A Familiar Kind of Heretic
If you haven't already seen it, I hope you'll enjoy my parody on Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. Mr. McLaren feels we ought to alter our way of seeing everything Christian as well as the basic structure of reality. "Christian" Postmodernism. Why? Because academics and the majority of reasonable people now see things this way.
Oh, well, OK! Enjoy.
Something New Under the Sun
Or: My Struggle
by Dr. Justin Slapdash
Prologue
I have come to a crisis in my thinking. Old patterns just don't seem to fit. This crisis is, in many respects like a true story. Even if it weren't true, which I'm not saying it isn't, there is a higher purpose—which I am still trying to pinpoint--that I am serving here that makes facts, as they are traditionally categorized, somewhat irrelevant. Why did this end up being a work of fiction? It is not, as many critics have accused, that I really didn't plan well, didn't think things through, and wandered around never arriving at a logical solution. I don't know why they say that.
Anyway, as I was just saying, I came to a crisis where I doubted everything I had ever been taught. Most people would have just recognized this as something that many Christian leaders go through, that God was trying to speak to them. And though a difficult and painful experience, not the end of the world. However, I am more important than almost anyone else and very special (you couldn't possibly understand unless you were me—and you can't be!) Therefore, I immediately assumed I was the harbinger of some colossal shift in the thinking of personkind. I was like Martin Luther, except without the years of anguished seeking and deep absorption in the scriptures. At first I did not trust my feelings completely, but later came to realize I was right all along. Any journey we make toward truth must begin with ourselves and work outward toward God or whatever.
I generalized my problems to everyone else without doing much research, prayer or Bible study. After a few perfunctory and emotional pauses, but still, with no research, I entrusted myself to someone from a radically different school of thought who didn't even believe God created the world. But she seemed very nice and well-liked, much like Reese Witherspoon or Katie Couric. This started a journey for me that continues to this day. I will never rest from this journey, perhaps because I am not sure about where I am going. It is the journey itself that is important, not the destination. I feel we have all somehow missed this insight in our strict doctrinal rules and self-assured modern thinking. We confront one another with our "I'm right, you're wrong," kind of attitude. You will see none of that here in this book. I will not try to convince you of anything. I will not use logic—I refuse. That is what a modern would do. This is not really an argument for anything, it just seems like I'm trying to change your mind. But that's the amazing thing—I'm not! You're changing it yourself! Isn't that cool?
Some critics wonder why I just talk in general terms about medieval, modern and postmodern periods as if the church fathers, Greeks and Romans weren't part of Western Civilization. This is not because I have no understanding of history or Greek thinkers, as my critics charge. It is simply…because…I am planning a sequel that explains how all that fits in! Yes, that's it. Now on with my—oops, almost forgot—Justin's story.
Chapter 1
I was disconsolate. My life was disappointing. My congregation was looking to me and I just wasn’t sure if I believed in what I was preaching to them anymore. I was getting older and my Mitsubishi Gallant was losing luster and tire tread. My wife was less and less content about the way I was taking out the trash, and I wasn't even sure if I had money to repair our bathroom faucet. I knew it was time to write a book. Had everything I had been taught been somehow flawed? I knew it couldn't be my problem. This was a great conclusion to jump to, so I avoided talking to any of my old professors, but instead seethed with a nebulous resentment while I tried to track down who to blame for why I wasn't feeling good like in the old days.
The answer came one day at a picnic of all places—while I was eating a ham sandwich. It was an absolutely perfect June day in Maryland, though humid, and a bit too warm I thought. That and the wind was awfully strong. She lilted from the woods with a trail of children eagerly prancing behind her, laughing and rolling in the grass as they came. She was a bronzed Pocohantas with a summer dress and bead necklace, leading her charges like some fluteless Pied Piper. A flower was the only adornment in her long, shiny, jet-black mane of hair. She approached me with a smile, full of wisdom and pure delight, that I would have, had I not known better, mistaken for the smile of a ditzy broad in other circumstances. But I suddenly knew better. This was Sappho, my daughter's Global Awareness instructor, popular not only with the kids, but with all the adults in the community without exception. Even though the girl was a vegan, she didn't frown when she saw the ham hanging out of my mouth. It seemed Sappho was everyone's friend, a charismatic, beautiful woman of understanding beyond her young years. She also coached the boys' volleyball team at the school (the boys loved her!!) and did belly dancing at a local turkish bath for extra money. Though she was well schooled in Global Awareness, having spent her youth in the Amazon Rain Forest charming snakes and looking for AIDS cures with her famous scientist mother and witch doctor father, she also had managed to pick up quite a bit of theology and philosophy along the way. Her full name was Sappho Neophostic. Neophostic means "New light," she was later to tell me. But that was later, so at the time I didn't understand the name. Well, now I do, because that's now in the past for me. And for you too. But not for everyone. If this seems counterintuitive, you are on your way to a larger, neophostic, postmodern world. In such a world almost everything is counterintuitive. Many things are just counter-logical.
