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Peter Walker :: Blog

March 04, 2008

They Said "I'm Sorry"...

How Genuine Grace Demands Community
“Pete, we just wanted to call and say… well… we were douchebags back in youth group.”

“All those things you talked about – about postmodernism and the church? Well, we think we're there too now. We agree. And, yeah, we're sorry.”

“Yeah, we were jerks. You were right.”

Last weekend I got that call from several young men who used to attend a Wednesday small group I tenuously led at the local megachurch several years ago. These boys were funny, good-natured and mostly well-intentioned, but they were also the most loudly condemning of the questions I raised. I was gentle, especially in that setting, and mindful not to destroy any worldviews. But I did question the watertight conservative Evangelical worldview they’d been raised with. And I gave them permission to question, too.

These three boys called me a liberal, and brought me toy guns as gifts, in hopes I’d be converted to their brand of militant teenage conservatism. I assured them I had already come from there, and knew all-too-well the worldview they had inherited.

Their parents disapproved of me too.

The wonderful thing was, the boys kept coming to Wednesday nights. Granted, one of them stopped for a time. He was too frustrated after I suggested a Christian might vote for John Kerry for religious reasons. But he eventually came back (equipped with newly prepared retorts).

And now, three years later, they all apologized to me. With their own eyes, they can see the inklings I shared. And they’re not afraid – they’re excited by it!

Oh, if adults could be so gracious as to sit through stretching sermons and small groups, remaining in community with the folks they disagree with. Sooner or later, we might all stretch each other. We might never agree, but the Holy Spirit can’t work among us if we’re not together. I can’t admit to you that I’m a douchebag if you’re not in the room to hear it.

read more about my thoughts on Christianity in the real world at www.essenceproject.blogspot.com...

Keywords: apologies, community, differences, douchebag, youth ministry

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February 14, 2008

Peter Walker

Big Babies...

Narcissistic Introspection?

Last month Leonard Sweet and I spent time here on ShapeVine with author Michael Bywater. I've been re-reading and taking notes on Bywater's most recent book Big Babies - a poignant (and hilarious) treatise on the juvenile, self-reassuring culture of Western Civilization. It deals with our demands to be entertained, spoon-fed, and pampered, and with our stubborn and insecure refusal to GROW UP!

Some of the commentary strikes far too close to home...

In Chapter 5 Bywater writes:

"I suspect that my grandfather's life was real in a sense that my father's life hasn't quite been, and my life is not at all. The crucial difference is the lack of self-consciousness, and that self-consciousness is yet another hallmark of the perpetual, infantilised adolescents we have all become, monsters of introspection hovering twitchingly on the edge of self obsession, peering into the abyss of our own inner disconnection, occasionally aware that while the unexamined life may not be worth living, the life which only exists to be examined is barely manageable; barely, indeed, a life." (pg. 121)

Ouch.

I'm so used to lamenting the UNEXAMINED lives of so many Christians that it is jarring to read such an eloquent, cautionary word against what is ultimately self-obsessive introspection.

But what of monks and mystics? Hermits and prophets of Scripture? My guess is that their meditations were and are far less focused on the self than on the Divine (and on personal, spiritual and communal interconnectedness).

Oh! But how often my own meditations are obsessively - and narcisistically - on ME!!

Keywords: Big Babies, introspection, Michael Bywater, narcissism, self-examined, self-obsession

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February 08, 2008

Peter Walker

Camping at a Position...

Whether we are transitioning into Postmodernism, or postmodernism itself is the transitional period - whether we're already post-Postmodern, or still in a correction phase of Late Modernity - any way you slice it, the world is in flux.

I recently had a conversation with a new ministry friend from back east.

As we began talking, he confessed to still being very "exploratory" with this emerging, postmodern conversation. He said, "I'm not completely decided on what I think about all of it - I haven't found a position to camp out at, yet."

My caution to him (probably unnecessary - he's on a solid track...) was this:

If you want to come to a point where you respect, tolerate and understand the motives and forces behind today's emerging or postmodern church movements, I think you can find a position that is comfortable, respectful and static.

But if you feel the Holy Spirit moving you to truly be a part of an emergent Christian faith, you may have to abandon the expectation of finding a position to camp at.

What I've learned in the last six years is that faith within a paradigm of flexibility, openness and sometimes vagueness (gray), is a necessity during a period like this. "This" being that transitional period.

The challenge with a lot of movements in the American church is that they have correctly identified a problematic piece of their ecclesiology, but once "corrected" (or at least addressed with good intentions) the movement stops. Or loses steam. So the Jesus People of the 70s (my parents) are now the middle age fundamentalists of today. The Pentecostals of the 1920s to the 1950s are the staunch, comfortable old people in my church demanding hymns and forbidding wine.

