We have seen that man can only begin to "read" the meaning of nature, when instead of merely copying and describing what he senses, he begins to apprehend it as a series of images symbolizing concepts. Now the word "imagination" has come to mean, for most people, the faculty of inventing fictions, especially poetic fictions; but in its deeper sense it signifies that very faculty of apprehending the outward form as the image or symbol of an inner meaning, for which we are looking. It is therefore not surprising that the first stirrings of a movement of thought in this direction should have occurred among those who interested themselves in the deeper significance of art, and especially of poetry. Thus it was held by Coleridge that the human imagination, at its highest level, does indeed inherit and continue the divine creative activity of the Logos (the "Word" of the opening verses of St. John's Gospel), which was the common origin of human language and consciousness, as well as of the world which contains them.

--- Owen Barfield

We read a quatrain:

this poem is lousy, yes / but it is mine / my creative act / a yelp for the world to hear

and we see something is very wrong. We listen to sermons like Dan Sweatt's and we hear the prating of a highly-esteemed crackpot. We observe the political consequences of these things and it gets even worse: we know we've awakened in a howling wasteland where words are useless and where only yelps and shrieks and moans and screams memorialize our terrors.

These are like a soundtrack for Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony.

And it is very difficult to sympathize. These people have brought this down on their own heads, and to find warring philistines singing the songs of Zion would be an odd surprise.

That peace—but who may claim it?
The guileless in their way,
Who keep the ranks of battle,
Who mean the things they say—
The peace that is for heaven,
And shall be for the earth;
The palace that re-echoes
With festal song and mirth;
The garden, breathing spices,
The paradise on high;
Grace beautified to glory,
Unceasing minstrelsy.

There are those whose first religious impulse to say whatever they want to say, and then there are those for whom the word is a true apprehension of meaning. Wouldn't it be so ironic to hear their judgment on their own lips?

We at Remonstrans might be forgiven for asking some questions (somewhat related, perhaps, to the recent spasm within American Fundamentalisticism).

It's not likely...but it could happen!

1.   Whom might orthodoxy attract if it had a venerated tradition making a genuine appeal to the imagination of modern believers?

2.   What is essential to modern piety that fundamentalisticist institutions lack?

3.   When would be an ideal time to consider the impact one's ministry makes on a younger generation?

4.   Where might a contemporary separatist go to enjoy a quiet, respectful exchange of ideas?

5.   Why are fundamentalisticists committed to attitudes which have stigmatized and discredited the movement so thoroughly?

6.   How might future stooge-like provocations be met by those who appreciate the difference between a love of the good and a love for politics?

A recent harangue of the brethren was delivered at a place most appropriately called "The Wilds"—and for which nothing remotely like an apology has yet been detected.  This "message" has produced grubby strife and soapy pontifications, so in that sense I suppose we could say it was a success except that the haranguer began by expressing some incoherent desire to be respected by younger preachers who are now falling under the sway of less—ummm—"intense" pulpit personalities.

The man clearly has an ironic streak.

I am virtually certain that no good will come of it. I am so convinced of this that I would be willing, if Las Vegas could set the odds, to bet my worldly all on it. I could finally close on that luxury home in an enchanted forest I promised my wife.

I actually recommend against attending the theater and getting tattoos, but since some of you will do both anyway I'd like to suggest that all you fundamentalists get at least two tats. Across the back of the fingers of your right hand you should apply the letters F E A R. On your left forearm you might consider an artful rendering of Mr. Moe Howard. Why quibble about what is a mote or what is a beam if instead you can just poke your fingers in your brother's eye in the manner so humorously depicted by Messrs. Larry, Curly and Moe?

No sweat, right?

About a score of great, formative voices have shaped my thinking. Some of those were preachers. One was Edmund Clowney, another was Alan Redpath. Alan Redpath believed that the most discerning question you could put to any issue was, "What is happening in this place that cannot be explained in merely human terms?"

