On Postmodernism, or THE WAY WE THINK TODAY: Part 1, Why Many Cannot Make Sense of Church

Many people today cannot make sense of church because the way we think today is not the way we used to think.  Many churches, most churches, still think in one way; more and more people today think in another way.  Many, many churches – including our own heritage, the Churches of Christ – grew their structures and forged their creedal identities in the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century thought world of Newton, Locke, Voltaire and Hume:

committed to the pursuit of timeless, abstract, universal truths that are true for all people in all times, regardless of context or circumstance;

enthralled by science and accepting as true only those “facts” that are scientifically verifiable; and

in quest of certitude and consequently having little patience with mystery or diversity. 

All this has been rigorously challenged in the past fifty years by a kind of thought called Postmodernism. 

“Postmodernism” means – drum roll, please – that that which comes after modernism.  The world of, say, 1950 prided itself on being modern.  And there was some reason for pride.  Much had been learned from modern thought.  There was a sense of having arrived, of having arrived at ultimate truth.  But a number of thinkers kept thinking.  They thought of a world that had just survived two World Wars and the monstrous ethnic-cleansing of the Holocaust, and was now split down Cold War lines and threatened by nuclear annihilation.  (Good grief!  Back in that day in school little kids like me were being drilled in “duck and cover.”)  And they wondered if all this horrifying conflict might not in some ways be explained by the modern pursuit of timeless, abstract, universal truths; a purified Master Race, for instance, is just such a concept, clinically rational, deadly wrong.  Maybe all the conflict, the turmoil, the violence, arose out of  the very quest for certitude, the worship of science and technology, and the disregard for context, circumstance, diversity and the truths that are known best by the heart. 

When Postmodernism crashed against the denominational citadels of Christianity, it was largely seen as bad news.  It created consternation.  Churches molded by modernism sensed the real threat in Postmodernism.  Their institutions were being scrutinized, as were many of their theological certitudes.  And many church leaders circled their wagons and took aim at Postmodernism which drove them deeper into decline. 

But why?  What if God were offering us through new thought a fresh wind of the Spirit bringing life back to the dry bones of the church, a world open to mystery, to awe and wonder, to miracle, a world gloriously re-enchanted, life open to the sacred all around us, minds surrounded by grace and with this consciousness being able to see so much more than we ever could before?  And what if this might make possible all people one day coming together in faith? 

Context Always Matters

So it's been a fascinating week or two since word went out about Naomi's Ministry in Residence program with us starting in September.  Many  people have been incredibly supportive of what we are doing.  Others have been critical but in civil, respectful ways.  Others, well, there are ... always others.

I'm going to take one posting (I have many other interests to move on to) to deal with what seems to me to be the sticking point for many people skeptical of gender egalitarian views.  They are convinced that Paul in both 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 1 Timothy 2:9-15 anchors women’s silence and submission in church in creation.

But could it be that Paul in the 1 Timothy text is a contesting a specific notion of creation rather than making an argument from creation?  In the shadow of the great Temple of Artemis worshiped in Ephesus as the Mother Goddess, there were those in Ephesus, and apparently in the church there as well, who believed that women were created first (a more widespread belief in the ancient world than most suppose) and that women had special insight.  Paul observes that the biblical creation account offers no support for such views.  For more on this, perhaps you could check out  http://gal328.org/resources/congregational-studies-and-statements-on-gender/ where you will find in my writings and others further development of this point.  There is also an extensive bibliography on this same website that advances our understanding in these matters.

As for 1 Corinthians 11, the first ten verses do make some kind of argument from creation, though scholars differ widely in the understanding of what headship in this text means, and in any case, this text does not rule out women praying and prophesying.  With verse 11, however, Paul makes an always important transition, “In the Lord, however … ,” as he moves from a fallen world to a world redeemed by trust and grace.

Could it be that one day the "arguments from creation" will be seen in their contexts, in both their spiritual and historical contexts?  Context always matters. Could it be that one day more and more people will align their thinking and behavior with Jesus’ teachings that we are not to be concerned about who is the greatest but we, as his followers, are to be servants of all?  

Reflections on Our Hiring a Woman

The following are the reflections I gave Sunday morning, July 7th, upon the announcement of our Ministry in Residence program with Naomi Walters.  I realize that these reflections have spread far and wide already, but it seemed strange if they were absent from my blog.  I will note that these are reflections upon an announcement not a substantially developed position in support of gender equality.  For that I direct you to  http://gal328.org/resources/congregational-studies-and-statements-on-gender/ where you find some other writings.  The same website will point you to an extensive bibliography for further study and reflection.

*****

"This is a big Sunday here at the Stamford Church of Christ.  This is a landmark summer, and this is a big Sunday when we formally announce our one-year Ministry in Residence with Naomi Walters starting in September.  And so I decided to break from our series on Philippians and share with you more personally my own thoughts on this auspicious occasion.

