"The Big Preacher Guy" Phenomenon

No sooner had VNP been hailing a mellowing of evangelical attitudes than an article in an evangelical magazine pops up introducing its readers to the latest American Christian mega patriarch whose reputation is starting to make inroads into the UK. He was being compared with that Charismatic personality of the eighties and nineties John Wimber.

Wimber and his ‘Vineyard’ cluster of churches were associated with the so called ‘Third Wave of the Spirit’ - a ‘move’ of the Spirit that was supposed to unify charismatic and non-charismatic, a wave whose actual existence is, in fact, debatable. But there was this to be said for it: in Wimber’s mind this move was to be a complimentary union of the best from Charismatic and orthodox evangelical cultures – Wimber was the kind of personality who recognized that his own Christian culture needed other Christains. Moreover, Wimber wisely distanced himself from the bizarre and predatory Toronto Blessing of the nineties. His wife is quoted in the article warning against the kind of faith that sees the world through vehement and positive acclamations bordering on denial. Although Wimber and his Vineyard churches never really succeeded in breaking the mold of a Gnostic version of Charismatic Christianity, Wimber’s ‘Signs and Wonders’ healing ministry was tempered by attitudes of reconciliation, complimentarity, reciprocity, and frankness.

Unfortunately this latest big name import from America looks to be far less reciprocal and compliant. His take on the Gospel is that it majors on ‘kingdom’ – that is, for him the gospel is about membership and not message – the Christian cults would agree. He is a product of the Toronto Blessing, and readily employs those familiar cognitive resorts used to explain away the suffering and evil of our world: healings fail because those praying for it lack faith, or those receiving it are too accommodating towards the problem of pain. And if spiritual spin fails simply select out the conceptually less amenable facts of reality and forget them: “Celebrate what God is doing not what he hasn’t done”, and least of all don’t accept that God ever ‘wanted’ a world of suffering and evil. This is the time honoured gnostic disconnection from reality.

That the article writer presumably felt it appropriate to publish the warning from Wimber’s wife is ominous. If reality is difficult to come to terms with one ‘solution’ is to simply train yourself to ‘see’ a new reality using a mixture of denial, attitude, selective perspective and spiritual spin. With the spiritual excesses of the nineties receding into history we now have a clutch of gullible Christians who either never saw those excesses or have forgotten them. The time may be right for another religious quack.

Spiritual Artifice

The latest edition of ‘Christianity’ runs an article on the state of charismatic churches in the UK (“Hands down”, March 2008). The overall verdict of the article is that charismatic churches have mellowed in the way they express themselves. For VNP, which always tries to stay ahead of the game, this is hardly news: (See here): Evangelical Christianity, like scientific triumphalism, has had to adjust to a more sober assessment of its expectations. ….with the discomfiture of evangelicalism, there is a mellowing and an embracing amongst evangelicals of a more open concept of the Gospel. This may not be new news at VNP, but it is good news. Let me say from the outset I have always avoided making demands and assumptions about how God should or might be working in the lives of other Christians or how they should express their faith. In contrast, however, many charismatic Christians have been only able to identity the work of the Spirit in a very circumscribed set of ‘showings forth’. These ‘manifestations of the Spirit’ have often been so badly contaminated by failure, pride, and human contrivance that they have been all but indistinguishable from background noise sourced in religious self-deceit. Christians who have not hurried to embrace the artifacts of charismatic expression have been cast as spiritual dunces lacking in faith. A spurious category of ‘becoming Charismatic’ has been foisted on the church, a category that uses a proprietary estimation of what constitutes the gifting of the spirit. A consequence is the practice of “in-church conversion” whereby non-charismatics and also charismatics whose blessings have become dated and stale, have become targets for conversion to latest spiritual fad. The result is a ‘blessing culture’ that needs constant feeding on the next arbitrarily designated supernatural manifestation. The word ‘gnosto-christianity’ sums it up for me – an elitist form of Christianity that only rates its own expression of faith. Much about gnosto-christianity has been so difficult to distinguish from human fabrication that the very veracity of Christianity has been challenged. The giftings and character of many Christains have been left unrecognized and marginalized in the face of a concept of the supernatural that is artifice. Perhaps now, those Christains have a chance of shinning through.

No Question About It

I know some people are praying for me with my less than enthused reception to some aspects of evangelicalism, but save your prayers for a rather desperate prayer request which has just come to light. November's survey results have been returned from Schmaltznegger ministries inc., the organisation run by Rev Randle J Schmaltznegger, the ebullient American spiritual dynamo, counselor extraordinaire, evangelist supreme, and bigot-hearted Christian patriarch. Not a terrific response from VNP readers, mind you, but these are postmodern times so we can make it up as we go along.

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The survey has revealed a clear need for urgent prayer. Rev Schmaltznegger comments on the results: "Where ever I go I find there is a great thirst for an outpouring of God's Spirit and this survey proves it. People just want to know God's initimate touch. If questioned on the need for God's power today you cannot but say 'Yes!'. However, I was very burdened in the Spirit when I noticed that not all survey respondents answered 'yes' to all questions as they should have done. One person actually answered 'no' to one of the questions. I advise that person to make himself known so he can receive some Spirit filled counselling and I can lay my hands on him to receive the power of God and have his spiritual blockages unblocked. As a reader of VNP he could be holding up the whole work of God at VNP and this may explain why this blog is not receiving the rich blessing it so desperately needs."

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Clearly then, we have a deep spiritual need here at VNP that should be prayed about. Or alternatively we may have someone here who is just fed up with being blackmailed by manipulative spiritual demands that don't admit a negative response without incurring spiritual recrimination and therefore just wants to protest.

