Entertainment and the Suburban Condition

Finally (!) delving back into Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to dig into a phenomenon that Putnam argues is the most significant shaping influence in terms of social capital in modern American life - namely, electronic forms of entertainment and, specifically, television. This particular chapter of the book is both enlightening and depressing, if not entirely surprising. Putnam offers devastating analysis and commentary that relentlessly links television with civic disengagement in measure after measure. In conclusion, he writes:

Americans at the end of the twentieth century were watching more TV, watching it more habitually, more pervasively, and more often alone, and watching more programs that were associated specifically with civic disengagement (entertainment, as distinct from news). The onset of these trends coincided exactly with the national decline in social connectedness, and the trends are most marked among the younger generations that are...distinctively disengaged. Moreover, it is precisely those Americans most marked by this dependence on televised entertainment who were most likely to have dropped out of civic and social life - who spent less time with friends, were less involved in community organizations, and were less likely to participate in public affairs. (p. 246)

I suppose I should be clear that what Putnam is discussing here -and in the book generally speaking - is not in any way isolated to suburbanites. Obviously the influence of electronic media pervades all demographics and communities in our society. Putnam, in fact, relates a story from a town in northern Canada where, due to a topological anomaly, television signals were unavailable until the mid-1970's. This community was studied alongside two neighboring communities that had ready access to television signals. Once television became available, this community demonstrated an immediate, measurable decline in residents' participation in community activities. The other two communities were used as a control to demonstrate that the only variable in play was, in fact, television.

But my concern is specifically with the way in which electronic media interact with suburban culture. I'm convinced that there is a reciprocal relationship between the isolating effects of suburban geography, the counter-competent effects of chronic outsourcing, and the demotivating effects of electronic entertainment. Put simply - these three elements of suburban life reduce the ability, desire, and personal connections needed to make meaningful change in ourselves and our communities. An example perhaps will help to clarify what I mean - take sports, basketball for instance, something that I used to play regularly with friends in high school and college. I haven't played basketball in years, and if I thought of starting again, I'd face three hurdles: it's easier to get my basketball "fix" by flipping over to ESPN, lack of play has atrophied my skills (such as they were), and I don't know anyone else in my neighborhood who would like to get together for a few hoops. There it is - isolation, outsourcing, and entertainment all combine to keep me off the courts. And if I wanted to translate this into the area of Christian faith - well, I don't think I'd have much difficulty, would I?

But here's what I'm currently starting to wonder - would a change in one of these categories be enough to overcome the inertia that keeps me in a rut (in any particular area of my life, but faith in particular) and push me forward towards action? That's the question that I want to take up next.

Technorati Tags: Bowling Alone, suburbs, entertainment

Professionalization and the Suburban Condition

I mentioned in my last post on Putnam's Bowling Alone that I wanted to discuss a phenomenon that I'm calling professionalization. This isn't something that Putnam necessarily addresses directly, but rather I think it's tangentially related to both isolation and entertainment, which I plan to discuss next. This particular concern fits nicely at this point because I think it both follows from and reinforces the trend towards isolation that I discussed previously. By "professionalization", I'm referring in a general sense to what seems to be an increasing trend away from doing things for oneself and instead toward hiring a third party to do things for us or in our stead.

What put me onto this particular train of thought was Putnam's discussion of lawyers and the shift from informal to formal means of conflict resolution and reinforcement of norms. My thought is that we are becoming a society that is less able to disagree respectfully and resolve conflict amicably, primarily because we have outsourced our disagreement and conflict resolution to a professional class of persons who do these things for us. In other words, as we lean more and more heavily on lawyers and other formal means for resolving differences, we as a society gradually lose the ability to do so for ourselves, much like a muscle that atrophies due to lack of use. This prompted me to think of other ways in which professionalization has crept into our lives - and I'm surprised that, the more I think about this, the more confident I am that this is in fact occurring in many ways.

Think, for example, of the decline of the home cook. Gone are the days when a meal was a labor of love, or at least a labor of craft and skill. Go into any supermarket and you'll be confronted, not with aisle upon aisle of fresh ingredients, but with mountains of prepared and packaged foods, waiting merely to be reconstituted into insipid piles of carbohydrates with chemically enhanced flavors. Cooking is more and more a hobby instead of a necessity - we've outsourced our food preparation in the interests of expedience. And, I would wager that this trend is more pronounced among younger folks. According to Food Technology magazine, fewer than one third of all meals in America are still prepared from scratch:

While three-quarters of all adults ate last night’s meal at home, the number of meals prepared at home continues to decline, falling from 64% in 2003 to 58% in 2005 (MSI, 2005). “Scratch” dinners prepared at home dropped another 7% over the past two years and now account for only 32% of all evening meals. One quarter (26%) of last night’s dinners used convenience foods and 17% used restaurant/supermarket take-out, while 23% were eaten at a restaurant.

Think of it this way - for how many people does the process of making cookies begin with opening a box of premixed dry goods? Does tomato sauce begin with a tomato, or a can opener? When was the last time that you took your bread from an oven instead of from a bag? Even our salad comes in convenient packages - we can't even be bothered to cut our own lettuce anymore. But I think we lose something of ourselves when we outsource even our most basic of necessities, something that makes us human. We become disconnected from our very selves, unable to even participate in sustaining ourselves from one day to the next, passive recipients of whatever lowest common denominator has made it through the assembly line and onto our plates. We cede power over our day to day existence to a faceless corporate entity that is most concerned with market share and protecting a brand.

I know there are reasons for this - I know them myself. I am the primary cook in our house, so I bear most of the burden of meal preparation. And there are nights when a pizza just fits the bill. But I try to resist, and I try to do as much from scratch as possible - it's almost a spiritual practice for me, one that I try to maintain as I'm able. But this shift towards professionalization is bigger than just cooking. We could discuss the same trend in any of a dozen different spheres of life. Besides the discussion of lawyers, Putnam also discusses it in the context of social engagement - meaning that, for most people, social action has become more about writing a check than about actually working to implement change. We are chronic outsourcers - we want someone else to do our stuff, and we'll pay good money for them to do so. And people of faith should absolutely recognize this trend - we see it every day as folks outsource spiritual development.

