Category Archives: emerging church

Changing the world by relationship…

Posted on by
Reply

I read this today via the Emergent Village ‘Minimergent’ bulletin…

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don’t need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change.

Read entire article at Faith Collaboratory by clicking the names below.

Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze

The article make interesting reading as it was written a few years ago (2006) when the language of ’emergence’ was still fresh and exciting. We are part of a different time now. The article suggested an emerging process that goes something like this-

Berkana has developed a four stage model that catalyzes connections as the means to achieve global level change: Name, Connect, Nourish, Illuminate (see Appendix). We focus on discovering pioneering efforts and naming them as such. We then connect these efforts to other similar work globally. We nourish this network in many ways, but most essentially through creating opportunities for learning and sharing experiences and shifting into communities of practice. We also illuminate these pioneering efforts so that many more people will learn from them.

The article then suggested that the next stage would for communities of practice to develop an proliferate.

Is this what is happening?

Well- I think so…

 

Church in the margins- gender and leadership…

Posted on by
1

There has been some discussion over on Jonny’s blog about that old issue of gender in leadership. It seemed to rage over two different book reviews- here and here– both of which were on new forms of church, and both of which were overwhelmingly male in authorship and involvement.

Some of the comments have been very pointed and it is quite likely that some people have been left feeling sore by the whole thing. I know that blogging can easily result in these kind of ego rattling discussions, but to be honest, I have never liked them. It is like watching a slowly unfolding car accident- compelling, but at the same time unpleasant.

Not that the issues do not need to be aired.

Particularly when it concerns the marginalisation of female voices within the discussions about what church is becoming. The kind of marginalisation that stands in a long line of similar suppression of female voices throughout church history.

I have my own particular perspective on these issues, as we all do. Our small group has no leaders- in the formal sense that is. Different people take (or are given) control at different times however. I also meet with another Bible study/prayer group, in which I am usually the only man.

In both of these gatherings, leadership, as far as it exists, is best understood in terms of hospitality. And in this, we do have a leader- and she is the one who organises, invites, disseminates information, provides tea and a listening ear. This kind of leadership is so much more than being the host of a dinner party- it is faciliative, releasing and creative in the way that it makes people feel safe, included and part of something. It is both the object and the means by which we become church.

Perhaps you could say that this is what female leadership looks like. And if so, it seems to me to be the kind of leadership that is needed within our new forms of church more than any other.

Women might be better at this kind of leadership than men (or rather some women might be better than some men, with the percentage balance towards the women) but let us be honest- we can all get it so wrong.  And this is often revealed in how we use personal power as much as how we display public leadership.

I am no longer easily ‘led’ by anyone- male or female- but I hope I am an easy companion as we walk side by side. And when I see power being used to overcome, overwhelm, overpower- particularly when this is done callously and with scant regard to the damage being done- then our ways will diverge.

So for me, the new forms of church that are emerging have an opportunity to correct some of the public leadership gender imbalance- and this seems to me to be a great thing. But despite the fact that I am a straight, white male, I am going to risk saying this-

There are more important things.

“Why do men no longer go to church?”

Posted on by
4

‘Beyond Belief’ on radio 4 asked this question today, quoting statistics that would suggest that 35% of the male members of congregations have stopped attending in the last 10 years. It is well worth a listen – here.

And as I confessed in my most recent post- I am one of them- at least as far as Sunday attendance at traditional church services goes.

This despite the continued male-domination of the religious machine, and the historic misogynistic flavour of many of our religious traditions (at odds with the way Jesus turned the tables on gender stereotypes.)

The questions I have often heard asked are-

What is about church that alienates men- even more so than women?

What is it about male spirituality that is no longer catered for within church?

How are healthy, holy versions of masculinity affirmed and modeled within church?

The spirituality of Jesus and his band of (male) disciples was one that tended to use words like these-

Risk taking,courage, self sacrifice, togetherness, adventure, mission, journey, loyalty, faithfulness in the long haul, friendship. ‘Taking a prophetic stance in order to change the world.’