So for the more cerebral/spiritual clergymen desirous of a tattoo, I suggest that question might be placed on the inside of the left hand for easy reference. "What is happening in this place that cannot be explained in merely human terms?" The text could be transfixed by a Cupid's Arrow if you so choose.

But of course I don't want to offer too many attractive options because I don't advise tats in the first place.

So to return to the topic: what follows is the "official" retort—or response, rather—of Dr. Vaughn, president of the fellowship that sponsored the conference, the fellowship which invited its speakers and the fellowship which takes money from its Calvinist and non-Calvinist members for questionable services rendered.

There has been a lot of interaction and discussion over the past few days related to fundamentalism, Calvinism, and how men who disagree with one another ought to express those disagreements. The FBFI has always included both Calvinists and non-Calvinists because we recognize that godly men can agree with one another on the fundamentals of the faith while disagreeing with one another in this area. In any disagreement, we must represent one another fairly and treat one another charitably. To make this a test of fellowship among fundamentalists has not been the position of the FBFI and will not be our position.

The only way we can maintain unity on the fundamentals of the faith is if we learn how to express our disagreements on other points in a way that does not damage that fellowship through unbiblical communication. We must honor our biblical responsibility to use speech that edifies and displays Christ-like love. We must demonstrate an unwavering commitment to humble integrity. Caricatures and personal attacks do not honor the Lord or advance His work. Neither pulpit nor keyboard exempt us from these biblical obligations.

I love the passivity in that first statement. "There has been a lot of interaction and discussion...", he says looking around innocently. Who knows where this comes from, how it caught on, or what foul resentment it signifies? These things are certainly a mystery to us! And by the way, we also believe men should be represented fairly and treated charitably. What all is going on out there is of deep concern to us.

Uhhh, yah, dude. Thanks for clarifying your position for us. Most helpful.

So here we have the provocateur(s) now telling everyone about fairness, charity, the advancement of the Lord's work, and biblical obligations.

Fundamentalists wonder why their star is in retrograde? No public statement is offered which is to the point, and no public statement is made of any private rapprochement. They get to instigate the fight and then scold the belligerents.

Reminds me of the episode where Moe sets the house ablaze and then scolds Larry and Curly for mishandling the fire hose.

Just keep picking at those scabs, brethren.

Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellow men bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought.

---Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say

I repost last Monday's epigraph for two reasons. First, we've had some emergents loitering on the premises and for them the English language is a fathomless mystery. I'm hoping another reading might help them re-imagine something. Second, these words are true for everyone and they bear repeating.

this poem is lousy, yes
but it is mine
my creative act
a yelp for the world to hear

There are 19 words right there. And contrary to our unconsidered response, they have not failed. They have succeeded. The poet Mike Stavlund has succeeded in telling us something.

And here is Makeesha:

Or maybe, a better way of saying it is that I have words but I'm afraid to write  them for fear that they will be misheard, misunderstood, criticized or worse. I'm afraid that people will read them and consume them like a day old happy meal wrenched from it's [sic] chipboard box instead of scooped up with decadent care and enjoyed with the ecstatic pleasure I feel.

Makeesha has written words she fears to write because they might be misunderstood or criticized. This prose artist is afraid that her reader will not share her ecstatic pleasure with them. [I wonder if that was just a lucky guess.] I should confess that by comparison, a day-old happy meal would taste like an Auguste Escoffier triumph.

Emergents are fond of illiteracy and they love to build their castles in the trash. This is what my visit to Journey Church taught me. For the emergent it is not what words mean, it is all about their feelings about them. A meaningless sequence of acts, for example, needn't constitute worship so long as some claim these were "personal opinions or subjective assessments" of worship. Not unlike Steve Pettit's view of sacred music.

I think we have exceeded Mitchell's minimum dose of inanity and we dwell in the midst of a people who have exceeded Mitchell's minimum dose of inanity.

This poem is lousy, yes/but it is mine/my creative act/a yelp for the world to hear.