That's a tangent that I'm dying to engage right now - but I want to place a few more pieces in the puzzle before I go there. It's part of a bigger picture that frames where we are, and I want to resist making it the whole scene.

Technorati Tags: Bowling Alone, suburbs

Isolation and the Suburban Condition

Continuing our discussion of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to reflect for a bit on the connection between suburban isolation and the loss of social capital that Putnam describes. While Putnam is clear that this phenomenon is by no means limited to suburban communities, he also discusses in detail the ways in which the suburban condition participates in the decline of social capital through mobility and sprawl. He concludes that suburbanization is a factor in three ways:

• Time - Sprawl associated with suburbanization results in valuable time consumed in commuting, primarily alone.
• Social homogeneity - Suburbanization creates isolation between persons and families of different backgrounds. In other words, when we choose our neighbors, we are more likely to choose neighbors that are much like ourselves. Suburbanization represents in large part the end result of such self-selection.
• Community "boundedness" - This is Putnam's way of discussing what I have elsewhere called the sense of "place" that a community has, its sense of itself as a community. In a vague sense, it describes the sense of commitment and "neighborliness" that a group of geographically located people feel towards one another. It's hard to put into words - but I know exactly what he's talking about here. Suburban living is designed primarily for the pursuit of privatized, personal self-fulfillment and contentment, often in opposition to community well-being.

In short - the suburban ethos drips with isolation. The interconnectedness that characterizes a community with robust social capital finds no purchase in the craggy heights of suburbia, each home a castle surrounded by a moat and walls.

As my wife and I are currently attempting to move to a larger house, I've become cognizant of how even the architecture of the suburban home is oriented towards isolation. Others have remarked on the demise of the front porch and its significance for American social interactions. I'm particularly intrigued by a further move: the emphasis on private spaces in the current market, particularly kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms. The elements of a home that are most in demand and most upgraded are also those elements that are most private. In spite of the fact that we Americans seem to be doing less actual cooking, a well-apportioned kitchen is at the top of most buyers' lists. Increasingly, a master suite is also viewed as a necessity, including a private bathroom that is distinct from that used by the rest of the family. In other words, the center of the home - the places in which we invest time, money, and emotion - is increasingly moving farther and farther to the interior, to the extent of even introducing isolation from members of our own families. This is, of course, to say nothing of the desire to have a yard that is hidden from the view of the neighbors, or the prominence of the television in our spatial arrangements. Simply put - the suburban experience is oriented towards privatization, even down to the way in which we position our furniture.

The corresponding trend, then, is most certainly disconnectedness from one's neighbors. Not only do we no longer know our neighbors on any level more than a first-name greeting, we most certainly do not interact with them in any meaningful sense. And, in truth, it is becoming increasingly likely that we no longer even know our neighbors' first names. In the cul-de-sac where we live, my wife and I know the names of six of our roughly sixteen or so neighbors - and we've lived in our home for nearly ten years. Only four of those six have actually been inside of our home. In truth, nearly all of our original neighbors have since moved, leaving us as one of the longest-tenured resident families in our part of the development. This only serves to complicate matters further. Suburban culture lives by the words of the Robert Frost poem, "Good fences make good neighbors."

What has happened in parallel with these trends is a corresponding movement from informal to formal enforcement of norms in suburban life. (Whether this relationship is causative or not is unclear.) Things that were once accomplished through relationships and networks are now accomplished through rules and legalities. If my neighbor's property begins to deteriorate, I can do several things to encourage him or her to pick up the slack: I can approach him or her directly and mention my concern (informal), or I can invoke some sort of authority, such as a homeowner's association, to do so in my stead (formal). Informal ties are reflections of strong social capital - they grease the wheels of society, so to speak. Formal mechanisms reflect a lack of trust and neighborliness and serve in some sense as a substitute for relationships and connection. The shift from informal to formal in our society is not an encouraging sign, and is evidenced by our increasing reliance on lawyers to serve as our intermediaries. Putnam has this to say:

Throughout the American society and economy, beginning around 1970, informal understandings no longer seemed adequate or prudent. The suddenness of this change and its timing seem uncannily similar to trends in other measures of social capital that we have examined. Spouses, neighbors, business partners and would-be partners, parents and children, pastors and parishoners, donors and recipients - all of us abruptly began to demand to "get it in writing." (p. 147)

The problem is that most quality of life endeavors work best when supported by informal, not formal, ties. Formal mechanisms carry significant overhead, as they rely on external structure. In addition, they create less of a reciprocal effect - there simply isn't the sense of shared well-being and neighborliness that undergirds informal ties. They lack the intrinsic motivation that comes with trusting relationships. In other words - I am more likely to do the right thing when I view that thing as a reflection of my relationship with another person, as opposed to a mandate from a faceless entity. Conversely, I am more likely to ignore a request or mandate when it comes from an impersonal representative or group. Deterioration of social capital directly results in a deterioration in the quality of life of a neighborhood, as Putnam demonstrates excellently (and relentlessly).

I'll return to this shortly - I think this has direct and massive implications for the task of communities of faith in suburbia. First, though, I want to comment on a related trend, something I describe as the increasing professionalization of American culture.

Technorati Tags: Bowling Alone, suburbs

Bowling Alone in Suburbia

I can't state enough how riveting I've found Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. It's been on my list for a long time, but I decided when I last ordered books to pick up a few things that are outside the vein of what I've been reading lately, and this one fit the bill nicely. I dig theology but theologians aren't always the best folks for drawing the connections between theology and everyday existence. Putnam is a Harvard scholar writing from an academic's perspective on social connectedness in America. It has the rigors of an academic study while being accessible to anyone (that is, anyone with a penchant for charts and graphs). And it's surprisingly thick - I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't five hundred pages, I'm certain. This is a book that is both meaty and engaging, both rigorous and readable, and on the whole utterly fascinating.

