FuturistMy amigo and compadre (and also new daddy) Josh and I were emailing a bit today. I think he was asking me some questions out of his blog post which is great, but I had not yet read. We got to talking/emailing about openness and change... here are some questions I landed on and thought I'd throw them out...
Erwin McManus calls himself a “futurist” with the understanding that he is just telling people where they are right now and because everyone (especially the church) is constantly looking at where they have been, his comments seem “futuristic”.
What would it take for us to be real and aware? Is this called relevance or something else?
What personally do we fight to do so? Corporately? Systemically?
I wonder if Jesus wasn't the perfect model of being aware and real. He was... "I AM" in flesh.
I know personally I fight fear of failure and change and vulnerability a lot.
Corporately I think we fight the urge to want to make sure we're all okay and people still really like us. I don't think that we are committed enough to one another most times to be truly honest with each other. And while this can come across as being "nice", I actually think its one of the shallowest ways to be together because it constantly avoids honesty and confrontation. It seems to me that we grow and change and come together only at that point of vulnerability and reality. But again that's scary.
Systemically I think we fight our memory as much as anything. And I also must point out that our memory ain't so great most times. We remember what we choose to celebrate or fear most and forget the rest. I'm not at all for tossing where we've come from, rather I'm all for being faithful to that by pushing ahead, just like most of them did. And by the way, a lot of people aren't going to like us for doing it. There's also a sense here where systems seek equilibrium and the things that are in the "now" somehow tip that.
God help us to faithfully proclaim what you've given us to proclaim, whether through word or flesh or both.
2 comments:
Great observations Brian.
I think when we admit that there are differences, a sense of defensiveness creeps in. We are convinced in our own minds of what we believe because of our experiences. But when the experience of others challenges our own experiences one of the first questions that comes to mind is, "Was my experience authentic?" If what they are saying is true, does that mean that how I am expressing my faith is wrong?
That may be generous, but I think that is what happens in me.
I also think what happens in me is the opposite of that. My experience is my truth, so if you are presenting a truth that goes against my experience, you must be misguided.
I just woke up from a long hard night of carrying work home with me again, so I probably shouldn't be responding at this point, lest my experience cloud my reason. But maybe I'll actually make more sense with my brain worrying about motor functions rather than philosophical pursuits.
First, let me contribute from a part of experience. In our juvenile facility we're trained in a system called the Mandt, a behavioral management system that urges non-pain compliance and verbal skills before physical restraint becomes necessary. The basic philosophy of the system I find to be pretty Christian: Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
This in turn leads to some of other subsidiary nuances of the system, such as: However long it takes - meaning that we don't rush the result that we're looking for since it is the person that is of importance as opposed to our desired outcome. If then, we hold the person so highly in our facility then we as individual officers sometimes have to put our agendas on hold so that we can come to an understanding of what is affecting the individual, perhaps toward a rebellious or aggressive manner.
Secondly, at least for me, truth is never something that a person can speak to another. Truth is seen in the way we live it. Perhaps that's why there is no recorded response from Jesus to Pilate's question: "What is truth?" Pilate may not have understood what he saw in Jesus; but he probably wouldn't have accepted it any easier if Jesus had spelled it out in a 3-year lecture either.
Finally (I think), experience is all anybody has - ours or someone else's. The theology that evolves does so because someone afterward has an experience that builds on the experiences of those before us. Wesley had an experience, probably not unique, but uniquely expressed and documented/formulated. We have experiences and build upon his work, not deviating from the road but adding to an incomplete road of understanding on our way toward the same destination.
This is not to say that we ram that experience down someone's throat. It means that if we want them to hear our experience, to see what has come to shape us, then we must first come to understand their experience, what has brought them to this point in their lives, no matter how long it takes. But only if they mean more to us than ourselves, as Josh suggests it should be.
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