The Best Week Ever, or What to Say When You Meet Your Heroes

Last week was one that I will not soon forget. I had to be in California for work, which normally means that my coworker and I will try to catch a baseball game. This time, though, we decided to get tickets to see Conan O'Brien. Unfortunately, Conan tapes his show in the afternoon, and there was no way we'd make it in time from the home office to LA to use our tickets. I was sorely disappointed. Until I saw someone post on Facebook about Rob Bell doing an event from the Viper Room in West Hollywood. No to baseball. No to Conan. Yes to Rob Bell.

We got to the Viper Room and spent some time laughing at all the guys who looked like us - slightly chubby with trendy glasses. It was like we had come home. Right at 7pm, Rob took the stage. He spoke for over an hour and then answered questions. Mine was the last one of the evening. You can watch the video of Still Painting here. After he got done speaking, Rob hung out and talked to people, including me and my friends. I told him about how we give away Velvet Elvis on our church website, and I told him that he was one of the patron saints of our church community. I asked him to come and speak at Vintage sometime. We'll see if we can make that happen. He was funny and gracious, and I hope it's not the last time I get to interact with him.

Rob is a controversial guy. No one denies his unbelievable talent as a communicator. He is enrapturing when he speaks. His books are conversation and engaging. His videos - Vanessa calls them a cross between a sermon and music video - are mesmerizing. But Rob is quite polarizing. His book, Love Wins, got him labeled a heretic by many. My posts about Love Wins are among the most trafficked on this little blog. People either love or hate Rob.

I am in the love category. Rob, through his work at Mars Hill Bible Church, has helped me to see how a church can create an environment in which people can bring their doubts and questions. He has modeled a way and thereby helped me to be a better practitioner of the kind of faith that is less focused on the theological arguments of the past and more engaged in helping people to wrestle with the questions of today. Short of Butterfly Theology's arrival on the scene, no book has better summed up the kind of church Vintage is trying to be than Velvet Elvis. I am who I am as a pastor and Vintage is what it is as a church because of Rob Bell.

I was on a bit of a high on Wednesday and Thursday, pumped up and excited about having spent just a couple of minutes with Rob. Thursday began with the mixed feelings of excitement that I would head home at the end of the day but also dread that I would be on a red-eye all night before finally making it back to Arkansas on Friday morning. I got through the day and boarded the plane at 10:30 pm PT with the realization that I was not getting upgraded to first class, which meant that I would spend the next several hours cramped in coach and probably unable to sleep. I was texting Vanessa about my complaints when Brian McLaren walked down the aisle of the plane.

Brian McLaren is kind of the godfather of the emergent church. He's the author of many books. He is not as well-known as Rob Bell, but he is equally as controversial. He has set forth a roadmap whereby the church can leave behind its intertwinedness with modernity and engage more fully with postmodernity. In Brian's case, this has meant an embracing of interfaith dialog and science, and it has led him to positions on hell, homosexuality, and politics that make him not-so-popular with evangelicals.

But I love him. When I was going through a deep crisis of faith, it was Brian's book A New Kind of Christian that saved me. Without Brian, I doubt I would have left fundamentalism. Without Brian, I think my faith would have died rather than emerged. Without Brian, Vintage Fellowship would not exist. Without Brian, Butterfly Theology would be a very short book. He is my hero. And he too is a patron saint of Vintage.

And he was sitting three rows behind me on the plane. When there was a lull in the passengers boarding, I went back to talk to him. I asked the guy sitting next to him if we could change seats so that I could talk with Brian. Brian suggested we talk when we got to Atlanta. That was a better idea than me chattering away while Brian tried to sleep on the red-eye. I returned to my seat and had a hard time getting to sleep.

When we arrived in Atlanta, Brian and I connected in the terminal and headed to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and breakfast. We spent over an hour talking about a whole host of things. We talked about the future of the emergent church and seminaries and how to respond to critics and how Vanessa's theological transformation mirrored my own and mutual friends. Brian could not have been more gracious to me. He listened and asked questions and wanted to know my story. He offered me counsel and affirmed me in my journey. I felt the same way about meeting him as I did about Rob - I certainly hope this is not the last time our paths cross.

I hope that Brian is a words-of-affirmation guy because I showered him with them. Thinking of how much they have impacted me, I wanted to just yell titles of his books at him - GENEROUS ORTHODOXY!!  THE STORY WE FIND OURSELVES IN!!  THE LAST WORD AND THE WORD AFTER THAT!!  A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIANITY!!  But I was able to restrain myself. I did tell him that in a very real and literal way, he had saved my faith. I told him that he had been my mentor ever since I left fundamentalism. I told him that I had learned to have an irenic spirit from him. We talked about me sending him a copy of Butterfly Theology and how we could get him to Vintage to speak to our community. My fingers are crossed.

