The Myth of God Incarnate

Who needs a liberal theologian to interpret the Bible’s message when we’ve got Saint Paul here to do the work for us? (This picture of PZ Myers was taken while he was playing on the rides at the local creationist doctrinal bargain basement)

I was fascinated to see this post by militant atheist blogger PZ Myers. Myers says that he likes the liberal theologian’s metaphorical view of the Bible because:-

The idea that the Bible should be interpreted as a metaphor is a good one — because it melts the superstition away. The metaphor is a powerful tool.

And because (and this may be the chief reason):-

…opening the Bible up to metaphorical interpretation rips the heart right out of Christianity, and makes central dogmas of the faith untenable and painfully ridiculous.

Or does it? I personally might have a vestigial “superstitious” belief in a real God, a real incarnation and a real resurrection, but I would nevertheless go along with PZ’s view that much of what I would call the “Word of God” is compellingly conveyed through metaphor and many of the moral lessons of those metaphors stand regardless of the ontological significance one attaches to them. This means that the profound teachings inherent in those metaphors can be appropriated by theist and non-theist alike. And if these teachings actually constitute the core “central dogmas of the faith” then the heart of the faith remains in place. Moreover, the Good Book itself says:

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Romans 2:14-16

In other words the “Word of God” reaches the places in (wo)men’s hearts that our religions do not reach. For this reason I have never been at all keen on attacking atheists by suggesting atheist philosophy inclines people toward immorality. This kind of attack is especially rich in the light of the excesses of some very religious people. Believer’s and unbelievers have the same God given conscience that informs them about right and wrong and if unbelievers follow their consciences for good that is something to write home about.

Anyway, in his post PZ precedes to lampoon the literalism of the Ken Ham’s of this world, but then he embarks on a consideration of what is left if the Bible is interpreted metaphorically:

Of course, I'm a right cruel bastard, so when a liberal Christian tells me that Genesis and the sacrifice of Christ are metaphors, I just ask "Metaphors for what?", and then they usually stand there gape-jawed like a fish and flounder trying to figure out what I'm asking. Calling something a metaphor is not a get-out-of-jail free card. It means there's a deeper meaning to extract.

So let’s see what deeper meaning PZ extracts ( *1)

The book of Genesis is telling us that human beings are flawed, that we're all burdened with impulses and desires that are not necessarily good for our society: greed and selfishness, for instance, or violence and deceitfulness. (And also, to a patriarchal society, disobedience — conscientious objections don't seem to have much support in such cultures). The whole of Genesis, not just the creation stories, is about the natural wickedness of human beings, and how we have to be constantly chastised.

You won't find a single rational person who disagrees with that. (but you might find quite a few rational persons - and Christians - who don’t live up to it – ed) We are not angels by nature. We biologists would go even further and say that by nature, we're fractious, squabbling apes. Read that as the lesson of Genesis, and you'll find even us rabid militant atheists in full agreement that it is right. The mythological details are nonsense, of course, but they're just there to make it an interesting and persuasive story.

Excellent! So PZ is admitting that humanity by nature struggles with itself, with its self-centeredness and selfishness; intrinsic traits of human nature that are contrary to good society. That sounds suspiciously like the myth of original sin, yes “sin”, the word with the “I” in middle.

PZ then goes on to consider what he calls the “Jesus myth”. Given that PZ has identified humanity’s problem as being with its intrinsic nature (that is, with its “original sin”) can he now extract the essentials of salvation? This is what he says about the “Jesus myth”:

That's a hero story, a narrative about someone we should emulate, whose greatest virtues are self-sacrifice for the common good. We're wicked deep down as Genesis tells us, but we can also aspire to believe in humanity and give our lives over to charity and justice.

Again, this interpretation is not going to conflict with most godless values (well, unless you're an Ayn Randian, but those are psychopathological aberrations). We're combative apes, but our species also succeeds through cooperation; we have a 'higher' nature to which the best of us can appeal, which has and will help us succeed. Maybe believing in something greater, like sacrifice and hope, can help us be better people.

Not bad, not bad at all! We seem to moving in the right direction. OK, so PZ finds all the suffocating ontological trappings of piety surrounding this basic “myth” repugnant, and he believes these trapping to be dispensable as one would expect of an atheist. And yet look at the comments about Someone we should emulate, about wickedness deep down and above all that last sentence about the transforming power of sacrifice and hope. That’s core Christian values to my mind, or even, if you like, the “central dogma” of Christianity! It is precisely here that the “Jesus myth” is, in my opinion, unparalleled and compelling. That “myth” is about recognizing the “old nature”, repenting of that nature and putting on with hope the “higher nature”, the nature that Christ presents us with. Viz:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

7but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. (Philipians 2:3-11)

This “myth” is a story about the greatest sacrifice imaginable: He who has most to lose voluntarily losing everything; God giving up being God and becoming a humble servant, obedient to the point of humiliation and death. This is the myth of the Grace of God that utterly flaws one’s own superficial morality and shows it up for what it is: Hypocrisy. But if we immerse ourselves in this myth it inspires us and proves to have the power to change our lives. It focuses our minds on the concepts of repentance, forgiveness, love, hope, and above all the Grace Of God. Now, I personally am still superstitious enough to believe that this life transforming myth about the higher nature was acted out for real in some higher plane. But perhaps the story of Christ has power to make us better people whatever our views on its ontological status.

The man from Galilee has one more challenge for us all before I finish. PZ Myers would not doubt regard with angry contempt the views of many Christians on the ontological realities associated with the above myth. Conversely there are many fundagelicals out there who treat PZ Myers as if he is the very distillate of the anti-Christ. These two sides, it seems, are beyond reconciliation. If we now set this implacable stand off against the words of the man from Galilee whilst He hung on The Cross we realise just how high the moral bar has been set:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34 (*2)

Footnotes:

*1 PZ actually says “These are interpretations that liberal theologians make, but surprisingly, they're also perfectly copacetic with atheist and humanist ideals.” So it seems that the Liberal Theologians have achieved something!

*2 Some early manuscripts do not have this sentence

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more: Mythos versus Logos

The following two videos are worth comparing. The first, which I found on PZ Meyers' atheist blog here, shows a passionate evangelical (?) Christian vehemently praying at a graduate congregation. She starts by repenting of the sin of worshiping the intellectual mind. The passion in her prayer increases until it reaches an orgasmic crescendo; she starts quaking, breaks down and faints. Some of the correspondents on PZ's blog think she shows evidence of nevertheless being in control and thus of consciously manufacturing this display of spiritual exhibitionism.

Here is the video:



The second video was linked to from the Intelligent Design blog “Uncommon Descent” (See here; the comments on UD are also very worthy of note too; one correspondent wonders if it is a spoof!). This video shows a group of people that the voice over tells us are an extremist ecology group called “Earth First”. To the Christians of Uncommon Descent these people are worshiping nature, but the activity of the group shown in this video looks all but indistinguishable from the passionate prayer of the fervent evangelical Charismatic. One of their spokespersons speaks of the debilitating effects of hi-tech industrial society on spiritual life. So here is my second video:





It is amusing to think of the atheist PZ Meyers and the theists on Uncommon Descent both triumphantly finding these examples of “kookiness” respectively caricaturing what they despise most.

No doubt the Ontology of God accepted by the two groups in these videos are very different, but ostensively their relationship with the mystical entities they are praying to bear striking resemblances. Both are fine examples of a “mythos” religious reaction against the hi-tech, hi-cerebral “logos” society; both express great diffidence toward the intellect and its products. It is ironic that PZ Meyers and Uncommon Descent should stand together in relation to these similar hi-mythos, hi-passion expressions. And of course both accuse one another’s communities of harboring these irrationally religious elements!

I have written many times on the mythos/logos tension in our society. See here, here and here for example.

a Generous Or+hodoxy: Part 2

Mclaren: Taking the rough with the smooth

I had never read Brian McLaren up until I read “a Generous Or+hodoxy”, therefore given that I found so much in the book echoing my own feelings and thinking (I filled it with underlinings) it is likely that there is some underlying commonality of philosophy, experience and temperament that has caused this concurrence. One commonality seems to be that McLaren has stepped back to look at the Christian scene as whole in all its historical and contemporary messy reality. Moreover, I suspect that McLaren, like me, has secretly asked himself the probing question that, when all is said and done in Christianity are we left with an authentic phenomenon? Towards the end of his book (see chapter 19) he defines the concept of Church Emergence as a process which like tree ring growth includes and embraces what his gone before: In other words McLaren is not one of those many disillusioned Christian sectarians who bin the past, clear the ground, and start rebuilding yet another bespoke realization of Christianity. And yet he is all too aware of the failings of both historical and contemporary Christianity; else why embark on such a deep reappraisal of the phenomenon?