Putnam's premise is that America has been experiencing a decline in what he calls social capital:

Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals - social networks and the norms of reciprocity that trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called "civic virtue." The difference is that "social capital" calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital. (p.19)

It is this "dense network of reciprocal social relations" that Putnam investigates, and finds that in every measure to which we are put, America is losing social capital. The book is a relentless march of data, in sphere after sphere of our collective lives, that documents this trend, along with Putnam's analysis of why this change is occurring and some thoughts on what to do about it.

Anecdotally, this really should come as no surprise to those of us who are involved in some form of ministry or service at this moment in American cultural history. It particularly rings true to me as someone who desires to live missionally in a suburban context. I've written before about my thoughts on the isolation and disconnectedness of the American suburb, about the loss of a sense of place and the redefinition of community around shared values (most frequently leisure) instead of shared geography. And even within this redefined community, the connections to which community refers are themselves weaker and more transient than in times past.

But perhaps I have a unique perspective on this particular topic, as I grew up in an area that could in no way be described as suburban. I grew up in small town America, a distinct slice of Americana if ever one existed. Actually, small town isn't even quite the right way to describe it - my hometown is a rural community in central Pennsylvania where farming forms a large part of the local landscape and manufacturing jobs are still significant employers. And looming large over my childhood is the image of my grandfather, a product of another time and a place that most of you have probably never experienced. Pap, as he was known to his grandkids, was a steel man who worked for Bethlehem Steel for much of his adult life. He was also a man of the soil - not a farmer by trade but a throwback to an earlier time when families would raise their own livestock and produce. Pap kept a garden that was about a half acre of produce that he raised himself, and for much of my childhood he also had several cows, both for milk and for meat. I remember summer afternoons spent pulling potatoes from the ground, fist-sized golden nuggets that the earth would yield only after a struggle. I remember riding on the back of a tractor-pulled trailer in scorching August heat, catching bales of hay that were thrown from the baler to be stacked later in the barn as winter feed for the cows. I remember ears of corn pulled from the stalk and dropped in boiling water before the sap had a chance to dry on the stalk, and watermelons that left trails of juice running down my chin. But over it all I remember my grandfather, a hardworking man who was a pillar in his community, who showed little affection but great love.

When my grandfather died in the early spring of 2001, the funeral was deeply moving. I think the entire county showed up to pay respect to our family and to Pap. We had to hold two days of viewing for hours at a time, and the line of people would stretch out the door and onto the porch of the funeral home, person after person that knew my grandfather and had been impacted in some way by him. That's the way things were growing up - I knew a deep and rich connection to a large community that couldn't be identified on a map. And even if I didn't participate in that community or appreciate it for what it was, still I knew that if something went wrong that there existed a deep network of folks who would support us and that we would do the same for them.

That experience has no parallel in my current context. In truth, those bonds of community are fading even in my hometown - true to exactly the scenario presented by Putnam. But in my current neighborhood, the situation is strikingly different - I know fewer than one quarter of my neighbors. None of them have ever joined us for dinner or drinks. The turnover in our community is high - we live in a townhouse development that cycles neighbors through every several years. We're actually just starting to get to the point where I'd feel comfortable engaging some of our neighbors on a more personal level, but instead we find ourselves searching for another home with plans to move in the next six months or so. And I feel the lack of connection in my bones - I find that loneliness of late creeps upon me with ever increasing frequency.

All of this to say that I find Putnam's description of social capital compelling: compelling in the sense that I've seen what happens when it is present, and compelling in the sense that I know its lack. I think that Bowling Alone touches on something that those of us who desire to be missional would do well to address. More on this next...

Technorati Tags: suburbs, Bowling Alone

Contextuality and Hermeneutic (p. 2)

One of the more challenging issues that is raised by viewing scripture through contextual lenses is the realization that we aren't dealing with just one context. Part of what makes scripture amazing and beautiful is that it was written over a period of roughly one thousand years by dozens of authors in different contexts with different perspectives. On the other hand, part of what makes it complicated and messy is that it was written over a period of roughly one thousand years by dozens of authors in different contexts with different perspectives.

That there is theological diversity in scripture is difficult (although not impossible) to ignore. What that diversity means, however, is another matter entirely. Is it possible to believe in an authoritative text that at times seems to disagree with itself? The short answer for many people of various theological persuasions seems to be that it isn't - and much blood and ink have been spilled in an effort to prove that the Bible does/doesn't "contradict" itself. The assumption seems to be that if the text says one thing here and another thing there that the whole book is rendered worthless and any belief in divine agency in its origin is made laughable.

I posted a few thoughts a while back on Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation - it's a fantastic book that tackles some of these kinds of questions in a wonderfully accessible way. In it, Enns makes the point that many assumptions that we make about scripture are based on preconceived notions of what it is that a sacred text must look like - in other words, we define our belief on the nature of scripture based not on how it is but on how we would like it to be. So, for instance, if we think that a document that says different things about the same subject can't be divinely inspired, then we'll expend enormous energy attempting to prove that the Bible always agrees with itself, no matter what is actually in the text. I think that he's exactly right on this point, and I think it's unfortunate - we've allowed other priorities to set the agenda for our interaction with our own sacred text, instead of doing so on our own terms.

I think part of the contextual, situated nature of the biblical text as revelation is that it contains diverse opinions. Exodus, for example, lays out an elaborate system of sacrifice and ritual; the prophets denounce that same system. Samuel/Kings portrays David in his unvarnished, sinful brokenness; Chronicles cleans him up significantly. Paul states that we are justified by faith; James suggests that we are also justified by works. It's as though, for any significant theme in the biblical text, we can find one voice that portrays it in a particular way, but if we'll continue reading, we'll find another that says, "Yes, but..." And what I think is unfortunate is that we, by and large, have not allowed that reality to inform how we think about what it means that we claim this text, this narrative, this story as scripture, as the true account of God's way-of-acting in the world, of the people that he's called together to demonstrate that way-of-acting to the rest of humanity.

