Reflections on the Church in Transition

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L.D. Turner

Robin Meyer, in his book Saving Jesus From the Church, speaks clearly regarding the current situation of the church and its seeming inability or unwillingness to feed those very people who are so spiritually hungry.

There is a deep hunger for wisdom in our time, but the church offers up little more than sugary nostalgia with a dash of fear. There is a yearning for redemption, healing, and wholeness that is palpable, a shift in human consciousness that is widely recognized – except, it seems, in most churches.


Strangely, we have come to a moment in human history when the message of the Sermon on the Mount could indeed saves us, but it can no longer be heard above the din of dueling doctrines. Consider this: there is not a single word in that sermon about what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a propositional one. Yet three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became the official oath of Christendom, there was not a single word in it about what to do, only words about what to believe!

My friends, there is something wrong, drastically wrong, with this picture. Doctrine can do no more than guide our thoughts in one direction or another. It has no transformative power of its own, however. Today’s church is by and large an impotent institution and the sooner we get our minds around that salient fact the better. Only when we confront the reality of the situation the postmodern church finds itself in can we begin to make plans for any kind of effective, beneficial, transformational, and lasting change. Until we come to grips with the enormity of our problems, we are only whistling in the wind.

Over the course of the centuries since Christ walked the earth, we have gone about domesticating Jesus and his mission. In the process of doing so, we have lost something very important – in fact, the very source of the church’s life. By taming Jesus and toning down the revolutionary character of what he is calling for, we have lost contact with the vine. And the Master told us quite clearly what happens when such a thing occurs. Branches die when they are severed from the vine.
In the meantime, we have settled for a weak-kneed, timid imposter of a church. It’s no wonder people are fleeing the church in staggering numbers. Robin Meyers continues:

The earliest metaphors of the gospel speak of discipleship as transformation through an alternative community and reversal of conventional wisdom. In much of the church today, our metaphors speak of individual salvation and the specific promises that accompany it. The first followers of Jesus trusted him enough to become instruments of radical change. Today, worshipers of Christ agree to believe things about him in order to receive the benefits promised by the institution, not by Jesus…..Christianity as a belief system requires nothing but acquiescence. Christianity as a way of life, as a path to follow, requires a second birth, the conquest of ego, and new eyes with which to see the world.

The church as we know it will require radical change in order to survive. As I have stated elsewhere, it is difficult to see the final result of this process of change. However, I think we need to keep several key points in focus, lest we end up in a situation far worse than the one we are already in. For example:

1. We want to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. The church is not all bad and in terms of its potential for service to the world is unlimited. Although many congregations are complaining about strained finances, as a whole the Body of Christ still has vast resources that are available.

2. As I have stated elsewhere, I see the future church as one driven by grace. The successful 21st century church will be creative, transformational, and incarnational.

3. The successful church will be one that is mission driven and service oriented.

The renewed and revitalized Body of Christ will no doubt take on numerous different forms, depending upon its location and the unique needs of its particular mission field. Still, I think we can identify a few key generalities in regards to the requirements for any successful Christian community in the coming decades. Jonathan Campbell addresses these issues by stating that:

God is bringing forth new wineskins for a fresh outpouring of wine, and it does not look like anything we’ve ever seen. So we must focus on Jesus and the wine he is pouring out, and not on the wineskin. Remember, the purpose of the wineskin is to furnish the appropriate environment for the juice of the choice grapes to ferment and season at just the right time. We should be open and flexible, like new wineskins, in order to have Jesus fill our hearts and communities. This new wineskin must be very simple and able to expand and grow with the new wine….Renewal is not enough. We all need to go through a conversion something like what the apostle Peter experienced in Acts 10 and 11. Peter’s conversion from an ethnocentric Jew to an advocate for Gentile missions was one of the most significant paradigm shifts in the history of the church. Likewise today, the church must repent of any cultural tradition that hinders the movement of the gospel across cultures. The current spiritual-cultural crisis calls for nothing less than complete repentance, what the Greeks call a metatonia, a transformation of the mind, a change of heart, and a new way of living. Just as Gentiles received salvation free of Jewish tradition, so all people have a right to follow Jesus without having to become Western or institutionalized.

Please, spend a few minutes letting that last sentence really sink in. Cultural bias can be a subtle commodity, seeping into our thinking and our methodology for conducting missions, service projects, and other Christian activities. Our cultural prejudices can be truly insidious, impacting not only our church programs, but also the way we walk out our faith as individuals on a daily basis.

Marcus Borg envisions a Christian faith that is transformation centered rather than belief centered. Its focus is on practical ways of “living the Way” as opposed to belief. In my own view, the belief centered paradigm has been much of the problem with the church for centuries and I couldn’t agree more with what Borg has to say regarding the need for a more practical, transformation-centered approach.