McLaren says he is a post-foundationalist, (see P206) and by implication a postmodernist, and yet he is not a relativist (P324). I do not think of myself as either post-foundationalist or postmodern but nevertheless I think I can run with McLaren here because, as another emerging church leader once put it, his is the kind of postmodernism that equates to “epistemological humility” rather than relativism – and that I would want to applaud and encourage: No human expression of Truth, whether based on biblical interpretations or other is ever ultimately authoritative or constitutes an absolute foundation. All human understandings and expressions of the Truth are subject to critical scrutiny, further honing and/or possible revision. On page 316 McLaren succinctly describes the “stages of faith” by which one appropriates this important “postmodern” lesson: “simplicity, complexity, perplexity and humility”.

McLaren doesn’t assume that his or anyone else’s particular Christian cultural splinter has all the right answers, or for that matter all the wrong answers. This means that he doesn’t write off any particular cultural expression of Christianity as damned. But although he looks as though he is the sort of person who is able to negotiate with most Christian communities, I get the impression that for McLaren self-criticism is a non-negotiable feature of his Christianity and therefore for him healthy Christianity is in the business of constantly reappraising itself. He warms to the concept of “continuous reformation” (P213), an idea that is close to my concept of continuous rival.

At his own confession there is a streak of cynicism in McLaren. Like myself, therefore, he is suspicious of restorationism; that is, the claim by countless start-up denominations, sects and cults that they have cleared the ground to create a restored church untainted by human foibles and sinfulness. “Oh yeah?” has always been my response to this sort of thing and I think McLaren’s response would be similar (P140)

As I said in my previous post it is difficult to distill McLaren’s views down to simple formula; he is too intellectually mature for that. He knows that unlike the world of the physical sciences where much can be captured in simple formulae, the socio-religious world is a world that is necessarily rife with narrative intense metaphors. Thus, it is difficult to pin the label of heresy on McLaren just by quoting a few sentences on, say, his views of hell and other religions, because there are always qualifications further into the text.

EPC (evangelical, pentecostal, charismatics) sects often require one to swallow whole and digest slowly; that is they require you to eat in one sitting everything on the platter they serve; it won’t do to leave any of it to pick over later, let alone refuse to swallow something altogether. This is where I believe Mclaren wins outright over much of “modernist” EPC; for his twin methodology of acquiring historical perspective and his soft postmodern epistemological humility is scientific in as much as he only allows us to establish what we feel we can establish in our own good time.

Do I disagree with McLaren on anything? I think it is less a case of disagreeing with him than it is taking issue with him where I think he lacks an emphasis. In this connection I feel that he casts the mold too much in terms of dichotomies: modernism vs. postmodernism, mechanism vs. mystery, reductionism vs. intuition – basically similar expressions to the fundamental dichotomy of logos vs. mythos that I keep banging on about. In my view these dichotomies require synthesis and not polarization; or at least be kept in paradoxical tension. In the face of this lack of emphasis by McLaren, I am not surprised that the emerging churches I’m acquainted with tend to resolve the tension between Mythos and Logos in favour of mythos. For someone such as myself who is temperamentally wired up for analysis and articulation and reared in the enlightenment traditions I find such fellowships (which may be full of ex-charismatic refugees) far too touchy-feely for my taste. But I must stress the subjectiveness of my term “taste”; this is not say that those who engage in such fellowships don't do well in them. At least they are free of that “swallow whole and digest slowly” tyranny.

The Suffocating Trappings of Piety

A Christian journalist by the name of H. V. Morton visited the Holy Land between the wars and subsequently wrote a book entitled “In the Steps of The Master”. Here is his reflection after visiting the Mt Calvary of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher:

....Calvary, the holiest place on Earth. I looked round hoping to be able to detect some sign of its former aspect, but that has been obliterated for ever beneath the suffocating trappings of piety... I went away wishing that we might have known this place only in our hearts.

In summer of 1997 I was on business in Israel. During that visit I managed to squeeze in a “Jerusalem pilgrimage” and for a day I became a “pilgrim” doing the usual Holy sites. I too was left with my own reflection on “the suffocating trappings of piety”. Here is a short passage from the story of my visit

The religious mentality has something about it that renders it unselfconscious. Perhaps this is a consequence of devotion so intense that it becomes lost in itself. But whatever the cause, this context blindness means that this extreme devotion leads to an inability to stand back and examine itself. Thus in its obsession with devotional minutia it is unable to see the aggregate effect of its activity, and is thus unaware of the incoherent and implausible jumble its religion has become. One man's iconic elaborations are another man's blasphemy. And so there is a tendency for these elaborations to be repeatedly destroyed and remade as people wipe away the elaborations of their forerunners or contemporaries and start all over again with the construction of fantastic new cultural forms, forms often thought to represent a return to genuine and original simplicity. Thus, the ground is successively cleared and replanted and the net effect is that there springs up a thick undergrowth of diverse groups.


The generic concept here is summed up by the word “Restorationism”. Freedom permitting, Christians (and in fact religious people in general) are forever rebuilding their faith in reaction against the other believers around them, thus restoring or returning to what they believe to be the right way. This tendency is particularly marked in Protestantism where a power vacuum attracts self proclaimed authorities.

With this background behind me it was with a somewhat perturbed fascination that I recently noticed yet another form of Christian restorationism popping up on a Network Norwich & Norfolk thread (See here - this link no longer exists 20/2/10). This form of restorationism actually goes back a few decades and has its origins in the ministry of a Chinese Christian called “Witness Lee” whose views, in turn, are partly founded on the teachings of another Chinese Christian called “Watchman Nee”. Unlike the Christian house church restorationists of the late seventies the Lee sect doesn’t use the word “Restoration”, but a word like it: “Recovery”; it considers itself to be the Lord’s “recovered” church.

I have had a quick look at the teachings of Lee and Nee using links furnished by the NN&N thread (Especially the links provided by a correspondent called “The Terminator”). In order to assess a movement as quickly as I can, as a general rule I go straight to a sects publications dealing with leadership, authority and church. This is because the subject of church management will reveal any cult ethos, if it is to be found. In this case I focused on two publications called “Authority and Submission” and “Leadership in the New Testament”. To cut a long story short these publications suggested to me that we have here a group ethos with a very strong view of its spiritual authority. This was no surprise. Moreover, in the NN&N thread one of the sect members is caught in the act of trying to administer that authority online. Clearly annoyed by the obstinacy of The Terminator a sect member called “a believer in Norwich” does the equivalent of excommunicating The Terminator:

We are left with no other recourse but to follow our Lord’s directive to treat him/her, according to his /her own attitude, as those who are outside the realm of the people of God .

And this is carried out on the basis that The Terminator’s behavior:

reveals little care for the headship of Christ or the body of Christ

This online disfellowshipping is a rather a futile gesture as clearly “The Terminator” is not part of the Lee sect fellowship in the first place. What little gravitas this “excommunication” has comes about as a result of the sect’s view of spiritual demographics: The sect divides the world into three populations: the favoured “blended brothers” (sect members, it seems), the apostate church of “divided brothers” (all other sects and denominations of Christianity) and finally the pagans and atheists on the way to hell. It is to the latter group that the excommunicated Terminator has been consigned. The “headship of Christ or the body of Christ” referred to above is none other than the authority of the “recovered” church of Witness Lee: This much becomes clear when one reads the publications cited. It is this authority that has been exercised in excommunicating The Terminator. (I doubt the Terminator gives a damn). It was the basis of this authority that I expected to find and found when I started reading the sects literature; any sect/cult that maintains a strong sense of communal identity and belongingness requires an exalted notion of the group’s religious authority in order keep discipline. This notion of authority can be found in other sects/cults.

The Lee sect members who meet in a city call themselves the “Local Church”. This may seem a rather bland name, a name that is just about as uninformative as calling oneself a “church”; such terms are over allocated. Moreover the qualification “local” adds little distinction, since all churches, accept perhaps for web churches, are local. However, as is always the case with restorationist startups there is a hidden qualifier tacked on to the front of its prosaic and affectedly primitive self designation. In its view they are not merely “a local church” but “THE local church”.

All restorationist startups face one impossible logical conundrum. As an almost invariable rule they rail against the denominational divisions, but in a monumental and yet completely unself-conscious act of collective egotism they never see themselves as just another denominational start-up: They get round this by taking it for granted that unlike all those other corrupt and apostate churches they are THE church; church in its best and purist manifestation. They are, in their opinion, the church restored (or recovered) to what it should be; primitive and simple. This is ever the story one finds amongst JW’s, Mormons, house church restorationists and the like. They usually have novel elements found in no other contemporary or historic churches and thus they have little option but to explain themselves as a modern recovery of what should have been.