This is self-expression without art. This is indeed sitting around and saying anything you want. This is Frank Garlock, this is Dan Sweatt, this is Jamie Arpin-Ricci, this is Joel Osteen, this is Majesty Hymns, this is the Northland International Overarching Entity, this is Mark Galli: speech that does not bestow reason on us.

This is "seepage".

Now I make these comparisons for a reason. I fully realize this will make no sense to emergents: they are not my audience. (A fact they pretend to be troubled by.) If they truly believed what they said, then they would see my post is also lousy, mine, a creative act and a yelp at the world. What Plato, Augustine, Knox, Beza, Calvin, Edwards and Machen have said are lousy, theirs, creative acts and yelps at the world, and emergents would accord them the same dignity they reserve for their lousy poems, their creative acts and their yelps.

But it will have to occur to us sooner or later that all words, though perhaps not as bizarre or grotesque as emergents' words, do not fail either. Stavlund has told us something, Garlock has told us something, Mark Galli, "the evangelical mystic", has told us something, and we live downstream of them all.

You, dear reader, live downstream of them all, and to comprehend this horror is to begin to be cultured.

No, I must retract that statement. It is not to begin to be cultured; it is to begin to understand what culture is. To actually become cultured would, for one thing, put an end to all this yelping.

 

Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellow men bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought.

---Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say

We've been keeping an eye on the deconstruction of Emergence which most recently took the form of "a re-imagination of Emergent Village".

I'm aware of the fact that this doesn't excite the imagination quite like the Grand Canyon, the Super Bowl, or a fundamentalist movie excite the imagination, but it is something we should keep an eye on anyway. I can also understand—to a point—why someone might be slow to devote a lot of time watching a few renegade dimwits using bad philosophy as a pretext for abandoning the faith.  What, you ask, do these degenerates have to tell us about religion?

This is where our problem starts, of course. It is vanity that prompts us to suppose that only cogent, prudent, well-articulated ideas will move people, and we may feel that crackpots who don't deserve a hearing shouldn't get our attention. I think this is a mistake. People interested in religion will also be curious about the thing that has supplanted religion.

McLaren, Jones and Pagitt are clowns, no doubt about it, but no matter how inept they may be as philosophers, historians and theologians, they are nevertheless disordering thought in the church. That should concern us for the same reason Dr. Mitchell was concerned about inanity on campus.

It will never be enough for a few academics to publish a couple of explanatory volumes on the meaning of post-modernism. Academics are the sort of people who will go to conferences to argue over what differences might exist between the sexes or who's to blame for international terrorism. Academics can pontificate about anything, and for every one part perception you get nine parts poppycock.

Emergence was a movement that pretended to care about language, art, respect for narrative, imagination and conversation, but what have we gotten in the way of language, art, respect for narrative, imagination and conversation? The poetry of Emergence ranks right up there with the liturgy of fundamentalism and the relevance of neo-evangelicalism. Imagine what sort of poetry, narrative, art and conversation we'd have if they were indifferent to these things; imagine a religious world informed by the sensibilities of Mike Stavlund, David Hayward, The Ooze, Mark Scandrette and Jon Birch.

What we get from Bronsink, Buist, Hartman, Scott and Stavlund is bafflegab; large hairballs of prejudices and platitudes. Gobs of tribal language, code words and verbal signals which merely identify us and them, which, oddly enough, is the attitude they hate in other people. Theirs was a cheap virtue in despising the commercial success of Amy Grant or Sandi Patty; the harder work of producing something less childish than A Lament for Creativity proves to be beyond their powers.

There is something inherently unconvincing about a klatch of bureaucrats working through their talking points or obsequiously reciting their hypothetical remedies. Men who know the life of the spirit do not talk like that.

Psalmists don't yelp at the world.

*  *  *

Thy loveliness oppresses all human thought and heart; and none, O peace, O Syon, can sing thee as thou art!