The stories of the new men of the New Kingdom are full of tales of men fishing together. Learning and debating on the road. Living out practical God stuff in the presence of real human tragedy and ecstasy. The shadow of death and love of life in the middle of dangerousness.

What people like me have been forced to acknowledge is that our experience of church is often not like this at all.

We seem to have reduced spiritual practice to a very narrow band- as someone said on the programme- ‘Everything fixed by reading the Bible more and praying more.’ The problem is above all a moral one, and the answer to the problem easily results in  living more narrow, less colourful lives- less connected, less rounded, less real.

.

So- what is the answer?

There were stories of wilderness retreats on the programme, which is something we have been experimenting with for a few years too (here and here for example.) Dorothy recently sent me some information about a course being run at The Bield doing similar things too- along the lines of the Richard Rohr ‘Rites of Passage’ material.

The chance for us to go off on these kind of defined pilgrimages can be wonderful.

I have a mixed feeling about  male-only courses though. Some of this may relate to my own lack of clarity over what it means to be ‘masculine’- and what of my masculinity is praise worthy, positive and to be preserved.

I also am slightly suspicious of some of the language- the ‘warrior’ stuff, and the idea that at the heart of every man beats the heart of a hunter. I am not sure I ever want to fight or kill anything or any one- even in metaphor.

Richard Rohr describes his encounters with groups of nuclear scientists like this- “They don’t have a language to talk about faith.  They can’t discuss things, the chaplain says, unless they are objectified and given a law, order and structure.  But the language of inner states, inner movements, inner awareness, and inner consciousness is foreign to them.” I know men who are just like this- and many others who are entirely UNLIKE this.

I also strongly feel that male spirituality is substantively just the same as any other kind of spirituality. And I am not convinced that the answer to men leaving church is just to make what we already do more ‘butch’- tone down the love stuff and make it all less touchy-feely. As if women are not leaving church too.

Faith without works is dead- but ‘works’ without an inner awareness will almost always lead to damage- both to our self and to others. We need to be active and vital in how we live lives, but we also need to discover those soft supposedly feminine attributes and stop pretending that we can live like stones.

a final thought- I have come to believe that the obsession with getting men (and women) to come to church is entirely the wrong emphasis- rather we need to discover new/old ways to take church to them.

New/old ways to live out the mission of God in our context, and to learn to share this in community.

New/old ways to live authentic real lives.

And at the end of each day, new/old jokes to share around a fireside.

 

 

Humanity reshapes itself, so another little think about church…

Posted on by
Reply

I do not usually repost anything from Jonny Bakers blog- despite being a very frequent visitor- simply because I always assume that most of you have also already read it! However, I will make an exception today as he pointed (via Steve Collins) to an article about ‘Curated Membership Communities.’

Jonny’s interest in curation as applied to worship was the subject of his recent book, that takes a journey through communities whose experiments with worship have interesting parallels with how art might be shaped, curated and displayed.

But I am more interested in what implications these apparent changes in dominant social entrepreneurial groupings might have for church. That is, church in the broadest sense.

I liked this from the article-

even in a world of immensely powerful social technology, shared experience is what drives us to care about and contribute to others. As the social graph has come online, we’ve been able to keep better track not only of our friends, but all the amazing people we haven’t met yet. The explosion of curated membership communities is an attempt to create the shared experiences which bring us into contact with those people, giving us access to the amazing world which we can see, if not fully yet grasp.

We have become used to discussions about post modern society, shaken loose from the ordered structure of modernity by the coming of a new communication revolution, and perhaps characterised above all be individualism. It has been a regular theme on this blog too- as have my own grapplings with the feeling that I have that we post moderns still crave connection. And this has to be collectivised in some way beyond what might be possible on a computer screen because this is simply not enough- it is not human enough.