However, to talk of some of these restorationists as just another denominational start-up is to do great disservice to the average mainstream denominational church, because the restorationist churches usually have a much stronger sense of their identity and belonging than the average denomination. Moreover, that identity is maintained by the administration of authority, an authority wielded by a strong leadership. So in a sense restorationist sects are a form of deniminationalism++. But this takes us back to my introduction: Sect and cult members are utterly and genuinely unaware of themselves as just another division of Christianity and they too, in their elaboration of belief and practice, are tempted to bury the true Calvary under the suffocating trappings of piety, particularly the trappings of, submission, authority and control.

There is a story of tadpole that mocked frogs for their ill favoured looks and yet the tadpole himself grew up to be an ugly toad. This story is a fitting metaphor for the cult startups who forever criticize and denounce the denominations of the mainstream EPC (Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) community. But it is out of the EPC community from which many sects are spawned. The authoritarian parody of faith that we see in the cult-startups is often prefigured, albeit a less pronounced form, in EPC itself: Spiritual pride and elitism, anti-intellectualism, intense and affected spiritual expressions, haughty condemnations of sin etc. In some ways the restorationist sects are a mirror of EPC, a mirror that exaggerates its less desirable aspects. That mirror needs to be looked by into by the EPC community and the lessons learned. We currently have an opportunity to look into that mirror on the NN&N website.
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"a Generous Or+thodoxy": Part 1

Can Brian Mclaren save Protestantism from the chaos monster?

I have at last got round to reading one of Brian Mclaren’s (the emerging church leader) notorious books - namely “a Generous Or+thodoxy”. Before I comment on this book I shall have to give some preamble.

Broadly speaking EPC (= Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) Christianity approximately clusters around two classes of groupings. If I am allowed to recycle two historical terms in order to designate more generic phenomena then I would describe these clusters as “The Gnostics” and “The Strict and Particulars”. “Gnostic” Christians are those who place a premium on spiritual intuitions, esoteric experiences and sublime initiations. The Strict and Particulars (Or “Straps” for short) are those for whom the spiritual premium is upon “Obeying the Word of God”, that “word” usually being identified with a bespoke interpretation of the Bible. Different fellowships and churches will show differing degrees of pronouncement of these two categories. In some cases a benign and happy mean may be settled for, but in my experience there is often a tension in EPC churches between proponents of these differing emphases on revelation. In fact, in extreme cases a belligerent sectarianism can result. Complicating matters further is the fact that it is also possible for a single sect to display both characteristics at once: A soft gnostic centre may be protected by a hardened shell of strict “Word of God” doctrine. When manifested in extreme form gnostic Christianity is akin to a kind of spiritual delirium whereas strap Christianity looks like a kind of spiritual autism; and I suppose it is also possible to have a form of delirious autism!


Gnostics and straps are not specifically an EPC phenomenon and one can find the same clusters in other religions. This clustering is what Karen Armstrong generically refers to as the Mythos or Logos manifestations of religion (See here for more details). My hunch is that the basis of this division is to be found in temperamental, psychological and other human factors. As I have remarked before, the divisions may have something to do with the left-right brain partitioning. EPC sects and subcultures will, needless to say, be very unlikely to admit that they are manifesting psychological traits beyond their control as they will much prefer to think of themselves as having made a choice in favour of what is absolutely true rather than succumbing to a human foible. EPC sects and subcultures are jealous defenders of their bespoke version of the faith and as a consequence they can be very partisan. Because these groups may regard their renditions of the faith as the last word in truth one finds not only finds gnostic vs. strap tensions, but gnostic vs. gnostic and strap vs. strap conflicts.

My understanding of the Christian faith is that it’s kernel idea, in contradistinction to the concept of a self help salvation, is that of the condescension of a God who reaches down to the human level (and beyond) in an act of saving grace thus adopting as spiritual children all those who are willing to become “sons of God”. Christianity is about an undeserved gift of salvation; a robust fault tolerant message of salvation for all those who, though they grasp truth imperfectly, have appropriated grace and are on the road to salvation by the sustaining grace of God revealed in Christ.

One would expect that the Christian message of grace would by its very definition be extremely robust and tolerant of the faults of its recipients. But it seems that this is not the view of many who, though they have appropriated the of Grace God in spite of themselves, then go on to attempt to take full control of the message; for they often suggest that God’s Grace is all but unavailable to those who do not share certain bespoke doctrines and gnostic blessings. For the erstwhile recipients of grace may be unwilling to accept that others beyond the domain of their bespoke practice and belief have the cry of “Abba Father” in their hearts. At best they may recognize them as inferior Christians and at worse consider them beyond the pale. Thus in a travesty of the very grace they themselves have accepted they are quick to deny that the (full) favour of God’s blessing is on to those who don’t share their numerous and ramifying particularities of faith. As a result there are often some pretty venomous inter sectarian altercations within EPC. EPC is very schizoid and the more extreme subcultures and sects within EPC will criticize one another from variety of a spiritual hobby horses: Restorationism, Young Earth Creationism, spiritual authority, fideism, conspiracy theory, right wing politics, bespoke revivals, blessings, miraculous healings and prophecies. (This list is not exhaustive!)

***

I have engaged on this rather long preamble because it seems that Brian McLaren has been subject to the kind of criticism I have referred to. Given my understanding of the gospel it would seem clear to me that Mclaren is, as far as his book “a Generous Or+thodoxy” is concerned, very much in the Christian fold: He understands and accepts grace, he understands that it’s Christ work and not his that brings salvation, and he knows God as father through Christ – read part 1 of his book. But as one reads McLaren one must be aware that he does not readily parrot EPC formulae and confessional quips; if one wants to verify that McLaren supports an EPC confessional formula one may have to read many pages in order to “distill out” that formula. Spiritual quips and cliché surfing, which are often required to authenticate one’s faith to one’s target Christian subculture and to win acclaim from that subculture, are not readily available in McLaren’s writings and this certainly brings a freshness to his work.

And yet on McLaren’s Wiki page one reads of one EPC commentator confidently declaring: “As kindly but as forcefully as I can, that to my mind, if words mean anything, both McLaren and [Steve] Chalke have largely abandoned the gospel”. From a movement that itself so often parodies the gospel of grace it is difficult to take statements like that very seriously. Whatever Mclaren might have said elsewhere, it appears from my reading of “a Generous Or+thdoxy” that his basic gospel credentials are assured. But if one is going to question McLaren’s faith this sets a precedent which prompts me to in turn question the Christian credentials of those sub cultures and sects in EPC (Perhaps like McLaren’s critic) who trammel the gospel with so many bespoke conditions and offer up a travesty of its message of grace. If McLaren has abandoned the gospel then so have many ungracious divisions within EPC. Commentators like McLaren’s critic are setting a very dangerous precedent indeed, a precedent that subverts Christianity to its core. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.


As you can perhaps see from the foregoing, even before I started reading McLaren’s book I sensed I was going to find a lot in common with him: I held off the evil day knowing that if I got too close to McLaren I would be accused of abandoning “The Truth”. In fact as I stood in the queue waiting to buy my copy of “a Generous Or+thodoxy” I met a much respected minister acquaintance who jokingly said to me that the book set him on the road to wrack and ruin! But then one can hardly get much more ruinous than EPC culture itself, so what’s there to lose? Like myself, McLaren appears to have attempted to raise himself above the EPC scene in order to take in a wide breathtaking overview of the chaotic shipwreck that is EPC (and also of the broader sweep of Christian history) and then been prompted to ask: “What can we salvage from the chaos?”

To be continued….

Serpentine Logic

That devolved legless reptile is doing its damnedest to stay in the picture

Interesting is this post on Uncommon Descent concerning ID guru William Dembski’s book “The End of Christianity, Finding a Good God in an Evil World”. This is what Dembski says about the book.

My book attempts to resolve how the Fall of Adam could be responsible for all evil in the world, both moral and natural IF the earth is old and thus IF a fossil record that bespeaks violence among organisms predates the temporal occurrence of the Fall. My resolution is to argue that just as the salvation of Christ purchased at the Cross acts forward as well as backward in time (the Old Testament saints were saved in virtue of the Cross), so too the effects of the Fall can go backward in time. Showing how this could happen requires extensive argument and is the main subject of the book. As for my title, “End of Christianity” involves a play on words – “end” can refer to cessation or demise; but it can also refer to goal or purpose. I mean the latter, as the subtitle makes clear: Finding a Good God in an Evil World.