If you're familiar with Driscoll at Mars Hill, Seattle, you'll see another good example of masked fundamentalism, "giving a little" for the sake of popular culture:

"Tattoos, beer and swearing are ok as long as you keep women off the pulpit and gays out of the pews." (in less direct language of course - because, remember, it's masked fundamentalism)

Authentic flexibility in an emerging cultural and global climate is vital. Acquiescence of belief is not required, but fearless love, kindness and tolerance are crucial to allowing room for each other (all of us) to grow, stretch and be molded by the Holy Spirit.

Personally, I'm not willing to throw out scripture because it isn't convenient to my worldview or personal feelings. McLaren and Campolo touch on this paradoxical tension in Adventures in Missing the Point.

But I'm EQUALLY unwilling to blindly wrap my arms around and embrace Scripture simply because it's Scripture. I respect it and may not directly defy it... but I don't have to like it! I don't have to automatically accept current translation or understanding without my own prayerful wrestling match.

I wrestle ongoing, because I'm also unwilling to withhold my grace or brotherhood from Christians who do believe such-and-such is ok... or not ok. I have Christian friends who are actively gay, some "ex-gay" friends who refuse to accept it in their lives, and straight friends vehemently positioned at each ideological extreme - ALL are on journeys, wholeheartedly seeking the face of God through Christ Jesus.

I believe the Holy Spirit is big enough (and ACTIVE ENOUGH) to speak to the heart and convict in spirit and in truth. Can we be used by the spirit? Of course - but how often do we jump the gun on a God far more patient than ourselves?

By remaining flexible, fluid and somewhat gray, a church or an individual Christian can respond and act in love and faith, rather than fear or anger. I can speak my heart while leaving judgment to God. Or I can even choose NOT to speak to an issue with which I am still wrestling for understanding. Unnecessarily wounding people for the sake of standing on a POLITICAL (pseudo-spiritual) platform is not a paradigm God created (the potential wounding) - it's a mechanism that factions inside and outside the church have adopted.

The point is, as we explore what our faith is evolving into, we must open our hands and set free those specific bullet points we've clung to. That's "sinking sand." The only solid rock is Christ. Jump in and ride Sweet's SoulTsunami imagery. We have to be fluid because things are evolving WAY too fast to stand still. Christ is our boat, (or the church, however you want to use the metaphor) and that boat is sturdy enough to take us through whatever storm we face. Even a perfect storm.

Keywords: blind faith, emergent, emerging, fearless, gray area, paradox, SoulTsunami, tension, tolerant, wrestling

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February 07, 2008

Peter Walker

Saving the Baby from the Bathwater

The Most Important Challenge?

I was asked in a recent online discussion what I thought the single most pressing challenge of today's (and tomorrow's) church was. I answered: "I believe it is willingness to sacrifice itself when called to. Willingness to die that others might live."

We are often so afraid of throwing out the baby with the bathwater that we don't realize the baby has been sick for a long time... getting a rash FROM the bathwater. Or maybe getting frostbite because the water cooled off several hours (or centuries) ago.

Or maybe we accidentally used harsh Selsun Blue instead of Baby Shampoo in the water, so it's burning Baby's skin. Or what if Baby's skin is simply getting all prune-like, and it's time to get out and dry off?

And what if the baby isn't even a baby anymore? What if we've been trying to bathe a toddler in a baby tub, and the toddler just doesn't fit? He's still dirty because there isn't enough water to cover him. The water's become black sewage because Toddler was just running through the drainage ditch in the backyard, unkempt and undisciplined... or what if we drowned the baby? What if we were so worried about keeping the baby in the water that we didn't notice his little head went under?

Maybe we were talking on the phone...

All this to say: don't we trust God to lead the Body forward? Anne Rice said in an interview, "We're too afraid that the devil is winning. He's not winning! WE'RE winning, and we have to start living like it."

Throw out that bathwater! The Holy Spirit will ensure that the baby (the Body of Christ... for Christ's sake!) will survive. Self-protection isn't our calling.

We talk about "change" so much in emerging circles, but too often all we wind up with are the same old machine, retooled or repainted. This machine is breaking down. We have to let God build something new - more than lighting candles, greasing pomade through our faux-mohawks and playing more accoustic worship songs from the 90s... that isn't new - and it certainly isn't "emerging..."

Do we think Jesus is SO fragile? Are we so selfish? When will we let go?

(It's time to dream bigger)