There were a few comments on my critique within the emerging church post which I think needed another post for a response. Normally I just post a comment myself to reply to other comments.
“biblemike” said, “How sad it is for me to see the so called emergent church falling prey to the same nonsensical me-them attitude that has caused so much division in the body of Christ. Until we see ourselves as one body made up of different parts and individuals of varying levels of spiritual growth we will continue to please Satan by fighting among ourselves and making it all about us instead of all about Jesus.” (Full comment here)
First, I’ll say I had a really difficult time discerning who the commenter was directing this at. I, of course, felt like it was probably directed at me as well as others, but the particular post he commented on didn’t seem to fit all of what he said. Any way…
First off, I would ask, “Do we have names for the individual parts mentioned in the comment?” Is a foot not a foot, using the body metaphor? Is it not different than the hand? There is nothing intrinsically wrong about identifying with a movement within the body of Christ. The problem is when you try to completely cut yourself off from the rest of the body, and that is one of my concerns (mentioned in the original post about how the established church can help us if we are in relationship with them) within the emerging church. We do need to be concerned with how we relate to the other parts of the body, but I fail to see how a critique within a movement is divisive or “us vs them” … especially when part of the critique is that we need to remain in relationship with “them.”
I’d also like to say that before accusing groups of pleasing Satan, you might ask what kind of unifying flavor your own words are bringing to the conversation. I’m sorry, but you kind of hit a hot button with me on this one. Whenever someone holds up unity as the supreme end, yet their words are derogatory and in themselves divisive, I just have to go, “huh?”
At the end of the comment, this was said: “It does not matter the building, the music, sermon or no sermon, structure or format. What matters is who is this all about.”
Thoughts like these sound really good at first, but break down extremely fast in the real world. Can we really claim that whatever we do is fine as long as it’s “about” Jesus? “About” God? Is it okay for a system which is destructive to stand uncritiqued if the people behind it are all “about” Jesus? What does that mean, any way? Really?
I mean, does it not matter if we spend all of our money on buildings and salary and have not enough left to help the poor and oppressed in our communities? Yes, it’s okay, it’s all “about” God. Is it okay to focus so much on intellectual information that spiritual formation is hindered? Well, I guess if it’s all “about” Jesus, we’re okay to do whatever we want.
A part of being a body is working together. The flip side of my original critique saying we can find help from our relationship with the established church, is that they can also be helped by us. We are all one body, and that is important to remember. But another metaphor for the church is that of family. We need to remember that metaphor as well. And families sometimes fight, but they remain family, whether they like it or not.
One final thought is that in spite of the extreme and faulty rhetoric, it is a good thing for us to be wary of falling into an us vs. them attitude. We do need each other. We are all on the same team, and “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Leave a Reply