The link to the interview with Dembski also worth looking at.

Some comments
1. Although he minces his words and hedges (Not surprisingly given his particular Christian sub-culture) my guess is that Dembski is an “Old Earth” believer; otherwise his attempt to explain pre-fall evil as a “retroactive” result of an anthropocentric fall would seem rather futile. (Note: If the act of God in Christ is a powerful symbolic declaration of covenant by God and revealed in the fullness of time, then its ability to dispense grace retroactively is less enigmatic, whereas I can make little sense of a retroactive fall in this light)

2. In line with Young Earth Evangelicalism’s world view Dembski assumes evil and suffering to be largely sourced anthropocentrically. And yet the serpent in Genesis 3 could be construed as a symbol of the presence of extra-human evil. The person(s) who penned Genesis 3, as is the wont of arcadian folk, would be ever aware of the lurking presence of evil in an unseen world. There is also the question over the interpretation of the enigmatic Romans 8:18-23 , a passage which hints that the cause of evil and suffering is not quite so crisp and clear cut as traditional Young Earth Evangelicalism would have it.

3. The problem Dembski is addressing comes out of contemporary Young Earth Evangelicalism’s world view and is thus very pressing in his own intellectual circles. Some of us, such as myself, who feel that there are deeper mysteries surrounding the source of suffering and evil have a less pressing need to explain pre-fall suffering. According to my concordance the word “good” of Genesis 1 is not quite the same as the word perfect (~ completion). I wonder what Dembski teaches his seminary students?

I have been a close witness of evangelical philosophy for over thirty years and its sometimes cursory and shallow treatment of suffering and evil is not its only short fall. So much about standard evangelical explanations fail to make sense of the world around us, not to mention its inconsonance with aspects of my own personal experience. It’s no wonder that when pressed the fallback position of many evangelicals is fideism: Viz: “Faith is not always logical, if it was it would not be faith.” In the fideist mind the ability of faith to accommodate mystery is conflated with the ability to swallow illogicality. But I’ll hand it to William Dembski, he is brave guy (and a nice guy as far as I can tell) and he is making a very valiant attempt at being be logical. Pity about some of his fellow pilgrims.

To P or not to P

Just when you thought you could at last stand up and be counted as a man here are two up and coming students of theology who find profound exegetical problems with Pastor Anderson's theology of urination (see my last post). Can theologians please make this little conundrum a real priority issue as we in the church certainly need to have it sorted pronto; like before we next use the small room.

Modern Theologians are rethinking toilet training in the light of scripture

Feelings of Unreality

Here's another case where am I at a loss as to whether we are dealing with a hoax, send up or the real thing! Anyone? Will this go down in history as the "Pissing Blissing"?

Forget Gideon; Pastor Anderson has a real test that sorts out the men from the girls.

The Pastor is my Shepherd.

After a quick investigation on the web I wasn't able to determine whether the above was a piece of satire or the real thing. Then I thought to myself shouldn't I be able to tell anyway? Fact is, I can't tell the difference and that's a little bit worrying. The man pictured below might have something to do with it.

The God Father

Virgo: Father to the Bride of Christ?

As I indicated in my previous post on emerging church, the Restoration movement came to my notice at the beginning of the 1980s. I was somewhat alarmed because their take on Church Unity seemed to be a rediscovery of the old social technology of the Christian cults whereby unity is maintained by the presumed spiritual authority of its leaders. For example consider the following quote taken from an article entitled “Unity: Is it Possible?” which appeared in the “Restoration” Magazine of July & August 1979 telling the story of three churches that “put themselves under the covering authority” of a Restorationist “apostle”:

The most significant element in the unity of the three churches was the recognition of Apostolic authority

The Berean tradition which acts as a bulwark against authoritarian leadership was also being challenged by Restorationist patriarch Arthur Wallis:

The Teaching or Interpreting of the Word of God is perhaps the most important way in which authority (i.e. Authority of Leaders) is exercised for doctrine determines practice.*


Thus, challenging a Restorationist leader from a Berean perspective was probably about as futile as challenging the Pope, because in both cases their interpretation of scripture holds precedence by virtue of its assumed authority; end of story.

One doesn’t hear about Restorationism anymore. The early days of a movement riding high on the crest of a wave of expansion are long since over, as are the optimistic pronouncements from leaders who, intoxicated by being on the growth part of the curve, were prone to triumphalism and hype. They proclaimed God’s new thing that was taking the Christian world by storm and they even went as far as suggesting that Restorationism was ushering in the Millennium rule of Christ. Today the Restorationist prophecies about a church restored and united under the strong leadership of authoritative patriarchs are now all but forgotten. Like so many other cheap and ephemeral throw way blessings that string along the faithful for five minutes at a time, the angst of failure has been lost in sweet forgetfulness.

With my memories of the history of Restorationism still clear in my mind I was very interested to read an article in the July “Christianity” Magazine about Terry Virgo. Terry Virgo was one of the leaders of Restorationism. I am not sure what has happened to the other leaders of the halcyon days of Restorationism, but apart from ex-restorationist David Tomlinson, Virgo is the only other leader I hear about nowadays. One of Virgo’s virtues seemed to be that unlike some of his fellow Restorationists of the 1980s, he was less up front about leadership authority. His emphasis was more on leadership than headship and that may be why his Newfrontiers group of churches seems to be the only prominent group around today that might still classify as a Restorationist group. Even so, reading the article in “Christianity” it seems the old doctrines of patriarchy are still a big theme with Virgo. For example he says this:

Paul clearly limits authoritative doctrinal teaching to elders who care for the flock and are gifted and appointed to do so (Act20:28)… Paul is making clear that becoming a Christian means being placed under the authority of Christian teaching. The teaching had authority to give form to the New Testament churches and shape to the life of the believers….people would subsequently be added to the church and come within the shepherding care of its pastors and teachers.

And that is exactly what the Restorationists were saying 30 years ago. Moreover, like the Restorationts of the 80s Virgo is adamant that women are not allowed to teach. I’ve never got into the argument about the role of women in church as I prefer to leave that subject in the very capable hands of women like Elaine Storkey who could no doubt tell Virgo a thing or two about the role of women.

The article in Christianity tells of a visiting speaker at a Newfrontiers rally who broached the subject of the aging Virgo conceding his leadership. In the words of Christianity magazine the speaker diplomatically likened Virgo to “…you (Virgo) taking Newfrontiers down the aisle, like the father of a much loved daughter”. That this speaker could talk of Virgo almost as a father to the bride of Christ is eloquent comment about Virgo’s God father status amongst Newfrontiers churches.

Quite apart from the question of whether Virgo has any authority to hand over what is not really his to give, he does seem to be rather “hanging in there”. Is he reluctant to pass his leadership on? Is this because he is anxious of what might become of his “daughter”? From Virgo’s perspective perhaps his anxiety is understandable; his “daughter” could go either of two ways: She may be given to a far more authoritarian patriarch than Virgo, such as was Bryn Jones one of the founding fathers of Restorationism. But perhaps even worse from Virgo’s point of view Newfrontiers might become a standard denomination; that is, a loose affiliation of local churches (and much better to my mind). That, I suspect, is in fact the destiny awaiting Newfrontiers, and I think Virgo knows it; as he says in “Christianity” magazine “I have asked our international leaders, When I snuff it will you all go your separate ways?”. Trying to get into the head of a Restorationist “apostle” that responsible and mature Christians don’t need authority to cooperate is like trying to teach a chimpanzee to do calculus. However, to Virgo’s credit I feel he hasn’t been authoritarian enough to extinguish the taste for the freedom and responsibility amongst his churches that is the birthright of all Christians.


* Unfortunately I can’t locate the source where Wallis penned this sentiment

More On Emerging Church

The post is based on a short talk I gave on emerging church. I’m not an authority on emerging church, and the following is really a personal view based on my rather limited contact with the subject.

Shortly after my commitment to Christianity circa 1973 I started studying a variety of quasi Christian cults such as the Mormons, the Jehovah’s witnesses and the Children of God. As a result of this study my faith was later to receive a sharp jolt when the Restoration movement arrived in Norwich (in the form of Norwich Christian Fellowship) and came to my attention circa 1981. This movement majored in contending for the authority of Christian patriarchs to direct the affairs and beliefs of its followers. For me this potentially authoritarian ethos was too close to the cult model for comfort. During the study of some of Restorationist literature I came across the name of David Tomlinson, a leader in the movement. Amidst a movement that was still in its triumphal early days Tomlinson proved to be something of anomaly: I sensed even then that he may have been experiencing the first onset of diffidence toward standard EPC (=Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) Christianity. I flagged this suspected diffidence with a note in my file on the Restorationism and that note is there to this day.

