A Wolf in Authentic Sheep's Clothing

Here's another word that gets used a lot in discussions about the "emerging church" - authenticity. I like that word. I have a great deal of respect for its ideals. I believe authenticity is at the heart of Christianity. I believe there was no one more "authentic" than Jesus, who was the real deal humanly speaking, and also was the genuine article when it comes to the divine. Unfortunately it seems that much of what passes for authenticity in Christianity now is just apathy in another disguise.

Much of what I hear about authenticity has to do with being "real", not putting on a false front, or a hypocritical appearance. I like that. What I don't like is when being real becomes a false front of its own. I don't appreciate when authenticity is used to mask the deeper issues that I really just don't want to deal with. I despise talk of being genuine and real that leaves no room for the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to come in and begin deconstruction of our facades and the erection of something solid and true. I don't like a fake, nobody does. But even less do I like someone who couldn't care less about becoming the person God created him/her to be.

If there's anything I think I've seen from the inside of the church world that sickens me it's this insidious apathetic sickness that seems to have invaded the bloodstream of the church, replacing the transforming bloodstream of Jesus with a weakened and withering substitute. Our apathy towards spiritual growth is astounding, and our apathy towards kingdom growth is simply inexcusable. And if you ask me the two go hand in hand.

If I have no desire for spiritual growth and transformation in my own life, then what business do I have even attempting to advance the kingdom of God? All I will succeed in doing (if I succeed at all) is in getting others to buy into a no-transformation gospel that will leave them just like they are because God knows that Jesus loves us so much that he would never attempt to change us at all, right? I mean, what would Jesus have to change about me?

I am hungry for authenticity that leaves us marked with the character of God. No, it doesn't perfect us instantaneously, but it leaves an indelible imprint upon us. If I don't have that, I don't have any authentic relationship with the Living God. I can't believe in a God who doesn't leave us changed in significant ways when we encounter him in any of the ways he chooses to deal with us. I don't buy into this fatalistic garbage, this "que sera, sera" mentality that leaves us crawling on our bellies in a mess of sin out of which we have no hope of ever rising.

The genesis for this post came from a conversation I had with a good friend a couple of months ago. We were talking about a book I had loaned him, the first part of which he had read. It dealt with some of the ideas presented here, and we had a rather humorous dialogue about some of our impressions. We came away with a new tag line that we thought would be appropriate to apply to this apathetic way of thinking. It goes like this: "I suck, and I think that you think you suck, so let's just get together and be sucky all together."

I'd like to think that we have something more to offer the culture than that. I'll take your authenticity, I like that. But check your apathy at the door, it's not welcome here.

Kingdom Shrinking

There's a scene at the end of the movie Aladdin that has been playing in my mind lately. The climax of the movie comes when Aladdin convinces the evil Jafar to command the Genie to make him the most powerful genie in the universe. When he does, the unforeseen (to Jafar) consequence is that he also creates for himself a lamp, and places himself inside its small space. Aladdin's comment is something like, "Awesome cosmic powers...teeny little living space."

I often feel this tendency within the church to create for itself teeny little living spaces, and thus bottle up the awesome, cosmic power given to us as children of the Kingdom of God. Jesus left no doubt when he ascended to the Father that his expectation was that the church would involve itself in the ongoing establishment and advancement of the immeasurable Kingdom of God on this earth. But even before he departed, the disciples were asking him about the national kingdom of Israel and its restoration.

Strange how 2 millenia later we still have folks caught up in a nationalistic religion - the religion of Christianized America. I imagine that if Jesus himself were to sit down with us and share a meal with us as he did with his disciples before his ascension he would talk to us about the Kingdom of God. That's what he spent the three years of his ministry life declaring, and in the forty days after his resurrection that was the theme he left ringing in the ears of his disciples.

The conversation might run something like this:

“I’m talking to you about the Kingdom of God. I want you to understand the dynamics of life in this Kingdom, and be sure that you are wholeheartedly giving yourself to the pursuit of life in this Kingdom. I want you to live and breathe to advance this Kingdom, so that regardless of cost or convenience everything in your heart would beat with the passion to see the Kingdom of God advance. To do that, I’m going to send to you the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit will so immerse you into the Kingdom of God that you will feel as if you are swimming neck deep in it. You might even feel that the waters of the Spirit have risen over your head, and that you are being swept along by a force much greater than you.”

