2008: Behind and Beyond
By Brian McLaren |
| |
 (0)
|
|
| |
Next-Wave launched ten years ago, and so did a number of other interrelated endeavors.
1998 was the year of the National Re-Evaluation Forum in Glorieta in New Mexico, sponsored by the then-existent Young Leader Networks track of Leadership Network. That gathering was my introduction to what has now come to be known as “the emerging church” or “the emergent conversation.” It was my initial face-to-face meeting with Doug Pagitt, Sally Morgenthaler, Andrew Jones, Chris Seay, Ron Johnson, Dieter Zander, and many others who have since become dear friends.
I was especially glad to be part of that event because my writing career was also launched in 1998 with the release of Reinventing Your Church, a title I didn’t like, accompanied by a cover I liked even less. The title and cover were eventually euthanized, mercifully resurrected with my original title, The Church on the Other Side. The title naturally raised the question, “The other side of what?” The answer: the postmodern transition, a term that had up to that point been used by only a few brave souls like Leonard Sweet; the Glorieta gathering helped put all things postmodern on the map for the church in the United States.
I remember the wonderful feeling of walking around that little duck pond in Glorieta, deep in conversation with one new friend after another: Wow! I’m not the only person thinking about this stuff after all! There are other people raising these questions, seeing these problems and possibilities, exploring new ways of being Christians and leading churches in the midst of this transition.
Something’s going on here!
In The New Christians (Jossey-Bass), to be released later this year, Tony Jones recounts in more detail both that event and what has unfolded since. Three things strike me now, looking back over this amazing decade: first, how much has happened; second, how much faster it has happened than any of us expected, and third, how widespread and big the happening is.
The fact was, what many of felt we were discovering for the first time in 1998 in the US was actually part of something that had been going on for some time around the globe. In the UK, for example, through the alternative worship movement, through the work of people like Dave Tomlinson and Jonny Baker, through the annual gathering at Greenbelt, many Christians in the UK were far ahead of us. So were folks in New Zealand in networks that often traced back to Mark Pierson and Steve Taylor, in Australia in networks that often traced back to Fuzz and Carolyn Kitto and Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch, in South Africa in networks that often traced back to Graeme Codrington and John Benn, and in Canada in networks that often traced back to Alan Roxburgh and Karen Neudorf.
And there were Christians far ahead of us in Latin America and Africa too. The work of Rene Padilla had helped inspire the Latin American Theological Fraternity to fresh and radical thinking about the church and mission in today’s world, which in turn sparked the development of La Red del Camino. In Africa, in the years since then, amahoro-africa.org has linked together previously unlinked African voices who were on a parallel journey, engaging a world described more aptly as postcolonial rather than postmodern.
At first, here in the U.S., the conversation was almost exclusively Evangelical and Charismatic, which meant it was dominated by white males. Soon, though, more and more mainline Protestant leaders became involved, a higher percentage of whom were female. Asian-American Christians naturally seemed to “get” postmodernism, living as they did in multiple subcultures and seeing the West as outsiders as well as insiders. Many young Latino leaders similarly “got” what we were about and proved to be much farther along than many of us who been reared in greater degrees of captivity to the American-Evangelical subculture. Eventually we began hearing from African American leaders too … usually younger leaders who felt they didn’t fit in with their religious communities either – communities which seemed to be either longing nostalgically for the Civil Rights era or celebrating enthusiastically the Prosperity Gospel.
Put all of this together, and you have an amazing decade. I recently summarized some of my reflections like this [from brianmclaren.net]:
… I think we need to acknowledge that something big is going on, bigger than any one group or movement or label. It’s like a root that’s growing under a sidewalk, slowly, silently raising the slab of the status quo and cracking it so that new things can emerge. It’s happening in diverse ways in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. It’s happening among mainline churches and Evangelical churches, liberals and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics; it’s happening among anglo, latino, black, asian and Native American churches. None of us owns it; none of us leads or controls it; none of us even fully grasps what it is yet. But I believe it’s the beginnings of an awakening and movement of the Holy Spirit. Whether it will be welcomed so it can have free course, or rebuffed or distorted or otherwise aborted … that in many ways depends on us. Pride, greed, fear, reactivity, and self-indulgence will pollute and destroy it; humility, generosity, faith, wisdom, and self-control will let it run free. My constant prayer these days is, “Lord, let it come. Let it begin and flow through me.”
