They are not ground-breaking theology or cutting-edge research. Nor are they the work of a dedicated and gifted theologian. They were written largely from the point of view of my own interests as I tried to grasp a little of the bigger picture of the challenges facing the Church of Scotland in a changing society and how engaging with newer forms of church could influence that. In other words, bear this very specific context and background in mind if you wish to shred them ‘theologically’.

MTh Research

  Dissertation - Converging Conversations
» 480.7 Kb - August 20, 2010
MTh dissertation. The need for 'intentional' dialogue if the Church of Scotland is to engage effectively with new forms of church.

  Essay - Tentative Steps towards an Emerging Kirk
» 204.1 Kb - August 20, 2010
MTh Research Essay 2 An analysis of the Church of Scotland's engagement with Emerging Church through a 2009 report from Ministries Council and Mission and Discipleship Council.

  Essay - Looking Beyond the Labels
» 206.2 Kb - August 20, 2010
MTh Research Essay 1 An investigation of some of the underlying issues behind some of the 'post-' labels commonly associated with Emerging Church.

  Essay - Unity In Diversity
» 270.5 Kb - August 20, 2010
Mth Research Essay - Barth Course Using the creedal church mark of 'One', this essay critiques Emerging Church from a Barthian perspective.

The first is an article by Richard B Hays which is an adaptation of a lengthier book section. It is a pretty comprehensive statement of the conservative position on homosexuality. I recall reading the full book section in 2nd year New Testament studies and found it to be useful then. That was not long before General Assembly discussed the issue of human sexuality. The Mission and Discipleship report (.doc file) and the congregation discussion resource document (1.5M pdf file, via OneKirk) they produced drew heavily on this work for the conservative perspective. It was also at the heart of a ‘refutation‘ at the time by Paul Middleton, but that work never fully engaged with Hays and so I was left feeling that it was a somewhat selective and not entirely convincing counter-argument.

The second referenced article is by Kim Fabricius (on Ben Myers blog) is a useful ‘in a nutshell’ view from the other side of the debate. The comments are extensive and worth a skim through. It is not a point-by-point argument and assumes a degree of ‘honest’ scholarship which recognises the ambiguity in many of the scriptural references to homosexual activity. If that’s not your ‘place’ then I would recommend doing some wider reading before decrying what Kim says. An ‘honest’ approach will/should leave Romans 1 as one of the few ‘unambiguous’ texts which need to be dealt with. Thereafter you may engage with his propositions and reach your own conclusion.

Finally, the third article referenced is not a theology one, but rather a media comment on a recent sex scandal in Australia. It makes some very valid moral/ethical observations which, I think, are quite pertinent to the whole discussion.

It has also been prompted by a couple of questions from Scott, and in particular his most recent question about some of the underlying assumptions we make when ‘doing mission’. So, in no particular order, some thoughts on theology (and more to follow in subsequent posts).

In or out? The fundamental premise of traditional church seems to be similar to one of the old lottery slogans – “You have to be in it to win it.”  Simplistically put, salvation comes through acknowledging Jesus as Lord and coming to church. That’s deliberately over-simplistic but I believe it captures much of the essence of where traditional church seems to be at the moment. Even more mission-minded churches, with great outreach programmes, still seem to have ‘come and join us’ as the underlying motive. Underlying this emphasis is the RC doctrine of there being no salvation apart from the church. Protestant doctrine nuances this somewhat but still has a focus on being ‘called into community’. Evangelical emphasis is much more biased towards individualism (consider how many phrases used by evangelicals are about ‘personal saviour’ or individuals coming to a ‘saving faith’) but still with the expectation that once someone has made that ‘personal decision for Christ’, they will readily come to church.

EC attempts to turn this on its head somewhat. Its stated aim is to take the sacred into the secular – to transform the secular by being the body of Christ in the world. Slogans like, “find where God is at work and join in,” are often bandied around as being the ‘real’ missional approach. EC is very much about an integrated faith and life and so one’s face suffuses every aspect of our interaction with our secular surroundings. Actually, to be entirely fair to EC, this distinction between the sacred and the secular is seen by EC as a false one. If we speak of God being active in the world, how can we speak of it as being secular? And so, for that reason, to behave one way when in church and to behave differently in society is to display a lack of integrity.