“But Lord, are you going to take care of America now? I mean, you must see the moral decay all around us, don’t you? There is so much about this situation that must displease you. It’s almost as if we are captive to evil forces that are continually getting the better of our nation, and we so desperately need you to free us from them. Are you now finally going to free America and restore to us our Kingdom?”

I wonder if we might receive a response similar to what those disciples heard – “It’s not for you to know. And in reality, it’s not supposed to be your concern. But when the Holy Spirit comes, he will change all of that for you. This baptism in the Holy Spirit will fill you with such an incredible power and passion that it will completely revolutionize your perspective about your Kingdom and mine. Your eyes will shift, and see things differently, just wait.”

There's been a lot of talk lately in the denomination with which I am affiliated about our "distinctives". The reality is that anything less than the advancement of the Kingdom of God is going to be insufficient to capture the heart of God. If we're more passionate about the restoration of America than we are about the Kingdom of God advancing, we've got serious problems. If we're more concerned about the decline of distinctive doctrines than we are about the fact that the Kingdom of God is not advancing, then we have issues bigger than we know.

The Kingdom of God is bigger than America, it's bigger than my denomination or any other one for that matter. God help me if I ever begin to shrink the Kingdom of God down to a size that's possible for me. I want to be immersed in the flow of the Holy Spirit in his mission to this world. I want to be swimming over my head in the thundering current of the Spirit of God as He rushes forward expanding the Kingdom of God. I could sign up for a baptism in the Holy Spirit that leaves me breathlessly following Jesus, uncertain of even the next turn, but knowing that there's no stoppping now.

I'm tired of playing around in the lamp. I wish to be free.

Invisible/Invincible

Following my last post, superduper (AKA Nick) posted a reply that I felt deserved some extended consideration. If you didn't read it, he said:

"However, I’m struggling to reconcile your call to be “invisible,” with our hope that culture will discover Truth and Beauty...Can we be both invisible, and beautiful?"

For a great deal of my life as a Christian I felt this nagging sense of inferiority. It permeated my thoughts about myself, and colored my perceptions of others. I saw clearly my own imperfections, magnified by a significant propensity for insecurity. I struggled with (and still do many days) the kind of navel-gazing that leaves one entirely selfish, focused on that grandest of exploits - self-improvement.

For some time I honestly believed that Jesus came to improve me, to make me better. I was completely convinced that if Jesus "had all of me", or was "my Lord and Savior", that he would be constantly busy with the need to improve on my imperfections. I believed that my prayer time should be devoted to those things, and that verses from the Bible were meant specifically to address those imperfections in me, even if their context spoke nothing to that effect at all.

I'm not sure when I came to realize it, but I did - I was striving for invincibility. I was striving to become one who was powerful, who had been improved to such a point that no sin or evil would ever get in past my impenetrable walls. And the greatest realization to me was seeing that Jesus wasn't about improving on me, but about destroying me, and rebuilding me in his image. His business was not fooling around with the cosmetics of my exterior walls, but their utter destruction and the subsequent invisibility that would come from their fall.

I believe I am most beautiful, most true, most authentic when I am seen least. That's not because I think I'm not valuable, or important in the eyes of God or anything like that. It's just that I'm convinced that all of my truth, all of my beauty, and all of my goodness flows from Jesus, and that when I get all bothered about showing off what is "mine", I end up making a mess of God's beautiful art piece.

I believe the church is most beautiful, most true and authentic when we are seen least. I believe that when we wish for visibility and recognition we take a hacksaw to God's canvas and find an infinite variety of ways to shred his beautiful image. I believe that when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about their use of the gifts and corrected them, he was making the very germane point that genuine love for God and others will never allow ourselves to become the focus.

So, to answer the question, we can be invisible and beautiful. We must be. The lyrics to a song I heard some time ago say this:

Invisible and mighty,
Unleash your image through me
Until I feel your heartbeat
And truly live

Through our invisibility, the invisible God becomes visible. As long as we are seen, he is not. And if he is seen, then we will shine with a radiance and beauty that is like the bride on her wedding day. And there is no one more beautiful than a bride.

Intersection

Circles are funny objects because, when drawn well, they appear to have no beginning or end. The end joins with the beginning and the two are nearly impossible to distinguish.

