Review: Fall to Grace

Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, and Society
Jay Bakker with Martin Edlund


Amazon tells me I bought this book in January, so the fact that I've just finished reading it is a matter of some embarrassment, but that seems to be my common complaint - too many books on my 'to read' pile.  So perhaps I'm missing the boat with this review - many others reviewed the book long ago.  But it's a good book, so here goes.

Bakker's surname will perhaps ring bells: his parents Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Televangelists in the name of "Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries".  Probably more wholesome than some, the whole thing collapsed in the late 1980s, with stories (well-founded, sending Jim to jail) of financial irregularity, and stories (well-founded) of marital infidelity.  Jay was 13 at the time, went proverbially "off the rails" - meeting his dad out of prison, he describes himself as "eighteen, pierced, and a raging alcoholic".  His dad tried to help him reform - but instead he found himself digging a deeper hole.

Perhaps he over-plays that fall - I guess others have fallen further - and yet, it is an essential part of his tale.  Through the patient help of a friend or two, and the help of a "twelve-step program", he not only cleaned up his life, he discovered a real revelation of God's grace.  In place of the Christianity he thought he had received (despite some insightful pastoral wisdom from his mother, described later) founded on sin, guilt, and judgement, he learned instead a story of grace, of love, of acceptance.

Following this autobiographical introduction, he explores in rather more detail this theme of grace, tracing it through Paul and other biblical authors.  With the zeal of a convert, he describes both the theology and the way it's worked out in his experience.  He explores the ways in which the message of grace embodies the gospel so much better than the preaching of morality.  In one sense, it's pedestrian stuff - but so often it isn't lived, it's just theory.   Bakker puts this grace-laden gospel into practice, in the Christian community he now helps to lead, which meets in a bar and ministers to many on the fringes of polite society - precisely the kind of people that Jesus hung out with.

Besides this general interplay of theory and practice, of theology and a lived-out gospel, he spends a few later chapters exploring the outworking of this line of thinking in a few more detailed topics.  In particular, he revisits the way that the church has treated gay people.  Not only exploring the theology, he describes experiences in a national mission/conversation attempting to dispel fears and misconceptions (and his disappointment at the way Rick Warren and Saddleback church treated them).  He describes how and why the church he serves - Revolution Church - is gay-affirming.  He describes how this approach makes a difference for individual Christians.

This book is on the one hand an immensely personal book - the story of Jay Bakker's journey into understanding God's grace (I'm sure he wouldn't claim to have arrived yet).  And on the other, it is a gentle tour of one of the absolutely central themes of the gospel - one that too often we overlook because somehow it is too generous, too outrageous, too loving, too much at odds with our cold hearts.  His penultimate paragraph is this, it sums up the book rather well:

Grace is all about acceptance.  By accepting grace we accept God, we accept ourselves, we accept each other.

You probably gathered that I rather liked this book.  It's all about God's grace.  What's not to like?

on the protesters

Anne Atkins on Newsnight: "if the protesters had encamped outside St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, instead of St. Paul's, they'd have been evangelized within five minutes".  How true! Would they still be in place, one wonders?

I genuinely don't know what to make of the protests.  It seems that the poor erstwhile Dean and Chapter are confused also.  It has been amusing to see politicians of every stripe trying to put their oar in, and entirely failing to understand what the issues are.  The letters to the Daily Telegraph never fail to amuse - and miss the point, it seems.

Followers of Christ are called to seek justice for the poor - but whether that is the same thing as finding common cause with those camping in front of St Paul's is, well, unclear.

by their fruits

alternative title: to whom would Jesus send a cease and desist notice?


Apparently, Mars Hill Church in Seattle has set its lawyers on to Mars Hill Church Sacramento.  The combination of the name and logo is claimed to be too close for comfort.  We're not talking about hamburger franchises here, we're talking Christian congregations. I nearly swore there.  Sorry.

I was going to reproduce the logos here, for comparison, but that turns out to be difficult for silly technical reasons. You can see them here:

http://marshillsacramento.com/
http://marshill.com/

Is really the fruit of the gospel that Jesus had in mind?  Are these Kingdom values?   Somehow it's not surprising, but it seems desperately sad.

on gay marriage

My blog post of last week left a loose end over the issue of gay marriage - or, as the advocates would prefer, marriage equality for gay people.

It does seem to have become a terribly polarizing issue - but my reaction is to want the middle ground.

In America, reactions to calls for people to be allowed to marry others of the same sex have certainly fallen out on largely political partisan lines - though by no means all Democrats are on one side, and occasionally a brave Republican will break ranks to call for change.  In Britain, the Prime Minister (Conservative) recently suggested that having gay people marry each other was a thoroughly Conservative thing to do (since it tends to promote commitment, fidelity, stability; all [C]conservative values).  Much of his party might disagree.  Meanwhile, the Australian Prime Minister (Labor) seems  to regard the idea as anathema, whereas her party appears largely to accept the idea.

