The Emerging Ghetto

my introduction to postmodern christianity and the emerging church happened to be at a conference held at brian mclaren's church, CRCC. the conference was called "out of the christian ghetto"... and was certainly good news for me at the time... since it helped me identify the ghetto that i had just been kicked out of. i remember someone using architectural styles to illustrate premodern, modern and postmodern ways of reading the bible - which was a major (and much needed) crack to the skull.

fast forward a few years. the emerging church conversation is well underway - we're not just pissing on everything (i.e. deconstructing) some good things are actually happening (i.e. reconstruction)... and one day while cruising through wikipedia - i notice Postmodernism (and Postmodernity) lack entries in terms of theology and christianity. huh? philosophy, architecture, literature, music... all of these are represented. -- interesting that we've overlooked wikipedia. anyway - the description herein is great stuff, and so stinkin relevant - the first keyword is even metanarrative.

fast forward to this blog. i have 7 keywords posted that resonate with me - ideas i wrestle with - that help me think / see / categorize the world and see God... powerful concepts - and one of them is this notion of emergence. i love this concept - a idea that stands all on its own... but simultaneously does a fantastic job of describing the phenomena that is happening within and without the church. once again i find that wikipedia hosts a lot of specific applications of this idea and its properties, especially as it applies to games (my professional interest), as well as nature, engineering, physics (lay interests)... but strangely enough, no entry as it applies to the church. bizarre.

and then...

i see why.

heavy sigh.

it is because...

we've staked out our own ground

separate

safe

away

from the world

away from relevance:

Postmodern Christianity has its own entry

and the Emerging Church has its own entry.

connection

is

forfeited.

a new ghetto

is

emerging.

The King Ant

an Ant Colony is common example of Emergence.

in an Ant Colony - there is a queen ant, which has an important role - but her role is not leadership.

that is the King Ant's job...

only there is no King Ant - because if there were, it wouldn't be an Ant Colony and it wouldn't be an example of Emergence - it would be a Kingdom and an example of Hierarchy.

Proverbs 6:6-8

God of the Probabilities

in elementary school, i remember marveling that multiplication was like addition, but deeper in that you keep *adding* the fist number a certain number of times.

later, i remember trying to imagine what powers meant - i couldn't imagine what was deeper than multiplication. i think i can point to the spot near my swing in our back yard where my dad finally explained that powers work in a similar way - in that you keep *multiplying* the first number a certain number of times. drop dead coolness.

each time that our understanding goes deeper - we grasp a little more in our tiny hand.

statisticians know the power of characterizing multiple occurrences of an event by using probability distributions, such as a "bell curve" or gaussian distribution. this deeper level of understanding enable us to make sense of what would otherwise appear to be random unconnected events, especially if we're up close.

each time, a little bit deeper.

likewise, the deepest reality we've uncovered is founded on probabilities - the truth of quantum reality is that nothing is actually here - there is only a probability that it is here. einstein recognized the theological significance and implications of the quantum world - and didn't like it one bit. his famous retort is "God doesn't play dice". this, of course, is an emotional argument to counter the mounting scientific evidence - but einstein at least grappled with the ramification of this.

unfortunately, we (including theologians) have done very little in the ensuing 100 years to incorporate the ramifications of the quantum world into our life, theology or worldview. we don't take the actual nature of our world seriously. we go around thinking that things are really real, but the truth is closer to "there is no spoon". einstein said it best (presumably after coming to terms with this a bit more) when he said, "reality is only an illusion - albeit a persistent one".

i got a brief whisper, a slight reminder of this when we had our big snow on the eastern side of the country last month. the snow was well documented in a number of blogs... including those of my friends. it's taken me a bit longer to post - but i was out doing the same thing - snapping a few pictures...
and this one:
i liked this perspective, and even caught a water drop midair after about 20 tries.
and then... i looked and saw something that stunned me... a probability distribution of snowflakes that had gathered on the railing of the deck - as you went underneath the roof overhang you could see a linearly decreasing distribution of snowflakes.
and from the side:
it was stunning to see the math. to see the probabilities. to see God placing snowflakes.

now this is a big concept to wrestle with, but let me say that the idea of "God of the Probabilities" takes nothing away from "His eye is on the sparrow"... because we wouldn't be here without those same probabilistic quantum effects... by "we" i mean, we - humans - and specifically, the earth and our solar system.

allow me to explain... ahem:

the recent news about a (previously suspected now "proven") rapid period of inflation during the early expansion of the universe is what i'm talking about. what they don't mention in this article, but Brian Green does in his books - is that the quantum probabilities are what caused the clumping of matter into galaxies and solar systems and prevented an expansion of the universe into homogenous and rather uninteresting (cosmologically speaking) pea soup.

to put it another way, the God of Probabilities' hand was present in the first trillionth of a second after the creation event, working the quantum probabilities, to allow for our very existence.

that's a lot to grasp.

but there it is.