Tomlinson’s name came up again in about 1995 when I read a review of Tomlinson’s book “The Post Evangelical”. By this stage I had witnessed the full spectrum of EPC manifestations from the lauded “Sound Doctrines” of strict evangelicalism, to the constant round of spiritual novelties delivered by Charismatic Christianity. To name but a few of the latter: Restorationism, the Toronto blessing, various failed healings and prophecies, authoritarianism, preliterate dualism, and above all large dollops of spiritual spin. In particular I had become disturbed by how close some charismatic expressions were to Gnostic elitism and fideism. By 1994 the strange objects that flitted by my window on EPC had taken their toll on my attitude and a measure of cynicism had set in. Not surprisingly, then, the title of Tomlinson’s book struck a chord with me, and without even reading the book I somehow felt that Tomlinson was thinking what I was thinking; enough was enough. Tomlinson had secured a following and set up his own church, but it seems that many Christians were taken by Tomlinson declaration of a post-evangelical era; perhaps it even started to assume the status of a kind of mini-reformation.

In my experience most post evangelicals are from charismatic fellowships. They are genuine and emotionally intense people who are looking for something real, but who have become somewhat disaffected by EPC authoritarianism, spiritual spin, hype, general lack of authenticity and the social pressures of the spiritual equivalent of the Emperor’s new clothes. They are less post evangelicals than they are post charismatics.

Post evangelicals find themselves caught in the middle of a triangle of three Christian movements:

1. Charismatic Christianity: this is the sub-culture from which disillusioned and disaffected post evangelicals have, in the main, emerged out of (for reasons already mentioned).

2. Conservative and Strict Evangelicals: Dowdy, ultra traditional, condemning, uncompromising and lacking the dynamism of charismatic fellowships. They are very ready to deny that God’s grace is available unless their idiosyncratic take on “sound doctrine” isn't followed to the letter, which needless to say limits that grace to their own spiritual subcultures. They seem confused about the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. They have a low view of Bible interpretation, taking it for granted that meaning resides intrinsically in the words themselves rather than being supplied by open ended cultural resources. The upshot is that they insulate and disconnect Biblical interpretation from the wider cosmic context. Their so called “plain teaching of scripture” usually means their traditional interpretations of scripture that have done the rounds for such a long time that they can think of nothing else. The look and feel of strict evangelical groups is often not very much different from countless other religious sub cultures for whom salvation is conditioned on a strict and narrow view of life’s cultural shape. The strict evangelical ethos can sometimes be found in a very toxic blend with Gnostic Christianity.

3. Liberal Christianity: The post evangelical may feel that Liberal Christianity is dangerously liable to throw the baby out with the bathwater resulting in a faith that is no longer recognizable as Christianity. Liberal Christianity may even go as far as to terminate in what, to all intents and purposes, is a form of atheism, an example being Don Cupit of “Sea of Faith” fame. Cupit’s God is a “constitutional” God in that like a constitutional monarch God is thought to only have a symbolic or metaphorical existence.


The post evangelical usually means business with God, so given the foregoing where does he go as he “emerges” from EPC Christianity? For a start, he has many questions buzzing around in his head. (At this point in the talk I illustrated this with a picture taken from “Christianity” magazine showing a Christian removing a suit and revealing a T-shirt with a giant question mark on the front –see the picture at the head of this post)

….well, he becomes an “emerging church” Christian. This doesn’t necessarily mean he has joined a group but has, in fact, ended up in the emerging church by default. Putting the best complexion on the matter the term “emerging” signifies a decentralized system where each bit is working independently and yet like the “boids” of system theory it is hoped that this decentralized ecology will, in God’s economy and timing, result in something fresh and worthwhile. The central notion (or rather hope) well expressed in the term “emerging church”, is that something good is emerging, something that has yet to run its course.

In spite of their radical pretensions, emerging church Christians hang on to scripture because they don’t want to lose what is good and stable from the past. But all in all tensions and contradictions are created that are often difficult to resolve. There is a mixture of a sense of betrayal, confusion, and a loss of focus and anchorage. A postmodern reaction sets in; the post evangelical is to evangelicalism as the postmodern is to modernism, in that there is a general pessimism about what at one time seemed so sound, bright, shiny, optimistic and full of hope. When emerging Christians do come together to form fellowships, they tend to adopt a contemplative form of worship in line with their largely touchy feely charismatic background, and yet they often look back to the pre-modern era for liturgical inspiration as they attempt to re-anchor their faith.

Summing up the character of emerging church:

1. Post-evangelical: They are seeking a religious authenticity that they feel is so often absent from EPC.
2. Reevaluating and reinterpreting scripture, but not wanting to over throw the Bible, they use scripture in an informal non-systematic way. Gone is dogmatic theology.
3. Postmodern: although they identify with the angst of postmodern disaffection, in most cases emerging church would not accept the hard postmodernist thesis which asserts with great paradox that life makes no absolute sense.
4. Experimental touchy feely meditative worship; a looking back to the Christian past for liturgy, context and perspective.
5. Political and Social: Loss of scriptural bearings leads to compensatory political and social action. Social concern and lobbying seems at least an uncontroversial component of Christ’s teachings.
6. Prepared to review some traditional alienating doctrines such as Hell and Christian exclusivism.
7. Personalities and leaders: The unassuming tones of Brian McLaren and Rob Bell represent a move away from the plastic, “knows what he’s talking about”, impassioned, formula spouting, cliché surfing preacher.

Pending Position Statement

As a result of direct inquiries I intend to produce, at some stage, a position statement regarding my views on Christianity. However, I am currently absorbed with one two other matters that I am following up; hence this promissory note.

Postmodernism and Emerging Christianity Part 3

In this third part I juxtapose the two articles on Emerging church in the April issue of “Christianity” with one final article that appears in the same issue. This article tells a story that has now become an almost dated cliché in EPC circles: That of the solid bible based traditional evangelical church which undergoes a “charismatic” revival/renewal….. except that it doesn’t actually have a revival at all, but rather a sudden membership turn over – non-charismatics out, charismatics in. Or at least that’s the admission of the article where it claims that the church concerned (which is in America) only retained around 25% of its original “conservative” membership.

The story is a classic: a restless pastor or group within the church, bored with what otherwise appears to be a successful if rather dry, stuffy and stolid church is looking for “more”. After the aforementioned congregational replacement the church is labeled “charismatic” and with the new temperamental cross section a new speak enters the church. We hear of healings, prophecies and even angelic visitations. The new members think in gnosto-dualist terms and the philosophy of the church becomes a de facto dualist philosophy which emphasizes the differences between the spiritual and physical worlds. It adopts a power vs. word paradigm of spiritual life, which is ironic given that so much of church life is now explained and reinterpreted by the “new speak”. The leadership is apt to become authoritarian, despising accountability for the simple reason that in the face of a catastrophic loss of support the leadership can no longer function with a consensus. The 75% majority of Church members who don’t go for the new speak have to be ditched. The new speak provides a ready explanation (or spin) for this situation; hemorrhaging membership is clearly down to fear and spirit quenching. The previous work of the church is evaluated negatively as at best “lacking in power” and at worse not being “in the Spirit”. Finally, the leaders of the latest blessing try to make inroads into the UK which they see as a plum ripe for the plucking. To this end these prophets of blessing may get a recommendation from some well known EPC figure in the UK.

I’m the very last person that should be labeled as “anti-charismatic” – I have no quarrel with those who believe they have had a sublime Christian epiphany which they may call, rightly or wrongly “Baptism of the Spirit”. But unfortunately the charismatic is often conflated with the gnostic, and my argument is with the elitism, dualism and fideism of the latter. Christian gnosticism thrives on those bored with their lives and who are looking for a “shake up” or the next big thing. They can make little sense of stark cosmic realities and by way of escape and compensation need a constant supply of rumors about the miraculous. These rumors do the rounds uncritically and their authenticity is utterly impossible to disentangle from spiritual spin, gullibility logic, spiritual bullying and authoritarianism. The lauded renewals are less revivals than a case of replacing a congregation with those who are sympathetic and/or susceptible to the new interpreting spin.

Significantly such moves make little headway amongst many traditional Christians who are, needless to say, regarded as Spirit quenchers. The failure of such “moves of power” to work other than by the self selection of a minority not only challenges the authenticity of such “moves” but, moreover, the very authenticity of Christianity itself. For if Christianity in the absence of one these vaunted “renewals” is regarded as just so much powerless marking of time, then that entails that a very large percentage of Christian work is lacking in spiritual vitality. This is a short step away from conjecturing that perhaps Christianity as whole is vacuous.

