Images for change…
10 May 2007
In many sections of the church in the Western World there is much theological reflection taking place at the moment, affecting our Ecclesiology, Soteriology, Christology, and Missiology. For those of you who aren’t sure what these words mean, it is basically shorthand for people who are asking questions such as:
“What is the gospel? What should church look like in the 21st century? How can we incarnate the good news in our communities? How does the life of Jesus affect our understanding of church, the gospel, our mission?â€
All of this is bringing uncertainty to things that we were previously certain about. It is a necessary and good reflection, but it also leads to the possibility of change, of letting go of held dearly beliefs and practices and taking hold of new unfamiliar things.
One of things I have noticed is the language that people use when speaking of this change. Often they might be saying they are open to change & re-evaluation, but the images they use often betray their real thoughts…
Here are some images that I have heard recently:
“slippery slopeâ€
“watering downâ€
“diluteâ€
“off the wallâ€
All of which seems to betray the person’s true feelings: this kind of theological reflection is bad and should be resisted.
But what if we find some different images for change? How about using these images for change?
“reframeâ€
“exploreâ€
“off the mapâ€
“change tack†(a sailing metaphor, perhaps bringing an image of a sailing boat running out of water, and needing to “tackâ€, to change direction to find more water).
How different does the change seem now? There is still a danger that we could question so much, and lose the essentials of our faith, but there is the possibility that we could also see things differently, in a more helpful way, and explore new horizons and vistas of theological thought and praxis.
It seems to me there is a dynamic interaction between the image of change we use and the way that we feel about things being re-evaluated.
What images of change do you use? What other images can you think of?
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Comment by Makeesha
4.05 pm on 10 May 2007
I have always felt how the jewish priest felt when confronted with the fear of the first Christians – - if it is right, if it is true, it will prevail.
If what we see as truth really is truth, wrestling with it, exploring it, poking and prodding it will not destroy it, it will make it stronger and more real.
If we fear that process then we are likely afraid that what we uphold as stalwart truth is indeed not true at all.
Comment by Rupert Ward
5.57 pm on 10 May 2007
Makeesha – thanks for the comment. I love the image of wrestling, exploring, poking, proding truth … Great images.
It reminds me of Rob Bell’s image in “Velvet Elvis” of the trampoline … truth is like the springs. You can take a spring off, look at it, examine it, play around with it but the trampoline still works. He contrasts that with “brickianity”, which if you take one brick from the wall, some people think the whole wall will come tumbling down.
That is is another way of saying: the image we have of change or truth etc, does seem to affect the way in which we engage with this process of re-examination.
Have you come across people who seem unwilling to do that wrestling? What images do you think they had?
Comment by Makeesha
6.53 pm on 10 May 2007
I love that part of Velvet Elvis, I use that image all the time in discussions about this sort of thing. Brickianity is my favorite word lately.
I think what I’ve noticed in my experience is that people are ok with “wrestling” but they already know who “wins” in the end. Or another way of putting it is that they’re willing to discuss something as long as the last word goes to the pre determined conclusion in the end. Which is sort of weird if you really think about it hehe.
I have been in small groups that are supposed to be discussion but it’s more of a token. They communicate more a message that says “we’ll let you talk about this but only to make you feel better about being here, we don’t actually care about what you say nor do we think that you might have something valuable to contribute because we’re going to tell you what to believe in the end anyway”
I think the images they have are of loss. Losing ground, losing faith, losing sight of the truth. And that loss generates fear and when people respond out of fear, that’s when the venom comes out and they attack the person who is, in their mind, causing the loss – taking away their bricks if you will.
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.04 am on 11 May 2007
Thanks Makeesha. That is really interesting. The image of loss is powerful and helpful as i am grappling with helping people throught this kind of change. i am wondering if one of thing that people lose is “certainty”?
That is a very frightening thing for many people.
Comment by Makeesha
12.16 am on 11 May 2007
yes, i think that’s very much it. when our relationship with God is tied to certain specifics and those specifics are challenged, then we feel as if our relationship with God is being challenged. When our eternal state is tied to our relationship with God..you get the picture.
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.24 am on 11 May 2007
Yes … very good way of explaining it. Thanks.
Comment by Paul
7.47 pm on 10 May 2007
Thanks Rupert. We had a great small group worship time with jenga blocks once – starting with the solid blocks and removing one block at at a time and placing it on top. In the end the guy leading it knocked all the blocks over. The point was that we can take the truth and rearrange it, even knock it over and still have the same pieces, just maybe more mess, a different order or just some fun playing :)
Made me think of it when you mentioned brickianity…
Of course we tend to be not talking about truth per se but merely the means by which we have categorised and understood truth, in terms of dogmas, creeds, theologies etc. All of which are useful so maybe what we are talking about here is new metaphors from God’s story to help us connect and find our place in his ongoing story?
