2011/05/29

Review: The Outsider Interviews

The Outsider Interviews
Jim Henderson, Tom Hunter, and Craig Spinks

Christians often spend time trying to understand the perspective of those outside the church.  Or, rather, they should.  Too often, we simply assume. Our unchurched neighbours might as well belong to a distant tribe on the far side of the planet, for all we really know of their lives.  The Outsider Interviews  sets out to ask a mix of churched and unchurched people - mainly from the so-called Buster generation - about how they perceive Christians and the church.  An early discourse explains why "Outsider": Evangelicals tend to talk of "the lost" to describe those outside the church - but not to their faces.  The authors want a more useful descriptive term with less of  a pejorative overtone.

The perspective is entirely a USA-centric view.  The authors visited Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, and Seattle. In each place, they interviewed two Christians and two outsiders, in front of a live audience, and also filmed additional backstage material.   There is nothing earth-shattering in the answers (depending on your starting point) but there is much to learn, much to be reinforced by the way that these articulate young people express themselves.  Very often they have missed the point of what the gospel message is all about - without apportioning blame, we may readily say that evangelism has failed!

This is a DVB - a DVD/Book.  The DVD and the book have distinct content.  You're supposed to consume both.  I first bought it as a Kindle book, saving 50p: but it didn't come with the DVD content - so I sent it back for a refund! [the Kindle edition no longer seems to be available.] The DVD contains the actual interviews; the book gives the back-story and some commentary.  The DVD has high production values and is well-produced.  You could use its segments in many contexts - as discussion-starters or jumping-off points for talks.  The book is more self-indulgent, in a way.  It tells us the interviewers' perspective on the topics, and their reaction to the Outsiders' comments.  Several chapters are reconstructions of their discussion over dinner, after the interviews - with perhaps more contextual information than is really needed.  The background is useful, but doesn't really add as much to the videos as I might have hoped.

The book has a good website, where you can see excerpts of the text and video content, as well as extras.  For example, there is a small group study guide, and suggestions on how to run interviews in your own church - an interesting fresh spin on approaches to evangelism.

I said that there is nothing too surprising in the answers: that is not to say that they are pedestrian.  Complex situations arise: one story is told of a Christian whose friend contemplates an abortion.  She tells her that she dislikes that option, but will stick by her - even going to the clinic with her - no matter what her decision.  This turned out to be a powerful witness to the love of Christ.  Other hot button issues for the American church - such as the gay rights agenda - also get a good airing.  It is always salutary to see ourselves as others see us.

That, I think, is the value here.  If we don't listen, we don't really have the right to speak. The topics that come up in conversation should help to define how we describe the love of God.  Craig Spinks' rather wonderful Recycle your Faith site explores them further.

2011/05/21

Not raptured

The media have been full of amused comments about the rapture occurring today, many perhaps understandably confusing it with judgement day or the end of the world.  Evidently some Christian broadcaster has decreed that his infallible calculations point to 6pm today: predictions that even now seem to be unravelling - to a lack of surprise from most of the population of the planet.  [Though the link above seems to be non-functional at present: either its administrator has left the planet, or maybe its attracted an uncommon level of demand today.]

I grew up with this kind of belief system - though I was firmly drilled with the confidence that Matthew 24:36 (etc.) means that prediction of or speculation about the date was a waste of time.  Happily, I encountered relatively few who took strong positions on matters of eschatology, but premillenial dispensationalism tended to go unchallenged - to the extent of showing unchallenged "A Thief in the Night" to the church's teens.  I know that film gave many some sleepless nights (gosh, it has five stars on IMBb) - but I guess I had confidence that I would be in the rapture when it came, and so it held no fears for me.  There was a kind-of double-think going on there already, because there would also be discussion of the second coming when Christ would be seen, and worshipped, by all - with no mention of there having been a preceding rapture.  As I say, there was a lack of dogmatism.

That didn't stop us in the 1970s having a Sunday School chorus, inspired rather transparently by the space race, with bad poetry and worse theology:
Somewhere in outer space
God has prepared a place
For those who trust him and obey.
Jesus will come again
Although we don't know when
The count-down's getting lower every day.
Ten and nine, eight and seven,
Six and five and four:
Call upon the Saviour while you may
Three and two, coming through the clouds in bright array
The countdown's getting lower every day.
[yes, I typed that from memory.  I do that.]

And now?  I don't think I live in expectation of rapture, nor even if I'm honest, the bodily visible second coming of Christ.  All that end times theology is at best sketchy and at worst, downright absurdly made-up.  It's difficult to argue that the biblical authors had a single coherent view of what to expect: and harder, I think, to reach the conclusion that they present a water-tight prophetic picture of the future.  That's not a very satisfactory statement: and that's perhaps why this isn't the latest instalment in my "Here I stand?" series.  I'm not sure where I stand.

I can't help thinking that I have that in common with most Christian people.  There are lots of possible things we might believe about end times - from reading the scripture dispensationally as a "literal" (if perhaps contradictory) account of what is to come, through to a more alleogrical reading: and somehow we tend to manage to hold onto them all from time to time.  I think I tend toward the allegorical hermaneutic, which puts me out of line with most evangelicals.

Why? Well, others (such as McLaren, or Ehrman) put it more eloquently than I, and with greater theological sophistication.  I don't think the scripture invites us to read it 'literally' (mainly because I think that word meaningless in this context), and it is very clear that the primary events referred to in many passages are principally about contemporary problems (such as the Fall of Jerusalem) rather than predictions for hundreds and thousands of years hence.  Does that downplay Christian hope?  I don't think so - today's persecuted church can draw much strength from the church of bygone days.  Looking to the resurrection of the dead - to rise with Christ - is the Christian hope for all ages.

The apparent confident expectation of some that today they would be raptured (to the point of paying to make provision for non-Christians to look after their pets)  is touching if whacky.  Since that's not me, and not most Christians I think, I do think that we need to find a new way to talk about these things that makes sense in the 21st century, and I know I'm not sure how that will work.