I begin by thinking back to how I became a minister.  To many people it seemed fore-ordained.  I was a minister’s kid, more precisely, a minister’s son; so when I was in my very early teens I was already preaching sermons in small country congregations near where we lived.  I am glad that this was long before the days of audio-visual record and that there remains no evidence of those sermons, but it just seemed natural that I would be a minister. 

Well, natural to everyone but me.  So I  took a detour on the way to ministry, studied pre-med, then psychology, then sociology, and only when I was already in graduate school in sociology at the University of Michigan did I feel drawn back to studying religion.  And that’s what I was drawn to, studying religion not necessarily ministry.  I was fascinated by Jesus and by things spiritual, but about ministry I was reluctant. 

Still when three years later I graduated from Harding Graduate School of Religion, I already had a job waiting for me with a mission church in East Brunswick, New Jersey sponsored by the Madison Church of Christ in Tennessee.  A year later I had a job waiting for me at Michigan Christian College, now Rochester College.  Two years after that I was here.

Naomi’s path was a bit different.  No one expected her to be a minister.  To no one – except perhaps God – was it fore-ordained.  Many people otherwise close to her did not want her to be a minister.  Still she graduated from Rochester College in Michigan with a major in Biblical Studies and a minor in Counseling.  She then went on to Abilene Christian University where she excelled academically and received her M.Div.  There was no job waiting for Naomi.  It was well-known in ACU circles and circles that spread out from there that Naomi Walters was exceptionally skilled at preaching.  I heard her name, and I heard she was the best, long before I ever met her.  But no one was lined up to offer her a job.  For one reason only – she was a woman.

Other women in her position, and there are others, in increasing numbers all the time, are simply leaving the Churches of Christ, but Naomi choose a different track and determined to do her very best to stay within our fellowship.  Almost two years ago, she and Jamey began driving up here from Princeton, New Jersey passing East Brunswick (where I began) on the way.  This past Christmas Day they brought into our lives dear little Simon.  This summer Naomi begins an on-line D. Min. program at David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.  The D. Min. program is a practical program that supposes you already have a ministry position and ministerial experience.  The wise people who run David Lipscomb’s D. Min. program made an exception for Naomi.  But no one else did.  No churches did.  No churches offered her an opportunity to gain ministerial experience. 

That is, until Naomi summoned up her courage and approached us wondering if we might be able to find a way to give her at least part-time ministerial experience.  So conversations began and then on Sunday, May 16^th, she met for an extensive interview with our elders and ministers.  We were all blown away.  E-mails flew back and forth – the morning-after gist of which were, “Wow!  Could you believe that interview?”  Most of us had been part of many interviews; few of us had ever seen a person who interviewed as well as Naomi, who came across with her poise, wisdom and spiritual insight. 

So we proposed a part-time year-long Ministry in Residence position for Naomi to all of you, and the response was strongly supportive.  As the current minister here, the support seemed maybe too strongly supportive.  My favorite response was in an email from Kelly Beel, “What about you, Dale?  You won’t be giving the sermon?”  Thank you, Kelly.  But that seemed to trouble no one else, and in fact wasn’t the case anyway.  I will be giving sermons.  Lots of them.  And they will likely be listened to with the same measure of interest and indifference as usual.  The larger point is this proposal was strongly supported.  So we sent Naomi an offer letter which she signed.  And that brings us to this day, Sunday, July 7^th, 2013.

Still I am struck by the difference between my story and Naomi’s.  All because of gender.  And I am deeply disappointed that Churches of Christ have made such slow progress on all this.  Too many ministers who know better, who agree with what we are doing here, are simply, for the sake of survival, I guess, staying silent.  Too many churches are being held back by the traditional views of just one or two of elders (even when most elders are open to progress).  Too many people in the pews who have nothing to lose are sitting this out; in the process they risk losing much.

All this does not auger well for Churches of Christ.  I am by academic training a historian, so I find it natural to think historically, to catch a sense of the flow of history and to from that map out where the future will be taking us.  One day almost all churches will be gender egalitarian.  Outside of Catholicism, most in the West already are.  One day Catholicism will be.  And those movements that prove resistant to this will be in serious decline.  Again, for most the decline has already begun.

I do not doubt that many people who resist change on this are acting in good faith.  But they are not studying the Bible.  They are not doing their homework.  They do not seek the original intent of Scripture nor do they seek to understand Scripture in its historical context.  So they do not understand that those passages that restrict women’s participation in public worship – 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 and 1 Timothy 2:9-15 – address specific circumstances in the particular cultural context of their original first-century audiences.  They do not understand that Paul is calling his readers to live gracefully as disciples of Christ within the strongly patriarchal patterns of their day.  They do not understand that he is guiding Christians in the setting in which they live; he is not advocating their patriarchal, even misogynistic, setting for all time.  So they do not distinguish between what the New Testament says about the new life in Christ and the degree to which it was possible to implement this in first-century culture.  As a result, although they would no longer use the teaching, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters” (Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-4:1; Titus 2:9-10) to defend slavery in our time, they will still use 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 or 1 Timothy 2:9-15 to silence women’s voices in our public assemblies in our time.