Emerging Chaos

The back panel of the latest issue of the ‘Reachout: ministry to the cults’ newsletter advertises two books. The first is ‘Faith Undone’ by Roger Oakland. The advertisement for this book reads:

Is the emerging church just a passing fad, a more contemporary approach to church, or the discontented grumblings of young people looking for answers? Grounded in a centuries old mystical approach, this movement is powerful yet highly deceptive and it draws practices and experiences that are foreign to Biblical Christianity. The path the merging church is taking is leading right into the arms of an interfaith perspective….

The second book is called ‘The Other Side of the River’ by Kevin Reeves (definitely no relation!) and this book tells of one man’s experience with a movement that calls itself ‘The River’ and this claims…

… to be spreading the kingdom of God through signs and wonders. Sometimes referred to as the River rival, the Third Wave of the Latter Rain, this movement is marked by bizarre manifestations, false prophecies and esoteric revelations. Warnings of divine retribution keep many adherents in bondage; afraid to speak out or even question those things they are taught and are witness to. The Word faith movement, Holy Laughter, Emphasis on the humanity of Jesus over His deity and experience versus scripture are just some of the topics discussed in this book.

I don’t know whether Reachout did it deliberately but these two books are manifestations from the same underlying malaise. My experience of charismatic evangelicalism is that ‘Later Rain’ restorationism is just an extreme manifestation of something that can be seen, albeit in less intense forms, in many charismatic connections. Emerging church is, in my opinion, a reaction against some of the excesses of Charismatic Christianity. A case in point is a leader like David Tomlinson of ‘Post Evangelical’ fame whose ideas are linked with emerging church. Tomlinson came out of the Charismatic restorationist movement after reacting against its authoritarianism and its management by 'spin'. (e.g. 'Sin Spin' - the practice of explaining away failure by accusing someone of lacking faith or causing 'spiritual blockage')

So why didn’t those who emerged out of charismatic excesses see ‘the light’ and fall into the arms of the traditional and strict and particular ‘Bible based’ evangelicals? They, of course, have their own problems: legalistic, didactic, traditional, stuffy, dowdy, out dated, unwilling to change their conception of ‘biblical’ worship or give countenance to people’s experiences, and above all, only too willing to limit God’s Grace to their own culture. The emerging church Christians had nowhere to emerge to but into their own experimental churches. In short, evangelicalism had sold them short. There may be dangers in what they are doing, (particularly their mysticism – probably a hang over of Charismatic days), but it cannot be any less dangerous than the extremes of evangelicalism that limit God’s Grace.

Heart Researching

Rev. Randle J. Schmaltznegger, the ebullient American spiritual dynamo, counselor extraordinaire, and evangelist supreme, and big-hearted Christian patriarch has recently devised a spiritual litmus test for churches and Christains. A spokesman for Schmaltznegger says of the test: "Rev Randle’s test consists of a series of carefully crafted and subtle questions about the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life. Its heart searching depth will challenge the quality of spiritual life in today’s spiritually dry churches that do not benefit from contact with Rev Randle’s anointed ministry"

As I am, of course, anxious to test the spirituality of VNP readers I have, with permission of Schmaltznegger ministries inc., reproduced the test here. Please answer the questions below with either a ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘don't know’:

Do you want a massive revival of the Holy Spirit in your church?
Are you looking for a fresh imbuement of God's Spirit?
Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Should there be more evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit?
Do you want the Holy Spirit to come in power to your church?
Should you spend more time praying in the Spirit?
Should all church activities be in the power of the Spirit?
Should your church have more meetings where the power of the Spirit can be received?
Do you need a fresh touch of God's Spirit?
Should you study the Bible more?
Do you need to be more readily guided by the Holy Spirit?
Do you want God to do a new thing in your church?
Do you think we would have more miracles if we were truly in the Spirit?
Do we need the rain of the Spirit to end spiritual dryness?
Do you need a Spiritual blessing?
Do you have a spiritual inferiority complex?
Do you need the Rev. Randle J Schmaltznegger to set aside time to pray for you?
Would you like to contribute to Rev. Randle J Schmaltznegger’s ministry?

This carefully devised survey will certainly sort out the sheep from the goats and provide hitherto unsuspected insights into the Christian community. That's the beauty of research; always discovering things you don't already know. Email your answers to me and I will send them onto to Schmaltznegger ministries where the spiritual lessons will be teased out by a crack army of spiritual guides who have trained under Schmaltznegger. (Please don't forget to include a money order for $100.00) This will help identify spiritual markets... err… issues, that need to be exploited ...err… addressed, by the Spirit filled ministries of Randle J Schmaltznegger, the ebullient American spiritual dynamo, counselor extraordinaire, evangelist supreme, and bigot-hearted Christian patriarch.

Death by Sermon

A recent interesting Christian event took the form of a sponsored service and sermon-a-thon. This involved participants sitting under the back to back ministries of a variety of vicars, pastors, evangelists, and heavy shepherds. The organisers of the event naively thought that the chief challenge faced by participants would be that of trying to stay awake during tedious theological discourses, and therefore sponsorship was on the basis of how long participants could go without slipping into a comatose state. In the light of Acts 20:7-9 the organisers felt this would at least be a Biblical response to sermons. But, of course, things have moved on since days of the days of Acts and the likes of Spurgeon. The buzz words now are congregational involvement and blessing. Consequently, the participants were kept wide awake by vigorous action songs and mid service work outs that got the adrenaline flowing again. Attempts were made to Baptise the congregation in the Holy Spirit no less than six times. Some pastors even tried out some entirely new and as yet unheard of blessings such as the “involuntary yodeling blessing” and - it had to happen eventually - the Belching Blessing. (touted as a sign of spiritual infilling and satiation). The walking on water blessing (which made baptisms very difficult), was followed by the renewing of soles blessing (Yes, I meant “soles” as in “shoes”) – sometimes referred to as the “Cobbler's blessing”, which I suppose just about sums things up nowadays.

In the end the whole thing had to be called off. The local hospital had to put aside beds for a spate of broken limbs caused by the rigors of action songs, workouts and the effects of people being leaned on by heavy shepherds. Some people had to undergo counseling for post traumatic stress syndrome and some ran off into the wild blue yonder never to be seen again.