Churches seem largely to be opposed - but my gripe with the EA last week was of course that the reasons for this seem to have more to do with either the practice of homosexual sex (which is not immediately relevant to he question), or to a somewhat circular argument that "marriage is defined as the union of a man and a women, so two men cannot get married".  The bible largely takes man-women marriage as a given, but does not teach a great deal about it, and certainly doesn't set out to define it.

Undoubtedly, the first of those two positions is significant: it's a kind of rearguard action against society's broad acceptance of gay lifestyles.  It's as if some want to say "well, we lost the argument long ago, but we want to continue to express our dislike."  That's a powerful piece of prejudice, and leads to the rather curious argument which suggests that if gay people are married to each other this will somehow diminish the marriages of straight people.  I can't quite fathom why.  Undoubtedly, the aim is indeed to redefine the meaning of the word "marriage" to encompass more than it traditionally has.

There is additionally a red herring argument suggesting that whilst churches are not expected to be required to participate in solemnising marriages of gay people to each other (and, indeed, they may not be permitted to do so), some have thought that it will be only a matter of time before this is reversed, and equality laws will be invoked to force churches to act against their consciences.  To this we might say that firstly if equality law were being invoked, the difference between marriage and civil partnership would be irrelevant - and even less speculatively, every church (perhaps excepting the CoE) has the right to marry whomsoever it chooses and deny marriage to whomsoever it chooses, according to its own criteria. That seems unlikely to change.

So the naming issue seems crucial, at least in the UK context.  Civil Partnerships exist for gay people.  They've been around for several years, and quite a few thousand people have taken advantage of that opportunity.  Civil partnerships convey just about all the same rights and responsibilities upon those partnered and those who interact with them as civil marriages do.  And many, colloquially, talk of them with the same vocabulary as is used for marriage - wedding, husband, married, and so on.

So it seems to me that all we must ask is "what's in a name?".  To the gay community, I would have to ask whether it really matters what it says at the top of your certificate.  the difference between "marriage certificate" and "civil partnership certificate" doesn't seem so very great to me - especially when your friends and family can and will call it the first anyway. There are many areas in society where the official wording differs from the vernacular.

But the same argument works in the other direction: it really is just a change of name, so why should anyone get upset about it happening?  Of all the things to expend energy over, the use of one word instead of another seems among the most foolish.  To say "it can be a partnership but not a marriage" really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you want to argue that civil marriage is somehow sacred (which sounds like a contradiction in terms).

So, essentially I see no particularly strong reason for a change, and no particularly strong reason to deny a change.  The difference is that making the change will make a few more people happy, and at least in their own judgement, reduce the total sum of iniquitous discrimination.  That, in itself, seems a good enough reason to support the change.

a little milestone

This weekend, I resigned my membership of The Evangelical Alliance.  I've been a member for most of the last twenty years, so that seems quite a big deal, somehow.  I did it with a heavy heart, but it's been becoming an inevitable step, for a while now.

The EA often seems to be a force for good.  It has generally avoided narrow sectarian positions, enabling it for a long time to claim to speak for one million UK residents (through personal and church memberships).  They've dropped that line from their promotional material now, but they still seem to have a large following.  In general, the EA promotes the positive things its members have been doing, and frequently undertakes sensible lobbying positions in speaking to government.

There was a time when I thought those approaches were spot-on and just right: I was proud of the EA and proud to be a member.  But somehow the things it does have become increasingly marginal to me - and, I'd suggest, to a lot of other people who might live with a label like emerging or post-evangelical.  I know that I have moved in an inclusive direction - I rather suspect that the EA has moved in the opposite direction.

In thinking about membership, one might start with the basis of faith, since this is the thing that all members must agree on.  It is an unexceptional list - and widely adopted by EA affiliates as their own basis also.  Do I still believe it?  Well, that depends what you mean.  If I wanted to claim that I did, I would need to re-interpret several of the clauses to imply something other than what most would agree upon as their "plain meaning".  But more than that, my problem really is with making such a list the basis of unity: it seems a category mistake.  Where in that list is the teaching of Christ?  Even is command to love our neighbours is relegated to something of an after-thought in clause 11, where the outworking of that command is given largely to the Spirit, not to the believer.  Surrounded by people in need, is it really so important that we unite around the abstract idea of the Virgin Birth?  And so on.  The clause on the authority of Scripture is delightfully vague, but seems to mean something which I don't think I share.

Reaching the conclusion a while ago that the basis of faith was rather irrelevant, I wondered if I could continue membership.  I decided to keep an eye on news, and decide whether I would wish to be publicly associated with the EA's positions.  And so, on Friday, I came across two recent news articles:

• The government should celebrate and protect marriage, not re-define it, and
  
• More of a big mistake than a big bang
  

Gay marriage will have to be the subject of a separate blog, but the linked article not only seems to take an unnecessarily argumentative position, it doesn't even have any evangelical methodology to it. I'm suspicious of evangelical methodology today, but even that would be much better than this statement based on prejudice.  The other article seems to suggest that all points of view be given equal balance in the classroom - a position which would plainly do more to confuse than to educate.