Mission, therefore, is not about evangelising to bring people in, but to participate in the missio Dei and bring about something of the Kingdom here and now, albeit in a provisional form. The extreme of this view gets me on my eschatological hobby-horse though. I find that (despite the popularity of NT Wright within EC theological circles) EC theology falls to far into the ‘realised eschatology’ camp. It’s not necessarily a bad place to be but I think it leads to a works-based (or perhaps works-biased)  soteriology. Maybe this isn’t an entirely fair criticism, but I sense that it shifts in that direction.

Which links me in to another issue associated with the missional style EC adopts. Picking up on the soteriology issue, it begs the question about the ‘Great Commission’ laid upon Christians. Is ‘making disciples’ a matter of showing people that the ‘good work’ they are doing is really God’s work and getting them to acknowledge that and keep working (this is the works-based soteriology coming through)? Because it seems to me that if we acknowledge that God is at work in the world, and that all good works ultimately flow from Him, then there is actually little or no imperative for evangelism. I suppose that one could argue that by bringing a person to faith, their works can become even more effective as they understand their importance and their focus. It means that the works that they do which are less God-oriented can be revised to make them so.

There is, of course, all manner of middle ground, nuanced by other theological suppositions, but it seems that these are some of the theological issues which traditional church needs to wrestle with if it is to co-exist happily with EC. I think that part of the reason that there is suspicion on both sides is that the focus has largely been upon the ‘visible’ – the way each ‘do’ church. I’m not sure that the underlying theological reasons for each side’s has been made obvious. On the part of established church it has often just been assumed that people understand why things are done the way they are done and there is little questioning of it. For EC, their problem is that the underlying theological justifications haven’t really been made voiced effectively. Too much of it has been reaction to established church. There are not too many works enunciating and evaluating the underlying theology of EC from the point of view of what EC does (rather than why they don’t do what established church does).

Someone asked me recently what my position was on EC and I had to answer that I am a ‘supportive sceptic’. I suppose that until I become convinced that the same theological rigour has been applied to EC as the established church has had to deal with (and I might not necessarily agree with some of the positions found in the established church, but at least I understand why they hold them) then I will always be sceptical of EC practices. At the moment I’m simply not convinced that the cry of holistic/integrated faith and life rings true. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just an excuse for not getting out of bed on a Sunday morning.

And, unfortunately, it’s the Church of Scotland’s law and structures that are often the problem. That’s not to suggest that there aren’t people who are trying, often creatively, to provide solutions, but there was still an underlying sense of not taking Emerging Church seriously. If I may parody it somewhat, it seemed that there was a willingness to set up a working party to look at the questions that would need to be addressed by a committee who could produce a report to create a task force who would consult widely to produce a report that could go to a council and be presented to GA for consideration by presbyteries to ascertain whether there was support for changes to develop a new style of ministry.

Meanwhile community projects are being slapped on the wrist for overstepping parish boundaries or are unable to share the sacraments because their eminently qualified leader doesn’t have the ‘right sort’ of theology degree and isn’t ordained. There was much talk about training and the need for a new focus on missional skills for ordained ministries. But I can’t help but feel that a more open approach to development of lay leaders or the already qualified members needs a better look at. Why do we allow someone to ‘preach and teach’ at a youth club yet become very cagey when they might do it from the pulpit, as it were? There was also talk of a more modular approach to training, building on existing skills. So how about an approved ‘sacramental theology’ bolt-on to make sure it’s all done above board and with theological rigour and that makes sure the appropriate box is ticked for church law? And maybe it’s time to get over the suspicion and angst about it that has persisted for several hundred years since the Reformation.

So, what’s the solution? A presbyterian church with flexible structures, “boundary blindness” (thanks to Peter Neilson for that one) when it comes to parishes and a real commitment to training its people to become the body of Christ in the community. And maybe a church that relaxes its ecclesiology and grasps more of the kingdom instead. Shouldn’t be too tall an order. Maybe a report to GA is called for.

As I read it I was reminded of an observation from Barth which I think I’ve previously mentioned – that the church has always been a minority. The implication is that it always will be, and that that’s no bad thing. In the light of Pagitt’s comments it even makes sense (to me anyway). It opens up the whole question of the purpose of the church. In a sense it only ever needs to be a minority if it sees its purpose as finding where God is at work and joining in. ‘Church’ then becomes the place where church members are spiritually renewed and sustained and sent out to mission again. Their mission purpose is to make disciples of all nations. But does that need to mean growing a church congregation? OK, so it raises issues of ‘Christian imperialism’ when we count those who are working for ‘the good’ to be disciples, but then the issue is about the kingdom, and not the church. It also ‘meets the requirement’ for the church to be ‘in the world, but not of it’. And it has a somewhat liberal, vaguely universalist, soteriology. But that’s just theology and a few proof texts will soon take care of that.

