Ya gotta give me a break regarding the quality of this photo as it was done with my cell phone, which is not amenable to taking pictures in low light. It is my plan to go back with a better camera. For now, however, I wanted to post it, as I just plain like it. It evokes a sense of American Christianity with its use of a sacred symbol that borders on kitsch in its use, or perhaps misuse, of technology. Maybe it’s just me, but when I see neon I can’t help but think of a bar or a liquor store, and although I do think beer is one of God’s many blessings, somehow neon and religion just don’t quite fit for me.

Below I give a small excerpt from one of his sermons titled “The Gospel, The Church, and the World,” which was based on a passage from 1 Peter 2:4-12, and in which one of the key ideas is that believers are called to live as resident aliens. Just prior to this excerpt Keller had been talking about the reputation of the Early Church in Ancient Roman society.

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No one had ever seen a group of people that held to all those practices. They were aliens. They weren’t like the Greeks. They weren’t like the Romans. They weren’t like the Jews. They were aliens. Well, you say, “That was then.” Well, okay, now think about this for a second. What if there was a group of people now that were following those same set of biblical values?… Rejecting blood thirsty sports (militarism), empowering women, reveling in the combination of races and classes, radically serving the poor. What kind of group is that?… Sounds liberal. Forbidding abortion, forbidding sex outside of marriage, forbidding same sex practices, insisting that Jesus is the only way of salvation, and what’s that sound like?… It sounds like a horribly conservative group. Guess what, we’re still aliens. We do not fit into Western  relativistic individualism; we don’t fit into traditional hierarchical legalism, we don’t fit. We don’t fit conservative, we don’t fit liberal. We’ve always been aliens.

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Redeemer Presbyterian

The Sermon Above

Free Sermons

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It seems to me that God is doing in the Emergent Church movement something that He does over and over. When His gift is rejected by the people He has prepared to receive it, He seeks out a new people. So it is that sons and daughters of Anabaptists and Pentecostals are being drawn to the Great Tradition. It is a moment for repentance for those of us in the historic churches which have stewarded the Great Tradition but have lost touch with the life which generates the tradition and which carries it forward. It is also a moment of testing for that which is emerging. Will they marginalize doctrine and the labor of seeking a consensus in faith and order? Will they succumb to the motto that deeds unite and doctrine divides and then find themselves in the midst of church dividing controversy with no deep doctrinal consensus to guide?

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Reflections On The Emerging Church

How does this work? I have two guesses. First, I imagine that God has established a principle of synergy into the very fabric of the Church’s being, so that when people share things in common, when they move beyond the boundary of their immediate family toward caring about the whole family of God, they find that the total provision is more than the sum of its parts, that in the Kingdom of God 1+1 does not equal 2, but instead it equals 3 or 4 or 5. As good as this idea is, however, I prefer my second guess, which is the miracle of God’s presence. This kind of miracle is not the product of a distant God intervening in natural human affairs, but rather the work of God’s Spirit who both inspires people to move beyond their norms and who blesses the fruit of their labor with a hundredfold return. This is where the provision that normally covers one family multiplies beyond all natural boundaries and explanations toward the covering of thousands. This is a supernatural witness that boldly proclaims that Jesus is resurrected and living among his people in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, this is the vision. I don’t know it experientially and I am not sure if it is orthodox. What I do know is that it is frightening. What if God doesn’t show up to multiply our provisions, what if my brother or sister in Christ doesn’t throw into the pot as I have. What will God require of me to make this vision a reality. Does this imply some kind of communal existence? I am not sure. I am just thinking that it’s not cool when middle class Xians, for all their moralizing, look and live like every other middle class family. I am just wondering how my present manner of living is keeping me from the fullness of life that God intends to give all who claim Jesus’ name.

At times, I have felt that my brothers and sisters in Christ find it something of an oddity that Paula and I are Anglican (understood as semi-Catholic). This article does a pretty good job of explaining what led us into this tradition, and why developing and expressing our faith through liturgy, sacrament and symbol is so powerful.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

In Younger Evangelicals, Webber discerned three phases of evangelicalism since 1950, each dominated by a different paradigm of church life and discipleship. Each group continues in some form today, but the first two have been superseded by the third: “traditional” (1950-1975), “pragmatic” (1975-2000), and “younger” (2000-?).

Traditionals focus on doctrine-or as Webber grumps, on “being right.” They pour their resources into Bible studies, Sunday school curricula, and apologetics materials. The pragmatics “do” church growth, spawning the culturally engaged (and hugely successful) seeker-sensitive trend, with full-service megachurches and countless outreach programs. Currently, the younger evangelicals seek a Christianity that is “embodied” and “authentic”, distinctively Christian. In this they follow Stanley Hauerwas’s and William H. Willimon’s widely read 1989 manifesto, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, which calls the church to reject individualism, consumerism, and a host of other modern malaises.

For the younger evangelicals (Webber’s tag refers to “emerging,” if not Emergent, evangelicalism), traditional churches are too centered on words and propositions. And pragmatic churches are compromising authentic Christianity by tailoring their ministries to the marketplace and pop culture. The younger evangelicals seek a renewed encounter with a God beyond both doctrinal definitions and super-successful ministry programs.

So what to do? Easy, says this youth movement: Stop endlessly debating and advertising Christianity, and just embody it. Live it faithfully in community with others-especially others beyond the white suburban world of many megachurch ministries. Embrace symbols and sacraments. Dialogue with the “other two” historic confessions: Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Recognize that “the road to the church’s future is through its past.” And break out the candles and incense. Pray using the lectio divina. Tap all the riches of Christian tradition you can find.

If you want to learn more about this movement or Robert Webber’s ideas, check out the links below:

Ancient-Future Worship
Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Legacy