The church ought be found at the intersection of Christ and the culture, in the place where those two meet. If properly done, the church itself would (I think) be almost indistinguishable - the little mark on the circle where if you look closely the intersection is visible. Its significance is not undermined by its invisibility, in fact maybe just the opposite. But for too long we've been concerned about making sure we're visible, and in so doing, we've failed in our mission to be the intersection between Christ and the culture. We've made our mark, but the circle has remained open.

We meet in places inaccesible to the culture at best, and at worst inherently uncomfortable and even hostile. We've made a living off cultural critique and have created an economic and political machine to be continuously fed with cash and energy that perpetuates the broken circle. Our meeting places should maybe look more like the cafe than the cathedral, more like the supermarket than the sanctuary.

Let's face it, the cultural critique of many evangelical and otherwise conservative Christians is not all that far off. A quick glance around your television guide will show a host of inane and moronic shows (Who's Your Daddy...anyone?) as well as continual descents into the most impoverished states of morality and ethics imaginable. So for years the Christian response has been to create "Christianized" versions of all the crap that passes for entertainment.

Shouldn't the role of the church be, in part, to lift the culture out of its own mire and into something more beautiful, more true, more artistic and wholistic? If the church could, in relevant ways, help men and women see truth and beauty, I believe we would be helping them to see God, who is the ultimate expression of truth and beauty. Unfortunately, an overwhelming obsession with truth at the expense of beauty has made a beggar of the church at the doors of the world. We have lots of truth, but very little beauty.

When people enter a place which houses any group of people that claims for itself the title "church", they should be able to clearly see both truth and beauty. Maybe the reality is that truth is beautiful, and beauty is truthful, and we can leave it at that. Can we show them something beautiful about God and let them walk towards the truth they see? I hope so. The circle must be made whole, and the church is the only organism equipped with the power and passion to complete the circle, I truly believe that. I'm willing to be invisible in order to make it happen, are you?

Postmodern Overload

Postmodern is the new church buzzword. There are postmodern churches cropping up all over being led by postmodern pastors with postmodern worship, candles and art. The fellowship in which I currently (btw I was about to use "presently" but recently learned that "presently" means "soon" and not "now" - just a grammatical tidbit for you) serve recently published our ministers journal which had at least two articles referencing the postmodern craze.

My first introduction to the word was from Leonard Sweet when I happened to pick up a book called SoulTsunami essentially because I liked the cover and had nothing to read at the time. It was further elaborated for me especially by Brian McLaren, and continues to be filled in and nuanced as I keep reading and writing. So I'm not an anti-postmodernite. I'm somewhat fond of the term, and am particularly intrigued by the ideas presented by some of these writers as to the importance of understanding and reaching postmodern culture.

But I was reminded today that I have no real love for postmodernism, postmodern churches, pastors or services. When postmodern is simply synonymous with being the most hip and cool new church in town, it leaves quite a bitter aftertaste of consumerism in my mouth. I have no real desire to be cool and hip. I don't have the body, the brain or the money to pull it off. But I do love people, people of all shapes, sizes and colors, and it is this love that drives me to seek ways of reforming and transforming the church.

Rather than running to catch up with what is happening in the culture, I would call the church to lead culture. Instead of standing on the sidelines critiquing the heterodox and heretical spiritual revolution happening all around us, we should be leading a truly Spiritual revolution, one that pulls the world in its wake because of its passion and power.

If God has his way with the church, we'll stop fooling around on the edges changing elements of style and moving around the furniture to make it look better inside. I think we'll find a lot of our furniture in the trash and the curtains forming the basis for tonight's bonfire. I'm not passionate about postmodernism, but I am passionate about seeing people make a genuine connection to God who so desperately loves them that he sent Jesus to redeem them. If that means standing waist deep in the filth of this present world to point people towards a savior, then I'm convinced that's where the church should be. Stop hiding in your safe places, cowering like frightened children under your covers.

Sometimes I dream awake, and when I do I see a church that fills the world with its presence, whose heart beats with passion for people and not the latest program or buzzword. When I dream, I find that I don't particularly care about postmodernism. When I dream, I'm tired of the postmodern discussion that is nothing more than another retread of me getting what I want out of the church. When I dream I hope to see what God sees, that somehow his vision might flood my eyes with impossible possibilities. God, I hope that my dream comes true.