Borg sees this new paradigm as impacting the church in six major areas:

Adult re-education

Christian practices

Compassion and a passion for justice

Political consciousness

Living deeply into the Bible and the Christian Tradition

Commitment and intentionality


Personally, I find Borg’s take on all this both refreshing and inspirational. It is rare for either of these elements of the Christian tradition to be discussed from the pulpit in the modern church, particularly in evangelical circles. Perhaps it is time for these transformative themes to once again take precedent over the anemic practice of belief in correct doctrine. Perhaps then we might begin to see a vital church in which people’s lives are actually transformed according to the vision and the principles taught by Jesus.

When you think about it, trust and loyalty point to two critical elements that are at the heart of the Christian tradition. I’m talking about faithfulness and fidelity. In essence, these two concepts speak to the same issue, having faith in God and being faithful to God. In order for us to progress on the Christian path, we must be loyal to it, even when the going gets rough or doubt sets in. In this faithfulness, this fidelity of the spirit, we are able to dig much deeper in search of living waters. Rather than flitting about from path to path, tradition to tradition, teaching to teaching – we stay put out of trust and loyalty. We then are able to dig one hole fifty feet deep, rather than fifty one-foot holes.

Churches are notorious for resisting change, especially those churches that have been around awhile and have aging congregations. Yet change is essential if the church is to survive. Moreover, if it is to thrive, then in many cases radical change is called for. This process of change within a congregation is never easy and sometimes causes rifts and splits that are never healed. However, when a church is able to adopt an open mind and an attitude of flexibility, the possibilities of a bright and exciting future are great.

If the Christian faith is to experience a much-needed renewal, and I believe this is entirely possible, it must become less culture bound and less dependent upon institutional structures. The decline in denominational affiliation and loyalty, a cause of great concern to some, is a positive sign in my estimation. We must get away from programs, labels, and institutional restrictions and once again embrace the Kingdom message of the Master in its pristine form, before it was fenced, domesticated, and made manageable and predictable. Even more, given the trans-cultural nature of our global society, we must strip all vestiges of enculturation off the bones of the gospel. Jesus’ message had nothing to do with Western culture, nor did it have any political affiliation. Jonathan Campbell wisely relates:

Jesus is not bound by any culture or structure. His life and ways transcend all cultures. His body (the wineskin) is not to be culture-bound. Jesus calls his followers to undergo a systemic shift that goes to the root of our identity – one that questions all the assumptions of the Christendom model. What we really need are people living the life of Jesus in community, drinking the new wine of the Spirit and living as fresh wineskins in the world.

As stated above, it is hard to predict exactly what form the church will morph into, except to say that it is doubtful that there will be any unified version. Chances are, as we move through these transitional but formative times, we will see a plethora of new wineskins, some good and some not so good. The key to creating effective, missional, and inspirational new wineskins has little to do with “seeker-driven” programs and activities. Instead, the newly constituted Body of Christ will be “Christ-driven.” Our mandate in this age, as it has been since the beginning, is to discover where and how the Master is working and once we locate the epicenter, get busy doing our part.

It really is that simple.

© L.D. Turner 2010/ All Rights Reserved

The Enlightenment's Shadow: Belief Trumps Compassion and Justice

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L.D. Turner

As a body of Christ-followers, we cannot overstate the importance of the task before us. What we are facing as this new century unfolds is the need of a radical reformation of our faith. The negative trends regarding the Christian faith and its place in western culture that began in the last quarter of the 20th Century show no signs of abating. In fact, any brief survey of the values and social mores of our culture reveals that a number of these trends in post-modern culture are taking place more rapidly than originally predicted.

If the church is to reclaim a position of significance and influence in our advancing culture, we must face head on the problems that are of our own making as well as find creative ways to adjust to those situations that are spawned elsewhere. In either case, it all begins with Christians getting a handle on its historic capacity to deal with diverse problems and discover creative strategies to ignite and foster a new respect from those voices who once were its most prolific critics. In the final analysis, all of this rests on the church’s ability to rediscover just who and what Jesus was and to live his message in ways that communicate his love and justice in the world. Brian McLaren speaks to these themes:

Many people don’t realize that the Christian religion – in its Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Pentecostal forms – is the largest, richest, and most powerful religion in the world. If the Christian religion “misunderestimates” the message of Jesus – if it doesn’t know or believe the truth about Jesus and his message – the whole world will suffer from Christian ignorance, confusion, or delusion. But if it discovers, understands, believes, and lives Jesus’ message – if it become increasingly faithful to the reality of what Jesus taught in word and example – then everyone could benefit.


