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advice to young pastors: the ground is shifting beneath your feet
Consider, young pastor, the word “reformation.” We inherited one. For 500 years, it’s been the ground beneath our feet. Assumed perspectives that shape the pastoral landscape. But the theological-pastoral ground beneath our feet isn’t a brass dance floor built on reinforced concrete anchored in unmovable moorings It’s more like, well, the ground beneath our feet: a set of plates that shift in response to subterranean forces. Like the bones of a newborn’s skull, subject to, admitting of, allowing for reformation as needed.
We call it the Richter Scale and it measures the movement of the ground beneath our feet. Beneath our feet is a kind of jigsaw puzzle: pieces or plates that fit together. As the pieces move (slowly, imperceptibly) tension builds where the edges meet. From time to time, friction fails and there’s a little shift, a minor rearrangement. Or sometimes a major rearrangement. You do know that the Americas used to be connected to Africa in a much larger land mass and that mountains are forming all the time mainly beneath the ocean waves.
Such movements create anxiety for land dwellers. It’s well known that various animals change their behavior just before an earthquake. They can sense the pent up pressure about to release, so they ready themselves for the rearrrangement. Once the needle on the Richter Scale is rocking and rolling, the anxiety of the land dwellers goes through the roof, often because the roof itself is shaking.
Reformations are scary, because the idea that the terra is firma is a comforting fiction that we don’t let go of without a fight.
If you happen to be part of the Vineyard movement, you ought to understand this already. Things call themselves movements when they recognize changes in process. The Protestant Reformation that took place 500 years ago and rearranged our dance floor had some defects. Miracles, signs and wonders, subjective experience, and the agent of same–the Holy Spirit himself–were suspect. At the beginning of the 20th century (see how long these things take?) the tension hit a breaking point and the Pentecostal earthquake of 1906 hit Los Angeles (there were earlier quakes elsewhere building up to this one.) The impact of that rearrangement took 70 years or so to reach most evangelicals. They called it “the third wave,” but it wasn’t a wave that rolled through an ocean–it rolled over a landscape in fits and starts.
Beneath it were subterranean gyrations in theology. The theology of the kingdom of God didn’t play a prominent role in the Protestant Reformation, though it is a major theme in the Bible. The reformers were focused on Paul–Romans and Galatians, in particular–and Paul didn’t use the phrase “kingdom of God” much, so it lay hidden from their view. John Wimber, who studied under George Eldon Ladd at Fuller Theological seminary, who in turn picked up the scent of the kingdom of God from Oscar Cullman and Albert Schweitzer brought this theological development, brewing for decades and decades in the academy to the surface. The gospels came into their own as the teaching documents of the church, having been largely ignored by the Reformers of old.
Now there’s a reassessment of the writings of Paul going on. (Actually, it too has been going on for decades, but it just now reaching the surface of the local church.) Maybe Luther and Calvin (Luther in particular) didn’t read Paul as well as Paul deserves to be read. Maybe they didn’t get it all right back then. Part right, but not all right. N.T. Wright is advancing what has been called a new perspective on Paul but Wright would claim that it’s a recovered old perspective, just one that was missed by the Reformers of old. As if there’s important Bible study still to be done.
We know more about the Bible than we used to. We can read the Bible with a greater understanding of the questions being asked to which the Bible was the answer, rather than forcing the Bible to answer questions that we have, just because we have them.
The gospels, the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit, Paul, justification–gosh when you add it all up, it’s shaping up to be another massive reformation. We’re in the middle of a slow but powerful earthquake. The ground beneath our feet is shaking.
Mostly what we have to show for it right now, though, is anxiety.
There’s great anxiety in the system right now and there will be the for the rest of your lifetime, young pastor, as this earthquake, this Next Reformation unfolds, erupts, takes hold, and then, eventually quiets down for a time until the next one is due.
Learn to live with it or find a different line of work.
Tags: Albert Schweitzer, anxiety, Calvin, Geroge Eldon Ladd, john wimber, Luther, N.T. Wright, plate tectonics, Protestant Reformation, reformation, Vineyard
February 13th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Ken, I agree that we need to prepare ourselves for and be open to the huge changes that are in process. The problem I have with the earthquake analogy is that earthquakes are usually pure destruction. Both the former and the current reformations are going to have positive effects as well as destructive effects. I think we need to keep in mind that God through the Holy Spirit is the moving force for all the upheaval and we can have faith most of the change will be for the better. We also have a part to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit as He leads to maximize the good.
