Thursday, February 19, 2009
Going Viral
MMI quotes a few results of the latest Barna work:
Not long after Christ was here, the church organized, and not too long after that, from a historical perspective, the church became authority, at least in the West - and then things started to go downhill. Now what do I mean when I say that? Well, Christianity took a few centuries to conquer Europe, then the New World, where due to political freedoms, it morphed a few times as an authority, and now the only place it is genuinely growing is the third world. There seems to always be a "growing edge," and a decaying center.
So what's the point? Well, Christianity appears to be revolutionary in nature. Christ Himself was a revolutionary - not a political one, but certainly an ecclesiastical one. (Think of His battles with the local religious authority.) Christianity seems to thrive in adversity and grow moribund in authority. And now we live in a world where it may have "maxed out" as they say when concerns authority - so what is it going to do.
Well, the trends that the Barna study pegs sound like a fairly good idea. It means an end to orthodoxy - but then Jesus never was about orthodoxy - He was about people.
Will there be bad with the good in a trend like this? - ABSOLUTELY! But think about that bad that has come with the good that has been the orthodox church. It will also be chaotic beyond the comprehension of old farts like myself.
My wife and I currently host a bi-weekly fellowship of Christian young adults - immediate post college, graduate school types. They want to be independent in their planning so we let them pull the thing together. We host, but we don't organize. Frankly, it drives us crazy. We never know until the doorbell rings who is coming and what is going to happen. (We serve dinner at this thing so imagine how many meals have been over and under served) We try to follow the planning on Facebook, but too much happens by text message or phone calls. There is no way to describe it but chaos.
And yet, these people are thriving, and thriving in the Lord.
As we look at these trends, I am wondering if rather than seek to harness it - we ought not seek how to set it free!
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1. The Christian faith is less of a life perspective that challenges the supremacy of individualism as it is a faith being defined through individualism.I look at this from a "big picture" view and find we are in a post-authoritarian age. Let me break that down for you.
2. Growing numbers of people now serve as their own theologian-in-residence.
3. In the past, when most people determined their theological and moral points of view, the alternatives from which they chose were exclusively of Christian options - e.g., the Methodist point of view, the Baptist perspective, Catholic teaching, and so forth. Today, Americans are more likely to pit a variety of non-Christian options against various Christian-based views.
4. Faith, of whatever variety, is increasingly viral rather than pedagogical. [...] Feelings and emotions now play a significant role in the development of people’s faith views - in many cases, much more significant than information-based exercises such as listening to preaching and participating in Bible study.
Not long after Christ was here, the church organized, and not too long after that, from a historical perspective, the church became authority, at least in the West - and then things started to go downhill. Now what do I mean when I say that? Well, Christianity took a few centuries to conquer Europe, then the New World, where due to political freedoms, it morphed a few times as an authority, and now the only place it is genuinely growing is the third world. There seems to always be a "growing edge," and a decaying center.
So what's the point? Well, Christianity appears to be revolutionary in nature. Christ Himself was a revolutionary - not a political one, but certainly an ecclesiastical one. (Think of His battles with the local religious authority.) Christianity seems to thrive in adversity and grow moribund in authority. And now we live in a world where it may have "maxed out" as they say when concerns authority - so what is it going to do.
Well, the trends that the Barna study pegs sound like a fairly good idea. It means an end to orthodoxy - but then Jesus never was about orthodoxy - He was about people.
Will there be bad with the good in a trend like this? - ABSOLUTELY! But think about that bad that has come with the good that has been the orthodox church. It will also be chaotic beyond the comprehension of old farts like myself.
My wife and I currently host a bi-weekly fellowship of Christian young adults - immediate post college, graduate school types. They want to be independent in their planning so we let them pull the thing together. We host, but we don't organize. Frankly, it drives us crazy. We never know until the doorbell rings who is coming and what is going to happen. (We serve dinner at this thing so imagine how many meals have been over and under served) We try to follow the planning on Facebook, but too much happens by text message or phone calls. There is no way to describe it but chaos.
And yet, these people are thriving, and thriving in the Lord.
As we look at these trends, I am wondering if rather than seek to harness it - we ought not seek how to set it free!
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