I got to be on the news!
The local CBS affiliate here in Chicago just did a segment on the emerging church last night, and they included parts of an interview I and my wife did with them a few weeks ago. I had two clips and Julie had one (too bad really, since my wife is way more articulate and better looking than me.)The whole piece was pretty good, though very short and not very detailed. You can read the transcript or see a video of it at the CBS Chicago website. They also have some links to our church and the others involved in the segment, so perhaps it will even lead some emerging seekers to find our church. At any rate, I'm glad for the attention to the emerging church, and I hope it will potentially lead to more people finding out about the movement who were perhaps on the verge of giving up on traditional Christianity.
posted by Mike Clawson at 7:33 PM
22 Comments:
Wow! What a great piece!
"I hope it will fly because I think the church needs to evolve and it needs to change if it's going to survive," said Mike Clawson.
Wow. Now the Holy Spirit needs us for the church to survive? He seems to have done ok for 2,000 years. What happened to "and the gates of hell will not prevail against it"?
Anonymous (I don't usually like responding to people who refuse to sign their name to their own words, but I guess I'll make an exception),
I don't understand this dichotomy you're setting up. Is the Holy Spirit not at work in and through all the changes the church has undergone in the past 2000 years? Just because we humans get to play a role in the church's evolution, does that somehow diminish or negate the role of the Holy Spirit working through us to cause growth and change? I'm afraid I don't understand why it would have to be an either/or.
Peace,
Mike
Sorry, Mike. I don't like to be anonymous either. :-) I had a problem trying to sign in otherwise. ??? I'm Felicia - nice to meet you.
I've been following your blog out of interest in the emergent movement. I'd actually decided NOT to add any comments as I'm not CGGC. Oops.
I didn't mean that to sound as "harsh" as it came across. It was just the first thought that came to mind after reading the text of the interview.
What I'm responding to is the overall "feel" of the Emerging Church movement. There seems to be a sense that if we don't change what we are doing--- and often that means lighten up on the Gospel message(though not necessarily to you) --- the church will begin to fade away. I don't buy into that line of thought at all. Christ established His Church 2000 years ago and promised that it would never die. It will survive no matter what we do or do not do.
Of course, I believe the Holy Spirit works in and thru us, and has thru the ages.
I guess my question to you would be, "what do you mean by 'if it's going to survive'?
Again, my apologies if I sounded uncharitable.
Peace,
Felicia
Hey Felicia,
I certainly don't believe the church as a whole is going to fade away anytime soon. However, historically speaking the church's presence and influence in various socieites does ebb and flow, and just because the church universal will ultimately be triumphant, that doesn't mean it couldn't disappear from Western society for a while.
Some examples: prior to the Crusades there used to be a lot of Christians in the Middle East and especially the Holy Lands. The anti-Christian backlash by Muslims in response to the Crusades however led to the radical diminishing of Christian influence in that region, right up until the present day.
Christianity used to be growing in China too a few hundred years ago, until the church there allied itself too closely to an oppressive political regime, and when revolution came the Christians got tossed out along with the former dynasty.
And of course we're all familiar with the reality of present-day post-Christian Europe. The church is declining drastically in that part of the Western world (in all parts of the Western world in fact except here in America). Of course this decline is being offset by the growth of the church in the southern hemisphere.
At any rate, while I don't think the church globally is in danger of dying out, I do think that here in America, and in the rest of the West, we are in danger of making ourselves irrelevant to the culture and unfaithful to the true message of Jesus Christ. In fact, IMHO, the majority of the evangelical church seems to have already done just that. To me the emerging church conversation is a needed corrective to help us get back on track.
But that's just my perspective...
Peace,
-Mike
BTW, feel free to post comments like these over at my blog anytime. You don't need to be a member of the CGGC over there.
The reporter admitted he had never heard of the emerging church and then later, he surprised me by mentioning Willow Creek Community Church with no context, as if everyone would certainly know who that is (and maybe in Chicago they would.)
Felicia commented, "There seems to be a sense that if we don't change what we are doing--- and often that means lighten up on the Gospel message(though not necessarily to you) --- the church will begin to fade away." It's funny. I see it exactly the opposite. Unless we get a firmer grip on the Gospel message and take it more seriously, we are in danger of fading away. The question would be "What is the Gospel message?"
