Isn't It Ironic?

For all that challenges me about this “in-between” that my life has found its way into, one virtue is that I have a chance to catch up on reading. So I can say without embarrassment that I was reading the May, 2009 issue of Martin Marty’s Context when I came across his summary of an article that appeared in the September 8, 2008 Christianity Today regarding what the author, Scot McKnight, dubbed “Ironic faith.”

My attention was grabbed by a reference to Brian McLaren. Several years ago I read his book, Generous Orthodoxy at the invitation of my then Associate Pastor, Steve Blackstock. I remembered as I read this article that I felt much of McLaren’s critique of the mainline was a caricature, and that many of the things he was longing for within the Evangelical church were present in the churches those Evangelicals had left behind.

McKnight talks about eight “catalysts” of this “ironic faith” that he sees emerging out of Evangelicalism, and I read the list I wondered if these were not all things that the mainline churches had tried to address as far back as the 1920’s….My quick summary of his points follows, but I urge to you read his article to see if I am being fast and loose with my understanding.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/september/39.62.html?start=2

1. Biblical inerrancy is not sufficient to express the truth of the Gospel.
2. The radical message of Jesus, often muted by the church, has political dimensions and global perspective.
3. Though committed to the bible, it is not the appropriate ground for scientific belief…when the bible and science offer different stories, science does not have to bow.
4. Authenticity—the congruence of belief and life—is an important marker of Christianity.
5. Pluralism is not a threat to true faith, but a witness to the goodness and wonder of God.
6. Images of a harsh and judging God (sometimes unfortunately equated with the “Old Testament God”) must always be viewed from the perspective of God’s love and compassion (sometimes triumphally equated with “The New Testament God, or the God of Jesus).
7. The hard rhetoric of scripture on issues of homosexuality does not have to be taken literally, and should not overtake a compassionate and loving approach to all people regardless of sexual preference or orientation.
8. I have to quote this one… “Emergents reason that theology is language-bound; language has its limits; the Bible is in language; that means the Bible, too, has the limits of language.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I read this list and it just sounds to me like what Harry Emerson Fosdick tried to argue in the face of J. Gresham Machen in the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the first quarter of the 20th century. For a terrific summary Wikipedia does a real service. Read more at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_controversy

All I can conclude is that it is not theology, doctrine of scripture, or even sexual politics that is keeping the “emergents” from finding their way back home. Some would argue that it’s all about worship wars, and a desire for a more casual, “contemporary” approach to worship, but again the critiques seem to me mostly grounded in caricature. Worship, at least in the Presbyterian churches I have experienced, is not what it was when the fundamentalists left, and indeed when I’ve talked to “emergents” who have found they way back into the pew, one of the things they cherish is the connection to the musical traditions of their youth…”music you can sign!”

There’s something else going on here, and I would hazard two guesses.

First, I wonder if these emergents who are looking for just what is being served in many mainline churches every Sunday are just a little afraid to walk back in the doors—if they aren’t something like poor Jacob, waiting anxiously alongside the Jabbok for his brother Esau. There is, I suspect, genuine fear that should they return they would not be welcome.

But that leads to the second “I wonder”—if the mainline isn’t just a little bit afraid of letting the emergents back in, unsure how much of their baggage they will bring with them. I, for one, am tired of fighting the fundamentalist wars. If a separate peace is the only peace that will hold, then I embrace it. But if the real longing is for a faith that earnestly addresses these eight dynamics of the “ironic faith” McKnight is trying to tease out, I wonder if we old mainliners could be gracious enough to open our doors wide to all seekers, and hospitable enough to feed them, and then listen to their honest reflections on the common life we seek to share.

Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal has been immensely important to me, and as I read Marty reading McKnight I could not get the image of Rembrandt’s painting out of my head. With Nouwen’s wisdom I understand that there’s a little bit of older brother and a little bit of younger brother in us all, and that the great challenge of Christian life is to be a little bit of the father, opening our arms wide for that son who was dead but now lives, while assuring the other son “all that I have is yours!”

It’s just so hard to come home, sometimes, and truth told home can make it pretty hard to return. But as I read and reflected on all this, I felt myself longing for just a touch of grace that might help us see each other clearly, not as adversary or foe, but as children of this great God who loves us all, and longs for each of us to know that welcoming embrace.