Assessing where things are now, I think of a white light that passes through a prism to show that it contains a range of different colors – red, orange, and yellow to green, blue, indigo, and violet. Similarly, the prism of this decade has manifested a lot of diversity. There have been numbers of denominational networks forming – for Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and others. Groups like the New Monasticism are playing an increasingly important role – distinctive, yet connected. Some of us have been especially focused on church structure or theology or biblical studies, while others have concentrated on church planting and evangelism, while others have felt called to matters of spiritual formation or worship, and still others toward social justice or interreligious dialogue.
A review like this wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the often intelligent, often deserved, and sometimes hysterical critique that has followed each new development. Looking back over church history, we can recall how religious leaders have too often resorted to imprisonment, torture, and even murder to restrain the kind of fresh thinking that has been part of this ten-year conversation. We can thank God – and our critics too – that so far anyway, while much ink has been spilled, no blood has.
Thinking of the critics, I recall a conversation I had not too long ago in a Mexican restaurant somewhere in California with Spencer Burke, an important voice and, through theooze.com, an important enabler of many other voices. One of the most important things that has happened over recent years, he said, is that the intimidation barrier has been broken. People have started saying things and writing things and asking questions and voicing concerns they were holding inside but had been afraid to make public for fear of criticism. But once a few people speak up anyway and survive, the intimidation barrier is broken. And once that barrier is broken, Spencer wondered aloud, what kinds of new creativity will be unleashed?
I thank God for all the courageous people who have not let the fear of criticism intimidate them into silence – names too many to mention, many names I wouldn’t even recognize, but important names every one. And I’m even more grateful to God for the joy of creativity that is being released in so many – as young and old see visions, as women and men hear and speak what God is saying to them. People are seeking to live and walk in the Holy Spirit, discovering the amazing treasures that have been hidden in Christ, in the gospel, and in the Scriptures all along but which many of us were well-trained to miss. It’s an exciting time, and I’m glad to be alive in 2008, following the way of Jesus.
One final thought on this year. Some of us are old enough to remember 1968. I was twelve that year. I remember when Dr. King was killed in April and riots broke out. Then in May, the peace movement turned bloody as four student protesters were shot by the national guard in Ohio. Then in June, Bobby Kennedy was killed. I remember feeling that I was coming of age in a world whose wheels were falling off. In 2007 I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Virgil Wood, who worked with Dr. King in the civil rights movement. He commented that 2008 marks 40 years since that fateful year, and that biblically, 40 years marks a generation. Maybe, he said, it’s time for us to end our wandering in the wilderness and seize the dream of freedom and dignity that Dr. King and others invited us to dream.
And that, I think, is a great place to end this retrospective. I’ve been reading Galatians chapter 5 lately, pondering Paul’s invitation to use our freedom not for self-indulgence but to serve others in love. Hard-won freedom can be easily lost, Paul warned – by indulging our darker drives, by biting and devouring each other, by becoming conceited or envious or otherwise “flesh-driven.” But freedom can open us up to the only thing that really matters, according to Paul: faith expressing itself through love.
Next-Wave has been one of the important websites providing resources and safe space for conversation over these ten years. I know that thousands will join me in thanking Next-Wave – its organizers (especially Charlie Wear) and its many contributors – for helping what wants and needs to emerge in and through us to do so, to the glory of God, for the blessing of the church, and for the common good of the world.
 Brian McLaren (pictured with his family) is an author, pastor, and speaker. |
| |
|
(0)
|
|
|
NO COMMENTS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THIS ARTICLE