I'm not sure if Felicia is confusing the Emerging movement with the Church Growth movement. (Please feel free to respond.) They are not the same at all. The Emerging Church calls for more life change, not less, more commitment, not less.
Finally, let me say that though this is a forum for CGGC people to talk about emerging issues, it can only help us if non-CGGC people dialogue with us. This is definitely part of the emergence. Welcome Felicia. Nice interview Mike and Juli.
crossover: "I'm not sure if Felicia is confusing the Emerging movement with the Church Growth movement"
Hi crossover,
Thanks for the welcome!
It's highly possible that I'm not exactly clear on what defines "Emergence".
Is anyone? ;-)
The term itself is as elusive as "postmodern". Admittedly, I tend to have a place in my heart for tradition and absolutes. (showing my age, I suppose) These are not passe', nor are they vulgar in my estimation.
Christianity has always been rooted in absolutes. Without them we lose our foundation. IMHO
2 Th 2:15 "Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours."
What disturbs me about emergence, is that it seems to be gnawing away at the roots of Christian faith. I'm concerned it will encourage personal interpretation of Scripture to the extreme.
From an interview with McLaren:
Q: "Do you envision the day when people will write their own version of the Bible in the manner of, say, Wikipedia?"
A: "I don't know. I imagine they will. That’s a fascinating question. This is one of our problems, whether people rewrite it in print or not, we do tend to rewrite it in our own thinking, so, for example, the difference between Fox News and Aljazeera — two different ways of telling the same stories. I think we have that kind of diversity in telling the Biblical story."
Huh!?
I believe there is a place WITHIN the Church for those discussions to take place i.e.the meaning and application of Scripture to our lives. But....it should not be what drives the Church itself.
To me that is a huge difference.
The Church needs to be strong and sure in what it presents as the Truth. It.....HE......is not up for discussion.
I Timothy 3:15 "...the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth."
But first the Church needs to BE sure of what it believes. Are we?
I guess that's the bottom line for me. Jesus is an "absolute" not a relativism.
John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life"
The Church, protected by, and guided by the Holy Spirit, need not apologize for teaching absolute truth.
Matthew 7: 13-15 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.
How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves."
It's interesting to me that much of what McLaren defines as needed "changes" in the church, especially in the area of engaging the world to promote social change, WE ARE ALREADY DOING. At least in my Church we are.
Also, his comments that speak to "integrating things(denoms) that have previously seen as polarities", sounds alot like what we call ecumenism.
Again, IMHO, the leaders of the Emergent movement have taken the truths we already know and are already working toward, to make us nod in agreement.....then slipped in just a bit of relativism, that appeals to our human nature.
Of course, then again, I may be totally off base. :-)
Peace,
Felicia
Question: What's wrong with simply pursuing truth, period? Why bother adding adjectives like "absolute" to it? What's the difference between "truth" and "absolute truth"?
And then of course there's the question of how you know the difference between absolute truth and just plain old truth. By what criterion do you declare your beliefs to be "absolute"? (while everyone else's are what? relative? just plain wrong?) How have you gained such absolute certainty about your particular beliefs? How have you managed to transcend the need for a leap of faith and somehow pulled back the curtain on reality to see what is truly absolute?
I'm just asking, honestly... but I have to confess that for me, philosophically speaking, words like "absolute" seem rather meaningless to me anymore. It's a concept I can't make sense of. It sounds like someone is just trying to say "really, really true, truth", in which case they're not really saying anything at all.
Hi Mike,
I understand what you are saying. I'm not implying that I am capable of determining absolute truth. But, that does not disallow for the reality of it.
You say, " words like 'absolute' seem rather meaningless to me anymore. It's a concept I can't make sense of"
Does this mean there was a time when "absolute" did have meaning to you? If so, when/why did it stop being meaningful?
When I use the term "absolute", I'm refering to beliefs that are unchanging; and moral values that are not situational.
Relativism is a distinguishing feature of postmodernism. Adding the qualifier "absolute" specifies that the truth in question is not dependent upon current opinion or personal preference. (I hesitate to give a concrete example, as it might take the discussion off course.)
As for "leap of faith"---I embrace it. Rather than "transcend the need for" it, it is precisely thru the leap of faith that one acknowledges the possibility of absolute truth.
Subjectivity does not negate absolute truth. It immerses the subject in the truth and causes him to strive to live in that truth, and to live up to that truth.