In the last ten years, two people have impacted my life, my thinking, my ministry, and my theology more than any others. Those two people are Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. They are my heroes. In the span of four days, I met both of them.

I fully expect to meet Bono any day now.

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Emergence: A Year in Review

One of my favorite parts of this time of year is all the "year-in-review" articles and stories. Here is one by Jonathan Brink about what the Emergent Church was up to in 2010. It's honest and hopeful. I especially enjoyed this paragraph:

The emerging church isn’t dead. It’s just finally wrestled with the angel and won. It’s shedding it old image, the one that got people so riled up in the first place. The conversations won’t ever go away because in the end, we’re looking for what it means to be human. We’re looking to discover the reality that Jesus was trying to present, one of infinite grace and beauty, stark reality of the kingdom of God in our midst, and a renewed sense of possibility for the restoration of the world.

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A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren

*originally posted on February 19, 2010

Brian McLaren has done it again.

When I read A New Kind of Christian trilogy several years ago, I was in the midst of a spiritual and emotional depression. I was, in McLaren’s words, “between something real and something wrong.” I had begun to question a lot of what I had been taught, a lot of what I preached, a lot of what gave me identity as a Christian and as a pastor. And I knew that if I expressed my questions and doubts, it would cost me my job. A New Kind of Christian gave me the courage to step out and journey onto some terra nova, leading eventually to the launching of Vintage Fellowship, the emergent faith community I have the inexpressible privilege of shepherding.

For me, Brian McLaren’s books are like a turn-by-turn GPS, always one step ahead of me, guiding the way. In the same way that A New Kind of Christian charted the path I would journey, so now, I believe A New Kind of Christianity will chart the path that Vintage Fellowship is journeying.

A New Kind of Christianity has framed the ongoing discussion our faith community is having. It’s like Brian has been having coffee with us. He asks 10 essential questions:
-What is the overarching storyline of the Bible?
-How should the Bible be understood?
-Is God Violent?
-Who is Jesus and why is he important?
-What is the gospel?
-What do we do about the church?
-Can we find a way to address human sexuality?
-Can we find a better way of viewing the future?
-How should the followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?
-How can we translate our quest into action?

McLaren engages each question thoughtfully, opening up a space for discussion, dissent, and development. I am sure my fundamentalist friends will not be OK with his questions, let alone his proposed answers. But I am no longer a fundamentalist, and I love the space to explore and wonder. Many times throughout the book, I felt affirmed, reading a perspective on a question that I shared. Many more times, I was challenged to look at a question from a new perspective. And what a blessing that space is.

As tremendously important as McLaren’s framing of the quest for a new kind of Christianity is, maybe his most important contribution to the discussion is his gracious and gentle manner. He describes some of the reaction his teaching has engendered. And he responds to some of his critics. He could have reason to come on strongly, defensively, and argumentatively. He never does. He maintains the kind of irenic spirit that I think makes God proud. I hope that I can emulate it.

Constantly searching for metaphors to help map the territory ahead, McLaren describes the maturation process of humanity in general and religious thought in particular in terms of the colors of the spectrum. As I read his description of the movement from red to yellow through green and blue to violet, it was as if I was reading my own story. In short, reading A New Kind of Christian and launching Vintage Fellowship was my journey into the indigo shade of honesty. But I am ready to move beyond honesty to peace. I am ready to continue my quest. I am not confident of much, but I am confident of this: A New Kind of Christianity will be a map I return to again and again as I seek to lead myself, my family, and my church into the violet horizon of a hopeful, peaceful future.

Thanks, Brian, for doing it again.

A New Kind of Church

For too long the Church has been seen as an oasis in the desert - offering water to those who are thirsty. In contrast, the emerging community appears more as a desert in the oasis of life, offering silence, space and desolation amidst the sickly nourishment of Western capitalism. It is in this desert, as we wander together as nomads, that God can be found. For it is here that we are nourished by our hunger.

- Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God

Emerging Politics

For a long time, I have been reassessing my political beliefs. Aaron challenged me a while back to develop a political approach that mirrored the emerging church. My reassessing predates that challenge, but ever since that challenge, it has been running around in my head more frequently. Additionally, the results (so far) of the 2008 political campaign have given me a chance to reassess things since I am for the first time in my life an "undecided." I thought originally that I would wait until I had some answers to share before I blogged about it, but I have decided instead to start a conversation. So, I'm going to just start talking about what I'm thinking about without any answers in sight. I hope you'll join me on the journey.