The final twist to this story brings me back to the theme of postmodernism in the church. Other authoritarian gnostic groups (like say Potter’s House) may well rubbish the latest revival because it has not happened amongst them and they, of course, regard themselves as being where it is at. Thus gnostic Christian groups form an inconsistent mass of believing partisans. No attempt is made to resolve the contradictions amongst them and such mutually inconsistent groupings may be regarded as being in the power of God simply because their conviction, vehemency, and spin are taken as self authenticating. If this insensitivity to inconsistency isn’t postmodern enough consider also the fact that April’s edition of Christianity magazine makes no attempt to resolve the apparent incommensurability between Emerging church and the revivalist churches, two Christian groupings who seem to be working with very different paradigms, spiritual weltanschauungs and agendas. Moreover, many “Emergers” in their search for Christian authenticity seem to be reacting against the hype and spin of the revivalists. But revivalist churches are apt to take the view that unless a church undergoes a gnostic revival, spiritual life is at best a preparatory period prior to full conversion or else a powerless marking of time. Thus, as far as the revivalists are concerned all the angst and hard thinking of the Emerging church is effectively down time between renewals. This is a serious charge and yet Christianity magazine doesn’t attempt to resolve the issue – it leaves the two community weltanschauungs as incommensurables. This, above all, is a very postmodern reaction – not postmodern in the soft sense of a humbled epistemology, but in the absolute sense that life doesn’t make sense, so don’t bother with any grand explanations that attempt to give it sense.

Postmodernism and Emerging Christianity. Part 2

In the April edition of “Christianity” magazine there is an interview with Brian McLaren who, the article says, is in the vanguard of the emerging church scene. This scene, the article says, is “rejecting the religious culture wars between conservatives and liberals [and] want[s] to explore a third alternative theological movement that seeks to rediscover and express authentic Christianity in culturally relevant ways”. The operative word here is “authentic”; that speaks volumes about what emerging church Christians perceive themselves to be reacting against and in this connection one must recall that they are largely “refugees” from EPC Christianity. For example, McLaren says “I have a deep heritage as an evangelical in the Charismatic movement”. Whether the “Emergers” are right or wrong, it would seem that EPC Christianity has an issue of authenticity to address - Why is EPC coming over as lacking authenticity?

In the interview McLaren says many things that strike a chord with me. For example:

McLaren: “....I’m not doing that because I doubt what the Bible says, it’s because I doubt what we say the Bible says”

Comment: Those Christians who automatically equate their interpretations with Biblical truth have a bad habit. Some can’t even see that the Bible needs interpreting at all and so conflate their views with the very word of God. I first came across this kind of thinking amongst Jehovah’s witnesses.

McLaren: “When you raise questions religious people can be amazingly vicious..”

Comment: Vicious? If religious people think their views to be the very word of God then in their perception they have good reason to be vicious: “If you are not with us you are against us, and if you are against us you are against God and if you are against God you deserve damnation”. Not only that: Questions can threaten a play pen epistemology; the world beyond the play pen is thought to be at best not worthy of attention and at worst an evil not to be engaged except with righteous anger.

McLaren: “..I grew up in a somewhat fundamentalist sect. They were ready to say you weren’t a Christian if you disagreed on a very, very fine point of eschatology.”

Comment: Such sects have no choice but to give one account of doctrinal fine tuning not shared by other Christians: namely, that they are yet another very, very small “Christian remnant” splinter group who regard all other splinter groups as either badly spiritually substandard or bound for hell.

McLaren: "There’s a history of intense schism in lots of sectors of the church and I’ve seen it at close range. If we want to get better at this, the first suggestion I have would be to go learn church history… Somehow, getting the bigger historical perspective helps us to stop taking ourselves so seriously”

Comment: Well said Brian. Study history? Many Christians are not mentally set up to do any study at all, especially extracurricular study. Study may be regarded as irrelevant to the spiritual life, or mere “head knowledge”, or even “worldly knowledge” contrary to fideist sentiments. And so they cut themselves off from learning and remain in their epistemological play pens. If they do see themselves in perspective it might just look as though they aren’t, after all, the “new thing” that they thought themselves to be, and that in reality they are just another splinter group in the grand sweep of Christian history. Such perspectives would challenge their exalted view of themselves and their pride in feeling to be where it’s at. They don’t really want to know that “It’s happened before”.

I haven’t read any of McLaren’s books, but from the interview alone I at least get a good first impression of Brian McLaren.

Postmodernism and Emerging Christianity. Part 1

The April edition of “Christianity” magazine has article on Emerging church (Another article contains an interview with Brian McLaren de-facto leader of the emerging movement, which I’ll look at in Part 2)

The article is by American emerging church theologian Scot McKnight. He lists five themes that characterize the emerging movement

1. Prophetic Language: Provocative use of hyperbole and exaggeration in order to provoke an engagement with an issue. McKnight claims this usage has Biblical authority.

Comment: Yes. Common language is an informal system that is a product of the fuzzy logic of that reactive and highly motivated association machine we call the human mind. It is clear then, that language is not merely a tool for couching formal propositional systems and/or a medium for the transmission and passive imbibing of information. Language is a cognitive toolbox that doesn’t just contain tools for measuring, recording, and transmission, but also for prompting motivated reactions.

2. Postmodern: McKnight says “Postmodernity cannot be reduced to the denial of truth. Indeed, it is the collapse of inherited metanarratives (overarching explanations of life) like those of science and Marxism. Why have they collapsed? Because of the impossibility of getting outside their assumptions”

Comment: Yes. The aficionados of certain metanaratives may effectively impose a cognitive hegemony by either failing to recognize or consciously opposing “meta-metanarratives”; they feel ill at ease if their metanarrative is scrutinized by a higher level meta-metanarrative and will either ignore it (mostly) or if they are of stenner stuff will try to annex it into their own narrative.

3. Praxis-Oriented: In search for authenticity of worship and fellowship, emerging churches have tried to move away from the pulpit centred churches of the traditional evangelicals and the huge worship platforms of the charismatic personality cults. In their experimental search for new expressive forms of worship emerging Christians have started raiding the past for its liturgical, meditative and ritualistic worship elements.

Comment: I’m not a bells and smells man myself but this emerging reaction is a healthy challenge to the implicit and unconscious assumptions of traditional EPC Christians (EPC = evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) who need to start seeing their movement in an historical perspective.

4. Post-evangelical: McKnight says: “The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced… the church must always be reforming itself”. But “The vast majority of emerging Christians are evangelical theologically”. “God didn’t reveal a systematic theology but a storied narrative…” “..the emerging church loves ideas and theology. It just doesn’t have an airtight system or statement of faith”

Comment: McKnight has taken the words right out of my mouth. But I would like to add that in my limited experience a large number of emerging church Christians are disillusioned charismatics.

5. Political: McKnight says: “In the US they [Emerging Christians] are Democrats. And that spells “post” for conservative-evangelical-politics-as-usual”. “I lean left in politics” “…centralizing government for social justice is what I think government should do”.

Comment: Yes, that can’t be bad (if he is talking about accountable central government.) But McKnight warns against the adoption of the social gospel at the expense of the spiritual gospel.

Final Comments: On balance I don’t find McKnight’s views untoward. McKnight says “What attracts me is [emerging church’s] soft postmodernism (or critical realism)” Yes. Although the anti-foundationalism of extreme postmodernism leads to a confused relativism, soft postmodernism acknowledges that the logic of life is far more fuzzy and problematic than many a toy-town theorist allows. Soft-postmodernism is self humbling and that can’t be bad.

Summing up McKnight says “All in all it is unlikely that the emerging movement will disappear anytime soon. If I were a prophet, I’d say that it will influence most of evangelicalism in its chastened epistemology (if it hasn’t already)…” I would like to think that McKnight is right about the influence toward a chastened epistemology, but frankly I haven’t seen much sign of this amongst unself-critical EPC Christians; the latter are still by and large living in spiritual cloud cuckoo land. Like many an atheist materialist they seldom venture beyond the bars of their epistemological play pens and ignore large chunks of challenging experience and narrative. And not only that; sometimes their cultures explicitly prohibit an engagement with the outside world.

