NIRSA 2008 - We need a Paul (premodern / postmodernist)

I have been amazed by the strong reaction and response that I have received from some quarters regarding the 'Mighty Men of God' conference that I attended this week. The responses that have come my way (some in the comments of the posts that I have made, and some via email) have ranged from enthusiastic support to complete rejection. I suppose that I should not be surprised by this. Christians do tend to negotiate their faith from their respective corners of conviction. This 'divide' does worry me however, since we do need to find one another in order to be effective agents of God's mission in the world.

By the statement, 'corners of conviction', I mean that I have come to understand that I, and most other Christians, operate from the perspective of our beliefs. This is a perfectly understandable response since it is so strongly related to how we make meaning of our world. My meaning relates to my perspective. If that meaning is pressed upon I am likely to press back in order to hold the point of view that most effectively helps me to understand the world and deal with it.

This morning as I write this I am on a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg (my appologies to Anonymous who chastised me for flying too frequently ;-). I am on my way to the NIRSA (National Initiative to Reform South Africa) conference. I am fairly certain that I will encounter the same 'perspective driven' faith among the participants this week. Each of us approaches the conference with hopes, desires, dreams, and concerns for ourselves and our nation. When you mix our faith perspectives into that pot you are presented with some 'answers' to our situation (some would suggest prayer, others would suggest social action, some will lay a stronger emphasis on economic development, others on morality and ethics). Of course we need each others perspectives in order to bring a balanced overarching solution to the complexity of our situation.

What I pray is that the leaders of this initiative will have the wisdom to understand, validate, and create space for the varying perspectives to engage respectfully and cooperatively with one another towards achieving the greater goal of faith driven transformation.

As we approach one another from our various 'corners of conviction' there are two basic options open to us. First, there is the image of two boxers coming out of their corners, each approaching the other with the intention of overpowering and defeating the other. I am convinced that such an approach is counterproductive to the Gospel, doing more harm to the establishment of God's Kingdom than achieving its good. The second image is that of young blusing teenagers, carefully approaching one another across the floor of the gymnasium at a high school dance. Their approach is brave, scary, and vulnerable. As they approach they understand the possibility of their courage, they look past their lack of understanding and their difference in the hope of engaging in a wonderful dance.

I am in the process of editing a superb academic article for Prof Abrie du Toit form the Unviversity of Pretoria. In it he is considering the religious, sociological, and psychological complexity of the apostle Paul's religious identity. Paul had the capacity to embrace diverse, and even conflicting, social and religious influences so that they became part of the rich tapestry of his cultural and religious identity. Whilst this is not Prof du Toit's understanding, I have been struck by the fact that Paul was a wonderful pre-modern example of a post-modern person. He was able to straddle Tarsus and Jerusalem, Hellenism and Judaism, liberal universalism and conservative legalism. In short, Paul was a pragmatist - he looked for a faith perspective that worked and then carefully crafted a theology around that. Take a look at what Paul writes in 1 Cor 9.19-23. The point is that Paul went out of his way to identify with his audiences in order to engage them in a manner that would render them ready and willing to join him on his journey of persuasion. Naturally the negative corollary of such a position is that one will encounter inter-group prejudice – each group believes that their perspective is correct and superior to the perspectives of others (particularly those who hold opposing points of view). But, regardless of this Paul seemed to be pretty successful at holding things (and people) together for the sake of the mission of the Gospel of Christ by accentuating their common Christian identity.

I hope that I can do the same as I journey along my new path. I want to tie together the strings of diversity in order to weave something effective, creative, and new in my journey as a disciple of Jesus.

Comments

[Paddy]

Like the dance analogy. Partly because I'm a lousy dancer and would much rather be an onlooker, but also because of its innate creativity and spontaneity.

And when you are a terrible dancer there is the frustration of getting it wrong, and looking very very silly. But the rewards can be tremendous.

[John van de Laar]

In the realm of organisational intelligence or collective intelligence, cognitive diversity is claimed to be one of the most important factors that makes a group intelligent. When we lack this diversity, we tend to think, act and speak the same, and reinforce our assumptions, presuppositions and viewpoints. All of which leads to what Irving Janis called Groupthink - the situation in which a group becomes incredibly stupid.

One of my wishes for the Church is that we would learn to embrace the power in our diversity - not just in terms of language, race, gender or age, but in terms of theology and thinking, spirituality and Scriptural interpretation.

It concerns me that our churches tend to be very homogenous - especially theologically. If only we could create significant converstions among people of diverse thinking, practice and theology, then we might discover again how amazingly transformative the church can be - not just for us, but for the world.

This is why I like to think of my work as "integrative spirituality and worship."

For what it's worth....
John
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[Rock in the Grass (Pete Grasso]

"he looked for a faith perspective that worked and then carefully crafted a theology around that"...

Dion - this is such familiar stuff: those who supported Apartheid did exactly this! They found a theology to fit their faith perspective; as did the Christian supporters of the 3rd Reich; as do people who hate gays: find a faith perspective that works and fit a theology to it.

Sometimes we need to stand against faith perspectives, even if they are extreemly attractive and work very well. Pragmatism is the death of justice and truth. The touchstone then becomes "what is possible?" rather than "what is righteous?"
PG