Clearly, acting as passive blessing fodder during a service is bad for your health. Much better to go back to those Biblical long tedious sermons that, provided you're on the ground floor, are far more healthy: At least you can come out at the end fully refreshed, after a really good nap.

Couch the Problem

Sometimes I feel I have rather overworked the caricature of contemporary Christianity as a touchy-feely, hyper-feminized, anti-analytical subculture; no longer able to connect with or make sense of ‘materialistic’ science it is engaged in a great gnostic retreat into the ‘deep soul’, and consumes workers whose skill set is skewed towards the ‘inner life’ at a prodigious rate: spiritual guides, pastoral workers, homiletic patriarchs and an army of counselors. News has just come in, however, suggesting that this picture is indeed no exaggeration

When I heard that there was going to be a lecture in Norwich by a former professor of the University of East Anglia challenging militant atheists like Richard Dawkins I was anxious to see what was afoot. I eagerly followed a blink to an event advertised on Network Norwich, the local Christian News Web site. What did I find? That the lecturer was a professor of physics? That he was a mathematics scholar? Or perhaps even a philosopher, political scientist or a historian? No! The lecturer was the former professor of counseling studies at the University of East Anglia!

So, the battle with scientism is being tackled as a counseling problem! If you’ve only got a hammer every problem looks like nail! Or rather, if you’ve only got a hammer, you've got no choice, every problem has to be fixed using the hammer!

The church sees itself as a custodian of ultimate cosmic mysteries. Therefore, while mysteries remain about the human heart the church may feel that it still has an edge in this area, its last bastion of credibility and authority. But until the church ceases to make the ‘head knowledge – heart knowledge’ distinction and a host of other dualistic assumptions, that bastion itself will be threatened.

Emerging Church – Yet again

I have just received Reachout Trust’s, (the Christian ministry to the cults) latest newsletter containing their second article on Emerging Church. Not unexpectedly they are concerned that Emerging Church’s experiments with very different cultural containers for worship may lead to unorthodoxy. Although Reachout doesn’t automatically equate these experiments with unorthodoxy, it is very suspicious. It quotes from Pages 52-53 of the book “Emergingchurch.intro” by Michael Moynagh, where a call is made for “new interpretations of the Bible”. It is conceivable that our current interpretations are wrong and in need of reappraisal, but for Reachout, who don’t make the vital distinction between what the Bible really means and our interpretations of it, this is tantamount to a serious drift in theology, a drift they crudely identify with “man’s ideas and not God’s”. Having had long experience of Christians using that kind of phraseology, I read that to mean “man’s ideas and not my ideas (which of course are God’s ideas)”. Reachout also notes Rick Warren’s links with Emerging Church. Once again Warren’s willingness to share platforms sets him up for accusations of “guilt by association”. Reachout goes on to publish a quote by Rick Warren where he claims that “fundamentalism” is a very narrow and legalistic view of Christianity. Reachout do not comment on this quote as if it is condemning enough by itself.

However, this reference to fundamentalism is, I believe, a vital clue to the emergence of Emerging Church. As I have suggested before Christian fundamentalism has a propensity to slide into intellectual and cultural bankruptcy and it is apt to compensate with an irrational noisy vehemence and arrogated claims. This has lead to some ugly parodies of the faith which have not only alienated potential Christains, but also many Christians themselves – the latter have been forced to review their faith because they are loathe to identify with Christian fundamentalists with whom they have very little in common. As Christains have reacted against affected displays of contrariness the search for authentic worship has partly driven the emergence of EC. If this revisionism does lead to a loss of faith, the run-down state of Christian fundamentalism will bear much of the responsibility for this loss.

Frankly Reachout seem rather out of their depth on this subject. EC is not a conventional cult phenomenon but is rather an issue internal to Christianity. Take for example Rick Warren. As the confluence of a variety of Christian influences from Southern Baptist, through Charismatic, to Emerging Church, Rick Warren is the de-facto symbol of Christian evangelicalism in all its contradictions. He himself is difficult to back into an unorthodox corner, and yet his teaching is cryptically subversive of both charismatic and dispensationalist Christianity. For some evangelicalism’s dissonant muddle is just too much to bear and their solution is to attempt to purify evangelicalism by bowdlerizing their doctrines and disowning one another with screams of blasphemy. This has simply had the effect of adding to the apparent incoherence of evangelicalism. Out of this seething caldron of contention Emerging Church has emerged. It is the eye of the storm.


EC is a product not just of postmodern anti-foundationalism but is also a reaction to the excesses of Christian fundamentalism. To understand EC it is therefore to necessary to turn the spot light onto Christianity itself as well as postmodernism. After all (and this is ironic), Christian fundamentalism with its gothic expressions of faith and denial of reason is itself a very postmodern phenomenon.

As I have already remarked new interpretations of the Bible are acceptable provided it can be shown why the old interpretations are wrong and why the new one’s are right. But if EC takes postmodernism to its illogical conclusion then it will be in danger of rejecting the categories of ‘right and wrong’ as being themselves ‘wrong’. Moreover, although Reachout’s consideration of EC is not very penetrating they do, toward the end of their article, touch on concerns that I myself share, namely the gnostic logic of EC: if we lose the notion of ‘truth’ (and by implication its opposite of ‘error’) faith collapses in on itself as it searches for gnosis in the mysterious inner depths of the soul.

But that’s hardly new – in fact it is closely related to the anti-physicalism and fideism one finds already abroad in Christian fundamentalism. Although I support much of EC’s project of reviewing evangelicalism, I cannot support irrationalism if it merely changes its name.