Is it possible to live in the tension between diverse viewpoints on matters of theology, without attempting to resolve that tension? I suggest that, not only should it be possible, but that it is part of what it means to be followers of a God who has chosen to reveal himself through a text that contains such diverse viewpoints. I'd like to spend a few posts unpacking what such an approach might look like and suggest a few thoughts for further reflection.

Technorati Tags: contextual theology, hermeneutics

Contextuality and Hermeneutic

Anyone who's been reading along for any length of time knows that I can't seem to get through a month without posting about contextual theology. I discovered this discipline in seminary, although if you've been exposed to some of the defining concerns of the emerging church or the missional movement then you'll probably have at least an instinctive sense for what contextual theology is all about. In the words of Clemens Sedmak from his excellent book Doing Local Theology:

Theology that tries to do justice to its place in culture and history is contextual. Contextualization literally means "weaving together" and is "thus an interweaving of the gospel with every particular situation"...The process of contextualization includes the reflection on one's own place as a person within a wider horizon. (p. 95)

I threw out a thought late last week on the contextual nature of the gospel on which I'd been musing and received some positive comments. Nobody, though, picked up on what was at the heart of my thought - not that I was that specific, but I was a bit curious to see if anyone would head in the same direction. In truth, I was less reflecting on doing theology in our own context and more thinking of reading scripture as itself an exercise in contextual theology.

Here's what I mean: when I say that all articulations of the gospel are "contextual reflections on a hypercontextual reality", I'm actually talking about hermeneutics. In other words, I'm suggesting that what we read in scripture are local expressions of people in specific settings reflecting on what the gospel is and what it means to live in keeping with the reality towards which it points. I'm suggesting that, even in the New Testament, we do not encounter a "pure gospel" - we read instead of particular people who wrestle with the gospel's breaking into their world and messing up their lives. More importantly, we read over their shoulders as they wrestle together with the gospel and try to discern how to live in its aftermath.

Consider this: the word for gospel, euangelion, is a political term that was used in and around the first century to refer to the good news of Caesar and the celebration of his birth. (See this excellent article by Wright for reference.) Caesar was hailed as Lord, portrayed as the bringer of peace and justice. The people were encouraged (to state it mildly) to trust him - have "faith" in him - for salvation. Paul was nothing if not a masterful contextual theologian. That we miss his cultural resonances is only to our detriment - speaking personally, as I begin to understand more and more of his context, the text continues to come alive, and I begin to see depth and subtlety that I had before missed. Put simply, we can't even trade in the coin of gospel language without picking up some contextual theology in the deal.

So, what does this mean from a practical standpoint? For one, I find myself doing more work to understand the New Testament context. More and more of my reading is in New Testament theology - and it's not the systematic stuff either, but good historical, cultural studies that attempt to bring those insights to bear on the scriptures. It's begun to shape my understanding of what it means to read and understand the text. I mean this on more than just a surface level. I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we assume that anyone can pick up the scriptures and come to a clear understanding of their meaning. While I agree with this in principle - I certainly don't believe for a minute that only the "qualified" should read and interpret the text - I stumble with the realization that, frankly, there are a lot of folks who aren't interested in doing the work that's needed to understand the context. We approach the scriptures too often like we do any other book. We assume that the meaning should be plain and that the authors and their readers inhabited the same symbolic world that we do, when in fact we are separated by nearly two millennia, different languages, different methods of communication, different cultural narratives, etc, etc, etc. This is hard work, and I'm skeptical of those who glibly refer to the "clear teaching of scripture", because it seems to nearly always indicate that someone hasn't done his or her homework.

On the other hand, lest anyone think that I'm attempting to pat myself on the back in some self-congratulatory way and hold up my own reading as a better standard, I've also become more and more aware of my own deficiencies as a student of scripture. If nothing else, having so many of my cherished preconceptions shattered by my own ignorance of the first-century world has (hopefully) led to a bit more humility in how I hold my interpretation. I've begun to try to think more charitably of those with whom I disagree and to give their readings a more sympathetic review. This of course doesn't mean that I succeed at that task - I probably fail at being charitable more than I succeed - but at the least it's something on which I'm trying to improve.

In short - contextual theology, when seen as a means of interpreting scripture, can not only help us to better understand the text, but it can also help us to wrestle with it in a more charitable way.

Technorati Tags: contextual theology, hermeneutics

Random Thought

I was musing on something and didn't want to lose it, so I'm posting it here without comment. I'm also a bit interested to see what reactions (if any) you have.

A contextless gospel does not exist. Any articulation of the gospel is a contextual reflection on a hypercontextual reality.

Heretic's Guide - What's Good? (p. 5)

My head feels clearer and my thoughts more coherent, so I thought I'd jump back into things with a more positive note. Thus far, I've been rather critical of Spencer's book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. But the book isn't all bad - Spencer does, I think, rightly identify some of the problem of the typical evangelical approach to the gospel, and that's a good thing. Spencer and I agree on at least one thing - the gospel is bigger than a transaction and means more than spending eternity in a really happy place.

I'm sympathetic to Spencer's underlying premise, even if I don't buy it wholesale. I'll speak specifically so as to avoid some of what I take to be problematic language on Spencer's part. Conservative Christian religion in the American context has often seen itself as God's power broker. To put it crassly, the way to God is through Jesus, and the way to Jesus is through "us" - whoever us may be. As a result, the Christian faith has been put to the service of all kinds of masters in the interests of power. Let me be blunt - conservative Christianity is not God's power broker. In fact, to the degree that it has failed to recognize its own stance in relation to power, it has also failed in its efforts to embody the gospel as demonstrated by the Cross. Let's not kid ourselves: doctrine is used for threat as well as for welcome, for control as well as for empowerment, for division as well as for cohesion. And that's not just regrettable - it's often simply sinful.

