Existentialist theology vs community

Posted on December 2, 2007 by me

In a recent post, I discussed the implications that a common contemporary worship style has on the community of the church:

… what I see happening is that our contemporary freedom in worship – to raise hands or not, to sit, stand, jump or twirl – plus the existential nature of the lyrics in our worship songs is undermining the goal of our churches, which is to create a corporate worship experience. I don’t have any sense of community with the people around me, who could be (and often are) engaged in any number of activities.

One of the things happening in our local church, ever since we got this new building without windows in the sanctuary, is that they turn down the lights during worship. It’s bugged my wife and I since they started it, but I haven’t said anything, as I’m already known as somewhat of a malcontent; I prefer to save my comments for more serious issues than “mood lighting.”

Well, today the pastor explained, for the benefit of visitors, why the lights are being lowered. It is to help us focus on God, the theory being that we won’t be distracted by our neighbors if we can’t see them. Now, this does address one of the points in the quote above, that we are involved in individual worship expressions. Granted, this shows some sensitivity in that area, but I don’t think they’ve thought the issue through from the standpoint of community. What the leaders are encouraging is now an even more individualized, existential worship experience. Not only we are to do our own thing, we are to try to forget that the rest of the congregation is even there. To me, this is absolutely counter-productive; that is, if you believe “church” is about corporate worship.

Those who work in early childhood education will probably understand what is called “parallel play.” Until a certain age, the most we can expect of toddlers is that they may engage in the same activities as other children at the same time. They are not playing “together,” they are playing along side each other. When they grow older, they are able to understand the concept of others as individuals to interact with, and corporate play activities begin.

This, of course, illustrates what I am saying about what is encouraged in existential worship. There really is no corporate worship going on; at best, it is “parallel” worship, and may not even be that. What is the point of coming together to worship, if it is to try to ignore the body and enter into our own little worship bubble? Why not stay at home? At least there, we could worship to songs of our own choosing, something that perhaps we could actually sing and mean. Part of the wonder of a confessional, liturgical worship style is that we are knowingly joining together with Christians the world over. We are Christians alone most of the week – on Sunday mornings, we are joined to the Church Universal. By reciting the creeds, by corporate recitation of The Lord’s Prayer, the many become one.

For 10 years or more, I’ve heard churches that I’ve been involved in lament the loss of community. Leadership conferences have focused on it, and church publications have discussed it. The small group strategy that worked 20 years ago is no longer working. Postmodernity is blamed (for everything, it seems). However, what do people expect, when the main focus of the corporate church is taken away, and we are encouraged to become more individualized? Why bother going to a building on Sunday morning only to be isolated? To make things worse, many of the songs are so personal in nature that not everyone can sing them. Many don’t affirm any universal truth, they affirm individual, existentialist experience. What if I, alone and in the dark, can’t join in with the experience being sung from the front?

As Marshal McLuhan said, the medium is the message. I believe it’s time to evaluate our medium of worship, to see what message we’re sending.

Posted in Church, My Own Personal Religion | 4 Comments

Oh, those pesky presuppositions…

Posted on November 29, 2007 by me

I have often mentioned that science is based on presuppositions, and that these presuppositions are, if not issues of faith, at least rooted in a certain philosophy or worldview. To me, this is rather obvious – and it’s not a bad thing, it just is. I have my own presuppositions, and freely admit to them. However, those of a materialist point of view tend to bristle at this; science, after all, is based on reason.

Paul Davies writes in the NY Times,

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are — they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational.

Davies makes an interesting point, although, as Lawrence Selden has pointed out, his logic could be a bit better. However, his was an opinion piece for the Times, not something in a scientific or philosophical journal. Selden puts it this way:

I think he is on the right track, but his arguments could be improved. One of the things he is getting at is that to do science, you have to have a philosophy of science and an epistemology. The scientific method is not provable by the scientific method. It comes out of a philosophy of science and is part of a person’s epistemology.

Again, “The scientific method is not provable by the scientific method.” The scientific method, its nature, its applicability and its effectiveness, are philosophical positions. I think it is fair to use the word faith here, but it’s ok if you don’t. “Philosophy” works just as well for me. This doesn’t diminish science at all; to borrow a Gumpism, “science is as science does.” It can explain some things (as far as we know), but it can’t explain everything. It shouldn’t have to. Unless, of course, it really is an issue of faith…

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 3 Comments

On Beowulf, heroes and redemption

Posted on November 29, 2007 by me

I haven’t seen Beowulf, and if the past is any indication of the future, I’ll eventually see it when it comes out on DVD. However, it’s apparently 3D, so may make a theater viewing a bit more interesting. Ben Witherington, who I have linked to in the past on a number of topics, tends to write some pretty decent movie reviews; today’s review (The Film that Cried ‘Beowulf’) of Beowulf is not a disappointment. What I found especially interesting were his comments about Beowulf and the need for heroes; Witherington writes:

But what is interesting in this film is the distinction made between a hero, like Beowulf and ‘the God Jesus Christ’. At one juncture in the film the Danish king is asked, after a raid by Grendel, if they should pray to and invoke ‘the new Roman god Christ’. No, says the king, we don’t need a savior god, we need a hero.