The I-Con

Since the SPCK has been bought up by the Eastern Orthodox Charity, the St. Stephen the Great Trust, the stance of this Orthodox Christian Ministry has begun to interest me. Like all good Christians, they have their own idiosyncratic ideas about just where we are going wrong and why we aren’t getting revival. This is what the charity’s web site says:

St Arsenius of Farasa (commemorated on October 28), who baptized Elder Paisios the Athonite, said that Europe will return to Orthodoxy when its people pray to the saints of their land. We in Britain have many Orthodox saints to intercede for us. Let us fervently ask these saints to intercede to the Holy Trinity for this land and the salvation of her people! (see www.ststephentrust.org.uk)

The Church Times web site comments on the sale of the SPCK and makes this claim about the St. Stephen web site:

Text on the website has been amended since the Church Times published the report announcing the partnership. References to the “misguided beliefs” of those who turned to the Roman Catholic Church, and other references to the Orthodox Church as “the only Church true to the Word of God, and therefore the only one that offers true salvation and eternal life”, have been removed. (see http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=29834)

Come on, givesa break, how many times have I heard that sort of thing? Of course, removal of text from a web site doesn’t mean to say that its intention has been removed from minds! However, this exclusiveness is not an exclusively Eastern Orthodox malaise. When I wrote the following under the heading of The Open Gospel, I actually had the Western Church in mind.

Whether we are talking of the decorative trappings of ritual and vestment, or obsessions with mystical gnosis, or strict adherence to fancied biblical ordinances, or interpretations which use the Bible to contrive rigid blueprints for arranging life and church, we have here behavioural forms which, whilst they may not be absolutely wrong, are often championed by those who protect them with a jealous religious zeal. Thus, Christians who live beyond the religious subcultures defined by these behavioural forms may find themselves being bullied by sectarian Christian zealots who will accuse them of being disobedient to the Divine order

Looking at the absolutist management instructions SPCK staff are now receiving from those of a religious tradition that never knew the separation of church and state and who only seem to feel secure when asolutely everything is under central control, "bullying" is the name of game. In the same article I also write:

Thus, it is exceedingly difficult to enforce monopoly claims upon the Gospel, even under conditions favouring such claims. Clearly the Good News is out, and groups who maintain they have exclusive rights to it can simply be ignored by other groups who have taken it to heart and made it their own, in all its fullness. Some Christian sub communities will undoubtedly retain their mutual prejudices toward one another and express a partiality as to who can or cannot claim to possess the fullness of Gospel truth, anointing and gifting. But The Word is like a seed borne on the Wind of the Spirit; who can control either? What God gives no man can take away. (I John 2: 20 & 27).

That said, I have one word for the St Stephen the Great Trust and all you Protestant exclusivists and Christian cults out there who can't get enough spiritual hegemony:

.....................Tough!

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Fragrant Flatulence Blessing

I once heard of a minister who handed out helium balloons at the beginning of a service in order that members of the congregation might indicate when they had been blessed during the service by releasing their balloon. But juvenile shows of devotion of this kind are not radical enough for some: The inner circle fellowship in the village of Twerpington, England, have also taken to releasing quantities of gas during their worship. The Rev. John Bilgewater has encouraged members of his congregation to break wind loudly during his services as a sign of humility. So-called “Times of Release” have become an established and regular part of worship. "The idea", says Rev. Bilgewater, "is to break down inhibition, British reserve and pride. Children regularly break wind without embarrassment and the Bible says we must be like children. The Bible contains lots of references to wind. It also provides a means of releasing spirits of bondage, and as these are released the unpleasant odors are replaced with fragrance”.

The inner circle fellowship at Twerpington used to be part of the Baptist Union, but the Union became concerned about the Minister’s authoritarian style of leadership and finally broke their links with the fellowship over disagreements with Bilgewater’s views on sanctified flatulence.

After the Toronto blessing, with its outbreaks of hysterical laughter, grunting, roaring, barking, quacking and other noises (collectively referred to as “Old MacDonaldisms”) it might be thought that the gamut of strange and degrading sounds in worship had been exhausted, but as events at Twerpington have shown there is always new ground, if not wind, to be broken in this respect.

The above article was published in the first copy of VNP dated April 2000. At the time of writing one of the Christian groups I had at the back my mind were the snake handling and poison drinking fellowships found in America. They base their bizarre practice on Mark 16:18. There is a very general lesson and warning here about the perversity of belief and practice that some people are driven to in the name religion. History tells us that religious ritual can be even more perverse than I can imagine or the snake handlers have invented. Some of those rituals are too unpleasant to even mention.

Rick Warren - Again

My church recently completed its lent studies of Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life”. In spite of the occasional lapse into a “just so” spirituality and quip theology, I was, in the main, left with a very favorable impression of this book. If there is a single word that encapsulates my reasons for this, that word is “Inclusiveness”. Let me explain.

I have to confess that there has been and still is much mutual discomfort, sometimes bordering on deep repugnance, between evangelical Christianity and myself. Looking back that tension started the day I was converted. There were and are many reasons for this, but one major of cause of this conflict is encapsulated in one word “Exclusiveness”. Rick Warren’s inclusiveness implicitly undermines this exclusiveness and yet he does not stray beyond the traditional doctrinal shape of Christianity.

I can find many examples of Warren’s stealth attack on Christian exclusivism: Here are some examples:

“The most common mistake in worship is seeking an experience rather than seeking God” (P109). “Too many equate being emotionally moved by music as being moved by the Spirit” (P102). “There is no one size fits all approach to worship .... you don’t bring glory to God by trying to be someone he never intended you to be” (P103). “God made introverts and extroverts. He made some people love routine and those who love variety. He made some people thinkers and others feelers. Some people work best when given an individual assignment while others work better with a team” (P245). “Because God loves variety and he wants us to be special, no single gift is given to everyone. Also, no individual receives all the gifts” (P236). “There are no definitions of spiritual gifts given in the Bible, so any definitions are arbitrary and usually represent a denominational bias.” P250. “The Bible is filled with examples of different abilities that God uses for His glory” (P242).

