For years, the Amish have been the subject of jokes, including a Weird Al parody
and a very funny short film I saw on cable late one night placing “The
Matrix” in an Amish context. What else can you do with a community who has
chosen to live in a different century than those around them? The concept is, if
nothing else, strange for the rest of us who either have bought in to the
culture, or at least have decided to at least live “in it” if not “of
it.” Their selection of a 19th century culture implies that it is the ideal
culture and that they have no calling to impact the world around them. It defies
our logic, and so our reaction is to laugh.
However, we shouldn’t make fun of the Amish – for we may find that we are
the Amish of the 3rd Millennium. Certainly, we are not stepping back to the 19th
Century in search of a better time period (actually, there a few who are doing
this), but then, I suppose neither did the Amish. My presumption is that they
merely “froze” their own culture, rejecting the newer, evil cultural
influences of the 20th century in favor of what they perceive as a simpler,
better life.
Today the church is faced with a similar situation as western culture slams
headlong into the 21st century. Here, in the New World, our categories (the way
we have defined our world) no longer exist. We now live in a culture that is so
foreign to us, we might as well be living in Zimbabwe or Tibet or perhaps on
Mars. Body piercing and tattoos have a cultural relevance here that we cannot
comprehend. Here postmodernism has challenged our understanding of truth and has
caused it to be discarded. Here our apologetics, our “evidence that demands a
verdict” and our 3-point sermons have little impact, for in the New World,
experiences speak louder than words.
Even those of us Boomers who think we have stepped “out of the box” need to
carefully examine our attitudes and practices. No matter how much understanding
we think we have of the New World, we are still immigrants (as Leonard Sweet
puts it) to this culture. We are not natives of this New World, we are imports
at best. It may not be obvious to us, but it is certainly obvious to them. And,
if we hang on to our Old World culture, if we continue to be the categorical
imperialists that we have been, we will find that we are now the New Amish. We
may also find that we have already become culturally irrelevant and powerless to
expand the Kingdom into the new culture.
The Amish were not first to insist that their way of organizing their theology
and their way of life is not the only way, and certainly not the only ones to
attempt to preserve their chosen culture. Western missionaries held similar
attitudes as they forced various cultures to become “little British” or
“little Americans” rather than “little Christs.”
Categorical imperialism[1] is maintaining that your categories – the rules and
definitions you use to define your world – are the only acceptable categories
and rules to use, for everyone. It is by no means an exclusively modern
phenomenon (although modernists seem to take a unique pride in theirs). The
first-century Jews, especially the Pharisees, were also categorical
imperialists, using their interpretation of the Law to attempt to control
everyone else. Notice how much of Jesus’ teaching was aimed at challenging
those categories: “You have heard it said … but I say…”
Jesus dismantled categories of every shape and size, from the mandates of the
Jewish priests and lawyers to the politics of the Pharisees and Zealots to the
very core categories of contemporary Jewish theology. He told them the Law was
not how they understood it, the Sabbath was not how they understood it, the
Kingdom was not how they understood it, that the very worship of God was not how
they understood it. Jesus deconstructed the Jewish religion and way of life
right before their eyes, and gave them His categories. The Kingdom of God is
like … blessed are the poor … The Temple? Forget that – I’m the Temple.
Categories, of course, can be helpful tools. All of us use our own set of
categories and guidelines as we process the many bits of information coming at
us from every which direction. There is nothing wrong with categories per se.
The problem comes in when we presume that the way we organize and classify
information is truer than someone else’s method, or when we maintain that our
categories are not open to challenge.
A great example of this clash of categories is the old set of TV commercials
advertising some brand of breath mint – no, it was a candy mint – or was
that two mints in one? Does a rose by some other name smell as sweet? Or, if you
are like me, does a rose by any other name still make you sneeze? There are
other ways of looking at everything, and many of these ways are neither right
nor wrong, they are just tools.
A culture develops when groups of people start relating to the same general set
of categories (a.k.a. a worldview, paradigm or philosophy). Missionary groups
finally realized that the Gospel was not limited to the modern, Western culture,
and now many missionary groups focus on first understanding the culture they are
trying to reach, then applying the Gospel to that culture. What we need to
realize now is that the current American culture is so significantly different
than that of the 1950’s or 1960’s that it, too, can be considered a foreign
culture to those of us who were born back then. The current, New World
categories have changed from the set of categories we refer to as “modern.”