So here's the difficulty - if the gospel is a transaction on the premise of saying a prayer or participating in a liturgy or whatever, then the ones who control that transaction also control eternity. And, yes, that's a ridiculously crass way of putting it. But it's there; it's present in the conservative Christian subculture - a radical minority, to be sure, but at the same time, too many folks pay too much attention to what folks like Robertson and Falwell say for me to think that it's a minor issue. So foreign policy becomes doctrinal and the Pledge of Allegiance becomes liturgical and we all wonder why nobody pays attention to us anymore. When folks like Katherine Harris can campaign for their own election by saying things like to elect people who are not Christians to public office is to "legislate sin", then I have to cry foul. That's not the gospel - it's attempting to make the gospel serve two masters.

So, yes, to the degree that Christian "religion" prevents us from being good neighbors, then I'd say that it's bad. (But I'd also say that it's no longer Christian.) And focusing on a "decision" can, I think, contribute to that. Spencer is right to suggest that Christianity is far, far less about praying a prayer and far more about following Jesus. It's a commitment; it's a way of life. It's something into which we enter as participants and travelers, and not something that we complete. It's more a process and less a moment - although moments, such as decisions or conversions, are absolutely significant and should not be discounted. And it's far, far more about a new creation and God's actions to bring that about than it is about eternal bliss and comfort for the faithful few. It's about the Kingdom being near, and God being with us.

So, then, to the degree that Spencer is critiquing a kind of religion that doesn't represent the fullness of the gospel - then I'm in agreement, even if we may disagree on what to do about it.

Technorati Tags: books, emerging church, Heretic's Guide to Eternity, Spencer Burke

Heretic's Guide - What About Jesus? (p. 4)

I've said a number of times in the comments that I can't go along with Spencer's understanding of the Christian Story as described in his book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Up to now, though, I've just focused on some foundational concepts that I think are at odds in the book. It's time for me to dive in and lay out what I think is the fatal flaw in Spencer's book - his failure to deal with what the text actually says and the picture that it presents of who Jesus was and what he did. Spencer reads the text and finds a guide, a path, a messenger of love and inclusion. In his words:

It is not a question of making claims about Jesus as truth but rather one of experiencing the truth of who he is, outside the confines of a religious system. To claim that other religions are true only to the degree that their views of God are the same as Christian concepts is to make a claim that Jesus himself did not make.

This last claim Jesus made in this troublesome little verse in the book of John is perhaps the key to understanding the others [the way, the truth]. "I am the life." Jesus' life, not just his acts on our behalf but the life he lived on earth, is "the life". Living a life like Jesus' is what it truly means to live. Jesus declared his life to be the way to choose - not the way of zealotry or paganism or compromise, but a life committed to God, committed to God's ways, and committed to grace.

Jesus' vision of God is not for the exclusive use of one community. It is not just for Jews or Christians or any other group. It is for anyone and everyone - Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, whatever...The real story, the real scandal, is Jesus' promiscuous view of God. Whatever the role his religion expected him to play, Jesus ignored it and chose instead to forge a new path that included freedom for him to embrace everyone.

To be born again, according to Jesus, is to commit oneself to the kingdom of God's purposes. It is to begin a journey with God in order to make the world a place of grace. It doesn't mean "getting religion"; it means committing ourselves to Jesus' vision of God's kingdom. What did Jesus say that is? In a word, love, plain and simple.

Spencer, I'm sorry. I wish I could go along with you here. It would make my life a lot easier. It would make my task as a person of Christian faith much simpler. It would make my message as a missional believer much more palatable. It would be fun; I could be Tony Robbins or Mr. Rogers or Joel Osteen. (Oops, how'd that get in there? ;)

But I can't.

I can't go along with hippie Jesus who has smiles and lollipops for everyone. It's just not there. It's a painfully selective reading of the text. Yes, Jesus preached a gospel of love and inclusion. Yes, he broke boundaries and welcomed "all and sundry", as NT Wright would say. Yes, he broke the "rules" and did things that offended religious people. But he offended more than just the scribes and Pharisees. He didn't pull punches. He offered a choice: two ways, one of life and one of death. And, he said, most people don't really care to find the first one. (Matt 7:13-14, in case you're wondering.) He said that he didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. He said that judgment was barreling down on the nation, and yet they refused to repent. He said that, in the end, it would go better for Sodom than it would for the cities where he preached and did his miracles.

Was Jesus inclusive? He was - scandalously so. But he was also sharply exclusivistic, and no amount of polishing him up so that he won't offend our postmodern sensibilities can remove it. It's what a professor of mine has called the dark side of the gospel - the awful truth that rejecting his work has a cost, a price that we may find more than we can bear. It's painful and uncomfortable and ugly. But it's there - and to remove it or to ignore it is to do damage to who Jesus is and what he says.

The message of the kingdom isn't that everyone is in. Jesus never said that. It's the announcement of the world's true King and the coming of his Kingdom. Mark says it this way: "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" And good news it is - but it has a warning as well, lurking just between the syllables, a warning that we fail to heed to our own detriment.

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Heretic's Guide - Scandal of Grace (p. 3)

As I've mentioned previously, Spencer's categories in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity are religion and grace. I've already touched on his treatment of the term religion; now I want to tackle his definition of grace. In his words:

Could it be that love finds us no matter where we are and we don't have to do anything more to get it? Could it be that - beyond religion, reason, and conventional wisdom - grace is something to be opted out of rather than opted in to? Is it not something you get but something you already have?

What is grace? For me, it is a subversive and scandalous twist in human history - an unexpected and revolutionary turn of events that offered a new way of relating to the sacred and each other. Religion declares that we are separated from God, that we are "outsiders". Grace tells us the opposite, that we are already in unless we want to be out.