It has not been clear up till now what might replace our empty social clubs, community centres and (of course) churches. What might come to facilitate our shared journeys of faith? What channels might the Spirit of God find in which to travel through and in our society?

We have tried so hard to force some kind of solution- both to try to preserve the old, and also to convince ourselves that there is a methodological answer to evangelism in this new context. It is almost as if we forgot that we are followers of Jesus into culture, not his advance guard.

Meanwhile, it seems that the humanity shaped petri dish may indeed be producing some new organic shapes and formations.

Which brings us back to this idea of the ‘Curated Membership Community’. Here are a few thoughts that occur to me in relation to church-

  • Leadership- curation implies facilitation, encouragement, hospitality, nurturing and a celebration of creativity. It is far less interested in management, or hierarchical structure, or hard measurable outcomes. This sounds remarkably similar to the church-I-would-love-to-be-part-of.
  • Membership- this is an interesting concept.’ Belonging’ in this new context seems to come through friendship, aspiration, inspiration from those who have pioneered new ideas, and to be more driven by ethos than specific tasks. Membership is fluid, flexible, and might also be fairly shortlived, as streams of connection merge and cross-fertilise.
  • These new groupings are perhaps a re-invention of the idea that our collectives are more than just the sum of individual one to one relationships- rather that there is also an aspect of human character that emerges when we are part of something larger- when we share our hopes, passions and values, and when these things allow us to flow together- not as our primary purpose, but rather as a natural consequence of our togetherness.
  • The emphasis then is in the creation of ‘social capital’- “The benefits of participation tend to come in the form of the members sharing their extended network of skills, connections, and other resources with one another. In other words, it is other members more than the organizer or curator who provide value to each other.” So rather than becoming passive consumers of religious product, we might be learning to become co-conspirators with one another to discover and celebrate for ourselves, and in the process of doing this, carry each other forward.

None of this is really new thinking- it has been the very substance of the ’emerging conversation’ as we have called it- but what is more interested is how these ideas are playing out in the wider world- perhaps in particular in the commercial world, sick to death of megalithic faceless conglomerates, and looking for something on the human scale that they can once again believe in, and share with their friends.

What was on the edge, is becoming part of the mainstream.

Hmmmmm….

Letting some air out of pneumatic church…

Posted on by
Reply

This afternoon some of the Aoradh crowd met up with Peter and Dorothy Neilson for a chat.

Peter and Dorothy are the parents of one of the Aoradh crew- Pauline B, and apart from just the pleasure of sharing a long cup of tea, it was great to talk of church- what is, what has been and what might be to come.

Peter is particularly well qualified to talk of these things as he was the convener of the Church of Scotland’s ‘Church without walls’ report. At present, he divides his time between Church consultancy work, running retreats with Dorothy, and no doubt a hundred other things.

Today we discussed the story of Aoradh and Peter was able to talk of how our development fits into a wider experience of faith inside/outside church in Scotland. Some of this we knew about, but a lot we did not. Scotland is a small place (in terms of numbers of people,) but as we have discussed before, we are not well networked.

For instance, he talked about his involvement with Coracle in Edinburgh, who are doing some interesting things.

Peter also used a phrase that made me smile- suggesting that Church in the past had tended to be Pneumatic- it sucked you in, then sucked you dry.

He was of the opinion that the development of small communities who live out faith through small ritual and celebration may well be part of the future of church.

And in so doing, we might let go some of the need to suck- and remember also to breathe out…

Banksy- ‘Exit through the gift shop’…

Posted on by
Reply

We have just watched this film.

Telling the story of a ‘film maker’ Thierry Guetta, who seeks out street artist and international man of mystery- Banksy. He starts out obsessively videotaping the embryonic graffiti/street art movement, as it moves from the fringe into the studios and art galleries. Then decides he want a piece of the action, reinventing himself as Mr Brainwash, and staging a hugely successful art show in Los Angeles.

That is- he might have done.

Because as you watch the film, you find yourself asking again and again ‘Is this for real?’