The question then becomes, "where does one attain the truth?" And the answer must be "in the Church".
But is it?
God bless you, brother.
Felicia
Mike I am concerned that a pastor of the Gospel of Christ doesn't know the difference between "The Truth" and "A truth". There can only be one truth objectively that would be the absolute. How can you preach , for example, John 17:3; "And this is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.", if you don't believe or are uncertain about the absolute.
Does a Muslim that sees Islam as the truth have The Truth?
Even though Kierkegaard speaks of "objective uncertainty" he says through Anti-Climacus that Christ and Christianity are the Absolute and of course this is only revealed through faith. (Training in Christianity pp. 66-67)
God is the Absolute, Christianity is the absolute way to that Absolute but HOW we relate to the absolute is what Kierkegaards philosophy is all about. It is there that we find truth to be subjective. Kierkegaard doesn't give us any doctrine or dogma he says that we need to find the truth ourselves as an Individual and make it personal and live it passionately. It is there that truth becomes perhaps a little more relative. That is why we have so many different denominations or non-denominational churches. They all have there different truths that relate them to the Absolute. Are there any theologians that agree theologically. Most theologians have there own theological truth that relate to the Absolute.
We need to see the difference between objective truth and subjective truth. Kierkegaard wasn't concerned about the "What" but the "How".
I agree with Felicia , "As for "leap of faith"---I embrace it. Rather than "transcend the need for" it, it is precisely thru the leap of faith that one acknowledges the possibility of absolute truth."
This is the task of the Missional Emerging Church to make the Absolute known.
But how do we do that? For Kierkegaard it is about becoming Contemporary with Christ. "For in relation to the absolute there is only one tence: the present. For him who is not contemporary with the absolute - for him it has no existence. And as Christ is the absolute, it is easy to see that with respect to Him there is only one situation: that of comtemporaneousness. The five, the seven, the fifteen, the eighteen hundred years are neither here not there; they do not change Him, neither do they in any wise reveal who He was, for who He is is revealed only to faith." (Training in Christianity p. 67)
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" I believe that to be the absolute truth and I believe that in faith. Now I need to make it subjective I need to live it! I can only know the truth when it becomes life in me. In living it I become Missional.
Amen, Douglass! Your words moved me.
God bless,
Felicia
You know, I was going to type out a long reply to explain how I think about these issues of "absolute" truth and relativity and subjectivity and all that... but in all honesty, these subjects are far too complex to discuss in the comments to a blog post. Unless we have about six hours to really sit down face to face and hash it all out, I really don't see the point of trying to get you guys to see it from my point of view.
So yeah, feel free to continue believing that you are capable of accessing "absolute" truth, and I will continue to believe that words like "absolute" fail to do justice to the actual complexity and beauty of reality. I really don't feel like arguing about it right now.
Peace,
-Mike
We are able to access "absolute" truth which is Christ he is the "beauty of reality".
Think about it it's not that complex.
I think if you would analyze what I said you would see that we are not far from saying the same thing.
Don't be phobic about absolutes!
It's not an argument it's a "conversation"!
Blessings!
You are right, Pastor Mike, this issue is definitely far too complex to discuss as "comments" to your oginal post.
However, it is one of the tensions (IMHO) of the Emergent concept---"absolutism" vs "relativism"----and deserves to be explored.
Maybe someone could start a new topic?
I think I understand where you are coming from, and I think Pastor Douglas is correct in stating that much of our disagreement may be with semantics.
Would you be willing to start a topic explaining your stance on this crucial point?
Your sister in Christ,
Felicia
I have a few thoughts/comments regarding the ongoing discussion -
1) We are only part of a long history of the discussion of truth and who has access to it. Almost 500 years before Jesus walked the earth (and was asked by Pilate "What is truth?") Gorgias and Plato disagreed whether truth was created in human experience (Gorgias) or existed outside of our experiences (Plato).
Considering this, even with "six hours to really sit down face to face and hash it all out" we need to remember that that the concerns over relativism and other relevant topics have a long history before postmodern theory ever entered the picture.
But this doesn't mean I don't believe we should continue the conversation. Therefore, my next point.
