Joe Hellerman and Spencer Burke took on the issue of “community.”
Hellerman, a specialist in the ancient church, drew two key principles of community from historical descriptions of the ancient church. The principles he found to be most central to the thriving community of the early church were 1) robust boundaries (a clear idea of where the church ended and the pagan world began, and a commitment to maintaining holiness) and 2) relational solidarity (compassion and help for those who faced trouble because of their commitment to Jesus). As an example of these principles in action, Hellerman told the story of a third century actor who became a Christian. After consideration by church officials, the actor was told he could no longer act or teach acting because these things were wrapped up in the service of other gods (demonstrating robust boundaries). The officials then pledged full monetary support to supply the needs of the actor who was suddenly without a profession (demonstrating relational solidarity). The non-Christians were attracted to the intensely moral, highly supportive community, and the church grew quickly.
Hellerman says the second value is firmly in place in the Emergent Church community, and he's thrilled to see a newfound focus on the church as a surrogate family of genuine, committed brothers and sisters. However, he thinks the EC, as a whole, has not embraced the other ancient value of robust boundaries. He says that the lack of philosophical convictions and pragmatic perspective of the EC discourages them from embracing truth (because of uncertainty and a desire to welcome others). But he insists that the EC fear of “spiritual McCarthyism” (abuse of authority) does not inevitably result from stands on truth, as Paul demonstrated when he instructed us to restore a brother without condemnation.
I thought Hellerman's point that a healthy family needs both love and boundaries was an excellent one. However, we were left somewhat unsure of what (or who) in the EC he was critiquing. Some specific examples of how this lack of robust boundaries has played out in the EC would have been helpful and allowed us to better evaluate the claim.
Burke's presentation began with the story of how he came to be in the Emerging Church. He “paid his dues” for 20 years in the church, taking part in every key movement–a Christian commune, a mega-church, and a seeker-sensitive church. He had “everything he wanted that ministry could give,” but he was looking for something more. He left his last church eight years ago, “looking to try and hear and see what this next movement [was].” He found that the Emergent Church movement is very different than the other movements he was involved with, and the fundamental keywords for Burke are “power” and “control.”
Power and control have shifted in the overall cultural landscape, and now they need to shift in the church. In community, we must not look at people and tell them they're wrong. We must stop thinking of ourselves as heroes and start being humans. We have to be authentic with God and human together. Only then can we talk openly and honestly about the issues of power and control.
Burke says that if the church is really about being the “light of the world,” we'd better move away from oil lamps (the old way of doing things) and into light bulbs (the new way) Just because they [the EC] are currently having some trouble inventing the light bulb, the oil lamps are not the wave of the future–they're outdated. We're simply moving from oil to electricity. If we tried to use oil to create the new light bulb, we would destroy the light.
I wish Burke would see that no matter how much he says you shouldn't “look at people and tell them they're wrong,” he is telling people they are wrong. I think he should just embrace and accept this. Everyone tries to persuade. Unfortunately, when a person doesn't openly try to persuade through reason (because he's denying that one should do so), he will inevitably do it through emotional language. In Burke's case, he called those who take a stand for truth “McCarthyists,” told them not to be “afraid” of his position–even though it “threatens their power and control” (thus implying that the people who disagree are really just motivated by a desire to maintain power and control over others), and compared them to an outdated oil lamp that is in danger of squelching out “the light of the world.”
Ironically, this ends up being more controlling than if he were to just come out and state his position and why he thinks his position is correct and the opposite position is wrong. Nowhere did he give us good reason to think that a person who stands for truth is necessarily a McCarthyist, or that it's really all about power and control for those who disagree. He merely tried to shame us into joining him. I would have appreciated a presentation that better respected our intelligence, our love for God, and our goodwill towards others.
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page 
2 Comments »
May 14, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
closeAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
This is the first in a series of blogs the A-Team will be posting from the Emerging Church conference at Biola on Friday May 13, 2005. Our goal is to capture, as accurately as possible, what was said on a topic and offer some of our own reflections. See also Melinda Penner's comments from the early morning session, Timbo's overview, and a discussion at Tall Skinny Kiwi.
My topics were Church & Homiletics/Teaching, both of which were presented on by Dan Kimball, with an address on preaching by Kent Edwards. The first presentation began with a video about communion in an emerging church. In all honesty, I didn’t get the point of the video. We were all expecting some more explanation as to what took place in the video; what it meant.
After the video Dan Kimball got up and presented on what’s going on in some emerging church services. He talked about the cross being at the center of the stage, with the preacher below it so that the focus is always on the risen Jesus. He talked about the worship band being moved from front and center to off to the side. He also went into the ancient worship being utilized through liturgy and deep theology. The gist of the talk was about the stylistic changes being made. For the most part, I think he’s right on.