Many of these changes stem in part from a realization by almost an entire
generation (which I believe is due to a move of the Holy Spirit) that the old
categories and definitions were simply inadequate to describe their experience
of life.
Many of us admittedly just don’t get it. This is not a criticism, it’s just
a symptom of this change in culture. The categories have changed so much so
quickly that all of a sudden the language that people are using, not to mention
the ideas they are suggesting, are perhaps more foreign to us than any other
foreign culture we know of. We have, in fact, already applied our definitions to
these other cultures to make them seem less foreign – which works, unless you
all of a sudden find you are living among one of them. Then you may find your
definitions were perhaps convenient, but wrong.
Here are a couple of indications that the culture has changed, and that I
don’t get it. Let’s take body piercing. Tattoos I can sort of understand;
however, nose rings, nipple rings, other types of rings – I just don’t get
it. I mean, how do you blow your nose? To me, self-expression that includes
physical discomfort doesn’t compute. And don’t even get me started on rap
music. However, I know that these can’t just be written off as rebellion. That
in itself is a category that is out-dated and inadequate, if I really want to
understand these people.
Another good example is some of the new TV ads. How many times in the last year
have you turned to someone and said, “what in the world are they
advertising?” Sometimes they don’t even identify the product. Other times,
when they do identify a product, the story line of the ad doesn’t even seem to
relate to it. However, I have studied enough about business and advertising to
know that you don’t spend millions on ads that don’t reach the market you
are after. So, they are reaching someone… and whoever is spending those
millions doesn’t really care that your or I don’t get it. See?
We are not the target culture any longer – for we are simply not the culture
any longer.
Failure to recognize the cultural shift (simply being unaware of it) is one
thing; recognizing it, but failing to give value to the shift is another. We
can’t just write off postmodernism, the same way that our parents (or perhaps
grandparents) couldn’t write off rock music or the personal computer. We have
to realize that these changes are not fads – the world is not going to revert
back to some more normal (by our standards) culture. This is where we need to
stop trying to enforce our categories on others, and try to understand that
their categories are perhaps just as valid – or perhaps more so – than ours,
even when it comes to defining truth.
Some probably feel that their categories have worked for them so far, so why
bother to change now? This could work – it works fine for the Amish –
as long as we have no call to impact our world. If we as Christians were simply
called to live out our lives in little groups having no impact on the rest of
the world, then who really cares? However, if we believe we are to be the
“city set on a hill,” if we are to operate as the “salt of the earth,”
then perhaps we need to reevaluate our thinking.
This prospect is terrifying for some who don’t feel they have the skills to
operate in the new world, or who can’t conceive of how the church, or even the
Gospel, can survive in a world where objective truth (that is, truth defined by
our categories) has lost meaning. However, as Todd Hunter is fond of
saying, God is not stumped. I don’t think that God is worried about the new
definitions of truth, or anything else that is associated with this new
postmodern culture. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, and
neither will postmodernism.
In fact, I believe that God is in this change, perhaps even inspiring it. I
believe that just as Jesus deconstructed the categories of first century
Judaism, a ministry of the Holy Spirit today is to be a deconstructor of our
categories, to enable us to see the Truth, and to be able to communicate that
truth to those with a different set of categories – categories that may even
be better designed for the Gospel than ours were.
However, if we allow ourselves to remain entrenched by our aging and possibly
obsolete thought processes, or even retrench out of fear, we are running a big
risk – aren’t we? – of missing our calling to make disciples of all
nations, and perhaps even making disciples of our children.
The Bridge
Most of us who read this (and myself as I write this) are a part of a
transitionary generation. We, who are post WW II children, the “classic
rock” generation, have some postmodern characteristics. Many of our spirits
were touched by the idealistic dreams of Woodstock and Haight-Ashbury, even if
we “grew up” to become part of the corporate machine. Most of us understand
some of the failing of the 1950’s Leave It To Beaver idealism, and we helped
to relax many of the categories, although most of our generation was not able to
break completely free of modernism.