But it also throws into question the whole issue of the EC movement. Is it actually necessary to establish churches to do mission work? The answer must be, “no,” but what then is EC for? It seems to me that EC is, in a sense, a by-product of missional work. Or, at least, it can be. It can also be a project in and of itself. Context is the key, I suppose.

It also raises some interesting questions for the Church of Scotland, particularly at this cash-strapped time and as it considers its ability to meet its Third Article and be a presence in every part of Scotland. Maybe by trying to be ‘church’ everywhere it will never succeed; but as the missional bringer of the kingdom, that may be a different story. A lot of joined-up thinking required I think.

My last essay (from the Barth class) ended up being about ‘community’. Barth is very big on a Christian being called into a community. He pretty much says we can’t be Christians on our own. But more than that he has much to say about the fractured community that is the church catholic. The issue explored in the essay was whether Emerging Church adds to the fractured-ness or whether it exists within the church in the broad sense.

Anyway, the point was that it headed in a direction which I hadn’t really intended taking (I was originally more interested in the actual ‘theology’ employed by EC) and so it left me with a bit of a dilemma. Did I continue looking at the broad picture of EC or focus in on their theology. Given that defining Emerging Church is a bit like trying to nail jelly to a wall, the thought of trying to get to grips with theological issues was not a particularly enthralling one.

So I was kind of stuck on which direction to go – until I had a chat with my supervisor, that is. I was keen to keep my interests in a local context and not get dragged too much into the US-centric view of EC, so the plan is now as follows:

Book review: Emerging Churches, Gibbs & Bolger. This gives a good overview of what EC is in the US and UK. Lots of background material.

Essay 2: Having looked at one of the creedal marks of church (‘one’) in the first essay, I wanted to look at ‘holy’ in my next essay. Holy means ‘distinctiveness’ and in the church context is about the distinction between the sacred and the profane. In the context of EC, it raises questions about whether EC simply regurgitates popular culture or whether it ‘sacrilises’ it somehow.

Essay 3: The Church of Scotland have been keen to gather momentum in getting to grips with EC, particularly the idea of ‘mixed economy’ church as expressed in Fresh Expressions. But not all expressions of EC sit comfortably within the CofS, especially its presbyterianism. Many ECs seem to veer heavily towards the congregational model or even attempt to remain ‘structureless’. This essay looks at which expressions of EC fit within the CofS polity.

Dissertation: Pick an EC project currently underway within the CofS and examine its ‘mission statement’ or project proposal in light of the creedal marks of ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic’ church. (If nothing else, it gives me a clear structural  outline for the work.) To that end I also have a meeting with the CofS EC co-ordinator. Hopefully I will be able to get pointed to a usable project.

Just got to sit down and write all that now.

However, even someone tied to bungee cords will find a point of equilibrium and that doesn’t seem to be true for me. Nikki threw a phrase into the pot which seemed to be a pretty accurate ‘label’ – Restless Theology. I rather liked that, so with due credit to Nikki for coming up with the name, I lay claim to it as a label for describing my own theology. I will post some restless thoughts in due course.

How has virtualisation impacted on notions of identity?

How has virtualisation impacted on our values as human beings?

How has increased connectivity impacted on the nature of our organisations?

How has increased connectivity and virtualisation impacted on our ability to develop meaningful communities?

Is a regulatory framework desirable?

What are the theological implications of the changes being brought to individuals, to society and to organisations by increased connectivity and virtualisation?

This is all good stuff and very relevant in our technology-oriented world.

Overall, the day was interesting enough, with some very challenging issues raised about our use of such technology, our expectations of privacy and much else. However, I was left with the abiding impression that none of the advertised topics was adequately addressed, there was no clear direction for where it was all going and, depressingly, that there was a bit (more than a bit) of disconnection with the reality of the pace of change and the uses to which the technology was being put. I can see the panel ending up commenting on technology that has long since fallen out of favour or moved beyond how it is being used at the moment.