This is a big Sunday.  This is landmark summer, and this is a big Sunday.  By giving Naomi this ministerial experience we are fulfilling the vision of Peter in Acts 2:17-21 that God has poured out his Spirit on all people, both men and women; our sons and our daughters will prophesy.  By insisting in this place that the use of God-given gifts will not be restricted on the basis of gender, we are being true to the spirit of Christ, true to the goodness in the gospel, true to the freedom we have in Christ, and true to the original intent and the historical context of the texts in question.  We help end patterns of prejudice and discrimination that bring shame to churches in our time.  We save our sons and daughters, and we play our part in seeing that women everywhere are treated with the same respect that men just naturally are by virtue of their being male.

In hiring Naomi to this part-time Ministry in Residence we are of course stepping out in faith in many ways, including our absorbing her $20,000 in salary.  We did not budget for this.  And so we ask those of you who can to give toward offsetting her salary.  And we will be asking people across the country who support what we are doing, who see the significance, even the necessity, of churches providing ministerial experience to women like Naomi, to help us in this.                      

TOGETHER we will build a future in which people will no longer be held back or held down simply by how they were born, where all people will be respected, honored and empowered not for how they were physically born but for how they are spiritual reborn.  The gospel will again be heard as gospel that is for all the people.  And the world will know that we all live in a world lit by resurrection and open to the Spirit of God, a world of amazing possibilities, a world where grace reigns, a world where in all things God works for our good, a world where we are all called to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, and that this is as true for women as it is for men."

What We Know: Simpler, Kinder and Not Alone

We’d all like some way to be more sure of what we know and how we know it.  Yet in a world in which we cannot reasonably be expected to think identically we must also learn to think graciously in ways that respect those who differ from us.  Jesus, I believe, showed us the way to do this when he promised his followers in John 16:13 that the Spirit of truth will guide them (us) into all the truth.  It’s a remarkable promise and an important part of understanding how we know what we know.  It tells us that even when we are feeling confused and unsure, even just plain stupid, the Spirit of truth will – in some sense – still guide us into all truth.  And that of course is gospel, great good news, and welcome news.

This promise is part of a sustained teaching section by Jesus that we find in John 13-17.  It’s Jesus talking at length to his closest circle of disciples the night of his betrayal and arrest.  He knows the next day he will die.  And he’s looking for some way to reassure them, something to get them through the horror of the next twenty-four hours, and then to prepare them for his eventual departure some weeks later.  For three years they’re been the closest of traveling companions, together day and night, always talking, always there for one another, but all that will end in just a few weeks.  And what he says to them is: “I will not leave you alone.”  In 14:16 he tells them, “God will give you another counselor – the Holy Spirit – to be with you forever.”  In the Greek, the word he uses for “counselor” is “paraclete.”  It means, literally, “one who is called to your side,” one who is on your side.  I will not leave you alone, Jesus promises.  I will give you the Spirit of truth.  The Spirit of God will be with you when you’re lonely and feeling abandoned, when life turns dark, when you’re down and out, and confused and weak, and you don’t know what to think or believe.  In fact, that’s precisely when he will be with you. 

But you will never be alone.  Picture yourself alone in a big empty room maybe as afternoon shadows fall, or laying in bed in the middle of the night wide awake because you can’t sleep.  You’re worried and confused.  Life has thrown another curve at you.  And you don’t know what to do or what to think.  You feel very alone in all this.  Picture then the Spirit of God entering that room, at first, maybe way up high in the corner of the room.  Sense this Spirit spreading through the room, bathing the room in warmth, coming closer and entering you.  Feel the healing, the warmth, the cleansing, the companionship of God.  You are never alone. 

It’s in this context that Jesus promises that when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.  But what does it mean to be guided into all this truth?  It’s been understood and misunderstood in many ways.  Some have believed that it applied only to the apostles and the Scriptures they wrote, or to the apostolic succession, to those with special authority in the church, to the apostles and their successors, the bishops, and ultimately to the Bishop of Rome.  Now what all these positions have in common is their need to control the truth, to restrict the truth, to restrict it to the New Testament, or to church authorities or Bible experts.  And somehow this kind of truth always turns out, sooner or later, to be timeless, heartless abstractions that do not fit real life, notions that work well in abstraction until you actually find yourself or someone you love in a real life situation trying to apply it.  The longer I live, the more my heart resists these presumptions.  The longer I know Jesus, the more I know that he’s saying something simpler and kinder.