The problem, I think, at least in the Christian tradition, is that grace seems to have no meaning apart from sin. The two concepts are always linked. It's not that I think sin is a myth or that everyone is perfect; it's just that I believe linking grace to sin detracts from its beauty and intensity.

The problem with Spencer's definition here is precisely that last bit - the two concepts are linked in the Christian tradition because that's at the very heart of the Story. Wanting them to be disconnected does not make it so - grace, which I'd describe more in terms of favor or kindness that is unearned and undeserved, is subversive and scandalous precisely because of sin. This goes back to the very beginning of the narrative in Genesis. It's beautiful and intense because it is undeserved, because it is freely given, because it is unconventional and it smashes boundaries and breaks down the dividing walls that separate us from the love of God. But without that separation, where's the beauty? Where's the scandal?

Don't get me wrong - I know what Spencer's trying to say. But I don't like how he's saying it. I think what he's going after is what Scot McKnight has called "grace-grinding". But I think he fails somewhat by minimizing the problem of sin. As I mentioned in my last post, part of the role of a religious system is to define the problem - what's wrong with the world? (I'm borrowing that straight from Wright's NTPG, btw.) Grace is God's response to the problem - it's inextricably linked to sin in our experience, because that's how we describe what is wrong. Spencer would be well served here to reflect on a Christian description of the problem.

The concept of sin is meant to address the quality of our relationships, with each other and with the world in which we live, but the church has turned it into a "petty moralism that no longer speaks to...human persons in their complete intermingling."...Although the link between grace and sin has driven Christianity for centuries, it just doesn't resonate in our culture anymore. It repulses rather than attracts. People are becoming much less inclined to acknowledge themselves as "sinners in need of a Savior." It's not that people view themselves as perfect; it's that the language they use to describe themselves has changed. "Broken," "fragmented," and "lacking wholeness" - these are some of the new ways people describe their spiritual need.

Two thoughts to conclude. First, just because an idea is unpopular isn't an indication of whether or not it's true. And that's particularly true, I think, for those of us who claim the Christian faith as our own. Pacifism, for example, is unpopular - but I still hold it to be a true description of a Christian ethic. How much more, then, the core narrative that holds all Christian ethic together? Second, Spencer offers what I think is a better, more compelling definition of sin than "moral misdemeanors" - right before he abandons the concept almost entirely! Frankly, I don't get it - instead of advocating a disconnection of the ideas of grace and sin, why not simply rehabilitate the concept of sin so that the concept of grace means more of what it's supposed to mean in the first place? Then, Spencer, you can stand in a healthy place of tension between the scriptural narrative and common interpretations of it - as it is, you abandon a thoroughly useful concept that is absolutely central to the biblical text and that would lend support to your argument rather than detract from it, for what I can't see as a gain of much of anything.

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A Heretic's Guide: Picking Good Examples (p. 2)

One of the primary challenges I'm facing in reading A Heretic's Guide to Eternity is the suspicion that I'm being faced with a false dichotomy. Ok, that's an understatement - I don't buy the principle division of the book, namely that of religion vs. grace. I touched on this in my previous post, and I thought I'd be able to move on to the first part of the book. But I find that it's a difficulty that keeps hitting me in the face. I can't get past it. A few examples may help:

Admittedly, all religions probably have a fringe element, but just the same, what is it about traditional religion that breeds dogmatic, sometimes fanatical, and even violent responses to the rest of the world? Over the years, terrible things have been done and justified in the name of God. Just look at any history book. Is it any wonder the world's population is beginning to look for alternatives? Frankly, fundamentalists of all kinds are scaring people off. The more zealous and powerful these people become, the more potential followers they drive away.

We need to move past religion. I believe the time is right for another way of looking at the Christian message, freed from the confines of religion and open to the possibility of a radical new incarnation and manifestation. The message of Jesus needs to evolve for our times.

I believe that the next phase of faith is to move beyond religion. Nowhere does Jesus call his followers to start a religion. Jesus' invitation to his first disciples was to follow him. It was a call to journey, a process that leads us away from some things and toward others. It wasn't a call to adhere to a set of rules for all time. In fact, one of the most commonly heard critiques of the Christian message is that it is out of touch with what is really going on in the world around us.

I guess I'm just not really sure what all of this means. Spencer, I think this argument is beneath you - I'm being serious on that statement. You're pitting the worst of "religion" against the best of - well, whatever else there is, I suppose. Have atrocities been committed in the name of religion? Absolutely. Please find one person of religious belief that will deny that, because I don't think they exist. And, yes, fundamentalism can lead to oppression and violence. But "progressives" have committed their share of atrocities also - let's not forget that there's been just as much violence done against religion in the past century as there has been for it. Evil doesn't need to borrow the name of God - it does just fine in human guise.

My question, though, is whether religion is the problem in and of itself. Frankly, I don't see it. Religion has just as often offered a critique of power as it has misused it. Slavery, civil rights, terrorism - all are issues where the problem might be seen as religion, and yet the resources for resolving the problem also come from religion. Religion, at its best, serves as a voice for justice, for the oppressed, for peace, and for understanding. It's simply not tenable to lay all of society's ills at the feet of organized religion as though just removing the "external and dogmatic belief systems" will usher in an era of warm fuzzies and hugs all around.

Let me offer my definition of religion, or specifically, what I take to be the core of the Christian faith qua religion. Is religion - is faith - simply an "external and dogmatic belief system"? Frankly, I hate that definition. It sounds violent and coercive - it makes it seem as though, if I were more spiritual, I wouldn't hold to my belief system. But that's untenable. Religions - faiths, and the Christian faith in particular - offer a particular view of the world, a particular story about what it means to be human, what is wrong with us, and what the solution to our problems might be. It's that story, that narrative, that forms the basis for a religion - not dogmatism or rules. Religions exist because we as people need a way to explain our experience as humans. As a Christian, I hold to a particular telling of that story. Other religions, of course, tell the tale differently. And, yes, those differences sometimes lead to conflict. But I believe that we, as humans, are storied people - we simply can't help crafting narratives in which to live. In the absence of religion, other narratives will be told as well. One currently powerful narrative is that told by consumer capitalism - it's not a "religion" in the technical sense, but you'd better believe it has the power to shape the way we think and interact with one another in ways that are undeniably religious.