Kent Edwards, a professor at Talbot, addressed the issue of some emerging leaders advocating a removal of preaching from church assembly (though he didn’t tell us who was advocating this). From Luke 4 he argued that Jesus came as a preacher. Preaching is a form of communication, which according to Edwards is more than words; it’s also genres. He said that God inspired genres as well as words. The responsibility of pastors is to make the communication of God attractive to the congregation. If the sermon is boring, then the pastor has sinned. Forms of preaching should include narratives.
Dan Kimball then commented on how he is now preaching more than ever before. He’s using more scripture more aggressively. 2 Timothy 4:2 tells us that this is essential. It is part of Kimball’s four elements of church: worship, community, missional, theology. Our primary desire, says Kimball, should be to see the Holy Spirit transform lives through the
power of God’s Word. Our preaching should be theocentric instead of anthropocentric.
The main goal of the conference, as I understand it, was to have a conversation between those within and without the emerging church movement. I didn’t think Kent Edwards, as much as I agreed with him, really represented someone critical of emerging churches. I always enjoy hearing Dan Kimball speak. Though he’s not fancy- not academically verbose like most lecturers I listen to. Perhaps what I like is simply that I agree with 99% of what he says, and I think what he says needs to be taken seriously by non-emergent leaders. Anyone who’s read my posts before knows I’m not really a fan of the emerging church movement, but if it were even generally more like Dan Kimball, I would be.
Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology 2 Comments »
May 12, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
What
do DJs, tourists, and postmodern philosophers have to do with church?
Apparently quite a bit. This recent book by Steve Taylor, a pastor in
New Zealand, is subtitled “Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a
Culture of Change.” Mr. Taylor draws from Karl Barth’s comment about
the task of preaching being to sit with the newspaper in one hand and
the Bible in the other. “I sit on the fault lines of a cultural shift.
In my right hand, I hold a video remote. In my left hand, I hold the
gospel of Jesus… Ours is the task of communicating the gospel in an age
of change.” (19)
The
book is in some sense a blueprint for how the church, or Christian
communities, can apply the gospel to the changing culture. Each chapter
is a postcard from an emerging church somewhere in the world. Each
postcard highlights some activity that reflects the goals of emerging
churches. Throughout the book there are also comments by different
people in the margins that expand, footnote, or softly critique what
Mr. Taylor writes.
Postcard
1 sets the stage for the rest of the book. In it, Mr. Taylor draws out
the differences between Frank Zeffarelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet and
Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo and Juliet. Each sought to translate
Shakespeare’s text into contemporary culture. The implication is that
the gospel has not changed, but the culture has, and in order to
communicate it effectively we need to re-translate it.
Mr.
Taylor offers different perspectives on how this can be done. One is to
view the church as continually being reborn. “If God is about
birthing—and rebirthing—and we are to be about the things of God, then
we, too, are called to acts that bring new life into the world.” (50)
“The belief in God’s constant re-creation drives much of the emerging
church. It is less a reaction against old forms and ideas and more a
response to God’s call for us to join in with the continuous birthing
of his kingdom.” (56)
Another
approach offered is tourist spirituality. “Tourism can serve as a
redemptive framework for postmodern mission, in which people are
‘tourists’ on spiritual journeys and the church operates as ‘tour
guide,’ stimulating forward movement and nourishing the quest.” (83)
Perhaps
the most interesting and telling perspective is that of cultural
sampling, applying the activities of DJs to the role of the church. For
Mr. Taylor this means playing television commercials, popular music,
showing art, reading poetry, reading scripture, and much more.
My
thoughts were generally mixed about this book. I think Steve Taylor
makes some good points about communicating the gospel in a global
culture that is almost entirely different than it was 10 years ago.
His
analysis of where the modern church is lacking is accurate in several
areas. One that I appreciated was that of the place of art in a worship
service. For some reason, we tend to consider the reading of scripture,
liturgies, and songs as the only legitimate forms of worship in
service. However, if God gave us abilities for creativity, it seems
those would be appropriate for the worship from Christ’s Bride as well.
Mr. Taylor also has some good theological points that should not be
missed, e.g. “Spiritual seekers can fall into the trap of picking and
choosing a feel-good theology that doesn’t have anything to do with the
truth of living life with God.” (82)
Contrary
to what many critics of the emerging churches have argued, the Bible
plays a role in Mr. Taylor’s view of church. In many of his theological
points he seeks to root his claims in the words of scripture. There
are, however, a few problems with how scripture is used. One is its
role in service, in which a few services that he describes
leave the Bible mitigated to either being one voice among
many voices (154) or having no role at all (55). Another problem is the
way Mr. Taylor exegetes scripture. The most prominent example is his
use of 1 Peter 3:1-7, which he uses to argue that Peter was “sampling
from culture and from the way of Jesus.” (141) Mr. Taylor assumes,
without argument, that some of Peter’s imperatives for how husbands and
wives relate are items from the culture, and this enables him to
dismiss several elements of what Peter says because “our world is not
Peter’s world” (143).
In contrast to Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, this was a far
more interesting read and a far more accurate description of what's
going on in emerging churches. For anyone looking to find out what
emerging church is all about, this is the book to read. It exemplifies
the changes in methods for presenting the gospel that are happening,
however, it never clearly presents the gospel. Mr. Taylor tells us we
must remain orthodox and true to God, but what that means is wrapped up
in metaphors of birthing and incarnation that are unclear at points.
This is not a defense of emerging churches. However, it's mostly
accurate as a description of the emerging church.
Posted in Book Reviews, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts 6 Comments »
May 12, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Antony Flew's conversion from atheism to deism (via, in large part, Intelligent Design arguments) is, perhaps, old news.
When I finally got around to reading the latest issue of Phil Christi,
however (in which is printed the transcript of Flew's interview
with Gary Habermas), I discovered some choice morsels having to do with
unexpected topics. On the Establishment Clause, for example:
I must some time send you a copy of the final chapter of my latest and
presumably last book, in which I offer a syllabus and a program for moral
education in secular schools. This is relevant and important for both the
US and the UK. To the US because the Supreme Court has utterly misinterpreted
the clause in the Constitution about not establishing a religion: misunderstanding
it as imposing a ban on all official reference to religion. (emphasis mine)
He also has a few things to say about Islam, among them this:
As for Islam, it is, I think, best described in a Marxian way as the
uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism. Between the New Testament
and the Qur’an there is (as it is customary to say when making such
comparisons) no comparison. Whereas markets can be found for books on reading
the Bible as literature, to read the Qur’an is a penance rather than
a pleasure. There is no order or development in its subject matter. All the
chapters (the suras) are arranged in order of their length, with the longest
at the beginning. However, since the Qur’an consists in a collection
of bits and pieces of putative revelation delivered to the prophet Mohammad
by the Archangel Gabriel in classical Arab on many separate but unknown occasions,
it is difficult to suggest any superior principle of organization.
One point about the editing of the Qur’an is rarely made although it
would appear to be of very substantial theological significance. For every
sura is prefaced by the words “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate.” Yet there are references to Hell on at least 255 of
the 669 pages of Arberry’s rendering of the Qur’an and quite often
pages have two such references.
Whereas St. Paul, who was the chief contributor to the New Testament,
knew all the three relevant languages and obviously possessed a first class
philosophical mind, the Prophet, though gifted in the arts of persuasion and
clearly a considerable military leader, was both doubtfully literate and certainly
ill-informed about the contents of the Old Testament and about several matters
of which God, if not even the least informed of the Prophet’s contemporaries,
must have been cognizant.
This raises the possibility of what my philosophical contemporaries
in the heyday of Gilbert Ryle would have described as a knock-down falsification
of Islam: something which is most certainly not possible in the case of Christianity.
If I do eventually produce such a paper it will obviously have to be published
anonymously.
Let's hope that Flew eventually does come around to a
full-fledged theism, revelation and all; having a mind like his on the
side of truth would be quite a boon.
Posted in Apologetics, Main Page, Philosophy, Politics, Religion (General), Science 1 Comment »
May 11, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Google, as some of you may remember, has shown itself to be somewhat arbitrary in its advertising decisions (banning, for example, one of Stand to Reason's ads on the basis of “hate speech” accusations). Now, it appears, the advertising dept. has struck again. (The tone of this last piece is a bit breathless, but the beef seems legitimate.)
(sigh) From a company that will soon be taking over the world, I would expect a little more consistency.
Posted in Main Page, Politics No Comments »
May 11, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Once a month a bunch of us gather for an evening of “intellectual fellowship.” What's that? It's just having dinner together and talking. Every month we select a different topic to engage. This Friday, in light of the Emerging Conference at Biola earlier in the day, our topic will be the Emerging Church. You are invited to join us at 6:30 pm at Hannibal's house in Paramount, Ca. You must RSVP to come, so we make sure we have enough food. You may do so by emailing me at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts No Comments »
The discussion with Brian McLaren on Andrew Jones's blog yesterday revolved around the message of the gospel. McLaren asked the question, “Is the gospel primarily information on how to avoid hell?”
One comment by “Joe” states, “To most broken people, good news does not involve telling them how to avoid hell. It involves loving them, building them up, caring for them. And in our instant 24/7 electronic society, the neat 'sign here to avoid hell' package might suit a pomo church, but it goes no distance to dealing with people's hurts.”
Is this true? The answer depends on this question: what is the central hurt that God wants to deal with? If our biggest hurt is poverty, pain, and a need for love from others then it would make sense that the central message of the gospel is a call for us to respond to these types of needs in the hurting world around us. As Brian McLaren explained on Jordon Cooper's blog, “We need to rethink the message of Jesus and the apostles in terms of the kingdom of God–which is God's will being done on earth, and not be so preoccupied with the issue of hell.” He further says that we have “somewhere become preoccupied with getting individual souls out of hell after death, and [have] too often lost a sense of God's continuing love for all creation in this life–in other words, we [have] substituted something else for the gospel of the kingdom of God, which was at the heart of Jesus' message.”
So what is at the heart of Jesus' message? What is the greatest hurt of humanity that God is trying to remedy? We know from 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 that the thing that is of “first importance” in the gospel is the death of Jesus for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection. Paul again pinpoints his central mission in 2 Timothy 2:10 when he says, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” He even goes so far as to focus on our future reward as a “trustworthy statement” to back up his focus on bringing others to salvation: “For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him.”
This is the focus of Paul's ministry because it is the focus of God's ministry: “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). This is it–the heart of the “good news.” This is what God has committed to us. The greatest hurt of humanity is our separation from God because of our sin. Our ministry must be a “ministry of reconciliation,” focusing on bringing to others the knowledge of the availability of this reconciliation–of the “confidence we have through Christ toward God” (3:4-11) because of the forgiveness of our sins and the receiving of true righteousness in Him through His death, burial, and resurrection.
Out of this central purpose of the gospel, love and care for the world will flow from changed hearts. These actions are not the heart of the gospel, but rather, they are servants of the gospel. In 6:1-10, Paul calls us to purity, patience, kindness, and genuine love for the purpose of “commending ourselves as servants of God” (v. 4) so that the central ministry of reconciliation will not be discredited (v. 3). The good works pave the way for the good news and they inevitably accompany the good news, but they are not the core of the good news in and of themselves.
Let us bring glory to God by doing His will, let us love and serve Him and His creation with all our might, but let us not forget the ministry that He has committed to us. The conclusion of 2 Corinthians 5 must be at the center of our cry to the world: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Posted in Amy's Posts, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Theology 12 Comments »
For those of you following the Emergent conversation, I just came across this bit of humor on an Emergent blog. Hilarious! Be sure to read the comments.
Posted in Amy's Posts, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page 1 Comment »
May 10, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Last weekend the Library of Congress hosted a conference sponsored by BYU entitled “The Words of Joseph Smith.”
“Recognizing Joseph Smith's bicentennial, the conference examined his
historical, religious, social, and theological contributions.”
Participating in the conference were a good number of the most
prominent Mormon and non-Mormon scholars.
LDS.org
will be posting the audio and video of five of the main sessions
this week. Unfortunately, it appears they'll only be archiving some of
the Mormon presenters. I was hoping to watch Dr. Mouw, Jan Shipps, and
a few others.
Fortunately, Dr. Mouw has graciously passed along a transcript of his presentation.
For what it's worth, I think he has some good things to say in this
address. I'm a bit uncomfortable with some of the lines at the end, but
overall I appreciate Dr. Mouw's contribution.
Posted in Main Page, Mormonism, Religion (General), Roger's Posts 2 Comments »
May 9, 2005 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger Overton
Name: Roger Overton
Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com
Site: http://ateamblog.com
About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
Today is hell day. At least it is for those interested in chatting with Brian McLaren. The main topic of is latest book, The Last Word and the Word After That, is hell. Today he kicked off an international book tour hitting up a round of blogs and interacting with readers. Each blog has a slightly different format and focus, but all revolving around hell. For anyone interested in understanding emerging church these are a good series of blogs to read. I'm bugged by the fact that Mr. McLaren is only visiting emerging church blogs, but at least they're not censoring critics from commenting.
Tall Skinny Kiwi
Jordon Cooper's Blog
Jen Lemen's Blog
Dwight Friesen's Blog
paradoxology
pomomusings
This Friday Biola University will be holding an Emerging Church conference. If you wanted to go but forgot to sign up, I'm sorry to tell you, it's sold out. But don't worry- The A-Team will be there! Each of us will be covering a different topic and blogging on it. I'm not sure if that's called liveblogging or not, but hopefully it will be almost as good as being there. 
Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology No Comments »
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