He continues:

Heroes with strength and courage, but also feet of clay are much preferred to a sinless savior who dies so that we might live differently than we do. We don’t want to live differently. We want to party down, and then have a hero rescue us when we go too far.

It’s true, of course. Even Christians have a hard time with the notion of a suffering, dying servant as savior; we’d often rather have a Terminator God who comes down and kicks some butt. This possibly explains much of the religious right (if anything can explain the religious right).

A couple of years ago I wrote an article exploring this notion, partially inspired by Spiderman 2 and the Bering Strait song I Could Use a Hero (great tune, by the way). As I wrote then,

Fear of reality might really be the issue. For whatever reason, living in reality often seems rather humdrum for some of us, and downright frightening or painful for others. There are many reasons to opt out of reality from time to time, but we all do it. Sometimes working with fantasy is healthy; myth allows us to work out many issues in a safe environment – similar to a child’s play or running computer simulations. You get to see how things might turn out if we make various choices, in essence, looking before we leap.

However, actually believing the hero-myth – failing to bring things back to reality – always has downsides. For example, consider the tendency to make heroes out of sports figures. It is okay to be inspired by various individuals, but there is also the tendency to live vicariously through our heroes – and no good comes of that. I’ve seen people whose emotional state varies depending upon the success of their favorite sports figure or team. No matter how well the hero does, there is no potential that the hero can provide what the person actually needs. There is only the potential for failure.

I still believe what I proposed in that article, that our need for heroes is an inadequate substitute for what we really need: a savior. The problem is, to accept the savior we have is to also release our own imperfect dreams of greatness, of success, victory and righteousness. It really is righteousness, after all, that we are looking for. The problem is, we tend to want our own instead of God’s righteousness.

Martin Luther defined the notion of Original Sin as looking for “better words” than the words God has already given us. That was the issue in the Garden of Eden, and I think from my own experience that Luther hit the nail on the head. Redemption is simply too easy on one hand, and too difficult on the other. To accept forgiveness, we also have to forgive … and that means no breaking heads or kicking butts. To quote myself again:

The whole concept of hero worship (it is worship, after all, as heroes always take the place of a savior) is based on a belief that performance matters. We believe that we have to perform in order to succeed, but we’re not good enough. Then, when we see someone else performing to the standards we have set, they become our heroes, and that is truly idolatry. Performance is important; however, Jesus’ performance is absolutely the only performance that matters.

Posted in Random Thoughts, Reviews | 1 Comment

Must everything change?

Posted on November 16, 2007 by me

Brian McLaren, pop icon of the Emerging Church movement, has recently published a book entitled Everything Must Change, in which he attempts to make the case that if people really believed in the Secret Message of Jesus, everything must change. Now, to anyone who’s studied the Bible, our response should be something on the order of “duh…” However, while I’ve only read reviews and discussions of the book (I did read and review “The Secret Message…”), I question whether McLaren’s “everything” is accurate, or if how he’d like them to change is correct. I also question whether his personal “evangelical” context is shared by many people (it doesn’t appear to be in my circles) and whether his Anabaptist leanings are coloring his exegesis. Maybe some day I’ll read it (if I can find a cheap used copy somewhere).

McLaren has written some very good books in the past, but he’s not a theologian by training (not that I am), and I think it shows. He draws a lot from people like Dallas Willard and NT Wright (my personal favorite), and other than wanting to know McLaren’s agenda, I’d suggest skipping McLaren and going straight to Willard and Wright. My sense is from McLaren’s books that lead up to “Everything…” is that he’s reacting to an evangelicalism that avoided any real material consequence of faith, and while some conservatives reacted by doing the political thing, he’s taken the leftist route into a type of social gospel.

I tend to look at things a bit differently (as if you didn’t know by now); rather than the route McLaren takes, my approach is simply this: The kind of God you believe in determines how you live your life. The converse is also true: How you live your life reveals what kind of God you believe in. There are, indeed, personal, financial and political implications for our theology. Certainly the 70’s pre-trib “it’s all going to burn” thinking resulted in a lack of concern for both society and the environment, and in that context, if you accept a more orthodox theology, then yes, everything (or nearly everything) should change.

Greg Boyd is a pastor from Minnesota that I have been impressed with (although I don’t share his “open” theology), especially in his thinking about pacifism. I have not been impressed with most pacifists’ theologies, as they usually seem to start with pacifism and work backward. Boyd, on the other hand, really seems to be willing to go wherever the Bible leads him (hopefully it will lead him away from “openness” someday!). He’s recently written a series of posts that are worth checking out, starting with this post that takes loving your enemies to today’s extreme. The follow-up posts take a very interesting approach to the issue of heresy.

These are very important questions that we need to answer:

  • What kind of God do I believe in?
  • What kind of salvation to I believe in?
  • What does it mean to love God and my neighbor?
  • How do these answers impact my daily life?
  • Must everything change?

For some, extreme pacifism is one answer; for some like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, there are other answers, and there are certainly other issues to consider. The Gospel is offensive; if we allow ourselves to deal with it (or it to deal with us) we will undoubtedly be challenged, regardless of where we currently stand (or sit) on any issue. It’s easy to look at the church or American Christianity (if we can call anything that) and point to what must be changed. It is another to look at ourselves and see what must be changed.

Posted in Church, Reviews, Theological Musings | 1 Comment