 

Word has it that some "intensive time" and uffish thought was invested in discerning the unique contributions of Emergent Village to the wider world. The conversation has changed in important ways since EV began ten years ago; it is broader, deeper, more diverse, more complex, and much has come whiffling through the tulgey wood in the last decade. Different forms are therefore needed.

(No specifics were furnished; perhaps a codicil will emerge.)

So here's what happened—near as I can tell: a bunch of third- and fourth-tier doggerelists and cacklehags met in Washington, DC, to engage in the process of re-imagining The Village. You can go here to get their word on it.

The "process" was "deeply relational". Stories were shared, dreams were shared, hopes were shared, and hurts were shared. Shoes were doffed and vorpal blades went snicker-snack . The whole thing, organism-wise, is about friendship, and so deeper friendships are now being fostered and the current emphasis on friendship is being strengthened.

"Everyone is expected to make their [sic] unique contribution."

New dreams will be dreamt, ideas will be flung around, and The Friendly People In The Thin Space will continue to maintain their focus on the centering work already happening "on the ground".

In other words, they got nuthin'. After all those promises and poems and after the Great War between the Nouns and Verbs, only three things "emerged": the 501(c)3 status will be retained, some of the current board members will continue to serve before stepping down, and the website will continue. Re-imagination meets mind-numbing continuity.

So basically what we have here is a bunch of friends with a website and a 501(c)3 tax-exempt classification. Re-imagination is not for the faint of heart.

I suspect the people who cooked up the Northland International Overarching Entity had a hand in this. I see their fingerprints all over it. But you'll have to keep your head on a swivel because the fundamentalists are going global and the emergents are going local. There's a lot of change and a lot of staying the same all within the strict confines of the ongoing processes of intensive, globalizing, vision-casting communication, all of which are moving toward unprecedented opportunities on the horizon, and all mimsy are the borogoves.

No mention was made of Trucker Frank or his fine work at the nation's truck stops. Perhaps he rests by the Tumtum tree.

Here is an inarticulate grasp for the ineffable in a weed and a delusional fellowship with a jogger. One holy man to another, as it were. And lest you think this is merely an elitist dismissal coming from an one reared on Longinus, Coleridge and Eliot, read the "lament" that follows. This "creative act" is his own personal (not to mention solipsistic) yelp at the world.

Sadly, its lousiness is apparent even to him.

dandelion

out of the chaos
the dissonance
the caucaphony all around
pushing, pulling, striving, yearning, milling
there is a resonance
a harmony

an eco-system
people inhale
trees exhale
people exhale
trees inhale
one great grand collective cooperative
will to live

walk down the hill
nod at the person
running up the hill
namaste:
the holy in me
honors the holy in you

U
down in to death
and back up to life

life
from the trammelled earth
emerge flowers
(or are they weeds?)
grand acts
of audacious creativity
scattered across the ground
hope giving life
life giving hope

a lament for creativity

creativity ought to be contagious
a spark that starts a blaze
not the privilege of a few
but the lifeblood of many
yet ours is a world
of museums and bookshelves
a wasteland of ideas
sterility, observation,
ascent, interest

inspiration is an invitation
to adventure
grab the rudder,
take the wave,
pick up a pen,
sing your song

we're starving out here
and you're hoarding
speak, share
lead, feed
unburden yourself

* * *

this poem is lousy, yes
but it is mine
my creative act
a yelp for the world to hear

by Mike Stavlund

And here we see the savage clutching at his enemy's spear as it protrudes from a sucking chest wound, and he exults, "Aha! I have deprived you of your weapon".

I recently had a conversation with someone who was really frustrated about the emerging church. He was really upset about what he saw as a consistent squishiness, which I completely understand. The emerging church conversation takes a little getting used to because it is such a radically different way of operating. He assumed all we were doing was sitting around talking. From his perspective, our pretension was so deep that we had been reduced to not just talking about the emerging church, but talking about talking about it.