I'm not leaving the EA on the strength of two short articles, but they are the proverbial last straw.  Sorry EA, you don't speak for me.

excessively postmodern?

I'm in Australia on holidays again, and as with last year, confronted by some of the presentations surrounding Aboriginal culture.

In Kakadu National park, Official notices on signs side-by-side (or, in some cases, even on a single sign) report both details of the billion-year-old rocks, and the news that the land was created in the dream time by the rainbow serpent.  Not 'Aboriginal people believe that...', but 'it was'.  These narratives are not entirely compatible. Well, that is to say, they are not compatible within our dominant system of epistemology. To ditch that system for this reason is something of a bold move, because it is rather a successful one. (We'll return to success in a moment).

To select those two narratives, and omit, say, 'creation science'  or 'flood geology' seems a little arbitrary - not that I am uncomfortable with their omission, since they do not strike me as useful descriptions. One's own perspective is of course subjective: how is the National Parks Authority to select narratives, stories, and explanations? Do you privilege the Aboriginal perspective due to its longevity? Due to the sensibilities of the 'traditional owners' (a phrase itself laden with competing meanings)? Due to the expectations of the readers? Due to the long standing oppression and disadvantage of the Aboriginal people - to allow a voice that was for a long time denied?

Privileging the voices of the marginalized sounds like a good thing to do. But I can't help wondering if, applied naively, doing so is eventually self-defeating: you'd want to ask how those people became marginalized in the first place.  The more successful voice/culture tends to overwhelm the less successful one, it was ever thus.  In many walks of life, we would be in a parlous state if not.    Perhaps that is an equally naive appeal to a kind of cultural survival of the fittest.

Success tends to be measured in terms of money, sex, and power.  Perhaps it would be better if it were not.  Instead, we might appeal to justice for the poor, living in harmony with the environment, self-giving, and a heap of other values that we tend to recognize as good humanistic qualities.  Indeed, we might see those as biblical values, as Christ-like characteristics.

But does that really work?  Would justice for the poor be best served by giving equal balance to the voices of the homeopath as to the voice of the scientific medical community?  Will our emissions of CO2 be reduced by giving weight both to those who don't understand physics and chemistry, as well as to those who do?   For the way that we understand the last 500 years of science, with all its very tangible benefits to the quality of life for all (all? most? some?) is very deeply rooted in a privileged narrative, with a value system of very definite 'right' and 'wrong', and based upon a culture which very often promotes those with sharpest elbows.   Can we truly turn our backs on that - or embrace an epistemic humility - without losing its benefits?  I guess it's a matter of scale.

I want to inhabit a world - and a system of knowing - where we give proportionate weight to every voice.   But who decides what's proportionate?

review: Church in the present tense

Church in the present tense: A candid look at what is emerging
Scot McKnight, Peter Rollins, Kevin Corcoran, Jason Clark

My rule these days is that I buy hard copy books if I expect to enjoy them and lend them to others, and Kindle books if no lending is anticipated. I bought Church in the Present Tense in hard copy.  But I'm not sure I will be lending it to many others.

In terms of disappointment, this book most puts me in mind of D A Carson's book on the Emerging Church, but the comparison is hardly fair.  Carson seemingly spoke from a position of little real engagement: these authors are clearly active participants in what is emerging. And yet, because each really only speaks from a narrow personal perspective, the picture is still patchy, and didn't seem to me to amount to a candid look at all.  Perhaps I just expected the wrong thing,

The book consists of eight chapters, with each author contributing two. Corcoran is the editor and writes first, about philosophical realism. This is a curious wander through Postmodernism, epistemic humility, and a heap of related topics: I felt as if I was receiving lots of polemic from Corcoran and understanding his own belief system - but it did little to persuade me to adopt it for myself.  The second essay in the 'philosophy' section is by Rollins: surely he is writing about his favourote topic.  I'm not sure that excuses a line discussing "Heidegger's somewhat Kierkegaardian reading of Nietzsche ...", but over-all the is Rollins at his more readable.

The successive parts take us through Theology, Worship, and Bible and Doctrine.  Each takes us on a tour of the author's perspective, which is interesting,but doesn't really pretend to be representative or typical of the emerging churches they invoke (patchily). McKnight's chapter on scripture in the emerging movement put me very much in mind of McLaren's distinction of bible as constitution versus bible as library. But I fear the latter made the point more clearly. Under worship, Rollins writes on Transformance Art, reprising some of the parable-based stuff from his recent Orthodox Heretic.  He also offers the helpful observation "It is not difficult to avoid hipocrisy when you believe in nothing."

The book comes with a DVD - another reason to but the hard copy - but no reference is made to it in the pages of the book, and as I write this I haven't had opportunity ot view it.

Overall, this must be said to be a book at the 'academic' end of the 'popular' spectrum.  It's well constructed, but I cannot really describe it as instructive. It's a bit disappointing; it feels like a lost opportunity .