"You must be Dr. Justin Slapdash, Brittney's father," she bubbled, her white teeth exposed in a broad, warm smile. I looked up at her from our picnic blanket and felt immediately like crying, the burden of uneasiness so wanting to be dumped on her smooth, caring shoulders—or was it that she was standing in the glaring sun and it was making my eyes water? I couldn't be sure, absolutely—really—and it wasn't until moments later when a jab in the ribs from my wife broke my reverie that I forgot the dilemma and just decided to move on. This felt good. Better than the jab in the ribs and cold stare from my wife as Sappho looked down compassionately on me and offered to walk with me in the woods.
Although some in the community might question Sappho's "liberal" attitudes and reputed bisexuality (come to think of it no one ever did) I could tell instinctively that this young woman had a rich understanding of life and could be trusted. After all, she was from a different, non-judgmental culture, part of the younger generation, not to mention her lovely face and great body, which were easy on my eyes.
"Dr. Slapdash—"
"Please, Sappho, call me Justin."
"Actually, I'd prefer to call you Dr. Slapdash. And please, I'm uncomfortable with you using my first name since I barely know you. Most people can't pronounce Neophostic, however, so you may call me, Ms. Neo."
"All right, Mis Neo—"
"That's Ms. Neo! Don't forget that you are part of the oppressive class of modern white men that has marginalized the rest of the peoples and classes of the world for so many centuries by your oppressive metanarrative!"
"Sorry, right. Ms. Neo." I bristled. I didn't want to think that I was responsible for what my ancestors had done to women, minorities, and the disabled. But the guilt that I had been taught to have about all this came rumbling back from public school and the TV I had watched where this was made clear. Suddenly I had a revelation.
"Neo, It was an out-of-the-blue miracle that women and minorities were able to fight their way to freedom in the West and that white men were forced out of their dominant position, whereas in Eastern and "Other-world" countries where white men do not wreak their evil, these minorities are still oppressed!"
"Justin, there you go using your flawed modernist thinking again! The West and its dead white men along with its wicked capitalistic system deserve no credit for recent strides in equality as you imply."
"Which makes me wonder, Neo. How come Marxism isn't criticized along with capitalism as an evil system by us post-moderns? Wasn't it a product of modernity?"
"Communist or Capitalist really isn't the issue, Justin. She drew a line in the dirt. Here is capitalism on this end, see? And now, Marxism on this end. Where is the truth, Justin?"
"Up here! Oh, it is ABOVE the line! Not on the line at all! I can't believe I've never thought of that before. The truth transcends conventional modernist "this vs. that" paradigms! The issue isn't left vs. right, or Marxism vs. Capitalism, it's a different way of looking at truth altogether! Hmmm, much like Hegelian synthesis of the 19th century, come to think of it!"
"Er—uh, Justin?"
"Oops, I know. I went ahead and started thinking like a modern again, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did. But it was very good that you caught yourself. Remember, when you start to constrict yourself with rational thought, let your mind float free, away from arguing and to peace."
"But, can't I just remind myself that rational thought is wrong?"
"Justin. It's not wrong or right, it's just passe. Besides, what would you be doing if you told yourself rational thought was 'wrong'?"
"Being absurd??"
"Absolutely!"
"But….uh, never mind."
During the course of about a year, Neo and I had numerous conversations where we established that churches are stuck in the 1940's and 1950's and modern thinking. My square professors in seminary were just the same, telling me that there were eternal truths that transcended time. Although men like Francis Schaeffer have long advocated understanding how modern and postmodern people think in order to answer their concerns in a presentation of the gospel, they did not realize that we actually need to abandon the traditional gospel and think and believe like the people we are trying to reach! Neo explained that this does not, as one might think at first glance, that they are converting us. Some of my cynical "friends" say it is I who am coming to the game late, adopting a way of thinking that artists, literary critics and other academics have been on for decades. Ha! I am aware of how Christians tend to jump on the world's bandwagon at the back of the bus, but this is not one of those occasions!
Though I must skip over any reasoned argument (that is so modernistic!) of trying to convince you in a systematic way of how postmodernism is the way to go, I do want to tell you how wonderful it was to spend time with Neo. Though I was very reluctant, dragged screaming in anguish to this new way of thinking, I want to emphasize how wonderful Neo was to me, my wife, and to every single human, animal and plant that we encountered. How often we caught ourselves smiling, marveling, hugging, and shouting for joy over Big Macs and shakes at MacDonald's! I am ecstatic that Neo allowed me to turn our conversations into a book (I don't know why I am using this "modern" mode of communication—Neo taught me that just hanging out with people would be all I'd need to do, but I guess I'm still immersed in the "modern.") The only thing Neo asked I exclude was the personal areas she shared about the string of abandoned relationships in her past, which I was only too happy to do.