God Sovereignty, that is His hand in the probabilities, is hard to see most of the time:
and here:
but it's there non-the-less. and once in a while, we will get a glimpse of it...

when we do, we need to hang on to that for when we find ourselves out here:
He is, God of the Probabilities.

dispensational lenses

would the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers look different to us if it was in the old testament?

(if so... this reflects a particular lens in use...)

i thought this question particularly striking since my church just got out of a series looking at the minor prophets... so this is still fresh in our minds. we enjoyed looking at all the freaky stuff Hebrew prophets did - and we understood the point of doing something uber-freaky was to make you ask "why the hell do you DO THAT?" - the focus was not the act itself.

in the past - i've tended to see the act of overturning the tables as rather violent, and not so pacifist - which, of course, is rather hard to reconcile with the rest of Jesus' teaching and life. perhaps i've heard this story used to illustrate the "he-man that was Jesus" too many times ... the embarrassment that was the 80's lives on...

in this case i would have to agree with brother Borg that this was the act of a Jewish Prophet - and i'm trying to put my freaky-prophet lens back on for this act to make more sense....

(p.s. mike - i will gladly drive for sushi any day of the week... in fact, that hardly seems fair)

you might not be emerging if:

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

you might not be emerging if:
-you think or act as if numbers are important
-you are sure you know what the term "pastor" means
-structure / authority are assumed (important / critical)
-your experience of worship is, in practice, quite narrow
-your future has a dependency on a building or buildings
-preaching / a message, sans discussion, is standard fare
-finances play a (perhaps) "undue" role in decision making
-systems / programs are primarily utilized to address issues
-scripture is normally dissected or predigested before ingested
-*doing* kingdom work is valued more than *being* the kingdom
-you've yet to critique the economic metaphor used to describe salvation
-you read, write or employ systematic methodologies of how to do church
-meetings/services are timed to sub-minute intervals, for efficiencies sake
-being cool / vibey / edgy (and not uncool) is somehow key to the kingdom
-dialogue, particularly negative feedback, is avoided - rather than welcomed
-mythological truth has not regained is rightful place alongside factual truth
-time at a divinity school is considered more useful than time at a monastery
-administrative announcements are allowed to disturb the flow of the service
-the terms "music" and "worship" can be substituted without loss of meaning
-your website architecture mirrors corporate america (mission, vision, values)
-you can point to a senior pastor / figure / person / personality in your community
-you believe society or people-in-general consider spirituality inherently irrelivant
-service elements are added without thought to their role in the holistic experience
-emerging church jargon appears on your website - e.g. 'emerging' or 'postmodern'
-you don't give a second thought to employing marketing techniques for your church
-unity is considered important, rather than a (negative) signal of (artificial) conformity
-your resume / credentials / accomplishments / title, appear prominently or are "relevant"
-you fail to see the irony in propagating "emerging-church" products via christian industry
-you talk, lecture, write books about the emerging church without being one in a community
-growing hearts (i.e. for loving God / loving others) is given less attention than growing heads
-what the central speaker has to share is generally the point - rather than the ensuing dialogue

you have yet to deconstruct church
and experience an organic emergence
of something unique to your community

less is more is zen

Microsoft's redesign of the iPod's Packaging ;-)

gaps / continuity - evolution and God

this blog entry by memoirs of an ex-christian should push us to confront "what we already know" (i.e. think we know) when looking at matters of science. not many people do this well -- in fact, almost no one.

for example, just like everyone in his day, einstein "knew" the universe was static, eternal, and unchanging - so when relativity predicted the universe would pull itself together and collapse (if the universe wasn't infinite - which it isn't) - he created an repulsive coefficient... by pulling it out of his ASSumptions.

Paul Davies - "knows" there isn't a God - so in his books, he repeats a process where he builds up a beautiful gorgeous case revealing an elegant design / creator - and then drops into 6th grade logic for a couple pages to explain Him away.

Christians have long and distinguished history of this same stupidity. the abuses start with the arrangement of the solar system and continue on through to the big bang. i still can't comprehend how the religious community managed to react negatively to something science discovered and named the "big bang". If THAT doesn't sound like a "creation event" - I don’t know what does.

today our tradition of knowing-what-we-think-before-we-think continues into our apparent need for GAPS to exist in order for us to "have faith" that God actively created. thus any scientific notion which eliminates or reduces gaps (i.e. explains things - arguably science's job) are deemed anti-God and must be wrong. i'm missing how it could possibly be the case that continuities are an affront to God, his Glory or accomplishments.

we are here - life is here - the universe is here - and causality before time and space is difficult to speculate on. so where don’t we see God? I see God in the grass which grows - an act no less profound because we understand the processes involved.

bottom line: we dont need to be afraid of the truth. the truth will set us free 'n all that, right? let go and let science tell us the wonders it may - without feeling threatened that our world is about to come apart. because it's not. in the mean time, however - our stupidity is causing damage it really doesn't need to do.