Anyway, that’s really by way of introduction to what I want to mull over. One of the ideas that was floated around was that of ‘contextual identity’. Virtualisation allows us to ‘be’ different people in different places. Each of those personas is ‘real’ regardless of their existence in cyberspace or ‘IRL’. They are ‘real’ because they are an extension of who we are – we make them real because they are from us (arguably, part of our legacy of sharing in the task of creation when we named the animals) – and they are real because they have real consequences. Our virtual interactions with others will ultimately impact with a real person at the far end. We can be ‘different people’ on a night out with the lads or sitting in church on a Sunday morning and virtualisation has simply been an extension of that. But it offers greater scope for identity adoption and it often offers the veneer of anonymity and impermanence. It’s easier than ever to be whoever we want to be.

There are the obvious issues raised about ethical integrity and moral behaviour but I want to pick up on the issue of self-identity. When we adopt a contextual identity, whether it is who we are sitting in the pub, or our character in WoW, it is an extension of who we are. It cannot be otherwise, surely? That’s not to say that it necessarily represents a ‘significant’ part of who we are. It may be that tiny fraction of our personality that needs released every now and again for a bit of fun or it may be a large part of who we ‘are’ and what is important to us. The problem is that we are very bad at making relative judgements and tend towards the absolute. For example, I like to blog about systematic theology, therefore I must be an ‘academic’ with no understanding of real-life pastoral concerns. OK, bad example maybe. But joking aside, it’s an example of how one public persona could potentially be seen as representative of the whole person. Virtualisation compounds this problem with no discerning value-judgement being made on the ‘weight’ of each contextual identity. Added to that there is the possibility of many, many contextual identities and there may be little or no knowledge of the others from the one being looked at (and evaluated).

These issues are, arguably, purely sociological, and that would be true. But they do have a theological or faith dimension. Not least because some of those contextual identities may well representing a person’s faith, or ethics, or morals. But there is also the issue of ‘self’ and, from a Christian faith perspective, that is a theological issue.

Each of these contextual identities is real and so they are part of the real ‘us’ – they define who we are. Each aspect may represent a greater or smaller fraction of the whole, but they are nevertheless ‘us’. Furthermore, if we acknowledge that we are ‘fallen’ creatures then some (all) of those parts will be less than perfect. And it may well be that the ‘biggest’ aspect of us that is seen (virtually or otherwise, but especially virtually) is the least perfect.

And so integrity of ‘self’ becomes an issue. How de we ensure we are not misrepresented by those contextual identities and yet allow them to exist as part of who we are? But maybe that’s not our problem, but lies with others – how they perceive us, who they understand us to be given only the snapshots of us which appear in any given context. And therein lies another issue. We are not static beings. We grow, we learn, we change our minds, our views, our behaviour. Who we are is in a state of flux as we are moulded and shaped, brought down and raised back up again. Indeed the Christian belief in resurrection is not purely a future-focused one, but is a present reality as well. We are always in a time when we ‘die to self’ and become more Christ-like.

Therefore, the Christian understanding of forgiveness becomes all the more relevant as well. In many respects the internet is like a very large elephant – it never forgets. There is no shortage of websites where archive snapshots can be found of all manner of online mutterings are preserved for posterity. Any information we put ‘out there’ can be reused and further disseminated by others. Arguably it is no longer our own, but our fingerprints are still all over it. In a sense we cannot escape our virtual past and so our history, which is always bound into our sense of self, becomes more and more difficult to escape. But our past history, however influential on who we are now, is not who we are now. Christians, like everyone else, can be very good at dredging up the past but Christians should, out of anyone, be most aware of how that past can be set aside. If it were not so then Jesus stands for nothing and the cross is meaningless.

One final thought, and one that goes of on a bit of a tangent. Last Sunday evening I heard a sermon that got into a discussion of the nature of the Trinity. One picture offered was of a three-piece jigsaw, each part interlocking with the other two. It’s an unfortunate image in many respects, especially as the words used seemed to imply that each was ‘part’ of the whole and somehow lesser when ‘separated’. But in critiquing it we have the same issue of ‘self’ in the context of this discussion. We see these contextual identities somehow as individual parts of a jigsaw – not representative of the whole and incomplete without the rest of the pieces. But the problem is, like the relationship in the Trinity, there is no disconnectedness from the whole. Each piece may appear to exist in isolation, but that would be to misunderstand the nature of ‘self’. Each piece is shaped and formed by its relationship to the whole and so must contain some sense of the ‘whole’ within the ‘part’. But does that mean that we can extrapolate the ‘whole’ from the ‘part’? With the Godhead, yes, for it exists in perfect relationship. But for us, no, for our relationships, with one another and with ‘self’, are not perfect. But that, surely, is the challenge to who we are – to grow into better relationship and become more ‘integrated’. What, then, is the challenge to us for our contextual identity?