Or is this film a statement of how a counter cultural art movement became adopted by the mainstream, commercialised and then loses its authenticity? A ‘prankumentary’?

How it sold out, just like Punk and Pop Art had done before it?

And given all the parallels between installation art and emerging/alternative worship (check out Jonny Baker’s book ‘Curating Worship‘) I found myself thinking about how movements erupt, flow, channel and then cool to carvable, portable stone.

And how the early proponents of the movement- pioneers and radicals as they are- become disenchanted and there is talk of ‘pirates’ and the end of it all.

But as Banksy says about Mr Brain Wash- ‘I felt that he was not playing by the rules, but then, there were no rules.’

So- exit through the gift shop.

Or perhaps change the game.

Because it is truth that will set you free, and the media is NOT the message.

Or is it?

The State of Emergence, 2011…

Posted on by
1

Just read this post by Jonathan Brink the Emergent Village website.

I hesitated to repost it here- although this thing called ’emerging church’ continues to be a vital one for me- and the theme of many previous posts. The hesitation was because the blogosphere has been over populated with emerging church obituaries. Some of them have been provocative, others gleefull. Most have been premature, and driven by a particular agenda.

Some too have been a natural consequence of the cooling of pioneer activism, and the breaking apart of fragile allegiances between some of the early adopters in the USA. These relationships were always likely to be tested, given the characteristics of prophetic pioneers.

But having said all that, Emergent Village- and it is always worth remembering that they are not, and have never claimed to be the voice of ’emerging church’- provides an important, if USA centric, perspective on the conversation.

I liked some of what Brink had to say- firstly on community-

If 2010 marked anything, it was the growing awareness that following in the footsteps of Jesus and gathering together in community is hard. People were tired of talking about it and just wanted to do it. Bradley pins the death of the emerging church to this awareness. Rob Bell, arguably one of the more important but undeclared voices in the emerging church recognized that he had become that big Mega-church. What was once cool had now become mainstream. And in losing its luster, the real work of ministry began to emerge.

And finally- on love-

The emerging church isn’t dead. It’s just finally wrestled with the angel and won. It’s shedding it old image, the one that got people so riled up in the first place. The conversations won’t ever go away because in the end, we’re looking for what it means to be human. We’re looking to discover the reality that Jesus was trying to present, one of infinite grace and beauty, stark reality of the kingdom of God in our midst, and a renewed sense of possibility for the restoration of the world.

Here’s to 2011 and a renewed sense of faith, hope and love. Because the greatest of these is love.

When it is all said and done, the labels are meaningless, unless they become a conduit for the Spirit.

For me, this conversation has been just that.

But man can not live on conversation alone- there are also the dishes to be done and the dirty business of learning to live out lives of love…

Blair and Hitchens debate religion…

Posted on by
Reply

I have just listened to the debate on religion on radio 4 between Tony Blair (convert to Catholicism, former prime minister, invader of Iraq, possible war criminal) and Christopher Hitchens (writer, journalist, atheist, cancer sufferer).

They debated the proposition that ‘religion is a force for good in the world‘- you can listen again here.

I found myself in agreement with much of what Hichens had to say. He was witty, erudite and thoughtful.

Hitchens described faiths’ view of mankind as-

“…victims of a cruel experiment, in which we are created sick and then ordered to be well. Over us, to supervise is installed a dictatorship- a kind of celestial North Korea… But there is a cure- salvation at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.”

Blair was Blair- earnest, persuasive, but at the same time repetitive, on message, but a message that is degraded by our recent shared history. He spoke of the good that faith pours into the world, and how bigoted fundamentalists exist both within and without our institutions of faith.

Hitchens won the debate hands down for me- but that was more because his moral authority and his intelligence won against Blair- who is yet to be re-invented by history as many politicians are in the years after power.

I was left to reflect on my own faith- which has had to find a place within the powerful critique that Hitchens uses, but somehow still survives- is stronger even.