Floored Minister

The February edition of Christianity magazine contains a news item with the latest comments from various Christian sources on Todd Bentley’s extramarital relationship, his divorce and his subsequent demise as leader of the Florida “Lakeland Outpouring”

As these Christian commentators try to explain to themselves what happened at Lakeland we hear them tell of a frenetic pace of meetings seven days a week causing fatigue, burn out and pressure on Bentley’s marriage. We also hear about the need for accountability and the wrongs of one-man ministries. Mark Stibbe, vicar of St Andrews Chorley Wood, says “… it is also now clear that there came a time when Todd Bentley fell into the classic traps of money, sex and power”. Money sex, and power gets us all to a lesser of greater degree and it is not uncommon for leaders in quite standard ministries to fall in this respect and so I think Stibbe’s comments fail to do justice to the proprietary aspects of Bentley’s ministry.

I suggest that these commentators are skating over the surface and that the causes of the Lakeland debacle go much deeper. Not a single commentator remarks on aspects of Bentley’s ministry like, for example, Bentley’s claims to angelic visitations, Bentley’s “Jesus is old hat” message, Bentley’s “e-mail resurrections”, Bentley’s unsubstantiated claims of healings, the bizarre Toronto style blessings, trancelike crowd hysterics, and the susceptibility to gullibility logic and spiritual spin. So presumably in the opinion of Christianity Magazine’s commentators these things were OK and that if Bentley’s marriage had stayed intact, then such features of the Lakeland Outpouring would have been alright to continue. In fact in Rev Stibbe’s words “I am in no doubt that the Lakeland meetings were in the early days, a move of God’s Spirit”. I wonder why these apparent wonderful moves of God’s Spirit are so easily corrupted? Is Satan that good at his work?

“Lakeland teaches us many lessons” says Stibbe. It sure does, but frankly it looks to me as if absolutely nothing has been learned from the Bentley affair. Consequently I suspect that we are in for quite a few more unauthentic spiritual showmen, spiritual shamans and charlatans who serve up sensational spiritual junk food for those with tacky spiritual tastes. Leaders like Bentley are the product of hysterical irrational crowds who have a rapacious appetite for the latest spiritual spin and have the responsibility for putting leaders like Bentley in their position of influence. My conclusion is that unless the real lessons are learned the days of Christian personality cults, one man ministries, sex scandals, power patriarchs, and big money seven nights a week are far from over. And calls for accountability are next to useless if its only accountability between spiritual patriarchs. Mark Stibbe ends the article in “Christianity” by saying “… the culture of Christain Celebrity is now over”. I hope he is right but my guess is that Stibbe has got it wrong again; the next bizarre ministry will pop up again in few years time when memories have faded somewhat and spiritual boredom has set in; in any case isn’t Stibbe himself one of those lionized Christian celebrities?

Some of Bentley's followers? No these are Bentley's leaders!

Why Dualism?

Cartesian ghost in the machine dualism is a very prevalent philosophy of human nature: One has to be mentally proactive in order to be able to think round it, and unless a determined effort is made to unthink it, it is the default philosophy of many religions and the prototype of a wider cosmogony of spirits and matter.

In preliterate societies spirits are not just about ghosts in human machines but also about entities that haunt and inhabit rock and tree. In fact preliterate animism is returning to western societies in the form of neopaganism. Amongst Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic (=EPC) Christians the ‘ghost world’ is also an extended and elaborated affair that goes well beyond a belief in the ghosts encased in human bodies. EPC Christians envisage an Earth populated by numerous spirit beings haunting the material world and yet distinct from it. EPC Christians are likely to distinguish themselves sharply from all forms of paganism and yet there are aspects of their doctrine, particularly fundamentalist EPC doctrine, suggesting a subliminal connection with it.

Fundamentalist versions of EPC Christianity are never really very clear about the created status of Satan and the so-called spirit world. Anyone who believes the early chapters of Genesis to be a comprehensive literal account of creation has little to say about the fall and creation of Satan or of a spirit world in general, simply because the first chapters of Genesis say next to nothing about these subjects. Moreover, if one believes that the history of the world doesn’t extend much further back than 6000 years there is little room for the creation of a spirit world and its presumably checkered history. In fact in fundamentalist circles it is usual to believe that it is only the fall of man that has corrupted the world of created matter and not Satan. The creation Cosmogony of Christian fundamentalism, then, goes straight in with an up running spiritual world of angels, demons and Satan. Effectively the fundamentalist Christian believes the spirit world is uncreated and thus distinct from created man and matter thereby blurring the distinction between divinity and spirits as in the preliterate model.

Thus in some ways, then, fundamentalist Christianity is not so far removed from a preliterate weltanschauung. And yet there is great inconsistency here. The New Testament Biblical picture is that only God is uncreated and all else is created, spirit beings and all - see Colossians 1:16ff. The essential NT dualism is one of God verses everything He creates and not a spirit verses matter dualism; if pressed, however, the Christian fundamentalist will admit this. But why is the effective belief in a spirit versus matter dualism so prevalent? Why does it seem to reign supreme in the religious world? As a world view what is it trying to come to terms with? What is it trying to explain and make sense of? What needs does it satisfy? Please excuse me at this point as I swap into a mode that involves some anthropological hand waving as I attempt to guess the answers to these questions.

I think there are a variety of reasons why matter/spirit dualism is so favored and some of those reasons revolve around attempts to come to terms with the problem of suffering and evil (cf. gnosticism). Also, the left/right brain dualism of accountable and reducible cognitive processes versus unaccountable irreducible intuitions may have a bearing. But there is one factor that, in my opinion, stands out above the others and this is that sentient humanity perceives itself as standing over and against an apparently insentient surrounding world of phenomena and noumena. Preliterate societies come to terms with this dualistic discontinuity by associating sentient spirit stuff with everything around them and thus maintain a semblance of homogeneity in their worldview. However, for us in the industrial west the apparent insentience of matter has been thrown into sharp relief with a mechano-instrumentalist paradigm that sees matter in terms of the patterned behavior of insentient yet autonomous elementary material noumena. This paradigm has become so developed and successful that it now looks to have the potential of giving us the very opposite of the preliterate diet of spirits with everything: instead the materialist turns the tables and views human sentience as an illusion and an aspect of material insentience thus bringing about a different kind of continuity of ontology. This, of course, won’t do for the religious mystics who have simply reacted by reaffirming with even great vehemence their dualism and assert the existence of a competing spiritual world, thus throwing the matter vs. spirit dichotomy into such sharp relief that it echoes the Gnostics loathing of matter and a belief in a material world controlled (if not created) by a Satanic spirit who competes with God’s Spirit.

As a fairly conventional Christian theist I accept what I believe to be a fundamental New Testament form of dualism; that is, God versus the created order. But apart from that and within the created order itself I’m inclined to reject a matter versus spirit dualism. I have always been attracted to positivist, phenomenological and idealist philosophies, and believe mind stuff to be the primary ontology. There are therefore other ways of removing the awkward discontinuity between mind and matter.

A Hemisphere Short of a Brain.

In 1995 I sent a rather tedious article to the leaders of my church entitled “The Lie of the Land”: it related religious expressions to the left/right partitioning of the brain (Note to self: Don’t bother next time). The left/right brain split is a scientific icon that has entered popular culture and has become a rather distorted caricature of the actual situation. The true picture is a little more complicated than the icon suggests. However, the notion of a distinction between an analytical left brain and an intuitive right brain is an apt symbol and metaphor for a pervasive cultural and temperamental division, a division that I’ve tried to express in a thousand ways: e.g. knowledge verses feeling, interpretation vs. face value, head vs. heart, rationalism vs. fideism, Morlocks vs. Eloi.. etc. In my article I related this partitioning to the split in Evangelical Christianity between charismatic and non-charismatic. A mildly charismatic ethos now actually pervades mainstream evangelicalism; the traditional strict and particular evangelical remnant having gone their own way. The latter have a tendency to gather themselves into small puritanical enclaves who dignify their self marginalization with thoughts of being the protestant heroic last stand against the Roman antichrist conspiracy of the end times.

Since 1995 I hadn’t seen anyone else relate left/right brain structure to the contemporary Christian scene until I read the Book “Saving Christianity” by Hilary Wakemen. Wakemen is a liberal Christian who believes the traditional Christian doctrines that place a premium on a belief in the miraculous should be raided only for their symbolic meaning rather than any assumed literal meaning, a meaning that for many fundamentalist Christians has become a Shibboleth. Wakeman is what I call a ‘constitutional’ believer: Just as a literal monarch no longer exists in the UK and has been replaced with a symbolic constitutional monarch, likewise many of the literal Christian doctrines have been replaced by symbolic meanings in the minds of liberal Christians.

