In the continuing taxonomy of the Church, it is a challenge to discover that the nouveau electronic council of believers – patheos.com – sticks non-Catholic Christians into one of two pots: “Evangelical,” or “Progressive Christian.” How disappointing.
I suppose it makes sense according to the logic of the blogosphere, but it is a disappointing reduction for those of us who prefer to avoid bi-polarity and seek to creatively integrate the faith from the center. There are a growing number of us within the Church that resist the push to choose sides.
It is not easy to stand with an open hand, heart, and mind at the center when the margins increasingly push and shift the character of Christian discourse. Not easy, because I would have to affirm the insight of Google chairman Eric Schmidt (when speaking of the Khan Academy) that the most creative ideas do not come from the center, but rather are found on the margins. However, I think a creative challenge can be taken up by the center in the way it is attentive to the margins and sifts new insights in order to accumulate a stronger center of gravity for the faith.
This is a challenge that was named during the recent conference on history of Princeton Theological Seminary. On the occasion of the seminary’s bicentennial, leaders in the Practical Theology department wondered if the legacy of Christian leadership from a mediating center was a legacy that was faithfully worth continuing. If it was a faithful position to continue, what would it look like? (The legacy of Practical Theology at PTS was covered in a newly edited work by Osmer and Mikoski.)
Many in the room believed that it is a faithful effort to lead the Church from the center with an open spirit that welcomes the margins into open and discerning conversation. This challenge at the center is complicated, however, by the fact that our world is increasingly pluralistic – and so is the nature of the Church. (The center no longer rests – if it ever really did – between two distinct poles, but among multiple points of reference.) It is a greater challenge to define the center of a universe that is circumscribed by a web of multiple asymmetrical points.
Yet God is good. As complex as the world, its peoples, and the Church has become. There still is a center to the Christian faith. That center is rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ.
By way of example, I am grateful for those who are seeking to break down the growing dissension in the church over matters of atonement. It seems to me that the kenosis hymn of Philippians 2 remains a helpful model. Helpful, because it lifts up the work of Jesus Christ as an entire throughput – life, death, resurrection. Some Christians would have us toss away the violent figure of the cross in order to focus only upon Jesus as the good teacher. Others would leave us in a constant conversation of blood sacrifice that diminishes the wisdom of the Master. Philippians 2 integrates the center of our faith in Jesus Christ and invites us into a new perception.
Now back to the taxonomists of the blogosphere. It is clear that God is working a new thing in our midst. Yet I do not believe this new thing is entirely clear for our perception. The conversation facilitated by social media is a part of this new thing. However, I am not convinced it is sufficiently durable to bear the weight of responsibility placed upon we who accept the charge to be the Body of Christ.
The ecumenical effort has been at work in earnest for at least three quarters of a century. The effort was formed in an age when there were definable communities of faith marked by boundaries of tradition, practice, and belief. In the United States we formed the National Council of Churches as one manifestation of the drive for the visible unity of the Church. Today that manifestation of visible unity is greatly challenged by the division and confusion among established churches.
Associations of Evangelical churches (often drawn from revival practices and free church histories) have attempted to demonstrate a unity in practice and even social witness. Yet these associations are susceptible to rapid flux due to changes in leadership and the methods of innovation they embrace. These communities have spawned many of the young leaders creating the Emergent church movement. This group has been innovative, insurgent, and often random in its witness.
If the formal councils of ecumenical Christianity are losing their voice (and I’m not sure that is entirely the case), then where would a seeker turn who wishes to hear a unified Christian witness? Increasingly people find their information (and sometimes meaning) through web portals. Thus my disappointment with the nouveau council of electronic believers.
I’m not really expecting all that much from patheos.com or other internet providers. However, I do believe that Christian leaders need to discern a more effective means of fostering integrative, creative, holy conversations. It may be that the National Council of Churches can reinvent itself and provide an effective forum that holds a creative center. Quite probably God is working a new thing that we all will have to pray our way towards.
I welcome companions on the way of life at a creative and open center for the Church that is grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – the hope of the world.
Brian Paulson 