Which brings up the joke:

Q - How many emerging church bloggers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A - 1 to change the bulb and post about it. 315 to lurk around and make no comment. 2 to propose that a flashing colored bulb would be more in keeping with the culture of the day. 34 to retort that all talk of ‘light' and ‘dark' is just relative, and purely down to the culture, context and personal experience. 18 to weigh in with quotes from Derrida, Baumann and McLuhan and discuss the essential duality of light.

There's this fascinating myth that all we do is talk, to which I would offer is one of the most basic forms of relating to each other. It is in communicating that we are learning to work out our own expressions of faith.

When I offered him my definition, or really my limited understanding of it in words - the emerging church is a collective search for a wholistic expression of following in the way of Jesus through love - he didn't like it. His first question was instantly, "What do you believe?" And when I said, "In Jesus," he responded with, "But what do you believe about Jesus?"

And then it hit me. In refusing to be defined by "traditional" methods of definitions, the emerging church has taken away the traditional means of arguing. And it pisses people off. I would offer that the emerging church absolutely believes in truth, but it doesn't go by traditional means. It's called love, which then defines everything.

My friend was looking for our differences. And in doing so was participating in a means that would eventually exclude. At some point our differences would emerge and a barrier to relationship would be created. When we begin with defining people by what they believe, as opposed to who they are, we create natural barriers that instinctively create exclusion even when we don't want to. And those barriers end up excluding US at some point. What we end up with is 27,000 different version of church. Our desire for unity becomes impossible because we are beginning with a method that is broken to begin with.

When we begin with love we create, what I think Jesus was really trying to get to, which is a circle of inclusion. Love begins with our similarities, not our differences. It draws people in as opposed to pushing people out. It looks past our brokenness to discover the best of who we are. It destroys barriers as opposed to creating them.

But when we begin with love, we step into a very different way of operating. We begin with the idea that we are each created in His image. Differences don't define us. They express the subtle facets of a different part of God's image working its way out. We can't control it. We can only participate in it. And when we do, we engage what Jesus said was the only true way to live. We create an unshakable foundation that fulfills what it means to be human: to love.

by Jonathan Brink

"I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy. I know many things."

--- Worf, son of Mogh

The next generation of the emerging church is being called upon to re-imagine itself, and it is not pretty. It appears that vibes and ethoi don't have much of a shelf life, the road show bombed and American Christianity was underwhelmed with the whole postmodern fragrance. There was a lot of cussing, a lot of saying whatever they wanted and a lot of religious trinkets thrown about, many pictures of hip people in knit caps were published throughout the land, candles were lighted, but nothing really caught fire.

So they went to Washington, DC, to re-re-imagine. As for the shape of things to come we still have nothing official to report. I was hoping for some movement on the suggestion to let emergent die, but I shall wait patiently to see the color of the smoke.

In the meantime the participants are struggling with their feelings about it all. I think you should read a bit of it and get a sense of what life is like where the centre has not held and where under-educated people struggle with the English language.

Here are some of the feelings of selected participants, and I am on pins and needles to learn how this undisciplined gibberish might be incarnated in a functioning institution. When the time comes for function to bring forth form, it will be helpful to hold these thoughts in one hand and the shape of Emergent 2.0 in the other.

But as simple as it was beforehand to say that I was going to help discuss the future of EV, it is much more difficult to express what actually happened.

[...]

So we shared ideas and spoke of what emergent has meant in the past - the good and the bad. And we spoke of what values of emergent we truly do hold dear. We shared with each other what our wildest dreams were for what is emerging and how best to achieve those dreams. And there was debate, there was push-back, but there was also a lot of harmony as the group understood the language of the whole. I admit there were times during the process when I was scared. There were voices there suggesting that perhaps to achieve our dreams and avoid commoditizing the message we need to let emergent die.

[...]

We share and give away power and the voices of the many are heard. How that will look and which structures will be created or retained is yet to be determined.