If we are to begin to make inroads into our post-Christian culture, we need to identify those aspects of our own making that create obstacles to engaging non-believers and peripheral Christians is a conversation regarding the true essentials of Christian living. One of our primary obstacles is unfortunately now so ingrained in the faith that it has assumed the status of “Sacred Cow.”

We live in a culture that is, in spite of over 200 years of historical separation, dominated by the Enlightenment. Most of us don’t recognize this, but that lack of awareness doesn’t make the fact any less true. The Enlightenment has cast a long shadow over Western culture, especially the church, and it continues to do so.

For those of us who claim Christianity as our worldview, this lingering hangover of rationalism, logic, and intellectualism has robbed us of the very core of our faith and, in its stead, has substituted a sterile and inadequate imposter. Rather than experiencing our faith as a living, vital, relational organism, the norm has become “faith equals right belief.” This represents a major tragedy in terms of the heart of Christianity and, although right belief has some degree of importance, it pales in comparison to the emphasis Jesus placed on incarnational service based on love.

This issue has been exacerbated by two-plus centuries of preaching and teaching that extols the notion that salvation is attained through belief in the accepted set of ideas. Faith is equated with belief and belief is seen as the cornerstone of the entire edifice of Protestant doctrine. It has been going on for so long now that any challenge to the validity of such a notion is seen as heresy. To assert that a Christianity that is based on incarnational themes such as relational imperative, spiritual transformation, and compassionate service is to invite the heckling banter of a cadre of “true believers.” For these people belief takes precedent over doing and faith (which means belief to these folks) overrides works, even if that work is identical to the service done by Jesus.

Friends, we need to jettison this fatal tumor of false perspective, spawned by the Enlightenment and reared by the 19th Century Evangelical forerunners before it suffocates us completely, turning us into carbon copies of the whitened sepulchers the Master Jesus viewed with such disdain.

The overshadowing event of the past two centuries of Christian life has been the struggle between orthodoxy and modernism. In this struggle the primary issue has, as a matter of fact, not been discipleship to Christ and a transformation of soul that expresses itself in pervasive, routine obedience to his ‘all that I have commanded you.’ Instead, both sides of the controversy have focused almost entirely upon what is to be explicitly asserted or rejected as essential Christian doctrine. In the process of battles over views of Christ the Savior, Christ the teacher was lost on all sides…..Discipleship as an essential issue disappeared from the churches, and with it there also disappeared realistic plans and programs for the transformation of the inmost self into Christ-likeness. One could now be a Christian forever without actually changing in heart and life. Right profession, positive or negative, was all that was required. This has now produced generations of professing Christians who, as a whole, do not differ in character, but only in ritual, from their non-professing neighbors….

After much study, prayer, and reflection on these issues I have come to the conclusion that we Christ-followers are called to a more dynamic, vital, and holistic walk of faith. Indeed, we are called to a participatory involvement in God’s Great Story of incarnation and redemption. In fact, this was basically the view held by Christianity as a whole right on up through the Middle Ages and to the years preceding the Enlightenment. It was the illegitimate marriage of Enlightenment ideas to theology that changed the flavor and texture of the Christian faith and resulted in the dry, sterile form of religion that we find in many Protestant congregations today. And before I am accused of being of a narrow anti-evangelical bent, let it also be said that this same defective theology became the norm for the liberal wing of the faith as well as the old Mainline denominations, upon which Taps was blown two decades ago.

The late Robert Webber spoke clearly to this issue, discussing the validity of an ethic of faith-based works and the dire need for a return to the ancient, relational model of the faith. Listen as he clearly juxtaposes the ancient model of faith and the post-Enlightenment religion that is rampant today:

The incarnational model of the ancient church is relational. God relates to humanity by becoming one of us. We relate to God because, through the incarnation, we are lifted up into a relationship with the divine. In this ancient depiction of incarnational spirituality there is a divine indwelling of God, a mystical union between God and man, a relationship of continuous prayerful dependence. Contemplation of God and his wondrous story is characterized by the delight of the heart, an inner reality that proceeds from a union with God that is real…..By contrast, a justification/sanctification spirituality is less relational and more intellectual…..In summary, ancient spirituality is placed within the whole story of God and maintains the dynamic relational aspect of spirituality that is in union with God. On the other hand, the impact of the Enlightenment emphasis on justification and sanctification separates spirituality from the story of God (especially the incarnation in which humanity is lifted into God) and creates an intellectual spirituality that not only affirmed a forensic standing before God but one that equated spirituality with “right belief.” Spirituality ceased to be a “lived theology” and became faith as an intellectual construct.


