrative tensions and paradoxes are resolved – because God is Love, and, as every Hollywood director knows, only Love resolves the contradictions.”

Ah, yes. Paul Tillich’s “ground of being”, Jung’s “Transcendental function”, Nietzsche’s “Dyonisian ecstacy”, Christ’s “kingdom of God spread out over the world but you can’t see it”. These are all different names for the same realm/state of consciousness. Consider that, without Satan, Jesus would be as useless as the Maytag repairman. Without Judas Christianity could not exist. The crucifixion image is a mandala (good thief/bad thief), an image of the human psyche with it’s two opposed poles neither of which we can ever escape but only acknowledge (bring to consciousness) and work with. This is the essence of forgiveness. How can I ask for forgiveness until I recognize my sin? And to what extent do I forgive others? To what extent do I understand that others are dealing with the same dark forces with which I contend? There is an obscure Sufi sect, the Yezidis, who hold sacred an angel known as Melek Tawus.

“Melek Tawus is an angel who has fallen from God’s grace, and for his repentance, is restored to God’s favor. While in hell, Melek Tawus, in seven thousand years filled seven jars with his tears of repentance which extinguished the fires of hell, or at the last judgment will be used to do so. Melek Tawus was banished from the sight of God because he refused to bow down, as asked, before God’s creation, Adam. But Yezidis do not identify the fallen angel with a spirit of “evil.” The act of disobedience has been forgiven by god as a father forgives a wayward son.

For the Yezidis, the internal aspect of Tawus Melek remains alive. They hold that Tawus Melek is as fire with two elementary qualities: fire as light and fire to burn-and the apparently dual aspects of the “good” and the “evil” exist within the same Person. Every human being is a mixture of good and evil, and every Yezidi has Tawus Melek in himself. This is one of the meanings evoked in a 19th century report by Haji Zain al-Abidin al-Shirwani, who, in a conversation with a Yezidi leader concerning Tawus Melek, asked, “Who is Iblis (Satan)?”

‘What is the reason behind your worship of him and fear of him?” The Yezidi replied, “The learned are perplexed by the comprehension of his reality and scholars are in ignorance from detecting an atom of the valley of his realization but the men of knowledge said in his description, if he shows mankind his light they would have worshipped him as god. He is hidden but near everyone. All-knowing in regard to men and their deeds. Satan sometimes comes to you from the walls and other times from the roofs. Occasionally he resides in the deepest folds of the heart and sometimes he joins your body and goes in it like blood. And it is related in the tradition that Satan is from the fire of glory, meaning that his glory was created from the fire of the glory of God.’

9) “Indeed, what we are called to do, perpetually, is to de- and re- construct our personal and corporate narratives perpetually.”

The dualities of Mythos/Eros/Chaos/Love/the Feminine on one side and Logos/Law/Order/Force/the Masculine on the other side. We eternally constellate between these two.

Here’s a myth for you. In the Garden of Eden are two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life is Eros. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is Logos, discernment of dualities. In our immaturity we constellate between these two but both are essential. In my conversations with religious fundamentalist I am often struck by how it is with them that everything has to be an “either/or” proposition. It can never be both. They can’t hold the paradox.

And finally thank you Monte Asbury (comment 47) and Callid Keefe-Perry (comment 61). I am in complete agreement.

This article seems to ignore the possibility that emergence may conclude that orthodoxy is besides the point, as the quest for orthodoxy too often yields the wrong fruit.