Liberal Christians are usually more self aware than EPC (Evangelical/Charismatic/Pentecostal) Christians. (EPC Christians often make a virtue out of an unquestioning non-reflexive gullibility and equate criticism with cynicism. In fact recently an EPC leader stated that he much prefers gullibility to ‘cynicism’). So I wasn’t surprised to see that Wakemen was aware of the left/right brain metaphor. Neither was I surprised by the ironic way she applied this metaphor: For her EPC, with it doctrinal shibboleths, is too left brain oriented! This didn’t surprise me because Liberal Christian Don Cupitt made a similar ironic plea against the traditional ‘propositional faith’ way back in the early 80s in his 1984 book “The Sea of Faith”. In fact Cupitt is so ‘constitutional’ in his faith that he is arguably an atheist! But why are Wakeman and Cupitt being ironic here? : because EPC, with its very ‘right brain’ swoon for Jesus worship has had a tendency to accuse the intellectual liberal Christians and their careful scholarship of precisely the same over emphasis on ‘head knowledge’ - that’s their term for left brain stuff! (sorry I can’t cite anyone here, but it’s something I have become aware of).

But there is more irony to come. The post evangelical, post charismatic emerging churches are also very wary of a ‘left brain’ Christianity, and are inclined to indulge in the same irony of accusing EPC Christians of being too left brained! See this thread on the Network Norwich web site where I had a brief encounter with what I guess to be an emerging church Christian. This Christian took issue with Network Norwich columnist James Knight (a Christian who attends the very Charismatic Proclaimers church) for portraying a faith that is too taken up with competing truth claims and propositions. Emerging church, with their touchy-feely postmodern communal neo-ritualism, are seeking to connect with the Divine with their ‘right brains’ rather than their ‘left brains’. And yet to compound the irony James Knight, in a later article, considers an authentic faith in the Divine to be over and above a mere propositional apprehension of God!

So everyone is accusing everyone else of being too left brained, too intellectual in their faith and blaming the poor old enlightenment for our religious angst and of “emptying the haunted air and gnomed mine” (Keats). The ironies here are exquisite, but all in all it’s hardly surprise, surprise. Religious leaders, especially EPC leaders, are hard put to it to interpret the meaning of contemporary science. Ostensibly science paints a mechanical picture of the world, or at least a world reducible to mathematical patterns of elementals: a seemingly a mindless dehumanized cosmic weltanschauung in which the mystique traditionally accorded to humanity looks to a spurious anomaly. Many religious and mystically minded people instinctually feel that there is something missing from this worldview and their knee jerk response is to retreat into the non-analytical, the holistic and the apparently irreducible world of the intuitive; In short the ‘right brain’.

For myself I have always been in favour of a) Understanding the conflict between ‘left and right brain’ expressions b) Looking for some kind of synthesis rather placing a premium on one over and above the other. However, I have always had a soft spot for a ‘nuts and bolts’ mechanical view of the cosmos (comes from too much play with Meccano as a child), and yet I believe the Philosopher John Searle to have a very compelling point when he suggests that the cosmos has present in it an irreducibly first person ontology.

As far as unraveling these tricky issues is concerned I don’t think EPC is going to be much help as long as it continues to glory in an uncritical unselfconsciousness. Although one doesn’t have to be stupid to be an evangelical, sometimes it helps. The largely post-charismatic, post, evangelical Emerging church are still on their honey moon with a youthful postmodernism and are not likely to be of much help at the moment. The best bet probably lies with the liberals: They seem to be self aware enough and to have no guilt complex or shame connected with intellectualism. However, the constitutional God of Don Cupitt is too extreme for me and looks to be cop-out, and a road to nowhere.


In some ways the overall picture daunts me in other ways it excites me. It daunts me because the enigma of the relationships between mechanism and personality, and between noumena, cognita and dreams seem to present insurmountable problems. And yet the whole scene is exciting because of the sheer mystery of it all. Mystery, like food, is for devouring; but like food there must be an endless supply of it and it looks to me as if there is enough mystery here to last for an eternity. “Man doesn’t live by bread alone...”

The Continuous Revival

A very interesting and revealing article in the November edition of ‘Christianity’ deliberates over the recent trend in EPC* of rediscovering and returning to the historic Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The article is not sure whether this is a ‘trickle or stream’. In this connection one should also include many emerging churches as they experiment with throw-back Celtic practices and proprietary rituals in an attempt to get a handle on the Divine through tangible artifacts of human creation but nevertheless imbued with sacred meaning.

What is the cause of this drift away from standard EPC? It probably has a complex of causes, but I wasn’t surprised to read this:

Many more, weary of hype concerning predicted revival about to head over the horizon, preferred a backward look to creedal faith and practices with firmer foundations than the shifting focus of the latest fad.

I well remember the day circa 1995 when I first saw the title of David Tomlinson’s book, “The Post-Evangelical”. He had come out of the Restoration movement of the 1970s and 1980s a disillusioned man. I had researched this movement myself and that experience was unpleasant enough. Moreover, 1994 was a bad year for my relationship with evangelicalism, but the worst was yet to come: Shortly after followed the Toronto Blessing and its bid for EPC spiritual hegemony. So, the mere reading of the title of Tomlinson’s book struck a chord with me. I never actually got round to reading the book but somehow I knew what Tomlinson was thinking or at least knew how he felt. I had sensed the onset of his disillusionment from the things he was saying even in the early eighties whilst he was still in the restoration movement.

All in all, then, this ‘trickle or stream’ is really no surprise because it is symptomatic of a deep malaise in EPC. The malaise may even have recently deepened as a consequence of the burst of religious histrionics seen during the ‘Lakeland outpouring’. I suspect that ‘false-dawn’ fatigue will ensure that Lakeland will amount to little more than a short lived squall of gullibility and never make the inroads into the mainstream church even achieved by Toronto. But, I suspect, as with Toronto, the gold fillings blessings, and various unfilled prophecies whose failures were at first covered up with spiritual spin, Lakeland will in due course be quietly dropped as if it never happened.

The article in ‘Christianity’ talks about C S Lewis’ concept of ‘Deep Church’ - the nearest equivalent I can find (apart perhaps from the concept of ‘the church invisible’) to my notion of the ‘Open Gospel’: the Open Gospel is by definition a message whose effects manifests themselves across a diversity of Christian subcultures in history. As the article in ‘Christianity’ asks: where was God during the times prior to our favorite Christian revival/reformation/movement? Can we really write-off hundreds of years of pre-reformation/pre-revival church history just like that? Surely their must be something deeper than particular cultural realizations of church?

If ‘Deep Church’ is the rationale for the latest attempt to fix a malaise by seeking the essence of church then this may be an antidote to the spiritual hegemony of those Christians who have a propensity to write the script for other Christians and foist on them either bizarre blessings, spurious prophesies , authoritarian leaders and all sorts of what, in the final analysis, are optional cultural elaborations; all eased through under spiritual duress. Yes, I said ‘spiritual duress’ - I can hear now the echoes of bullying spiritual clichés from the past: “Don’t touch God’s anointed” , “Don’t analyse it”, “Don’t commit the unforgivable sin”, “Don’t lack faith”.

In the NT we find the Apostle Paul tackling two sorts of error: 1) the attempt to articalise the faith - in Paul’s time this was the attempt to combine strict and particular law observance with Christianity. 2) The Dualist Gnostics for whom salvation from an evil material world was bound up with sublime spiritual initiations involving altered states of consciousness etc. We see similar imbalances in EPC today: The hyper orthodox evangelicals have hived themselves off into small marginalized ghettos of strict and particular observance. They are unwilling to speak to anyone else and think of themselves as the truest remnant manifestation of church. The Gnostics on the other hand, have distorted the charismatic message as they interpret the ‘baptism of the holy spirit’ in gnostic, exclusivist and elitist terms, limiting God’s spiritual gifting to a small subset of recognized behaviours. They too also think of themselves as the truest manifestation of church.

Believers so easily fall for an either/or ‘right brain’ vs. ‘left brain’ dichotomy rather than a both/and synthesis. Thus, observance is set against experience, head is set against heart, reasoning against intuition etc. The trickle or stream toward classical church may be good in that it helps sustain a cultural turnover amongst Christians; a turnover that helps break up and renew calcified assumptions. It effectively declares jubilee years that free captives from the bondage of authoritarian movements and constantly redistributes spiritual capital. The Gnostics may believe they have a mandate to spread their latest bizarre initiation rites or revival, but a seething cauldron of change and cultural slipping and sliding prevents any one party getting the upper hand. However, the move into to a traditional ritualized Christianity is neither necessarily good nor bad: It all depends on whether openness and reciprocity is favoured over against exclusiveness and hegemony. I was never keen on Chairman Mao’s concept of continuous revolution for a secular society, but it may well have an important role to play in the history of Christianity!

* EPC=Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity