By Tom Scott
Tom Scott, 27, who calls himself a "postmodern Christian", was born in Leicester, England, grew up in Peterborough, England and went to the Nazarene Theological College, University of Manchester. He spent a year studying English Literature in London before returning home to reconsider his degree choice. He then spent a year as a Christian Schools Worker on a volunteer basis with The CROPS Trust, Peterborough, England, which involved working trips to South Africa, Ecuador, Romania and the Ukraine. Tom currently lives in Ireland with his wife Nina and children. He works as a Special Needs Assistant in St. Anthony's Primary School, Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow, as well as running his own photography business called Scottvision (www.scottvision.ie). He can be reached at tomcscott@mac.com
European Christians need to learn to become culturally relevant? Why? Because although we could do well in embracing the current changes in the US regarding the nature of Christian communities, there is a real need to appreciate how any such change in Europe must reflect the indigenous population. A population so close, but so far apart from, that in the US requires a careful, intentional approach from those hoping to instigate something of the positive reformatory ideas currently growing in other parts of the globe, especially in the US.
Europeans have a love hate relationship with Americans. Many have been on holiday there, absorbed its media in all its forms, duplicated its fashions, consumed its style of food and so on. Many also ridicule the stereotypical picture of the overweight, overzealous, overstressed and, in a nutshell, over-the-top, American. Then, just for good measure, Europeans have ‘the Christian thing’ to add to the picture. This cuts a Deep South figure, funny accent, "turn or burn" theology, fundamentalist views, and, unfortunately at present, is embodied in the President of the entire country – the most powerful political figure in the world.
European Christians have a similar relationship with the US. The books, films, programmes, church-models, worship music – they all come primarily from the US, every month, every year since Evangelicalismi found its feet in the European context. This is a problem. As Europeans juggle their way through what they like and what they don’t like about American influences, the European Christian juggles also, but with the added ball of a particular brand of Christianity. The point is to ask questions as to how aware we are as European Christians that we are juggling at all. You see, when we take anything from the Christian ‘scene’ in the US and try to plug it into our churches and communities here in Europe we are taking teachings and songs and styles and influences that are being practiced in a specific time and a specific space.
Don’t get me wrong, some things transcend the differences that remain between cultures – just as indeed differences between European countries are transcended. The line of questioning explored here relates to how aware we are as European Christians and what issues our questioning will highlight. America is a very different place. Different to anywhere else. Just like any country. All countries have an image. All countries have an image problem. All countries continually define their image, every day, of every year. The American image is one of opportunity, safety, power and patriotism. The American image problem is a perception of arrogance, violence, greed, fear and corruption. At the moment the definition it is giving itself is doing little to promote a positive image and much to exacerbate the image problem.
The American Christian image is one of large, healthy and influential churches which are led by charismatic men. It's nice. The American Christian image problem is one of the born again, damnation driven, moralising, self-involved and hypocritical church-goer. Not so nice. America is a different place. An American Christian has a different profile. American churches are different. And that’s great! The fact that I am having to use the word different here is key. I’m having to use it because I am writing about a place that is … not here.
Here, by the way, is Europe. More specifically, its Ireland. As citizens of countries we all choose to adopt or deny certain values from other countries, other cultures … from those that are different from me, from us. As European Christians I think we are less discerning than the average citizen when it comes to the adoption of new, foreign ideals. As European Christians we take a book from the shelf, a recording through the post, a programme from the next-big-thing, and we live it – instantly. Without thinking about where something has come from, why it worked in certain places, who it helped in specific ways – we take it, snatch it, hold it as our own.
What are we dealing with here? The most recent Britney album, the latest style of Levi Strauss jeans, the newest iPod? No. Yet we treat the latest interpretation of Jesus’ teachings in the same way. You want purpose, here’s how. You want growth, here’s how. You want apple pie Jesus? (makes you warm and mushy inside), here’s how. Take it. Snatch it. Hold it as your own. This picture defines what things have been like since the upsurge of Evangelical activity from America into Europe over the last 30 years.
Things are changing. Changing for the better. The growth of the emergent conversation in the US since the start of the new Millennium is offering (but not giving definitively) something new to the Christian faith. It is practicing this in the US, with success and failure and praise and criticism. So, is this the next trend to copy? Take, snatch, hold – all over again? I don’t think it is. Yes, there is scope for this to happen. Yes, the fact that so many different bodies are aligning themselves with emergent thought does make the ground difficult to assess. Yes, there are more questions than answers (Amen?!).
But what matters here is the approach. Intentional, authentic, gracious, open, inclusive – you get the picture – and if this can be continued there could be much to gain for the European Christian and the communities they represent.If difference is now defining the Church, then difference can be embraced and translated across all borders.Those who seek to learn from their brothers and sisters can do so in unity but without denying who they really are.
Who we really are really matters. As soon as a person, or a group of people, feel that they cannot be who they really are (in the full sense of reality, of God) they are trading on something false. When we trade on something false, something that is not true, we are in a dangerous place – especially if we are exposing ourselves as Christians – especially if Christ is who we live to serve and embody. Think of a time when you really wanted something. You wanted it so bad. You dreamt about it. You had to have it. Then you got it. And you felt nothing.In fact, you felt worse than nothing, you felt empty. The thing that had been so important in your head was in fact very little in reality. The idea meant more than the actual object or possession.
We all do this. But what’s worse is that we all do this with ourselves. We seek to be a certain way, to adopt a particular trait, to achieve this, or succeed in that – and sometimes we get … there.And we feel … nothing. In fact, we feel worse than nothing, we feel empty.You see, when we look to the next programme, the next big thing, the next revolutionary idea, the next … the next … the next. When we do this we end up with a momentary emptiness and then we seek the next fill, asap.
Like fast food. We hunger for it. We consume it. It fills us up … for a while. Then we want some more. This is not God, this is fast food.The God of slow food. God is a God of slow food. The meal he has prepared for us all had taken time, it has a history, and it will continue to take time. And as with any appreciation of where we are today, where are heading tomorrow, we have to know where we were yesterday.
And yesterday here doesn’t just mean 24 hours ago. No, history here refers to the story we are all a part of, the grand-narrative, the over-arching reality of Creation, of God. Can you consume the Scriptures in one go? Can you wrestle the complexities of God in one sitting? Can you deal with the realities of Christian living through a shake in the morning, one for lunch and a proper meal in the evening?
No.No you cannot. You have to chew. And chew. And chew. Chewing transcends difference. Fast food is not available everywhere. But wherever there is food (which I think Jesus would hope is everywhere), there is chewing.
Wherever there is something joyful, loving, upsetting, something true - then there is chewing. There is the wrestling (steak), the doubting (muscles in garlic butter!), the celebration (phish food), the pain (indigestion). Chewing contradicts everything around us. Chewing takes time, helps us to digest, keeps our teeth sharp, helps us taste the flavours, keeps us quiet for a minute (!), it requires the food to be prepared for this experience, it is not cheap, easy or modified.
Fast food is cheap. It is wasteful. It pays poor wages. It is everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. It’s chewed, but chewing requires something of substance, not substandards. As I just said, chewing transcends difference. Listen. It really does.I can start talking to someone who doesn’t want to chew and immediately we’re in a situation where the meal will be short. Short on subject, short on time, short.
But you know, if I sit down with someone who wants to chew, something’s going to happen. It has to – we’re chewing.You can’t chew something and not have a reaction or a response. Does it taste good, does it taste bad? Does it fill you with passion, does it make you want to vomit? Chew, chew, chew – what are you getting? And sometimes this is uncomfortable – ever see a child spit out the chewed contents of their mouth onto their plate? Not pretty. But why did they do this?
Think of the relationships we value most. At some point I bet there was a spitting on the plate episode. You’d tried to chew something for so long but you just couldn’t do it any longer, and so, with the person you trust present, you spat it out. There is was. On the plate. Bare, ugly, chewed.
But how much better you felt! How you were joyful just because you had stopped trying to digest the indigestible and you had expelled what was harmfully within! You had trusted in someone and they had not run a mile. You had discovered something poisonous to your soul and you had been cleansed. And this was just one meal. What about the others? So much that is good, that is bad, that is ugly, that is painful, that is harmful – what are you getting? Mealtime.
The problem here is not the food, i.e. the realities of life, the problem here is the meal – the venue, the company, the menu.
If I were to set up a restaurant here in Ireland I’d have to think about some very specific details before opening up for business. Most important in all of this would be who I was seeking to serve. If no one around here is willing to travel to a certain place, eat a certain food, pay a certain price, then questions have to be asked, problems overcome, solutions found.
And it’s the same when we as Christians, American or European (or from anywhere else for that matter), seek to create environments for chewing. I shouldn’t ask an Irish person to consume the American way, no more than an Irish person should force an American to cut peat for the fire or drink Guinness (although it beats a Bud any day!).Now, maybe the Irish person is happy to consume the American way, and so they do. And maybe the American wants a pint of Guinness, great. They adopt this way and that is fine for them, so they continue.
But here we’re not primarily dealing with those that are already consuming a certain way, we are looking to those that are not yet at the table to experience mealtime. Mealtime is beautiful. Mealtime is social, is laughing, is crying, is sharing, is open, is generous, is hospitable, is spacious, is family, is opportunity to chew in delight of all the senses, all the time. This is a time for agenda to sleep and for the Spirit to unravel. This is hearts opening, trust building, reflection happening, mystery embracing, and all in the quest for the deepest levels of reality, for God.
For too long the problem has been of one foreign company, distributing one menu, no choice, no variety, no change. For too long mealtime has been controlled, from the preparation to the after dinner mint, everything has been strangled by institutional diets and the Christian penchant for blandness.
Nobody wants a food fight. Well, that’s not actually true, some people do. But not everyday, at every mealtime. What we’re talking about here is not just a free-for-all, its not about more unnecessary clearing up. The key here is getting creative in the kitchen.No, even better, both in the garden and the kitchen.
We all have this garden to go into and search, its called the history of God. But so few of us venture into this space, so few hunt its undergrowth, or climb its trees. But its there, all the time, through all time. And what we find here needs to be brought back to the kitchen, we cannot afford to just throw the things we find in the garden onto a plate and serve it up. The kitchen is key. It is in the kitchen that we find our instruments and our preparation for chewing to take place.
But you know what, people don’t just need to have their meal brought to them without knowing anything about it. This is going to have to be a special kitchen. In our local town there is a restaurant that serves many kinds of Asian food. For a price, you can request a special table in the restaurant where the chef cooks your food in front of you and you are a part of the preparation of the meal.
This is something like the mode of practice we need to adopt. We need to get those waiting for their food … into the kitchen. Hey, blow it! Once there in the kitchen, take them to the garden, show them where the produce came from. Let them know this is their garden, their kitchen, their mealtime too. But whatever you do, let them try everything as they feel compelled – its their choice, its their right under God (especially in the garden, right?!).
When you’re walking the garden guide them around. Everytime you go – I guarantee this will happen – you will see something new as well. And when you do, you too can bring it back to the kitchen with them, work something out together, experience it at mealtime in unity, beautiful. Maybe it’ll taste great. Maybe you’ll vomit. There’s only one way to find out. Chew.
While we’re on the subject of transcendent aspects of the Christian faith it would be helpful to consider what it is we can offer those around us. What is it that we can offer the materialist, the atheist, the fundamentalist, the disillusioned Christian? In 2004 the Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggemann set out 19 theses (or convictions that he had) in his address to those in the Emergent Theological Conversation event of that year.ii
A summary of his ideas may read something like this:
Everybody lives by a script, whether they are aware of it or not. This script is adopted as we grow in our respective cultures and sub-cultures. The script teaches us that what is most important is the technology we rely on, the therapeutic treatments we indulge in, the military means we rule by and the consumerist profile we seek to escape through.
It is Bruggemann’s argument that this script promises to make us safe and happy, and, that this script has failed. If we are to see progress in our societies this script needs to be given up, turned away from, in the pursuit of an alternative script. And who is responsible for introducing an alternative script? Those in ministry. It is their role to patiently unravel the old with the intent of introducing the new.
The alternative script is found in the Bible and is put into action through the action of the church. If authentic, this counter-script, or counter metanarrative, will offer something alternative to the self-satisfying script that the majority live by. The key character in this counter-script is the God of the Bible, who we name Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This counter-script is not one seamless account, but a ragged collection of divinely inspired accounts. As such, there are many who have argued and continue to argue in their pursuit of smoothing over the ragged tears, it is here that the main claims of the counter-script are missed and abused.
In denouncing the old script and seeking the new script a gulf is created between the two. In this gulf there are questions and uncertainties and doubt and courage. It is here in this gulf between the two scripts that faith is adopted and working together in the uncertainties of life should then define the Christian practice of Christian people who are empowered by the spirit. For it is in these uncertain environs that the spirit is needed, responds and is exalted to the glory of God.
My son has a book that he’s has since he was a baby. Its called ‘Yes. No.’ Its one of those small, hard paged children’s books that baby’s seem to like chewing. The content of the book is not complicated. Each page contains a word and an image, on the next page is the opposite. Yes, no, fast, slow, alive, dead, in, out, under, over, off, on, light, heavy, young, old, up, down, before, after. And that’s it, end of book.
If you ask a Christian what the opposite to a Christian is what will they say? A non-Christian, a secular person, a sinner … the damned?! Yet, is there such thing as someone who is opposite to a Christian? Opposed maybe, but opposite? Surely if we understand what God’s purposes are then we are looking at a very warped picture if we are trying to see differences between us and them, the saved and unsaved, the found and the lost.
One writer refers to ‘the lost’ when he’s recounting something he saw in Jesus doing.iii The lost. Traditionally this has been associated with those that have no direction. Lost. Yet there is something worse than not having a direction, isn’t there? Have you ever thought you knew where you were going only to find out that you were going the wrong way? Frustrating isn’t it?
That feeling, turning back on yourself, retracing your steps, setting out again. Its hard. Pride swallowing is hard. Drawing extra reserves of energy is hard. Being lost is one thing. Thinking you were in a certain place and finding out that you’re … lost, that’s quite another. The writer Luke gives an account of Jesus meeting a man called Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is straining to see Jesus through the crowd because he is short, so he climbs a tree. When Jesus sees him he calls him by his name and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house. Zacchaeus was very excited by this.
Now I think when Zacchaeus woke up that morning he thought he was in a certain place. I don’t think he thought of himself as being lost.Zacchaeus was a tax-collector – or sinner as everyone else referred to him! When Jesus went to visit him all the other people present were displeased. In the presence of Jesus Zacchaeus felt compelled to renounce his corrupted ways to date. What’s more he said that he’d give away half his wealth and repay anyone he has wronged four times the amount he conned out of them.
Jesus responds by announcing that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ home and tells everyone that he came to seek and save those who are lost. Save is such a great word – I think here ‘save you the hassle of living how you’re living’ would be appropriate! (Especially for a tax collector, brilliant!) But, at the end of this event, who is the lost Jesus refers to? Zacchaeus is no longer lost, why would Jesus need to mention it after seeing this change in the tax-collector’s life?
Let’s go back to those grumbling on the side-lines – the crowds who heard Jesus invite himself into Zacchaeus’ house. Do you think they were still hanging around? The self-righteous, waiting for a moment to seize, and prove, and be vindicated in their disapproving ways. Can you see it? The lost?
The tax-collector is not lost. He saw the tree, he ran ahead, he climbed the tree (committed hey), Jesus saw him, they spoke, they cleared a few things up, Jesus left. Ever have a relative do that trick on you, they point to your chest and ask ‘What’s that?’. You look down, ‘What?’. They flick your nose, ‘Gotcha!’. We’ve all had it done to us. We’ve all done it! Its too easy … isn’t it? Those that were crowding Jesus, those thought they knew where they were going, the sin spotters. What’s that? What? Gotcha!
The lost? Who, me? Surely not!
Notes
i For a concise but clear explanation on the difference between evangelicalism and Evangelicalism See McClaren, Brian D., A Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan 2005.
ii The full recordings from this event can be downloaded via the link at www.emergentvillage.com
His 19 theses, or convictions, were as follows:
1. Everybody lives by a script – implicit or explicit, recognised or unrecognised
2. All of us are scripted through the process of nurture, formation and socialisation
3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, theraputic, military, consumerism (TTMC) that socialises us all liberal and conservative
4. That script promises to make us safe and to make us happy
5. That script has failed. It cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy
6. Health for our society depends on disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of TTMC.
7. It is the task of ministry to descript that script [… more here]
8. The task of descripting, relinquishment and disenegagement is accomplished by a steady patient intentional articulation of an alternative script
9. The alternative script is routed in the Bible is enacted through the tradition of the church. It is an offer of a counter metanarrative, counter to that of TTMC
10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature its key character, the God of the Bible, who we name as Father, Son and Holy Spirit
11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional, or seemless, it is ragged and distjunctive and incoherent, partly because it has been crafted over time by committees (J, E, D and P!), and because the key character is illusive and irrasibile in freedom and in sovreignty and in hiddenness and, I’m embrarrased to say, in violence, which is a huge problem for us
12. The ragged, distjunctive and incoherent quality of the counter script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless because when we do that (systematic theology) it gets flattended and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of TTMC. Whereas the dominant script of TTMC is all about certitude, privelege and entitlement, this counter script is not about these things, thus care must be taken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irrasible self
13. The ragged disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel amongst themselves (liberals and conservatives) in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so to debilitate the force of the script
14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism, whereby we say in the old liturgies, ‘Do you now renounce the dominant script?’
15. The nurture, formation and socialisation into the counter-script with this illusive, irrasible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation and socialisation by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality and neighbouring of all kinds
16. Most of us are ambiguous about this script. Those with whom we minister, and those of us who minister, most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-scirpt. Most of us in the deep places are vascilating and mumbling in ambivalence
17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisiely the primary venue for the spirit, so that minsitry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that evokes resistance and hositility
18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is equally present among liberals and conservatives in generative, faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of old script and embrace of new script
19. The work of minsitry is crucial and pivotal and indepensible in our society precisely because there is no one, see if this is an overstatement, there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and to manage a way through it. The role of minstiry then is as urgent as it is wonderous and difficult.
iii Luke 19:1-10
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