Webber is not speaking of a return to a “feelings-based” religion. Like many astute spokespersons for the faith, he realizes that any spiritual truth based on our emotions is a tenuous commodity. Instead, Webber is talking about a Christianity that is anchored in God’s Sacred Story. Rather than being based on belief in correct doctrines, it is rooted in a life of active participation in God’s redemptive action. For Webber, true Christianity is relational, incarnational, redemptive, and restorative. The final chapters of God’s Sacred Story are the establishment of “new heaven” and “new earth.” All of these characteristics involve belief, but the entire edifice does not depend on belief. Instead, it depends on participation.

Intellectual religion is basically easy religion. When we base our Christian experience on kosher beliefs, we allow others to do our thinking for us. For many sincere Christians, the walk of faith basically consists of someone or some group telling them what they are supposed to believe and they fall in line with this expected code of doctrine, walking in mindless lockstep to the cadence being called by their theological leaders.

Please, don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying doctrine is bad, although in some cases it is just that. What I am getting at is that “unexamined doctrine” is a slippery slope. We need to take the time and make the effort to delve into the doctrines of our church, group, or denomination and see whether or not they hold water. More importantly, we need to deepen our understanding of God’s Sacred Story and start living it. At the end of the day, this approach is far more satisfying from a spiritual perspective.

© L.D. Turner 2010/All Rights Reserved

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Book Recommendations

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Mick Turner

I am often asked to make recommendations regarding books that I think are good reads, particularly in relation to the subjects of spiritual formation, Jesus, and church renewal. Entwined within these subjects, of course, is the more general topic of the Sociology of Religion.
I am uncertain as to the reasons folks seek out my recommendations on such things. Perhaps it is because I am a voracious reader and most people who know me are aware of this. Or maybe it has something to do with my writing and speaking. People may figure because I engage in these two activities I must read a lot. Where else would I be able to come up with all those things I talk about or write about?
Personally, and I have made this apparent through the postings on this blog as well as various articles, talks, and other venues, I believe this is a critical time in the history of the church. It is an era that future historians will describe as chaotic, confused, and challenging. Yet those same historians will also see that this period in the church’s long history was one of great opportunity – an era when much de-construction and re-construction took place. I firmly believe that a new “Reformation,” just as significant as the one that occurred in the 16th Century, is already in the birth canal. Yes, it is a challenging time but it is also an exciting time. As followers of Christ, if we are serious about our faith, it is vital that we dive in to this swiftly moving current and do our part to bring about a new, vital version of the Christian faith that is both transformational and incarnational. Part of equipping ourselves, in addition to the spiritual gifts God has provided, is to acquire a foundation of knowledge that will help us clarify our purpose and give us good, godly direction in whatever we are trying to accomplish for the kingdom.
Reading is foundational and there is plenty out there to choose from. The books listed below are writings that I recommend for those serious about deepening their walk of faith in these turbulent times and, in addition to that deepening, making a positive contribution to the new forms and directions the church may take.
With these thoughts in mind, here is a “Top Twenty-Five,” in no particular order. Instead, they represented great books I have read over the past few years:

The Way of Jesus: A Journey of Freedom for Pilgrims and Wanderers (Jonathan S. Campbell with Jennifer Campbell)

Wisdom Jesus (Cynthia Bourgeault)

Saving Jesus from the Church (Robin Meyers)

Chasing Daylight (Erwin Raphael McManus)

Wide Awake (Erwin Raphael McManus)

The Heart of Christianity (Marcus Borg)

The Mystic Heart (Wayne Teasdale)

Guerrilla Lovers: Changing the World With Revolutionary Compassion (Vince Antonucci)

A New Kind of Christian (Brian McLaren)

The Beautiful Fight (Gary Thomas)

The Great Omission (Dallas Willard)

Exiles (Michael Frost)

Starving Jesus (Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon)

Revolution (George Barna)

The End of Religion (Bruxey Cavey)

A Renegades Guide to God (David Foster)

UnChristian (David Kennaman and Gabe Lyons)

Christianity for the Rest of Us (Diane Butler Bass)

Soul Graffiti (Mark Scandrette)

Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)

Who Stole My Church (Gordon MacDonald)
After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (N.T. Wright)

Fingerprints of God (Barbara Bradley Hagerty)

Death By Church: Rescuing Jesus from His Followers (Mike Erre)

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (Shane
Claiborne)


This list is far from exhaustive. There are plenty of great writers out there and, with the advent of the Internet and its growth, there are also blogs and other web-based venues to choose from. As for the books listed above, again, I would recommend any of them without reservation. In my own personal walk, each of them has been transformational in some vital and useful way.
Blessings,
Mick

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