I am not alone. Many of us who have grown up trying to reconcile the irreconcilable have found that if you let go of trying to hold together the absolute truths- to stop the desperate defence of positions on Biblical authority, atonement, sexual sin etc etc- then we rediscover the hope that God is bigger than all of that.

And we turn again to Jesus.

Sex, sin and the emerging church…

Posted on by
5

A deliberately provocative title, which I hope you will forgive me for.

I have been thinking about sin. This was brought home to me recently when watching the BBC programme ‘The Big Silence’, in which this statement was made-

If you have not got a pure heart, you can not see/hear God.

There is a debate as to whether this is true, and whether any of us can ever lay claim to purity of heart- but the issue has nagged at me a little, and I have learnt to listen to this kind of nagging.

Because in all the discussions, books and  blogs about emerging church (in the broader sense of the term,) you do not see the word ‘sin’ used very much. Sure, it is there or there abouts in the debates about atonement and the nature of sexuality in particular, but the concept of holiness and purity as goals for life have largely been left behind. They belong to a different church movement, and between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is a respectful distance at best.

Perhaps this is because the emerging church discussion has largely started out as a reaction to the excesses of a certain kind of spirituality- it is in part revisionist and reformist, despite having sweeping influence in so many areas of church. So in rejecting fixed inflexible positions and seeking to open up possibilities for new encounters with God, and new connections with culture, the debates often assumed that participants had a common starting position- Evangelical, orthodox Christianity- with all it’s assumptions and fixed world view.

So, most of us were probably well versed in an awareness of our sinfulness, and the price paid, in terms of substitutionary atonement of Jesus. And also of how the process of maturity was one of becoming more holy- measured in terms of personal, private behaviour.

Evangelical Christianity regarded ‘the problem of sin’ as the centre of everything- and the mission of Church was to save people from the consequences of this sin. To be honest, in my experience, what happened when you had been ‘saved’ was a little more mixed. We assumed that we Christians will then be on a journey towards purity and holiness, where sins are ‘dealt with’ and we become more like Jesus.

Between you and me, this was not my experience- neither subjective nor observational. Church often became a place where external measures of maturity- such as length of time ‘on the road’ and ‘gifting’- was at odds with our real, private selves.

There was also the fact that we overemphasised the private, personal aspects of sin as opposed to other vital parts of the life of faith- serving others, working for peace and justice, living in community.

And finally there was the problem of sin-definition. Sex was right up there- particularly homosexual sex (incidentally, did anyone see this Jewish take on the issue that is causing such controversy? HT Graham Peacock) This kind of sin, along with others, depended on a particular view of Biblical authority, which has come under considerable challenge.

My contention is that as a result of these issues, the debates around what is emerging have tended to leave the issue of ‘sin’ to one side.

Anyway- back to the point of this piece. Any reading of the words of Jesus will have to acknowledge the centrality of the call to holiness- by which I mean an honest process of coming to terms with all the things within out motivations, our behaviour and our lifestyles that are not compatible with the life of Jesus within us.

And, in the old language, this sin becomes a wall separating us from God- in terms of our ability to hear from God, and to live in the flow of the Spirit in our lives. Sin does spiritual damage.

Given too that sin is a source of actual damage in our lives- to our external relationships with people and the world as well as to our inner development, then I wonder if we have let slip some important principles for life.

Our call it to be a holy nation (not a Holy Nation- if you get my drift.) In order to do this, we Christians walk a path with and towards and encounter with the Living God. And there is accountability for the way that we do this.

And if (like mine) your lives are cluttered with all sorts of things that you know they should not be- then this ought to be an issue for us all. It ought to be an issue for church- even Emerging church.

I have been thinking about how we might bring the issue of sin into the new context, and made a list of principles that made sense to me-

Focus on yourself– not other people.

Categorising other groups as sinful is a bad idea- for what ever reason.

