The Hsu’s Views

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was a French thinker, sociologist, theologian and Christian anarchist. Despite my aversion to anarchy in general, Christian or not, I decided to pick up a copy of his book, The Subversion of Christianity, largely because I saw his work referenced many times in multiple books.

Centrally, he argues that the true and best expression of how to live as a community that is shaped by the gospel became distorted at a very early point due to many different reasons. He persuasively argues that Christianity became subverted by pagan practice and beliefs, focused on moralism, and created it’s religious forms and structures in man’s image.

In Chapter Eight, he continues his thesis that much of what true Christianity, or what he calls “X” throughout the book, is very usually the opposite of what is natural to us. “It is thus a scandal.” Or in the words of Kierkegaaard, nothing displeases or revolts us more than New Testament Christianity when it is properly proclaimed.

In this context Ellul writes that what might be natural to us is order. It is something we want and expect, but “X, when it comes to us, cannot be organized. We can have neither stability, routine, collective permanence, association, nor group cohesion if we want to live by revelation, if we put X at the center as the sole truth.”

“When we are told that the Holy Spirit constituted the church at Pentecost, we like that. But when we learn that the Holy Spirit is like the wind that blows when and where it wills and we do not know where it comes from or where it is going, we do not like it.”

“When we are told that the church consists of those whom God calls, we applaud, but who are they? Who can trace the boundaries? We may say that the church has a center, Jesus Christ, but it has no circumference.”

Ellul is saying we want to clearly know who God is and where he will lead us, but the scandalous truth of God is that we can’t put him in our boxes to satisfy our need for order. Similarly, our desire for some clear categories of who are actually “saved or called” is a desire for order that perhaps cannot lend itself to a clear cut answer. The Church’s answer might be construed as those who are baptized… but even that might be seen as merely a human construct to create categories for who is saved or not.

I think it is fascinating that Ellul, in speaking of who is “in or out” uses language that is eerily close to language of centered-set and bounded-set that is being used today in missional discussions. The scandal is that we can only clearly define the center, Jesus Christ. It is only our need for order/categories that we look for some circumferential border defining who belongs and doesn’t. The scandalous bit is that the determination is God’s business, not ours.

More tomorrow in part two.

In “Leadership and the New Science,” by Margaret Wheatley, we are introduced to the relatively new learning that is occurring in life sciences and fields such as Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory. As a consultant to large businesses and organizations, Wheatley has created a niche for herself by applying knowledge from these new sciences to help lead organizations with new paradigms. Read parts of the book online for free at google books.

In Chapter 8, the focus is change in livings systems. In contrast with a Newtonian world where laws, principles, and a mechanical paradigm shapes our thinking, the first lesson we learn from living systems that it is more important to look at the whole of the system even as we work with individual parts or isolated problems.

The second lesson is that to be effective in change, we must “leave behind the imaginary organization we design and learn to work with the real organization, which will always be a dense network of interdependent relationships.” I’ll blog on that elsewhere.

For today however, the focus will be on the third lesson of the chapter. We must look for the “invisible processes rather than the things that they engender.” We need to look “behind the things of organizations to work with the processes that gave them birth.” I think this is a call for us to drop the preoccupation with structures whether a big building, house church, or missional communities in a coffee shop. We must pay attention to the processes instead…

(more…)

In a brief conversation with Alan Hirsh about movements, Alan suggested I look up work by Howard Snyder of Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. Apparently his life work has been on the topics of revival and revitalization movements. I ran across an introductory article from Snyder’s work here.

I enjoyed his observation that spiritual awakenings often occur in places that often seem off the beaten path, and not at the center of the religious universe. He writes,

One thing revivals and renewals are all about, is centers and peripheries. In 1900 the “center” of world Protestant and Protestant missions seemed to be Europe (especially London) and the United States (especially New York). But then unexpected revivals broke out in “peripheral” places: Wales, Azusa Street (Los Angeles), villages in India, northern Korea. In the century-long wake of the 1904–07 revivals, Christianity has been transformed. Renewal often begins at the (perceived) margins and sometimes its significance is recognized only later. The most promising renewals today may yet be invisible.

As a person focused on city transforming movements of the body of Christ, I see so many helpful dimensions of learning coming from many traditions and quarters. The new expressions of church prompted by the modern/postmodern shift, along with the dynamics of rapid urbanization are creating new conversations that will have profound and positive impact on the way the next generation of the church will function. The Spirit is clearly up to something… but the work is often perceived as being on the margins, unusual and different. A positive spin on our work would be to call it cutting edge.

I think it is this dynamic that draws me to movies like Luther. It helped me to understand that the “traditional” and accepted teachings of the Reformation, were not so accepted during the days of the reformers. It feels like that today for me. Not that I’m being chased as a heretic… but people might wonder. I think the conversation we are in today is on the periphery… a good place.

That day when you sent me out so boldly to change the world, did you really think there wouldn’t be a cost? - The character Martin Luther, (From the Movie Luther)

But the centers and peripheries is more than how people perceive you. Hirsh, being a more secure individual than I, makes the misiological observation:

It is vital that in pursuing missional modes of church, we get out of the stifling equilibrium of the center of our movements and denominations, move to the fringes, and engage in real mission there. But there’s more to it than just mission; most great movements of mission have inspired significant and related movements of renewal in the life of the church. It seems that when the church engages at the fringes, it almost always brings life to the center. Hirsh, The Forgotten Ways, p. 30.

Geek alert!

I have to assemble a list of books, articles, journals, and stuff in general that I will be using to do the research for my dissertation. Some of the books I will be using I own and is cataloged in a program on my MacBook called Delicious Library.

There is a free script that exports the data on my books to a webpage. It is called DeliciWeb 2. Together you can see how much fun it is to keep track of your library.

I just began an online course designed to help sharpen my thinking and to help plan my dissertation writing. It is being run on an online, open-source, PHP, platform called Moodle. If you ever wanted to create an online presence for a brick and mortar school, this is a great inexpensive solution.

Among our first assignments was a 30-40 word description of a general direction that I’m planning on writing about. I include it here for kicks.

I would like my dissertation to be a reflection of the practical project that I’m engaging in today. It is the development of a network of younger, emerging leaders of the Christian community here in San Diego. I would like this group to meet for the purpose of developing relationships of trust; to learn together; think about where the church needs to be in 15 years; and see what collaborations, partnerships, alliances form.

Fundamentally, I’d like to create an environment that will spark apostolic innovation amongst the people God has placed here in San Diego, and see what uniquely contextualized Kingdom expressions might arise.