I believe that there was a move of the Spirit in the 60’s and 70’s that
caused us to become something new: a generation that didn’t fit the old
culture, but that was not completely free of that old culture. We imagined for a
time that we were to be the new culture, that the Boomers were “it.” However,
as faithful as we could have been to the Spirit’s call, I don’t believe we
were ever destined to be “it.” If anything, we were called to be added to
the roll of the faithful, those to whom the promise was given, but perhaps who
would not see the promise realized in our own lives.
We are a generation who doesn’t fit the old culture, but one that also
doesn’t fit the new culture. How uncomfortable. We can’t be satisfied
listening to Montovani in Hi-Fi and we don’t really believe that Social
Security works. On the other hand, we don’t understand raves, hip-hop and
extreme sports. It’s no wonder so many of us are living on Prozac. But again,
I believe that this is the result of a continuing move of the Spirit, and I
think that we need to discover what it’s all about.
I believe now that who we are has enabled the birthing of this new culture, that
has come out of us, but that is not a part of us; or rather, we are not a part
of it. In a way, I believe that we now stand with the angels in awe of how the
Kingdom will be revealed in this new generation that, by the way, includes our
children as well as those strange other people.
We are, in other words, called to be the bridge between the past and the
present. This is our true culture – it is not the culture on the banks of the
Old World behind us, and not the culture of the New World in front of us. We are
merely to be the culture of The Bridge. If we try to establish our
culture in
the New World, we become irrelevant. A bridge constructed on dry land is merely
a monument.
The Mission
The call to the Boomer generation, I believe, is to birth and enable the New
World to be not what we want it to be, but what God has made it to be. The New
World could never have existed without The Bridge. We have a connection with the
past, not necessarily to preserve it, but perhaps to interpret it for our
children and this new culture. But, to do this, we must establish a connection
with the New World as well – we must gain some understanding of the new
categories. We need to deconstruct the old categories, find the essence of
Truth, and then perhaps all we can do is hand it to our children and watch them
apply it to their categories. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that we
watch Truth apply itself to their categories.
We must avoid becoming the New Amish, not for our own sake, for our own sake is
not the point. We need to avoid becoming categorical imperialists for the sake
of the New World, and for the sake of the Gospel. I think we will find that the
Gospel is no respecter of categories. That is, the Gospel is the Gospel, no
matter what the cultural context. That does not mean that it always looks the
same; I have a feeling that the Gospel has something of a fluid character,
unchanging in nature and essence, but adaptable to whatever context it is in. We
have gotten used to recognizing the Gospel only in our context, applied to our
categories. We need to adapt to be able to not only recognize it in new
categories, but also to encourage it in those categories. And, perhaps we also
need to develop the faith to walk in places where we can’t discern any
categories at all.
This all comes down to faith, after all – whether we have enough faith in God
to trust that He can work in the New World, without the benefit of our
categories. This will be hard for us, much like watching someone eat a $30 steak
with catsup. Even harder yet, God may call us to be the restaurant that serves
such a steak! We may want so much for someone to experience and appreciate
something the same way we do, but the reality is, our way is only that: our way.
Their way is their way.
I believe that perhaps the greatest power that we, as this transitionary
generation, have in the New World is the power to either bless it or to curse
it. Many of us endured the curses of the Old World as we broke down some of
their categories. We know what it’s like on the receiving end. Many of us
remember the struggle to bring guitars into church or the scandal of showing up
in denim. We now know that church can exist without liturgy and hymnals. We
fought, and won, the battle for the freedom to worship as we choose. And for
those who don’t remember or who weren’t there, it was a battle. Let’s not
now make the same mistake as new forms emerge. Our culture must decrease, and
theirs must increase.
This is not to say that we don't
still have work to do, or that we have to stop being who we are. If there's
anything that the New World appreciates, it's authenticity. We just need to
realize that the landscape has changed, and that it is ok that it has changed.
The challenge to us, this transitionary generation, is for us to restrain
ourselves from forcing our children from having to live in our world, for it
really is the end of the world as we know it. Those who take the preservationist
approach will be the New Amish, and I don’t want us to inflict that kind of
existence on our children. Rather, I hope that we truly can find a way to be a
bridge for our children into the New World, and as a good bridge should, bless
them as they step off onto new soil and leave us behind, able to thrive as
Kingdom emissaries to the New World.
[1] A term I learned from listening to, again, Leonard Sweet – I have
understood this concept for some time, I just didn’t have the language for it.
|
back