About 5-6 years ago, I went through a process of reassessing my theological beliefs, which ultimately led to the existence of Vintage Fellowship. That was an interesting process for me because I feel like it led me to a very unusual place, like a theologian without a home. Much of what I grew up with and was taught in college or wrote in my ordination paper, I continue to affirm. As has been documented here, for instance, I remain a Calvinist, needing to believe in a big God. But other things have been abandoned. For instance, I am no longer a Baptist. Additionally, I have adopted an approach to theology that is far less certain and, in my estimation, far more humble and hopeful. I don't claim to know all the answers. I try not to demonize those who disagree with me. And I am willing to ask a lot of questions, even questions about things that others in my more theologically conservative past would deem unquestionable.

Politically speaking, I think I am moving in a similar direction. Like I am skeptical of the ecclesiastical structures of the established church (I really like the term "postdenominational"), so too, I am skeptical of the partisan structures of the political establishment ("postpartisan"?). While I remain a Conservative, needing to believe in a small government, I am questioning whether I will remain a Republican. I have come to reject the certitude of the God-and-Country patriotism of the Religious Right. I am also refusing to demonize those who have a different political philosophy than me. And ... I am asking myself a lot of questions, questions that I will post in an upcoming blog entry.

Ultimately, I think I can say with some degree of confidence that this political evolution on my part is initially one of attitude. (This is similar, again, to the theological process I went through). The evolution of particular beliefs and approaches will come in time as fruit of a more humble, more honest, and more hopeful perspective.

An Emerging Calvinist

This long but fascinating article got my dad and I talking about the relationship between Calvinism and the emerging church. I have posted about this before, but as my dad and I talked, I had a couple of additional thoughts.

I said in my February 2007 post that my Calvinism caused me to take culture seriously, and that led me to embracing the emerging approach to church. Not all Christian theologies take contemporary culture seriously.

The Classic Ryrie Dispensationalism I was taught in college leads to a disconnection from culture. If the world is just going to get worse and worse until Jesus yanks us out of here, why should we bother connecting in any meaningful way to our culture? It's all pointless. Likewise, Fundamentalism doesn't take contemporary culture seriously. It looks back wistfully to a bygone age and seeks to recreate it through traditional church services and programs and through a certain brand of Jesus-Is-A-Republican kind of theology.

But Calvinism is different. Calvinism has existed in various cultures across the globe and throughout the ages. (Classic Dispensationalism and Fundamentalism are uniquely American theologies.) It has found expression in various cultural ways - in political involvement, in music and art, in education, in business, in compassion-based ministries. The ethos of the emerging church with its strong emphasis on understanding and relating to postmodern culture seems like a very natural place to be a Calvinist.

My other thought has to do with the place of doubt in the emerging church. I've posted about this before too. As I think about it, I am not sure that Arminianism allows for doubts. Arminianism teaches that my salvation is ultimately dependent upon a choice that I make to accept-believe-follow Jesus. It seems to me that I am not going to make that choice if I am not fairly certain about the truth of it all. For me to accept Jesus, I need to have it all figured out.

But Calvinism puts the ultimate responsibility for my salvation on God's shoulders, not my own. And as such, I don't think that I need to have it all figured out to be a follower of Jesus. I can have my doubts and still be drawn by God into who he is. Calvinism emphasizes the vastness, the grandeur, and the mystery of God. Again, since it is open to doubters like me, the emerging church seems like a very natural place for a Calvinist to find a home.

These ideas probably need to be developed more, but these are some initial thoughts. Do you have any?

Yeah, Baby

Aaron posted this great article about Imago Dei on his blog. I've got to include the picture. Yeah, baby.

Discussing Emerging Theology

It fell off the first page, but here a conversation about the nature of theology was evolving. Since I am always up for a conversation about theology, I thought I would take it up in its own post.

Is there a difference between "emergent," "emerging," and "liberal" theology?

Historically, the answer is yes. In theological terms, "liberal" theology is a product of modernity. It developed when rationalism and the scientific method, coupled with the concepts of objectivity and individualism, where applied to the Bible. The result was a rejection of the supernatural elements of the Bible, including most notably the virgin birth, diety, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus. The modern response to "liberal" theology was (is?) fundamentalism.

"Emergent" theology is not a monolithic thing, but it is the product of postmodernity, rejecting the tyrrany of rationalism and the scientific method, as well as the myths of objectivity and individualism. "Emergent" proponents, such as Brian McLaren, have caused much controversy by advocating such things as theistic evolution, complete gender nuetrality, and a quasi-universalism.