So, from the beginning of the book, I feel as though I'm being fitted for Procrustes' bed - I'm given the choice between fundamentalism or freeform spirituality, and I frankly think it's a false dichotomy. I'm quite convinced that one can hold to the historic Christian faith and still offer a critique of "power-based interpretations of foundational texts". In fact, I think that the Christian story by its very nature critiques such interpretations.

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Heretic's Guide: The Question of Language (p.1)

I'm about halfway through Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. I thought I'd go ahead and start my interaction, because I'm finding that I have a lot to say and I don't want to lose my thoughts as I go forward. Before I begin, I want to reiterate my respect and appreciation of Spencer as someone I've had the opportunity to meet and get to know just a bit. I've said previously and will say again that he's one of the nicest and most winsome guys I've ever met, and his love for and appreciation of people is profoundly evident from the moment he walks into a room. I've struggled, consequently, with this review, because I have some challenging things to say as a result of the book thus far. I want, then, to be crystal clear that my differences are not with him as a person, but rather with his ideas as presented in AHGtE. Ultimately, though, I've come to two conclusions that I must hold in order to speak with integrity: first, when I'm asked for my opinion, I have a responsibility to present it honestly and fairly and to not cover it for the sake of maintaining an appearance of camaraderie; second, respect means not minimizing the differences between two positions, but recognizing them and speaking truly about them. With that said, Spencer, if you're ever in the Philadelphia area again, you have an open invitation to call me up for a beer or coffee or dinner. My treat. ;)

So, now that I've completely telegraphed where I'm headed with this, I want to begin by expressing something of why I find this book frustrating to read. Bob has already commented on this; so has Scot. But I want to reiterate what others have said: Spencer's use of terminology in this book is maddening. Maddening as in water torture maddening. Put briefly, Spencer is using language in unconventional ways in this book - and it makes digesting it difficult. The title is a case in point, although one that I won't belabor - what Spencer means by "heretic" is not what is normally meant by the term. Read Bob's post for further interaction with this point - I don't see a reason to restate what he's already done quite well. That's not the point of language that's a sticking point for me. The premise of the book, as I'm tracking it thus far, seems to be the contrast between "religion" and "grace". But here's where Spencer begins, I think, to invest these words with something of a different sense than what is commonly meant by them. For example:

To be honest, religion doesn't really work for me anymore. Being aligned with an institutional church or a particular system of worship seems increasingly irrelevant to my ongoing journey with God. In my experience, the customs, traditions, and even language of religion often seem to get in the way of honest dialogue about God. What's more, religion's airtight explanations and all-or-nothing theological arguments seem out of touch with the complexities of twenty-first-century life.

So, as Spencer continues through the book to engage this idea of religion vs. grace, I have to ask myself to what it is that he's exactly referring. The description that he gives doesn't seem to me to be religion per se; if that is, in fact, what he's saying, then I have to cautiously suggest that the entire book is based on a false dichotomy, and I think Spencer is no doubt smarter than that. Is he saying that all religion functions this way, or only some types of religious expression? I think the latter - but I'm not sure, because he never comes out and says it. As a result, I'm left with a choice that I have to make as a reader - is he being either frustratingly imprecise in his use of language, or harmfully stereotypical in his view of religion? I'm attempting to read generously here, so I'm opting for the former - but I concede that I might be wrong on that assumption. And I'm not going to begin to tackle the question of what he means by "grace" - that's for another post.

Some will no doubt say that I'm being needlessly pedantic about the meanings of words, that Spencer is merely being creative and pushing the language in a different direction, that it's helpful and challenging and stretching and all kinds of fun stuff like that. And I concede that I may have less patience for that sort of thing than I once did; I've become used to a certain level of technicality when reading theology, and Spencer is clearly not attempting to head in that direction (not a criticism, just an observation). But at it's most basic, language is about using shared symbols to communicate meaning. There is a sense in which it can be stretched and pushed, and then there is a point after which it looses its capacity to perform its intended function. In other words, stretch the meaning of a word too far and it looses its meaning altogether, like expired elastic that can no longer maintain its shape. And what is true of language is true of an intimately connected means of communication - that of story. But that's another post.

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Inspiration and Incarnation: The NT's Use of the OT (p. 4)

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily because the NT authors didn't follow what is often portrayed as normative hermeneutical practices in interpreting the OT. This is something that, I think, often escapes contemporary readers - we are, unfortunately, sufficiently far removed from the OT narratives (generally speaking) that we don't catch the subtle oddities in the NT texts. As a result, when we run across something that we do recognize, we assume that the author is doing something that he may not in fact be doing. More on this in a second.

Enns supplies a wealth of information about both the actual uses of the NT by the OT. I simply can't begin to summarize it all - to be honest, I think the discussion of second Temple writings alone is worth the price of the book. An example will have to suffice. In 2 Tim 3:8, we find this statement: "And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses..." Jannes and Jambres are the names that are assigned to the Egyptian magicians spoken of in Exodus 7. But even a cursory reading of the passage in Exodus will reveal that, not only are these names not mentioned anywhere in the narrative, the number of magicians in question isn't even provided. So where do the names originate? While we can't be certain of their origins, we do know that they also occur in the writings of Qumran, as well as one of the targums. What we see in this instance is that Paul is participating in an established interpretive tradition and incorporating its assumptions and conclusions into a writing that we hold as inspired. Other examples abound, some more troubling - Matthew uses Hosea in ways that, were I to emulate, would have resulted in my failing any number of theology assignments; Paul on a number of occasions quotes an OT passage, but actively alters the passage so that the quotation more adequately presents the perspective he is attempting to communicate; and Jesus himself takes passages out of context in order to prove a point, such as his use of Exodus 3:6 in his argument with the Sadducees in Luke 20.