Let those who are without sin throw stones- the rest is up to the voice of God in the life of individuals. Concentrate on listening to God, and for the rhythms of grace. Some people may need direction, but let them seek that for themselves when prompted by the Spirit.

Excluding people from your group because of sin is dangerous, and should only be an absolute last resort- where the alternative is damage to other individuals in the group, or to the group itself.

People are more important than policies.

Collective sin is possible- but again, apply this to your own group in humility.

I do not think God requires purity before he engages with us- rather he requires a contrite heart, and a desire to turn away from the stuff that we know it wrong.

Process is important- and ritual. The old practices of confession and deliberate corporate repentance.

Watch for the things that you hold secret. There may come a time to bring them into the open- in a trusted quiet place. But this requires great trust and security- and this is special, rather than ordinary.

Watch for the things that are tolerated in your community- the lessons of history teach us that in our collectives we easily accommodate to things that individually we might despise.

 

Ways of reading the Bible…

Posted on by
9

Some time ago, I posted some questions about how we understand and encounter the Bible. Someone asked me to post some answers to my questions, so I had a go at this here.

It has been quite a journey for me over the last few years- trying to come to terms with a faith that I no longer had faith in, and then discovering along the way that I was not alone, and that there were different ways to approach an understanding of God, and in particular, different ways to approach our primary source material on the life of faith- the Bible.

This process has been painful, and at times I have wondered whether my faith will survive. But the outcome has been one of renewal. The Spirit of God was once again stirring the waters…

The process of change has involved a period deconstruction- a doubting and shaking loose things that had previously seemed unassailable and absolute. This is the painful bit- when everything seems to go into freefall.

The ’emerging church conversation’- carried out largely through blogs and websites- seemed to me to be comfortable with unanswered questions. In fact after every truth and every tenet, we added a question mark.

But then there comes a time when something new starts to emerge and it is time to construct again. It feels to me that this is where we currently stand. We do not need bombastic pronunciations or new religious structures- rather it feels that our heads have come out of the clouds, and we can see further.

Along the way, I have found Brian McLaren’s writing to be a life giving. I know others have a different experience- for some his style can drag, for others his aim is too low brow, as the are more used to the theological arguments than I am- but he has taken me places that I had not dared to go alone.

(Photo taken in a semi-ruined abandoned croft house on the island of Bernera, off Lewis, Western isles. A family bible left open above an empty fire place…)

In reading his new book (slowly and in small chunks) I came across a study guide he had written, which focussed on different ways of reading scripture, and found it so helpful that I wanted to give it a plug.

You can download it here.

But here are a few highlights-

We have been shaken loose from our previous ways of reading the Bible- the ‘modern’ way- which seemed to be all about using the text as a blueprint so that we can categorise and systematise faith. McLaren compares this to the ways that the Americans use their constitution- where each word is given equal legal weight, and is enforceable in a way divorced from emotion or wider ethical considerations.

But having shaken loose- what other ways of reading the Bible are left?

McLaren lists 14 possible ways of encountering Scripture-

  1. Narrative reading- where we get into the story, the context and history from which the words emerge from.

  2. Converstional reading- where we engage with the different conversations across the generations embraced in the Bible- for example Jesus with the religious powers of his day, the Priests and the Prophets, the Jews and the Gentiles.

  3. Missional reading- in which we ask we ask, in each passage of Scripture, how is God extending God’s overarching mission of blessing all nations through a called and commissioned community of people.

  4. Political/Economic reading- the skew of God’s attention towards those who suffer injustice at the hands of earthly empire involving money, sexuality, power, violence, and law.

  5. Rhetorical reading- in which we look for what the text it trying to do, rather than just what it is saying.

  6. Literal reading- “…when readers of the Bible develop sensitivity to the ways poets, protesters, storytellers, activists, priests and mystics use language, the Bible is liberated from its constitutional captivity to be the wild, inspired, and impassioned collection of literary artifacts that it is.” McLaren suggests that people who say they are taking the words literally often are doing the very opposite- approaching the test through a very narrow hermeneutic.