--- Julie Clawson

Or maybe, a better way of saying it is that I have words but I'm afraid to write them for fear that they will be misheard, misunderstood, criticized or worse. I'm afraid that people will read them and consume them like a day old happy meal wrenched from it's chipboard box instead of scooped up with decadent care and enjoyed with the ecstatic pleasure I feel.

[...]

Today I am thinking of evdc09 in words and phrases that feel disembodied from the experience as a whole but are so vital to the experience.

Sacrifice the Self
Submit to the Process
Submit to the Collective
Release Expectation
Listen and Hear
Be Present
Engage Fully
Trust
Value the Spaces
Celebrate the Other

--- Makeesha Fisher

I'll share just one significant shift forward for now: it is clear to me that once again the vision of Emergent Village will be rooted deeply in generative friendships. This is a rooting in story, diversity, authenticity, vulnerability and co-laboration in an on-going incarnation of the gospel. There is a wonderful simplicity admist the complexity of relationships that is Emergent Village. In some ways this is a shift back to how this all began or perhaps a re-affirmation of what has been there all along. The story of Emergent Village will continue to be authored among soul friendships.

--- Tim Snyder

The Kingdom of God, breathing and naturalized among us, was dreamed outloud (to which the Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly'). Communities of restorative justice that lent themselves to transformative coalitions among groups that God is already using were birthed in the language of hope. The artist and dreamer were invited once more to cultivate their gifts and tend to the thing of beauty that is to come. Theology and Philosophy, those most subversive of all talents that Emergent has hoped to possess, were re-imagined as drawing from new and collective voices. These were the optimisms of the moment.

--- Brittian Bullock

The word for glory used by the Hebrews is akin to the word for "heavy." The heaviness of Yahweh landed on Mount Sinai to speak to Moses. The heaviness of Yahweh rolled through Ezekiel's vision of the moving worshippers of God. When that gift was given to us something deep happened for Emergent Village. I think (and here I'm taking editorial liberties) we found our collective voice of "Worship." I need to take a little rabbit trail here to make my point...

I am a novice in the healing arts of Tai Chi and Qugong. But I did it for a while at a church and now and then I run over to the YMCA to join a community in these ancient stretching, breathing, attending practices. Something happens in these disciplines to the connection between my body and my imagination and my spirit. They become more integrated. After a hard Tai Chi work out, when I put my right hand in front of my chest facing the earth and my left below it facing the sky and imagine I'm holding a ball, I begin to feel heat/energy/life between my fingers... The martial artist calls this energy "Chi." And sometimes you can push that energy between each other, you can feel something physical and yet not-concrete happening in the room. When we had surrendered Emergent Village, as we stood in a circle, I felt that energy in the middle of us all, but larger and teaming with greater life. Inside the hallowed out circle that once held our individual ideas and the dreams/ambitions of Emergent's founders had come the Presence of energy/life/wholeness. And we realized that God was near. It felt heavy. And our hands formed around that largeness as if our individual chi/lives had been consumed by Life Eternal. Now, no one else was thinking of Tai Chi but slowly folks hands came out of their pockets, off of their hips, or uncrossed. Some of our hands opened like the liturgist standing at the Lords Table reaching out in invitation, who says "the Lord be with you." And some of our hands raised like the abbot and preacher who sends a benediction to a congregation only we were blessing and being blessed by God. In that moment I (re)discovered worship in front of the glory/heavy of God. We were hushed, like the sound when snow falls. We were humbled like standing in front of Mt Rainer on that rare clear Summer day, or looking over the Grand Canyon, or hearing someone you've wronged say, ‘I know, I forgive you.' We were free like a mass of college graduates throwing their mortar boards into the sky or someone receiving the news that the tumor is benign or the news that grandma's long fight against dementia had ended.

It was thin space.

We were silent.

Michael Toy suggested we take off our shoes. We sang a song of praise...

--- Troy Bronsink