"Emerging" theology is even less monolithic than "Emergent" theology. It too is a product of postmodernity, rejecting many of the basic aspects of modern thinking. Most "emerging" leaders seek to focus on a fresh expression of historic orthodox Christian beliefs that connects well with postmodern thinkers.

So, they are not the same thing historically. Nor are they the same thing in content.

Liberal theology rejects the diety of Jesus.
Emergent and emerging theologies don't.

Liberal theology devalues the authority of the Bible.
Emergent and emerging theologies don't.

Liberal and Emergent theologies deemphasize hell.
Emerging theology doesn't necessarily.

You might disagree with all of them, but don't say they are all the same thing. Because they are not. I know this to be true because I am an emerging theologian who is neither liberal nor Emergent.

I Like Jesus and the Church

In an effort to sharpen my ministry saw, I read Dan Kimball's book They Like Jesus But Not the Church. I came to see it as an Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary for emerging generations. It was excellent and helpful.

Drawing on his conversations with friends who like Jesus but not the church, Kimball tries to give us a window into how emerging generations think and feel about church. Here are some thoughts (none really profound) that the book reinforced:

- Relationships are key. Emerging generations care very deeply about friendships. Talking about Jesus can't be of the anonymous variety. That simply won't cut it. We have got to be doing all we can - in our workplaces, neighborhoods, coffeeshops - to build relationships and to listen. Listening is the primary means of connecting with someone else.

- The church can be political but not partisan. I don't think emerging generations want us to be spineless and / or disconnected from the world and its problems. We need to be engaged in issues of justice and freedom and love. But can we do it without being partisan? Can we help the poor without being branded liberals? Can we be a voice for the unborn without being dismissed as right-wing kooks? Can we be a church of Jesus-followers who infect both (or all) political parties with his values? And, can we remember that regardless of the political party we identify with, as followers of Jesus, we are all on the same team.

- Gender issues are uberimportant. This is probably the biggest takeaway for me in Kimball's book. I don't want Vintage to be seen as a chauvinistic, male-dominated place. I am reminded that I constantly need to be thinking about how what we believe about the equality of women can be projected in what we do. There shouldn't be a disconnect there.

- It's ok to be an organized church. The "organized religion" thing has almost gotten cliche, but ultimately emerging generations are not opposed to organization that typifies the humility and team-orientation that need to be present in leadership. Vintage is on its way to this, but we still have ground to trek.

All in all, good and interesting book. It is written primarily for pastors of established and modern churches, but it served as a great reminder to me about why I caught up in this Vintage thing in the first place.

Postmodern Nooma

Good article from the Ooze.

Robb on the Radio

Here's the link to my Valentine's Day appearance on Paul Edwards show.

The Emerging Coversation

Those in the emerging church have long said that it is more a conversation than a movement. Well, tomorrow, I will be engaging in that conversation on the Paul Edwards radio program. I talked to Paul a couple of weeks ago about Vintage's Turned On series. Tomorrow, we are going to spend an hour talking about the emerging church. It's funny - I hardly feel like a spokesman. I am just one guy trying to be true to my God and myself. Listen live on Paul's website if you can. If not, I will post a link to our talk when it is up.

I Am ...

I got this exercise from Richard Mouw's book Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport that I am reading right now. What would you write?

I am a human being.
I am a Christian because I think it is the best way for me to be human.
I am a Protestant because I think it is the best way for me to be a Christian.
I am a Calvinist because I think it is the best way for me to be a Protestant.
I am Emergent because I think it is the best way for me to be a Calvinist.

Let me give some explanation.

I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus is God's son, come to earth to live the ideal human life and to rescue me from my less-than-ideal life. In the long line of those who have entrusted their lives to Jesus and sought to live for him in community with one another, I identify myself with Protestants since things like the sufficiency God's grace and the Bible resonate with me. Within Protestantism, I call myself a Calvinist because I am drawn to a theological presuposition of a big God who comes after me and calls me into a future he has designed. My Calvinism causes me to take my culture seriously, and so I am seeking to be Emergent, attempting to connect what I believe in a creative way to the world in which I live - as a human being.

I used to think that being a Baptist was the best way for me to be a Calvinist. And even more specifically than that, I thought that being a Regular Baptist was the best way for me to be a Baptist. But what I found was that I could not be the best Calvinist, Protestant, Christian, or human being that way. Creativity was stifled. Grace was hard to come by. Truth was too contained. Now I am someone different than I used to be.

How about you?

What Is the Emerging Church?

Here is a fantastic article by Scot McKnight about the emerging church. He argues that there are five common threads within the emerging church movement. It is ... prophetic, postmodern, praxis-oriented, post-evangelical, and political. I think he hits the nail on the head.