2) Jacques Ellul (20th century French philosopher/sociologist) has provided helpful terminology for me to think through this topic. He makes the distinction between truth and reality. Truth is the way things really are while reality is the way things appear. Ellul lays this out in "The Humiliation of the Word" - Marva Dawn has been greatly influenced by Ellul (she discusses truth and reality in the Unnecessary Pastor co-authored with Eugene Peterson).
Reality (the way things appear) reveals a world of chaos full of selfish people that lacks justice. But truth (the way things really are) can remind us that there is a God in control who ultimately holds all of us accountable.
This has been helpful to me and I will be happy to say more if this is a useful distinction for anyone else.
3) I think Doug Molgaard has provided a helpful reminder that we are part of a larger conversation - one that has gone on for centuries before us. I think it is important, especially when defending a position, that we rely upon voices throughout history to help us think through our ideas. One of the dangers of contemporary Christian scholarship, and many who are influenced by their ideas, is to believe that we actually have original ideas.
I agree with the author of Ecclesiastes that "nothing is new under the sun". While the current moment demands new ways to interpret and apply the ideas of truth, etc., ultimately what we are having are the same conversations over and over and over again in a different historical context. If we do not rely upon those who have gone before us we are missing out on much that we could learn.
So those who are defending a position should bring on the Kierkegaard, Augustine, Nietzsche, etc., and let's engage in conversation that extends beyond just a personal opinion.
Brent
Thanks for the thoughts Brent. I found Ellul's distinction especially interesting. I like to make a distinction between "truth" and "reality" as well, but I use those terms in almost the exact opposite way that Ellul does. To me "reality" is the "the way things really are", while "truth" is "the coherence between reality and the way I perceive things" (I'm basically using Kant's distinction between the Noumenal and Phenomenal realms - or the distinction between "essence" and "perception" made by Early Modernists like Locke or Berkeley.)
The difficulty for me is that, for the life of me, I don't see how anyone can claim to absolutely know "reality". Everything we know and experience is perception. It all passes through our senses and is filtered by our minds (i.e. by our categories of thought, by our language, by our prior assumptions and previous experiences). We simply do not have access to unmediated reality. To know reality we would have to somehow step outside of our own selves. We would have to be God.
So as soon as any of you can propose to me how we could actually do that - how we could know anything without using our senses or our minds - then I will admit that we can possibly know "Absolute Truth" (i.e. unfiltered reality). Until then I will continue to maintain that the best we can hope for as finite and fallen creations, is to simply know truth (i.e. to know the world as God has revealed it to us through our senses and mental limitations).
And there's a good chance that we're all just defining the words differently. I've told you what I mean and hear by the terms "absolute truth" and just plain "truth", but that may not be exactly how you all are using those words. (I'm already fairly certain that I use the word "relative" very differently than how some of you seem to be using it.) So, as Doug said, we may not be all that far off in the first place. Let's not let language get in the way of understanding one another. If you all want to use the same concepts but attach different labels to them, that's fine by me.
I hope you guys don't hear me as coming across angrily or anything like that. I appreciate your questions and your willingness to converse. (And I realize that I provoked the conversation with my leading questions.) It's just that I've already had this conversation more times than I can remember and it starts to get really tiring after a while. I get tired of being labeled all kinds of "bad" words (like "relativist" and "postmodernist") by people who don't seem to fully understand what those words mean or the long history of philsophical discussion that lies behind them (I'm not necessarily implying that is any of you). I get tired of defending myself. I just don't want to talk about epistemology anymore. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt (and the philosophy degree). Now I want to move on to more important things.
I hope that helps you understand where I'm coming from.
Peace,
-Mike
P.S. Thank you for the sign of respect Felicia, but you really don't have to call me "Pastor" Mike. It's just Mike. :)
Hi Pastor :-) Mike,
[I believe in addressing pastors as such---if it's ok with you. I wasn't focused on who I was speaking to earlier.]
May I go in a different direction? (I'm not even going to pretend I can argue philosophy with you) I'm really trying to grasp the "heart" of Emergence....and having a difficult time of it.
Can you help make it a little more concrete? To bring it down to the level of your own congregation, what 3 changes do you plan to make (or have made) in keeping with Emergence?
btw...I realize that I may come across a bit confrontational in print at times. Nothing personal intended. I believe that many (if not most pastors seek the heart of God---sincerely trying to serve Christ in and thru His people.
I think that most of you live out, to the best of your ability Matthew 6:33.