I'm going to resist attempting to draw conclusions at this point. Instead, I want to quote something that Enns says that I think encapsulates the issue nicely, and summarize my thoughts in my next post.

Furthermore, it will not do to argue that Jesus and the apostles adopted such tainted exegetical techniques simply as an accommodation to the faulty thinking of their contemporaries. There simply is no indication of this anywhere in the New Testament...To argue in such a way reveals more about our own assumptions concerning the supposed universal validity of our own hermeneutical standards than it does about apostolic hermeneutics. But apostolic hermeneutics is not to be explained in such a way as to conform to our expectations, nor should we be embarrassed about it or make excuses for it. It is to be understood. (p. 132, emphasis added)

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Inspiration and Incarnation: The OT and Theological Diversity (p. 3)

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological diversity of the Old Testament presents to that perspective. I think that it also bears repeating that Enns is approaching this question from firm evangelical commitments himself - his presentation of these issues isn't meant to undermine a high view of scripture, but rather to bring the nature of the written text itself into conversation with that perspective, resulting in a more robust understanding of what it means to claim that scripture is God's self-revelation. In his own words:

One way that critical biblical scholarship takes diversity into account is to say that the Old Testament is full of contradictions and, hence, a quaint record of conflicting human opinions. Such an approach will never be an acceptable option for Christian thinking. An evangelical counterattack, however, is to defend the Bible against accusations of diversity by showing that such diversity is not there, involves only minor issues, or can be resolved in theory at some future time. But this alternative creates tensions of its own, and it runs the risk of avoiding the difficult issues altogether. (p.73)

I'm tempted at this point to delve into some of the texts that Enns highlights. I've decided against doing that. Anyone who has read the Old Testament at any level beyond a surface reading has no doubt begun to encounter the issues that Enns is discussing. If you are unconvinced that such diversity exists, I would humbly suggest a reading to illustrate: compare 2 Sam 11 and 1 Chron 20. Notice the tiny slice of history that the Chronicler omits following 20:1. It's absolutely fascinating the way these two narratives are constructed. I could suggest a number of others; however, the point isn't at all about exegeting specific difficulties. In fact, that may be precisely not the point. Enns goes on to state the following:

What the diversity of the Bible tells us is that there is no superficial unity to the Bible. Portions of the Bible are in tension with each other, as we have seen. That these tensions exist is a matter of simple observation. A better question is why they exist and what this tells us about the nature of the Scriptures and, by extension, the nature of God. (p.108)

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Inspiration and Incarnation: The OT and Ancient Literature (p. 2)

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas:

• Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?
• Customs, Laws, and Proverbs: Is Revelation Unique?
• Israel and its Kings: Is Good Historiography Objective or Biased?

Tackling each of these areas is far more than I can begin to attempt in the format of a blog post. Instead, I'll post a few excerpts and then offer some thoughts of my own.

To give a hint of where this discussion is going, it is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judged on the basis of standards of modern historical inquiry and scientific precision, things that ancient peoples were not at all aware of? Is it not likely that God would have allowed his word to come to the ancient Israelites according to standards they understood, or are modern standards of truth and error so universal that we should expect premodern cultures to have understood them?(p. 41)

I question how much value there is in posing the choice of Genesis as either myth or history. This distinction seems to be a modern invention. It presupposes - without stating explicitly - that what is historical, in a modern sense of the word, is more real, of more value, more like something God would do, than myth.(p. 49)

I could go on - there is a wealth of information in this section. For anyone who has done any amount of reading in ANE literature, there isn't a lot of surprising information - I was familiar with most of the texts that he was referencing just from my seminary training alone. He draws on examples that are fairly common knowledge, such as Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, and the code of Hammurabi. But the point that he makes is profound. Enns is proposing that evangelicals, by and large, have entered into the text with an assumption about what scripture is and does, and that our doctrine of scripture is shaped far more by those assumptions than it is by the text itself. This is most telling in his discussion of the ancient approach to historiography, and in particular the contrasts between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. Enns uses the example of the differences in Nathan's challenge to David; I can just as easily see the same dynamic in the telling of the census of the fighting men. Evangelical exegesis has often bent over backwards to reconcile these passages. But the simple fact, on first reading, is that they contradict each other - the texts present different factual summaries of the same events. And this has caused no end of difficulty for evangelical interpretation - but the reason for this difficulty is found, not in the text itself, but in the approach to scripture that makes contradiction a problem! Put succinctly - the fact that the accounts in these books differ is only a problem because we make it a problem. We assume that God has the same epistemology as we do, and that his conception of truth is the same as ours. So, for example, when Samuel-Kings and Chronicles give different facts about the same events, the assumption is that both cannot be true as written - it must be explained as to how these accounts can both be true while saying different things.

But what if, for example, "true" historiography in the ancient sense isn't historiography that is factually accurate in the way that we would think of accuracy? What if "true" historiography is the telling of the tale that presents the desired perspective most compellingly? What if the interpretation of the event is more important than the event itself? And what if all of these things mean that two accounts can tell different facts about the same event and yet still both be "true"? The point that Enns is making is that the Bible isn't the word of God because it is completely different from its context. In fact, it speaks very compellingly in contextual forms, including the approach to history and interpretation of events. And evangelicals have not wrestled with the implications of that contextuality for a robust doctrine of scripture - in fact, by obscuring the difficulties, we have participated instead in a sort of docetic bibliolatry, a belief in a scripture that is so far removed from the human author that it only appears human but, in fact, is nothing of the sort.

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Inspiration and Incarnation (p. 1)

I mentioned last week that I wanted to spend a bit of time blogging through Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation. This is a fantastic book that addresses in a very honest, direct, and respectful way the difficulties that evangelical doctrines of scripture create for exegesis. In his words:

My concern is that, at least on a popular level, a defensive approach to the evidence tends to dominate the evangelical conversation...I want to contribute to a growing opinion that