These are some of the things the seminar ought to have been addressing. Whether that’s the direction they are heading remains to be seen.

The text in question was Exodus 27 (the construction details of the tabernacle and associated bits and pieces). It’s the habit of my minister to work through an entire book, leaving nothing out, hence this particular text. The Questions that were asked of the text were “Who can approach God?” and “”How can we approach God?” (the latter with two subsections – ‘by sacrifice’ and ‘through consecration’). Being a sound evangelical sermon, it was, of course, firmly linked to Jesus and the cross. But I have to confess, I struggle to make the link in a meaningful way. Or more to the point, I struggle with a reading of scripture that leans too heavily on the semiological, typological or prototype approach. And I also take issue with the ‘conclusion’ that only those who acknowledge Jesus’ sacrifice and ‘consecrate’ themselves are able to approach God in worship.

Anyway, to the point.

The train of thought that was sparked off was the idea of ‘progress’. It seems to me that what scripture witnesses to is the developing relationship humanity has with God. But it also strikes me as being more than that. When the first ‘sacrifices’ were made to God by Cain and Abel, why didn’t God simply turn round and say, “Well, thanks, but you’ve kind of got the wrong end of the stick about sacrifices.” It would have saved a whole lot of arguing over process and procedure. It would have saved an awful lot of legal wordplay over rules and regulations (and maybe no need for lawyers, so the world’s a better place all round – joke, honest). It would have saved some breath for God to not have to say that actually, He wasn’t overly enthusiastic about burnt offerings.

But, of course, that didn’t happen and I believe that it didn’t for a reason – progress. Being the sort of creatures we are, we have to be led through a process until we get to the realisation of what it’s really all about. (Have you ever tried to get a committee to agree on what you’d like done? You need to make them think it’s their idea or it’ll never happen.)  And so it strikes me that in scripture, and especially the Old Testament, what we have is a witness to the ongoing maturing (and I use the word advisedly) of faith until it gets to the point where Jesus, His ministry, His death on a cross, and His resurrection are actually meaningful. Any earlier and you’re in the middle of the sacrificial cycle with prophecy for/against the nations and prophecy for/against Israel with insufficient stability for the sacrificial system and the place of Israel to be really questioned. Any later and you run the risk of there being no Israel left, or at least a diminished number which would have lessened the significance of a Jew dying on a cross and not enough people around to take notice of what it meant, in terms of past prophecy and future hope.

So, where am I going with this?

That’s what I’m still working through I think. It does mean that we cannot erase the Old Testament as it stands as witness to that progress (or lack thereof) – a warning from history, if you like. But it also does more than that. It gives us our trajectory for future faith. If we only started with Jesus then there are any number of tangents that could be headed on. Not all would be fruitful, but interestingly, I don’t believe all would be dead-ends. Furthermore, it means that we can’t stop with the New Testament. We can’t hanker back to the church of the NT; we can’t ‘get back to basics’. We have to make sense of where we are and make sure that we haven’t entirely disconnected with the past. Progress isn’t about starting all over again every time. It may mean having to throw away a lot of baggage from time to time, but there can never be a clean break. Nor does there need to be.

But it does mean, I think, that we can’t superimpose the present on the past and shout, “Look, that was there all along – we (they) just didn’t see it.” It all has to be seen in the context of progress. Of course, that does also raise some fascinating theological questions, especially around pre- and post-cross salvation. It also means that we have to be rooted in scripture, but always interpreting and reinterpreting it in the light of our culture and context. In what better sense is it God’s ‘living word’ (lower-case ‘w’ deliberate)? To ‘disconnect’ from scripture and rely upon a personal sense of ‘spirituality’ is not Christian. It also raises issues of individuality over and against community (and now I’ve finally managed to drag these thoughts towards my Masters project) and the fact that we must surely draw upon the progress made by the whole faith community. Otherwise, are we not, as a society, simply standing still however much we may appear to progress as individuals?

Anyway, that’s been a bit of a long ramble for no apparent conclusion or purpose other than to be a bit of a brain dump on my part.