At first I thought that putting our conversations in print would be more interesting than some dry, systematic, rules-oriented, well-thought-out argument. Well, my editor thought the novelization was pretty boring and doctrinaire (imagine that!) and demanded I cut out most of that dialogue. Hence I thought the best thing to do was show you the results of being a new kind of christian from some of my "sessions" I have been conducting with youth in the area.
First of all, I don't preach to the kids. And I don't give them material about the subject I want them to learn about—that would be imposing what I want on them! I let them select material—usually this turns out to be a teen magazine or graphic novel. Further I don't try to "lead" or "guide" the discussion. I let the kids teach each other. This makes for a fun and unthreatening time. I have felt the love of these times. Witness the comments of two of my youth from various parts of the city:
Daria: "I was blown away and cried and cried when I realized that Jesus didn't demand we follow any rules. That Christianity is for everyone, not just Christians and especially the earth and all the little animals! It was so freeing to not have to argue with people over religion and just be able to get along with one another. I especially like the idea that truth isn't like some wrong versus right trip, but on a totally higher level that none of us can really explain to one another. It's something you feel within yourself. New Agers have it, Moslems have it. We all have the spark of God! I just think that my right-wing parents chose to snuff it out sometime early in their youth.
Me: Well, maybe I did lead the discussion a little bit in between browsings of "Teen People," but it didn't take much to set aflame the truth inside of this seventeen year old!
Jason: I felt a tingling inside after our time together, Dr. Slapdash, which I know was a call to ministry! I had always realized that I wasn't smart enough to do much of anything else, but I hate my Dad, who is a minister, and don't want to be anything like him! Today I saw that I can reject everything that he stands for and still be something I know that is in my comfort zone. I'm ready to bring these ideas to the next generation. Hopefully, they will in turn, reject my ideas and move onto something totally new and exciting, invalidating my ministry like I plan to counteract my father's. This is a lot like what my spirit guide predicted for me in the third grade. Way cool in a spiritual way!
Me: Jason was a treasure! We talked about how people like his father are still back in the past, fighting the battles of the Reformation and fundamentalism. Somebody tell them those battles are over, and let's face it, the Christians lost! I am making rather vague allusions to the Creation/Evolution debate and the tenets of Reformed theology. Since I believe in evolution, like my heroes, Neo and C.S. Lewis, and can't stand Calvinists, I'd like these conservatives to give up and let us win. It would ease my conscience a great deal to pass these important issues off as passe. Too bad that discoveries about the cell in by people who believe in Intelligent Design, and the stubbornness of dogmatists like R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur mean these pests will still be around for a long time. Get with it! Don't you realize that we don't see any medieval monks parading around in the modern age? Your time of "salvation by grace through faith" and all its logical outcroppings is over! Oh, wait, I am recommending a return to monastic living—scratch that example!
I hope you have seen how I am so beautifully middle of the road, neither conservative nor liberal! I am, in fact above categories! I don't even understand what the gospel actually is anymore! Hopefully, Neo will email soon and tell me what it is now in the postmodern age. I do believe that there are no moral absolutes, that truth is existential in a sloppy sort of way, that we need to focus on saving the earth, that the general theory of evolution is true, that we had no business invading Iraq, and that the main problem with the church is conservatives and their dangerous, stick-in-the-mud theology—but this does not make me some kind of liberal! I am not a liberal! No, I tell you! I don't like those liberals either! Yech! I say they are making mistakes too! Yes, they are…hmmm, a little too prone to be dogmatic about liturgy! See there, I am against them, too!
There is so much more to tell, and so much more of my adventure to live. Neo took off one Friday afternoon to take care of some blind orphans with muscular dystrophy in Bangladesh, though she left a forwarding address belonging to someone named, "Ronnie," in Trenton, New Jersey. This must be where she has her mail collected until it can be delivered to the remote location.
The day Neo left I cried and cried in the snow as I was walking with my wife (this is something we had never done, though I had walked many times with Neo in the preceding months). As I told her of Neo's departure, she was shuffling through the snow, but I could see the smile forming on the corners of her mouth. I knew that this meant she was excited about the new adventure we would now be embarking upon together in this brave new world. Although we couldn't know where we were going exactly, we knew that we would be leading many people to wherever it was. What we'll do if we get there I'll have to ask Neo upon her return.
I have mercifully left off here. Sometime soon, I'll return to this subject matter for more thorough consideration. Please feel free to post your comments! Brian McLaren is a nice guy who recently was voted one of the top 25 influential Evangelicals by one of the big magazines like Newsweek or Time or Life or something. I don't mean to denigrate Mr. McLaren, and I don't think his point of view should be dispensed with lightly. No, we should jettison it with all the force we can muster.
posted by The Bishop @ 7:50 AM
