Lucas: against holy affectations and spiritual pretentiousness
At a recent Church at Home Weekend I attended Jeff Lucas was the speaker. Jeff is
a well-known figure in evangelical Christian circles and I have mentioned him
approvingly in this blog on more than one occasion. (See here). If my memory serves me well then
I believe Jeff started out as leader with the restorationist house group
movement along with other leaders such as Terry Virgo and David Tomlinson. This
movement peaked in the UK at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. But a lot has happened since then and these
three leaders now find themselves in very different positions, or at least two
of them do.
It is probably
true say that whilst Virgo has more or less stayed in the same place all these
years Lucas and Tomlinson have moved on. In fact in Tomlinson’s case the move
has been considerable. Virgo probably classified (and probably still does) as a
fundamentalist patriarch whereas Tomlinson is now a fairly left wing Christian
Liberal and ordained Church of England minister. Both Virgo and Tomlinson have
received mention in this blog before (See here and here). In terms of his culture and attitude I would
place Jeff Lucas somewhere between the two, and like Tomlinson I suspect that
Lucas has gone through a period of soul searching and transition. This transition
has lead him away from a self-assured fundamentalist faith, the sort of faith
that believes more in its own spirituality than it does in God himself. Although
it’s probably true to say that I’m nearer Tomlinson than I am Lucas, I have
great regard for Lucas and I am very glad that someone of his caliber is where is,
strategically well placed to bring sanity and self–awareness to an evangelical
Christian culture that in some places seems to teeter on the edge of an
anasognosic crackpot spiritual dementia.
In contrast Tomlinson has moved too far to be so strategically placed. It may be true to say that Lucas and Tomlinson are part of a church malaise that produced the so-called emerging church along with other Christian leaders like Rob Bell and Brian Mclaren; but somehow Lucas has managed to stay true to a charismatic evangelical tradition.
Like Tomlinson,
Lucas has no doubt experienced times of disillusionment with Christian evangelicalism
and may have had the maturing experience of thinking things through in the
empty dungeons of doubting castle. But Lucas has reacted very differently to
Tomlinson. He copes with the hackneyed spiritual clichés and plastic inauthenticity
so often found in charismatic fundagelicalism with satire and humour. I think I
recognize that reaction because I’ve gone that way myself: The only worthy
response to the kind of serious minded fundagelicalism which is so consumed with
its own self-belief is to satirize it and laugh at it; for its conceited
self-assurance makes it well beyond the voice of reason (For examples of my own
satire see some of the early posts on this blog that reproduced some of the articles from the hard copy version of VNP; in fact the hard copy version of
VNP was almost entirely satirical, a kind of “Wipers Times”, a way of coping with what for me was a situation difficult to come to terms with).
Lucas is a
leader who, I guess, has seen more than his fill of cliché welding over
confident holy rollers and this comes out in his talks; although I call them “talks”
he has all the cutting edge talent of a standup comic and he uses this talent
in a routine that is subliminally if not overtly subversive of kitschy versions
of Christian community: Take one example: He said that sometimes long band
driven worship sessions can drag rather and yet during these marathon sessions
a worship leader may interject with camp affectation ”Heaven is just like this, only its forever!”. Well, I’m afraid I can’t tell them like Lucas
does, but I hope the drift is clear; Lucas is constantly and hilariously
sending up the all too human foibles of charismatic and evangelical Christianity.
In response all I can say is “Good on yer
Jeff!”. Lucas confessed that he
himself was once inclined to crass in-your-face-evangelism;
that is, the sort of evangelism that can take an otherwise prosaic
conversation, turn it on a sixpence via some corny tenuous allusion and start talking
about grave spiritual matters; cue funny anecdotes from Lucas! He also referred
to a phenomenon I have frequently seen myself; that is, of the unchurched being
dehumanized as pew fodder for some evangelistic message. He also took a swipe
at the heavy healers who attempt to explain failed miraculous healings in terms
of disbelief and disobedience. By way of summary Lucas said he really wished that
many Christians could “lighten up and chill out.” My reply? No chance! Tacky spiritual
posturing is here to stay, but look on the bright side; at least it gives us
something to laugh about!
Lucas’
unrelenting subliminal attack on Christian inauthenticiy had a purpose. Lucas wanted to make the point that we as Christians have
reacted against twee spiritual ostentation and consequently lost our voice; instead we need
to regain our voice and consolidate our fellowship and community. But Lucas warned against going so far as to turn
church into a meeting down at the pub – was that an oblique reference to David
Tomlinson?