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed the intellectual impoverishment of large sections of the church. Unable to make sense of the ascendancy of science and reason there was a great Christian escape into various forms of gnostic enlightenment, and this was especially manifest amongst charismatic fellowships. Gnosticism is a general religious phenomenon found in other religions and it is not specifically Christian. Consequently, it skews the personality demographics of churches.

On the other hand Warren’s approach is a much-needed antidote to the spiritual elitism, exclusivism, fideism and authoritarianism that has wracked parts of charismatic Christianity, and in all probability continues to do so today. Warren’s book subtly subverts gnosto-christianity; How is it that Warren can talk about spiritual gifts without any reference to ‘charismatic initiation’? How can he accept that Christians can be filled with the Spirit without speaking in tongues? Should he allow thinking Christians to ‘be in the Spirit’ without embracing some form of fideism? Warren’s vision of the church, as far as I can tell, is big enough to include a variety of personalities types, spiritual gifting, experience, traits and styles. However, many Christains have a high tolerance of inconsistency and incoherence and they achieve this by ignoring or not seeing cognitive anomalies, and so Warren’s book is unlikely to register as a challenge to the gnosto-christian status quo.

Fighting Christians: Again

Further evidence that American evangelicalism is in disarray surfaced this month with a book review in ‘Christianity’. The book reviewed is “Thy Kingdom Come – an evangelical’s lament” by Randall Balmer and the reviewer is John Drane, senior professor at the School of Theology in Fuller Seminary, California. This is what Drane writes:

Fans of James Dobson, Pat Robertson and their ilk will hate this book. Randall Balmer argues that the religious right in America has trivialised the Gospel and made Christains a laughing stock: by campaigning on issues such as homosexuality and intelligent design (aka creationism) they have managed to persuade everyone that the gospel has nothing to say to the struggles of everyday life. In doing so, he believes they have denied the biblically-faithful evangelical heritage espoused by the founding fathers, and have become agents of oppression rather than redemption. ... It offers a stark analysis of what happens when ‘mission’ is reduced to complaint and condemnation....

This book adds to my colossal backlog of books I should be reading. If anyone gets to it before I do, let me know what you think.

Emerging Church: Again

Reachout trust, the Christian ministry to the cults, has weighed in on the Emerging Church debate. In their spring quarterly newsletter they present the first part of a two-part article on Emerging Church. Let me say straight away that Reachout are usually fairly circumspect in their approach, and when they offer criticism it is likely to be after careful consideration of the evidence, Biblical and otherwise, and even then they don’t take their criticisms to automatically condemn a group as sub-Christian. This seems to be the pattern with their consideration of Emerging Church, and their article expresses reservations rather than outright condemnation of EC. For these reasons I usually respect the opinions of Reachout. Reachout’s measured tone would be well emulated by some other so called “discernment ministries”, ministries that consider anything less than their own views on a subject as tantamount to blasphemy.

Reachout’s article expresses two reservations. The first is based on the observation that The Church, by definition, consists of the converted and if that is the case then what goes on within the church is primarily directed to the ecclesia (that is, converted people), and hence Church is defined as the “communion of the saints”. Thus, Reachout reasons, church should not be a “postmodern” environment for generation Xers with the consequence that services become entertainment rather than God centered services. But whilst it is true that much of what goes on in church is for those who are already convinced believers, Christains cannot operate in a cultural vacuum and will therefore use the language, styles, issues and thought forms of their surrounding culture, and will naturally communicate using the media on which they themselves have been reared and with which they feel comfortable. Moreover, a church is at liberty to use its own premises as a venue for outreach and therefore if an EC church is adept at using its immediate locale to successfully communicate the Gospel within the parameters of its culture, I fail to see why that should be interpreted as just entertainment. Although I think Reachout has a point here in that in giving attention to the means of communion one can loose site of God being the focus of that communion, I feel that as long this hazard is acknowledged then the force of Reachout’s criticism need not apply.

The other concern of Reachout is Emerging Church’s emphasis on experimentation. Clearly the creation itself has an experimental component: God’s creatures, such as ourselves, experiment: we seek, we explore, we find, we hypothesize, we essay, we select, we test, we reject, we knock on doors, we update our knowledge, and correct our knowledge; these are all legitimate activities and, for me, come under the rubric of experimental behavior. However, Reachout quotes EC pundit Michael Moynagh whom, in his book “Emerging-Church.intro”, first remarks on the created trait of experimentation but then goes onto to say:

“Some theologians would go further. They would say that the experimentation we see in the creation reflects an aspect of God himself. God is an experimenter”
This latter point takes us into very deep theological water indeed, but I have say that at the moment I share Reachout’s concern that if this concept of an “experimenting God” is applied in anything other than a metaphorical way then it does seem to conflict with traditional views on the omniscience, omnipotence, and timelessness of God.

I eagerly await the next Reachout article. For me EC is certainly an area of serious study and my own feelings are still mixed. On the one hand the function of EC has been remedial in counterbalancing, challenging, and exposing some of the unauthentic excesses of evangelicalism. Moreover, I feel that a constructive and sympathetic attitude should be taken toward EC’s interesting experiments with church and church worship. And yet on the other hand I am very much a Grand narrative man myself and consequently I fear that a too close identification of EC with Postmodernism may lead to the loss of the doctrinal shape of Christianity. That doctrine is like the exoskeleton of an organism, and acts as a protective cover and gives the Church a requisite rigidity of form. In reacting against imbalances EC may be in danger of overreacting and thereby be prone to a loss of balance itself.

Ricks Ricks Ricks Warren

My own church is currently working through Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Church”. When I heard that we were set to do this series my first thought was: “Ah! I wonder if this is going to be another formulaic presentation of Christianity, suffused with an upbeat American tone and riddled with ‘do this and you’ll get that’ remedies. Easy as ABC…!” Well, the book is nowhere near as bad as that, of course, and it does raise many interesting and important issues. But best of all is that when one looks into the Rick Warren phenomenon it opens up a window on the hot scene of American religious infighting – witness the picture of Rev Rick Warren accompanying this post, a picture I found on one lurid and hysterical web site that screamed hell and damnation to the good Rev all over my screen!