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.23 am on 11 May 2007
I love the idea for worship Paul!
Yes, i think you make a really good point about truth and our formulations of them in our theologies. I have heard people seeming to “own” truth: “what i am telling you is the truth”. Part of my transition is to see truth as something i come into relationship with, rather than something that i have. So re-evaluation is easier as i am not having to let go of my rightness, but learning more about the truth, incarnate in Christ. Truth is no longer something that i have to defend, but can stand for itself.
It seems that we confuse theology and truth, we can get very defensive about our theology changing, and that is when we use phrases such as “watering down”.
Comment by Paul
9.55 am on 11 May 2007
Like it Rupert – if truth is Jesus [and as a christian that is what I think truth is] then we can’t possess truth, as we can’t possess a person – we can however choose to have a relationship with Jesus and therefore with truth…
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.01 pm on 11 May 2007
Yes, yes!
And there i think we have a different image (bringing it back on topic) of how change happens. WHen we “own” truth, to change we have to give it up/away/take it off. But when we come into relationship with truth / jesus … we can develop / grow in that relationship with truth.
So for us, one of the things we are grappling with is: what is the gospel? There is some resistance to changing the way we see the gospel (traditionally being forgiveness of sins). We are trying to see the Biblical narrative in much bigger way (Kingdom), but some people are really struggling to change. It seems as though truth has become something they “have”, rather than wrestle with.
I find these fascinating images in my mind as i think about people and truth.
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Comment by dan brown
1.03 am on 11 May 2007
This topic is certainly in the news lately. Last week I attended two discussions between business meetings on the Emerging conversion. The first was lead by Ray S. Anderson, he discussed his new book “An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches.” Professor Ray is a mentor and friend of mine, he has been a pastor for many years and professor at Fuller in CA,USA. I highly recommend the book, he compares the early church of Jerusalem with the church of Antioch. He compares the concept of historical progression and historical antecedents. If any of you are card players a historical antecedent would trump a full house. Professor Ray asserts that Paul’s apostleship was based on his encounter with the risen Christ vs. Jersulem based their apostleship on the historical Jesus. I know that is a over-simplification but this is not the place to review the entire book. Antioch was a growing missional church that moved out of Jersulem, Sameria to the ends of the earth. The Jerusalem church did little to move outside of their own community. The folowing day I heard Darrel Guder, Dean of Academic Affairs at Princeton, he has written extensively on the Emerging Church. He is involved in PCUSA and looks at the Emerging Church from the perspective of what can established main line denominations do to be changed and transformed within the traditions of chruch history. Guder, read his mesage and it took me about 15 minutes to get into his message, he is very warm, bright and certainly concerned about people meeting the real Jesus. One of his points expressed the importance church polity and how polity plays a key role in how people do church and their unwillness to change and be open to the HS. Polity has more to do with our comfort level than being open to the HS this effects our style and approach to doing chruch and is sometimes more important to the masses than being convicted by the Spirit. For example, in main line demoninations like the one I am a part of, a discussion on new hymnals, piano vs. organ music, the time a service is to start would garner more enthisiam than starting a soup kithchen in a poor area near our church. On the other hand, some Emerging Church leaders would rather say when asked about universalism or gay marriage, lets talk in 5 years. This keeps them in trouble and makes some who have grown up in the church to question the new leaders orthodoxy. Another possiblity for the new leaders would be to say, I don’t believe God wishes any to parish and I believe it is God’s preference for marriage to be between a man and a woman. My point is that the Emerging Church needs a biblically based theology to ground its way of doing church. And the established church needs to be open to the HS at the expense of tradition. Perhaps the bigger issue is helping fellow church members to be able to transfer what they hear for one hour in the pulpit and transfer the living Word into the practical living of a more victorious life the other six days a week? I pray that the remmant we now call the church will be led to be more like the church at Antioch and many new Paul’s will be made known through their witness to the Living God in Jesus Christ.
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.10 pm on 11 May 2007
Dan – thanks for the comment, and the recommendation for the book. I love the picture of the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch and Paul / other apostles. You could certainly push the analogy too far, but it does have some interesting points.
I think you are right in the emering conversation we need to retain a biblically based theology. What intesests me is sometimes those who most advocate that often seem stuck in their theology and unwilling to grapple with some pretty difficult biblical texts that might challenge thier way of seeing things.