Jeff Lucas admitted
himself to having suffered disappointments and burn out. He consequently
recommended his book "Faith in the Fog"
which addresses this subject. In Lucas’ case he resolves the problems in favour
of a generous form of evangelicalism, one that embraces self-doubt and humour
and prunes away the hollow hypocrisy. His aim is for a truly serious version of
Christianity that doesn’t find a need to major in spiritual gimcrack. Jeff
Lucas, I’m glad to say, has his eyes wide open and well knows just how cheap
and clinquant Christian spiritual ostentation can become,. This ostentation, in
the final analysis, amounts to a display of very human self-believing conceits
and self-deceits, a sham holiness. My overall verdict of Jeff Lucas is that
whilst I’m probably a bit closer to Tomlinson than Lucas, without doubt the
church is in very good hands with someone like Lucas and it will not want for
critical self-examination and be less inclined to take its own inevitably flawed spiritually
(See Romans 7) too seriously.
Postscript
One Sunday
service at the begging of September 2002 I found a printed piece of writing
folded into my church notices; it was a piece abstracted from “Lucas on Life”
by some unknown church member. At that time I hadn't heard much about Lucas
accept that from somewhere I had gained the impression he was once connected with restorationist Terry
Virgo and New Frontiers. The piece he had written was a funny story about a
minister who took the bull by the horns and made small changes to the morning
service such as moving the pews around a bit and then after the service serving
Jaffa cakes with the tea and coffee instead of Rich Tea biscuits. At that stage I had had a belly full of talk
about change because the word “change” was often a code word for “We need a holy spirit revival”. Such
aspirations were usually expressed by those who completely undervalued and/or ignored
the anointed ministries that were already were active in the church. So, I naturally
assumed that Lucas was yet another aficionado of those “holy spirit” churches
that are constantly on the lookout for tawdry and tinselly blessings. By 2002 I
had already written a satirical piece called “Killing Pews” [1995] about “holy spirit” revivalism, and so having
been subject to this unsolicited spam in the notices the following Sunday I distributed
a piece of counter spam (see below): I
had no idea at the time that Lucas was actually on a similar escape trajectory to myself. The character “John
Bilgewater” mentioned below had appeared in an early hard copy versions of VNP. (See
here for more about Bilgewater)
Dereham Road
Baptist Church
Norwich
7 Sept 2002
Hi folks,
Re:
DRBC's Spamming wars
I was absolutely fascinated by the piece of spam I found in my notices
last week. Taken from "Lucas on Life"
it portrayed a minister making modest changes to his services/pew arrangements.
This timid tinkering with service arrangements, however, just isn't radical
enough. Jeff Lucas, and his readers, are clearly well behind the times or, more
likely, on a different planet and know nothing about the following which goes
back to 1995, more than 7 light years
away (The following is a quote from “Killer Pews”):
Another shock is that in this environment of
light movable seats it is very difficult to adopt a cosy out of the way pew of
your own. In fact I am waiting for the day when we arrive for the service
downstairs to find that someone has removed the seats completely, no doubt intended to convey to us, as we
stand shiftily wondering what to do with our arms and legs, that if we are not
going to "move on with the Lord" the seats will.. ... The design and
mobility of the pews down here remind their congregations that God demands change
whether they like it or not. ("Killer Pews", TVR January 95)
But if you want to get really radical the man to see is the Rev J.
Bilgewater whose activities you can read about in DRBC's spammed church magazine
"Views, News, and Pews".
Needless to say he has solved this pew problem in his own inimitable style. He sent
all his pews to the dump long ago and replaced them with pogo sticks to ensure
his congregation keeps mingling. After a trial run of this new scheme Rev.
Bilgewater realised that the tea had to be served in "roller coaster"
proof spout mugs.
Now, who is going to have the courage to admit to having handed out this
spiritual cliche? Come off it, we can't work in a cultural vacuum and there
always has to be some kind of arbitrary framework needed to give shape to our
activities, so why constantly be soul searching about it? True, we mustn't be
inflexible, but haven't we heard this message about how terribly spiritual it
is to accept change just about 15 billion times too often? Can't we have a
change and not hear about change for a change?
Tim "you've
been spammed" Reeves.
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