February 13th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
yes, a definite limit with the earthquake analogy. Of course, most earthquakes are quite minor with no damage; wish I knew more about plate tectonics, but I think if there were several smaller shifts at the fault lines it can displace the energy released in one big quake. There’s probably some way that life on planet earth wouldn’t be possible without earthquakes–some necessary for life to thrive thing, but I don’t know what that is!
February 14th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
“We can read the Bible with a greater understanding of the questions being asked to which the Bible was the answer, rather than forcing the Bible to answer questions that we have, just because we have them.”
That’s helpful to me. Thank you.
February 17th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Ken, you are certainly on to something here. The consensus within church traditions has been fairly strong for hundreds of years, and the way that consensus has remained strong is that when it weakened, there was a split. Denomenational splits. Splits within local church bodies. The rise of unaffiliated independent churches. The rise of a large group of us who went shopping for a different church. But even with all this fracturing and the resulting wide choice of doctrine and style, big changes seem to be on the way. Because a new consensus across traditions seems to be in the making. And it comes, like all big change, including earthquakes, in fits and starts.
One of the characteristics that I have noticed in this new consensus is the lack of interest in doctrine. There seems to be a growing tendency for people to give doctrinal room to one another. Really I should say, give interpretive room to one another, because the enthusiasm for the holding tightly to doctrine–a right belief or set of beliefs–seems to be fading.
February 17th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Ken,
What do you predict this earthquake will look like? From this post I can’t say I agree or not since you didn’t give this upcoming upheaval much definition. What massive shifts are you predicting in the church?
February 17th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Possibly another good analogy is the shifting in American economics based on the hit the financial system took. I think for some there is a lot of anxiety still a brewing. For others, maybe there is hope that the breakdown in the status quo and the American dream may provide some free to dream of a reformed way of living, which may involve some older practices that were the norm just several generations ago.
To name some examples, family gardening (which all happened to be organic (Dow Chemical’s innovative herbicide and pesticide solutions had not yet hit the market nor did the mass production of food…I think) was a very common practice.
Also, the concept of knowing our neighbor and having more common shared life with those in close proximity. Just today I had a fruitful conversation with a 20 something who is moving the direction of intentional community in a diverse area with the mission to grow together and be a change agent in that area. Having lived in the suburb, and now even in the heart of A2, there is still something lacking in terms of community which puts a huge stress on parenting and marriages in my mind; which I think is a key part of the foundation of any community.
So maybe with the anxiety, there is also discontentment in the boomer’s kids that are signs that something is going to shift; and it is not only limited to how we read our bibles, experience church on Sunday and pray…or at least that’s my hope.
Sorry for jumping on my soap box here, and I apologize for being a little off topic. In summary, I agree that there is change in the air; my hope is that with the guiding of the Holy Spirit we can tern the anxiety and discontentment into something more beautiful than what we have today. Although I should probably add that my personal “earthquake” experience with regard to my health has actually birthed deeper relationships that has challenged even more the desire to be in closer proximity to friends and sharing more in each others struggles and hopes.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:11 am
I have friends who are feeling this and freaking out. One friend in particular holds incredibly strongly to her doctrine and sees this “earthquake” happening and believes it is demonic in origin and a sign of the end times. The “lack of interest in doctrine” and an openness to conversation is being interpreted as blasphemy and deception about truth.
It is very hard to even find an opening for conversation with my friends and other people with this perspective. Humility is interpreted as a lack of faith and conviction. Analysis of alternate biblical interpretations is viewed as heresy.
I know there’s a point at which any kind of conversation with people of fixed mindsets becomes fruitless. Still, I think it would be great to have more thoughts and practical ideas about how to communicate and continue fellowship with our brothers and sisters who are viewing anyone involved in this shift as under evil influence. I know it’s something with which I’m struggling.
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:51 pm
There’s no substance in this post, Pastor Ken is only pointing out that people are examining, or re-examining various Biblical doctrines. Protestants have been doing that since day 1 I would think. Well before the advent of Wimber, Bob Mumford et. al. were teaching in depth about the Kingdom of God.
Pastor Ken, can you be specific? What doctrines are you challenging or expecting to change? Is homosexuality now non-sinful and acceptable? Is the Trinity still a viable doctrine? Is abortion acceptable? Is the Vineyard going to join the Unitarian denomination?
I don’t want to rush to a conclusion, but given the trend of the Vineyard as a whole, I don’t have a warm, confident, feeling about what you are alluding too.