I know that is not everyone, or probably even the majority. I am wondering if we can read the Bible with some new eyes?
Comment by dan brown
2.47 pm on 11 May 2007
The difficult passages are the ones that test our faith as we live with the ambiguity of a highly technological society. God as mystery is a part of the identity of God that helps me deal with the inablity of finding foundations to express to others that represent my faith. Learning to wait on the Lord while praying and then sharing my prayers with others have helped to apprehend the revelation of the God revealed in the scriptures.
Comment by Rupert Ward
11.33 am on 14 May 2007
Thanks for the further comment Dan.
Comment by D.G. Hollums
3.39 am on 11 May 2007
I agree, and I am one of the ones that are waking up at night praying, and dealing with these topics and thoughts. It is killing me, and frustrating me…and in the midst of it all I am too passionate to not be dealing with it…and to top it all off, I feel led my God to be a voice in the United Methodist Church…it is so far beyond me, but the passion is too much to ignore.
BTW: Remembering our Future is a wonderful book, and I am still wrestling with it… And I am witting up a blog post to through out my thoughts…I hope to have it out this week. Thanks again!
Comment by Rupert Ward
12.12 pm on 11 May 2007
Thanks DG for your comments. I trust all your wrestling is fruitful!
Comment by Martin Downes
3.23 pm on 12 May 2007
Hi Rupert,
This subject really interests me, not just the metaphors that we use when we are discussing things but how the teaching of Jesus and the apostles is thick with metaphor. I’m finding it really fascinating and instructive to think through these metaphors. For example, in Paul’s writings he describes people swerving away from the gospel and wandering into vain discussion (1 Tim. 1:6), of departing from the faith, of turning away from the truth and wandering into myths (1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 4:4), of deserting the God of grace (Gal. 1:6) and of behaving in a way that is not in step with the truth of the gospel (Gal. 1:14).
I take it from this short list that Paul was concerned with the negative side of what he describes in Colossians 2:6-7 as walking in Christ, being rooted in him and built up in him. The last two metaphors are very much consistent with the idea of exploring the faith/gospel.
Comment by Rupert Ward
11.32 am on 14 May 2007
Martin – thanks for your comments. I find it fascnating too, especially listening to people as they talk about this, and see images/metaphors drop into thier language!
Thanks to for broadening the discussion to metaphors in Scripture, which certainly adds something to the discussion. What interests me in the list you have here is that a lot of them are to do with exploring or journey … but some are positive and some negative. It seems from the the Biblical metaphors that while on the journey of growing in our faith, we have to watch we don’t wander too far…
I wonder if the crucial element is that in our wrestling with our faith, we must continue to follow Jesus? (i am mixing my metaphors all over the place here!).
Comment by Martin Downes
6.19 pm on 14 May 2007
Rupert you are absolutely right in your last comment, that is exactly the how it is presented in Colossians. And Paul certainly mixes his metaphors in Colossians 2:6-7 with walking, being rooted, being built up and overflowing (like a jug of wine) all featuring. He takes it that true spiritual growth will be in line with the apostolic proclamation of Christ. The Colossians had “received” the apostolic teaching about Christ and must continue to walk in “him.” I take it that what this means is elaborated in part by the christological section in 1:15-20 and the significance of the atoning work of Christ 1:21-23. These passages in the letter set the boundaries for following Jesus. In contrast to this are the plausible arguments and hollow and deceptive philosophy of the false teachers. It is very striking that Paul emphasises that this alternate spirituality has the appearance of wisdom but will in the end take the Colossians captive (2:8), a vivid metaphor indeed.
As I am exploring the use of the negative metaphors in Scripture it makes me wonder if pastorally they function in words the same way that a yellow and black hazard label does visually. Just think of how gruesome Paul’s comparison of the spread of false teaching to the spread of gangrene is (2 Tim. 2:17)!
Comment by Rupert Ward
2.58 pm on 16 May 2007
Martin – great comment. Thanks.
I love the image of yellow and black hazard labels! I think you are right that there are warnings for wandering from the faith, and they are like these hazzard signs.
To explore faith i guess you have to take some risks (as anyone does who pushes the frontiers in other areas … eg. climbing mountains, discovering new land etc), but we also need to be aware of the dangers of doing so, and take precautions that we don’t end up being the casualities of such an exploration.
I am struck by Luther putting the 95 theses on the church door, and what a radical departure from the percieved church wisdom of the day. Radical exploration of faith at the time, that with hindsight we can lose the impact of that.
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