  7. Close reading- better readings of scripture will fit in with the small details of the narrative- the bits that we easily miss that the writer chose to include in the text, which is rich in culture and traditions that we easily miss.

  8. Communal reading- the Bible is complex and hard, and the only way we can really engage with it is through the broader community- firstly in terms of “the community of the dead” where we listen respectfully to how previous generations have understood scripture, whilst understanding their skew towards a western, wealthy, white, male perspective. Secondly we look for the voices of minorities- those who have been forced to the margins. It is not ONE perspective, but rather both/and.

  9. Recursive reading- understanding of the Bible, and emphases within it change, ebb and flow across generations, and within lifetimes. This might be one of the ways that the Holy Spirit brings renewal.

  10. Ethical reading- text applied without ethics have allowed our faith to justify slavery, genocide, anti-Semitism, oppression of women and gay people- therefore we have to accept that interpretation is a MORAL ACT, so we should test an interpretation by reason and scholarship,using our rational intelligence, and a sense of justice and ethics. How might I treat people if I follow this interpretation? Whom might I harm? What unintended socialconsequences can we predict if this interpretation is widely embraced? Could people be vilified, harmed, or even killed because of this interpretation? McLaren points to those in Scripture who have wrestled with God in the face of his seeming injustice… Job, Moses, Abraham.

  11. Personal reading- “the reader is himself or herself in the predicament the text addresses. So faithful readings are habitually humble, expectant, open, and hungry and thirsty to encounter the Living God. Even the “professional” reader and teacher of the Bible must remain forever an “amateur” too …”

  12. Mystical reading- we must “…develop the habit of mystical openness, receptivity not only to understanding from the text but to enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, not only to interpretation but to revelation, not only to intelligent engagement with the text but also to personal abduction by its message.”

.

Finally McLaren points to one further reading, and makes clear that he believes this one to be the most controversial of his readings.

It is the one that might make people worry about the undermining of Biblical authority

Christo-focal reading

McLaren proposes that we no longer approach the Bible as a collection of words of equal weight- but rather that we approach all other words through those of Jesus.

He suggests we need to leave behind three old ways of reading the Bible that have perhaps dominated-

  1. Flat reading- where we see all Jesus’ life and words pressed down and flattened to the same level as those of Abraham, Moses,David, Isaiah, Paul, and Jude. This results in the raising of the Bible above Christ- which is a kind of idolatry. For example, it might be biblical to commit genocide by quoting Deuteronomy 7, but one could never claim it is Christ-like.
  2. Descending reading- where we start with an ideal state in Genesis, and then it all goes wrong, leading to a time when God is going to destroy everything, and Jesus is but a lifeboat for a few. Or the other decent comes from the fall too- “the problem is sin and the solution is law-keeping, with sacrifice-making as a back-up plan. The rest of the story descends from this high point, so that the life and ministry of Jesus have value to the degree that they solve the problem.”
  3. Ascending reading- “Moses’ teaching was good, David’s perspectives were better, Isaiah rosehigher still, John the Baptist ascended even higher, and Jesus was really wonderful andunique, but the crowning revelation comes with Paul and his writings.”

What McLaren proposes is something more radical- “When Jesus is the focal point of the story, he is the climax, the hero, the summit, the surprise, the shock, the revelation that gives all that precedes and all that follows profound and ultimate meaning. If we follow this approach, we’ll speak less about the Bible as the supreme Word of God and more about Jesus as the supreme Word of God. We’ll let the person of Jesus –including and integrating his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, abiding presence, and ongoing mission through the Holy Spirit – become the light in which all interpretations are evaluated, the key in which all interpretations are played, the leader behind which all interpretations arrange themselves as followers, and the meaning in which all interpretations have meaning.”

If we start to apply these ways of reading the Bible, how might our understandings change?

This my friends, is our work-in-progress…