Anyway, that's my way of saying I apologize for any offense.
Peace,
Felicia
PS. thanks for allowing me to participate here
3 ways that our church is emergent... let's see, howabout if I just post our church's value statements, which to me are a pretty good summary of what it means to be emergent:
As a community of faith centered on Jesus Christ, above all else we value a love for God and love for others. This value gets fleshed out through six other related values:
Loving God
We value passion and creativity.
We seek to be a community that expresses our passionate love for God in a diversity of ways. We desire for our worship gatherings to be creative, experimental, participatory, and hands-on; yet also rooted in the rich traditions of our Christian past.
We value spiritual formation.
We seek to be people who are continually becoming more and more who God created us each to be. We pursue disciplines that will help inwardly shape us into people who reflect Christ’s character of compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, generosity and love.
We value the pursuit of truth.
We recognize that all truth is God’s truth. Therefore we eagerly expect to find God in unexpected places – not just in religious settings, and seek to celebrate the divine in the daily so we can come to know and love God more fully.
Loving Others
We value diversity.
We seek to be a community that embraces diversity of all kinds: in ages, races, genders, classes, cultures, personalities, opinions and approaches to faith. Everyone’s contributions will be valued, recognizing that each of us have unique gifts and perspectives to share within the body of Christ.
We value community.
We desire to share life together in an open and honest way, welcoming and accepting all people for who they are. We seek to care for one another deeply, practicing forgiveness, sharing struggles and joys, and generously giving of our time and resources to all who have need.
We value compassion & service.
We seek to practice an alternative lifestyle of radical compassion and service for the poor, the oppressed, the wounded and the brokenhearted. We work to transform the whole world and especially our local community with God’s revolutionary way of peace, generosity, and love.
Mike thanks for your views! On your comment on, "3 ways that our church is emergent" it shows that we are saying the same thing in different ways.
Your first sentence, "As a community of faith centered on Jesus Christ", says that you are a Church that has an Absolute that is revealed through faith and then you go on to say how you relate to that Absolute subjectively by your values.
Blessings
You're right. We are saying it in different ways. To me beliefs based on faith are the opposite of absolutism. To me, an absolute truth is something for which I would have to have the kind of total certainty and proof that I just don't think is possible for us as fallen and finite creatures. I believe that anything we claim to know requires a leap of faith, and that therefore we cannot claim to know it absolutely.
But you seem to be using the word "absolute" to mean that once you have made that leap of faith, then you hold to that belief with a certain degree of confidence and order other belifs according to it. That's a different way than I use that word, though I don't necessarily disagree with the idea behind what you're saying. Feel free to stick to your own definitions. :)
Peace,
-Mike
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mike: "So as soon as any of you can propose to me how we could actually do that - how we could know anything without using our senses or our minds - then I will admit that we can possibly know "Absolute Truth" (i.e. unfiltered reality)."
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I did alot of driving today, which gave me some time to think about this exchange. We are most certainly defining "absolute" in very different ways.
"Absolute" to me refers to truth that is immutable, and independent of circumstances. It exists outside the limitations of my perception and understanding.
So, yes, you are exactly right when you state: "once you have made that leap of faith, then you hold to that belief with a certain degree of confidence".
You simply use "truth", where I would use the qualifier "absolute" truth, to emphasize that it is not relative to historical period, culture, etc.
I believe we would agree on the basic truths of faith:
God exists.
God is eternal having no beginning and no end.
God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.
God exists as Trinity: three Persons in one God...the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit
Jesus is the eternal Son of God made man.
Jesus was born of a virgin
Jesus was crucified, died, was buried in a tomb, and rose from the dead.
Jesus is God.
....and so forth.
These are absolute truths---non-negotiable for Christians.
I'm all for growth and change, as long as we remain true to the Gospel---even the parts that are a little hard for some to swallow.
We approach these truths thru reason and some would argue that reason will take us all the way to faith. I would have to disagree. Reason will only bring us to the brink; grace must lift our reason to enable it to glimpse the Divine.
I "know about" God thru my study and understanding of His word and thru my church.
I "know" God thru my experience of His Presence in my spirit. The most "absolute" God-moments do not involve any of the senses, or even reason and understanding. IMHO
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Re: Your value statements
Awesome. Extremely well thought out. May I ask when you developed your value statements?
Peace,
Felicia
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