The controversy surrounding Rick Warren reached my ears sometime ago via Reachout Trust, the Richmond (England) based group that watches the cults. Much of the controversy, it seems, is sourced in America where evangelical subcultures vie with one another in a seething sea of claim and counter claim. To date my own contact with Rick Warren’s textual presence suggests that he holds fairly conservative doctrines that I do not myself find particularly disagreeable.

The American Evangelical furor over Warren seems not so much due to his doctrine as it is his association with causes hated by the American evangelical right. For example: his signing of the Global Warming Pact, his connections with the United Nations; his inviting liberal democrat Barack Obama to Saddleback to talk on AIDS, his sharing of platforms with New Age speakers, his use of suspect Bible translations, and his soft peddling of fire and brimstone preaching, have all lead critics to attempt to trace Warren’s taste for bad company back to doctrinal unorthodoxy. Out and out unorthodoxy has been difficult to pin on Warren and these critics, unable to square his apparent doctrinal conservatism with the sympathetic noises he makes to those beyond the conservative political pale, have simply thrown their hands up and accused him of “flip-flopping”. Perhaps a lot of it is down to Warren having a temperamental disposition toward inclusiveness rather than confrontation – a trait I have seen in some other Christian leaders. But whatever, for Rick its “guilt by association” in a country where the quality of one’s of faith is often measured by an expectation that the ramifications of Christianity inevitably lead to a right wing slant to one’s politics.

The following is a quote from one anti-Warren web site I visited and is evidence of just how vicious evangelical infighting can get. At the end of a garish and vulgar looking web page dedicated to rubbishing Warren it concluded with:

“Rick Warren has NO FAITH in Jesus Christ, only in his precious purpose-driven program and Peace Plan. His dirty, rotten, stinking, gnat-covered fruit is an abomination and stench to the Lord.”

These “discernment” ministries, as they usually think of themselves, tend to cancel out in a welter of mutual criticism. However, they are also in danger of canceling out true Christianity in the process. Thank God for the Open Gospel, which provides us with the conceptual framework to make sense of just why Christianity is so often plagued by fragmented squabbling factions. Most amazing of all is that God gives these screaming hysterical believers the grace that they are so unwilling to offer to their fellow Christains. Either that or Christianity is false.

On Emerging Church

As my last post raised the knotty question of “Emerging Church” I thought I had better post something indicating my position on this matter. I could think of nothing better to do than reproduce a comment I posted on Monty's blog who was also thinking about the issue at the time. Frankly, I have to admit that I haven’t developed my thoughts on “Emerging Church” since I posted this comment (I really need to do a bit more studying):

On this emerging church business: I haven’t done much work on this matter myself but here are my first impressions, possibly to be corrected and enhanced by further study.

‘Emerging Church’ is one of those expressions that catches an underlying mood - probably a mood of disappointment/disaffection. That same mood might have manifested itself as far back as David Tomlinson - a defector from the quasi-cult restorationist movement - he emerged from that movement a rather disillusioned man and became the de-facto leader of “Post evangelicalism”.

Perhaps as a result of a quick succession of false dawns (involving various gnostic experiences, blessings, healings, prophecies, revivals, church structures, spiritual formulae, big personalities etc etc) crammed into living memory, a feeling of “we’ve tried all that, so where to next” prevails amongst Christians. I have seen quite a few spiritual restarts even in my time: that is, groups who attempt to clear the ground of the spiritual elaborations of their forerunners and remake church as they attempt to get back to a kind of contemporary primitive church – an oxymoron if there ever was one.

It’s not surprising, then, that the emerging church is a new philosophy of church that doesn’t want to look like a new overarching philosophy of church – after all, we’ve seen no end of them before. So the emerging church faces the logical conundrum also faced by postmodernism – how do you present a completely new philosophy without it looking like just another new philosophy? The result is a rather groping exploratory approach where the stress is on the journey rather than the destination, because all destinations, true to the postmodern sentiment, are thought to be end-of-rainbows. Sometimes there can be a downright evasiveness about just what the “new philosophy” stands for.

Emerging church knows what it isn’t, but sometimes I feel that it is not at all sure about what it actually is: Christian dissenters find themselves grasping the term “Emerging church” just as some disaffected evangelicals grasped at the term “Post evangelical” - terms that act as “rafts for the mind” when the mind is in the sea of confusing times. Thus under the umbrella of “emerging church” one can find Christains that make uneasy bedfellows – in short “emerging church” is a pastiche of views and a mixture of Christains that are trying to jump start a new kind of church, although some of them are still looking for the jump leads.

However, having said all that I find myself on balance sympathising with emerging church in as much as it is a reaction against, dowdy, strict, kitschy, plastic, corny, cosmetic, contrived, dated, out-of-touch, domineering, authoritarian, patriarchal, false, artificial, triumphalistic, pseudo, affected, unselfconscious manifestations of Christianity (if you want that in even more emotive terms see Ben). Fair enough we can all be a bit like any of those things at times, but when these tacky Christian styles come with a self confidence born of a conceited spiritual narcissism the product is very ugly phenomenon indeed, and I find myself in common cause with the emerging church people, in spite of being a “Grand Narrative” man myself.

Let me add that I do bulk at some emerging church counter reactions, reactions that may shows signs of the beginnings of a loss of grasp of the grand over arching themes of structured Christianity. Instead these themes have morphed into the shapeless blob of “God consciousness”. And the tremendous irony is that that is precisely where the affected touchy-feely narcissistic manifestations of Christianity, which emerging church is reacting against, was also taking us!

But I shouldn’t unfairly generalize on what seems to be a very variegated trend. On the matter of engaging society emerging church may have something to teach us and someone like Paul is probably the man ask about it. (and Ben!) I was fairly impressed by the authentic feel of the “Nooma” DVD’s (Rob Bell et al) and moreover there seemed to be behind them a gospel message that you and I, as fairly conservative Christains, would recognize and applaud.

“Evangelical Culture Disgusting” says Mega Church leader

A few postings I ago I reported the rather strong words of the Rev Mark Stibbe who suggested that those Christains who did not fall for the 1994 Toronto Blessing were in danger of committing the unforgivable sin. Well, today I have just received my copy of the February edition of “Christainity”. In this edition Rob Bell, Pastor of an emerging mega church and creator of the Nooma series of DVDs, is reported as saying “Evangelical culture is terribly sick in America. It’s absolutely disgusting and it is in no way a representation of what Jesus had in mind. It’s actually anti-Christ in its orientation”. Now let me say straight away that my impressions of Rob Bell have generally been very favourable and he comes over as an unwilling Christian megastar who is acutely aware of the pitfalls of celebrity and heady Christian scenes. But is evangelical culture really disgusting? That accusation is no big deal: how many times have I wanted to sign a written complaint about this or that bizzare evangelical practice or belief with “Disgusted of Norwich”? However, the “anti-christ” charge is rather different: that’s as strong as accusations of theological sin can get and makes Stibbe look like a master of tact! Whatever the truth is here it is nevertheless clear that there is spiritual pathology in America, because at the very least this sort of contention is evidence that things are not at all right between some very influential American Christains.

I sometimes ask myself why do I have to take such an interest in the “negative” hotspots of the Christian community and immerse my self in the worst that that community can throw at me? Some Christains, it seems, opt for a subtle epistemological method that in one sweep fixes all the deep contradictions in their ontology – they simply don’t go looking for them or they ignore them when they come their way. They stay within their social and empirical playpen and this circumvents what are otherwise spiritually dangerous liaisons with circumstances that are difficult to interpret. And those puzzling circumstances can be excessively challenging: after all, some of the contradictions one finds within evangelicalism actually could be construed as evidence against the very veracity of Christianity (if such is possible)

Why don’t I lead the quiet life and use a playpen epistemology? I don’t think I could do that simply because, as any serious investigator is aware, it is those strange anomalies that don’t quite fit the categories which are signposts to deeper truths. For this reason, and for reasons of integrity, VNP is committed to facing up to the whole of reality without prejudice, even when those sense making interpretations are not readily to hand.

Make my day - give me an anomaly.

Signs and Blunders

In 2001 I distributed the following bogus Press release at church:

FINGER LICKING GOOD

The City of Slough, which has been dubbed the most boring place on Earth, has been guest to strange events at a local Anglican church. St. Leonard’s, on Lime side, has witnessed a sudden increase in attendance since reports that communion bread and wine have started to taste like honey.

A church member said "It was wonderful: we had this really up lifting communion service, and when I tasted the bread I couldn't believe it - it was sweet!" Another said "I saw my communion bread just dripping with honey and the wine reminded me of the syrup of figs I used to have when I was young. I knew then that God was just blessing us."

When asked what was happening at his church the minister, the Rt. Rev. Verity Vaughan said "The Lord has just chosen to Bless us. Our God is a God of abundance. This blessing has just done marvels for people’s faith. One week we had communion every night. People are just flocking in and lives are being changed and Christ is just being glorified.

After communion people are seen licking their fingers to remove traces of the holy food. Some have said that the pews are getting tacky due to contact with sticky fingers. There are unconfirmed reports that people have been seen licking the pews and even the fingers of those communicants who have been privileged to receive honeyed sacraments.

One investigator, a member of the local Voltaire society, said of the sticky pews: "Yes they were sticky, but then the varnish on those pews is years old and is probably decomposing". He also said that there was a rumour of someone bringing in a Jar of honey but he was unable to confirm this. Several years ago he investigated a case not unlike it at an Eastern Orthodox church where it was claimed that Christ's face could been seen reflected in the wine, but the clerics didn't like it because the Wine took so long to distribute.

Father Patrick O'Rumme, priest of the nearby Catholic Church, said that he took the whole thing with a pinch salt: "These Charismatics are forever looking for some new miracle. The Bible says that the communion elements are Christ's body and blood, not honey and syrup". He declined to comment when asked if at his church they tasted of meat and blood.

A representative of Ebenezer Chapel on the other side of town said "Our corrugated iron premises are damp and cold and sometimes our bread goes moldy, but we're not worried. It's what it means that counts not what it tastes like. During the war we once had to use silage bread and red cabbage water".

The Bishop of the diocese, Dr. Tannington-Hyde, was unavailable for comment. A Spokesman said that the Bishop was chairing an ecumenical conference on feminist liturgical needs at this moment in time and his situation was sticky enough.
Esat@news Agency January 2001
More than one person was either convinced or unsure that the above report was genuine. I can hardly blame them. The only thing that gives the game away is the corny name of the Catholic Priest. Everything else is completely plausible.

The Open Gospel

In March of 2000 I endeavoured to produce a pithy statement that summarised my view of the kernel of Christianity. Rather than annunciate an exclusive and purist formula defining some Christian sub-grouping I was anxious to forge an inclusive statement giving account of the hostile demeanor often adopted by Christains sub-cultures toward one another. I came up with the following statement. It is a bit formal and legal sounding, perhaps because I wanted to make it as bullet proof as possible.

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The "Open Gospel" is a term I use to indicate that the common, defining, distinctive, and primary phenomenon of Christianity is not its patchwork of sometimes mutually hostile church subcultures but the underlying Gospel message, a message which, unbounded by cultural barriers, diffuses laissez-faire style through populations spawning a variety of church communities. These communities, which may or may not be independent of one another, display varying degrees of development, spiritual health and quality of culture. The net result is that no one group or subculture (Thank God) can claim to have privileged access to the Gospel message, or to have sole agency in its propagation, or to be the only group expressing the spiritual life and gifting that it gives. Inevitably, some Christian communities will vociferously claim that they are either the best and most faithful representatives of the Gospel, or perhaps its only representatives. Self praise is, of course, no recommendation and anyway such claims are little more than bluster because they are impossible to enforce: It is now five hundred years since the Roman Catholic church started to lose the power to enforce its claim to being the sole distributor and representative of the Gospel. But even at the height of Roman Catholic political power it would seem almost impossible to attain complete control of a message that can pass quietly from mind to mind. Thus, it is exceedingly difficult to enforce monopoly claims upon the Gospel, even under conditions favouring such claims. Clearly the Good News is out, and groups who maintain they have exclusive rights to it can simply be ignored by other groups who have taken it to heart and made it their own, in all its fullness. Some Christian sub communities will undoubtedly retain their mutual prejudices toward one another and express a partiality as to who can or cannot claim to possess the fullness of Gospel truth, anointing and gifting. But The Word is like a seed borne on the Wind of the Spirit; who can control either? What God gives no man can take away. (I John 2: 20 & 27)

The idea of the Open Gospel is, for me at least, a source of great consolation as it helps reduce the significance of the contentions surrounding parochial religious elaborations of particular cultural realisations of Christianity. Those elaborations are sometimes beautiful and fascinating, sometimes helpful, sometimes essential, sometimes relevant, sometimes indifferent, sometimes quaint, sometimes outdated, sometimes comical, sometimes bizarre, sometimes tasteless, sometimes tacky, and, unfortunately, sometimes malign. Whether we are talking of the decorative trappings of ritual and vestment, or obsessions with mystical gnosis, or strict adherence to fancied biblical ordinances, or interpretations which use the Bible to contrive rigid blueprints for arranging life and church, we have here behavioural forms which, whilst they may not be absolutely wrong, are often championed by those who protect them with a jealous religious zeal. Thus, Christians who live beyond the religious subcultures defined by these behavioural forms may find themselves being bullied by sectarian Christian zealots who will accuse them of being disobedient to the Divine order. These zealous Christians may even regard the testimonies of other Christians as void or at best substandard. But a high view of the Open Gospel allows one to rise above Christian infighting and to be less phased by Christian cultural forms whose sectarianism stands in ironic contrast to the message that has spawned them, a message which passes from ear to ear jumping the boundaries separating communities. The Open Gospel is a majestic vision of the essence of Christianity, a vision which not only sees the Gospel as being, at the very least, the world's best bet for a revelation of the meaning of life, the universe and everything, but also an allusion to timeless and lofty principles from which the vagaries of Christian ethos and culture do not detract.
c. T. V. Reeves March 2000

The Plain Truth

With the apparent demise of the optimistic modernist belief in ‘Grand Narratives’, postmodern ‘Little Narratives’ abound. In fact narratives are getting smaller and smaller as is evidenced by the latest book from brilliant and innovative secular theologian Julian O'Gobstopper. O’Gobstopper has spent 4 years on a work entitled “The Nihilist's Bible”, a monumental tome consisting of 2257 pages of blank paper. “As a nihilist theologian and philosopher” says O'Gobstopper, “I have spent many years thinking about nothing and this book is the result. It is a definitive statement of today's progressive and utilitarian philosophy. It moves us away from the authoritarian and didactic assumptions that books should contain content. This book strongly affirms the ambiguity of everything. It leaves the plot open, free for the reader to complete within the parameters of his or her experience, and to impute whatever meaning and truths (s)he wants.” Asked whether the book classified as fact or fiction O'Gobstopper replied that the distinction between fact and fiction was itself a fiction.

Although not exactly a challenge for the presses, the spelling checker and the indexing software, the publication wasn't without its production problems. Proofreaders claimed the proofs gave them headaches and a variant of “snow blindness” as they checked the volume for typos, and page make-up compositors walked out angry that content-free books could set a precedent in publishing that may lead to a loss of jobs. A Union spokesman stated, “It was aw-right for the Luddites, at least they had sommit to smash, but what do my members do when there’s now’t to hit out at?”

O'Gobstopper's book:Starting (and finishing) with a blank sheet.

A sample page from O’Gobstopper’s scholarly work is illustrated below:

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(This space has been intentionally left blank by VNP typographic staff)

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(The above article was first published in the December 2004 edition of VNP)

Don’t Try this at Home

Many churches will be impressed with the latest house group study book “Facing Up to Change”, with its full range of “In yer face” activities. In the introductory study the home group is asked to sit quietly and contemplatively in a room illuminated only by a candle. But the meditative peace is not long lived; the candle turns out to be, in fact, a disguised November 5th “howling thunderclap” and a short spurt of sparks is followed by a head splitting whistle terminated by a deafening report. Participants are then asked to continue to sit quietly and contemplatively until the acrid smoke clears and the sounds of the dying fades before considering some soul-searching questions. Now you might think that all this would be a great introduction to the manner of Christ’s return and our preparedness for it; but no, “Facing up to Change” gives anything that threatens to be a theological can of worms a wide birth and instead puts the inscrutable inner life of the heart under the spot light. Accordingly, as explosions are the most rapid form of change known to man, this is the cue for a series of probing questions on facing change:

Are you prepared for sudden and unexpected changes?
Did the firework disturb your comfort zone?
Can you maintain your cool in the face of change?
Does change make you feel nervous?

Other stimulating study-activities in the book include a custard pie fight (Study 3: “Taking the stick when you lobby for change”), a piano smashing competition (Study 4: “Putting up with discordance”) and a snail race (Study 7: “Getting those boring old f*rts moving in the Spirit”). At the end of the study book you will be sure to want change; at least a change from all those courses and talk about the need to change.


(The above article was first published in the June 2001 edition of VNP)