First, a brief update
You might remember my frustration with the Crankypants Monthly e-newsletter. I had offered some feedback to the editor that the contributors were pretty darn old and pretty darn male, with few exceptions. They’re all lovely people, but still.

After having a conversation about writing book reviews occasionally, then being told a few months later that “the schedule was set,” I opened my latest edition interested to see who these book reviewers are, only to find…

…drum roll…

Yet another old white guy!!!!!!!!

Who actually works for the presbytery!!!!!!!!

It’s just getting humorous to me now.

Especially since I just sat through a day of workshops and plenaries about the mainline church and how we’re declining and dying and in the next 30 years about half of the mainline churches will close their doors. And still we cling to the same old structures, the same old ways, the same old OLD.

Keynote
Keynote this morning talking about “the promise of mainline Christianity.” The thesis is that in the midst of our polarization, where people are sick of the battles and black and white, either/or thinking, mainline churches are poised for an awakening and a resurgence if we take advantage of it, because our churches are places where seemingly disparate ideas can be held in tension. (justice and evangelism/good news, heart and mind, science and faith, tradition and change)

This congregation is huge. Case in point: (this will lose something in the translation, but this was very effective and playfully presented):
During the keynote the presenter removed a huge tarp on the stage to reveal a rusted out 1965 Mustang convertible. 1965 was the year the mainline was at its peak. He said we can continue going as we are and we’ll be the rusted out car. Or…

[as someone drove a gorgeously restored 1965 Mustang onto the stage]
We can restore our churches to their former glory. No changes, no upgrades, just pristine, restored, but a museum piece. Not the most comfortable ride for the long term—no power anything. That’s better than doing nothing, but there’s a third alternative:

[as someone drove a 2007 Mustang convertible onto the stage—this is a mammoth stage]
We can create something new, that meets the needs of a new time, but that still clearly has elements and features of the old—there’s still a “Mustang-ness” about the new model. We can take the best of our tradition and make it better.

Brian McLaren
I read A Generous Orthodoxy and had three very different reactions in turn:
-Brilliant.
-Get to the point already. Stand for something!
-Big deal, people in the church have been saying this for years. Read Darrell Guder’s Missional Church. Read Lesslie Newbigin.

Well, I went to McLaren’s Q&A session tonight and found him fascinating, scary, challenging, energizing—so much so I switched tomorrow’s workshop to go to his. Part of that is just trying to figure out what he is about.

A few tidbits:

• Denominational structures are colonial structures, meant to perpetuate a certain worldview, keep the powerful in power. (I’m still pondering what this means.)
• Structure is not bad. Bad structures are bad. (Duh.) Analogy: There are cells inside our bones that suck out the calcium, then other cells come along and replace with new calcium. Bones are the structure, but we have to allow them to be replenished and renewed.To that end: to people who only have a few years left of ministry, he says, use your influence to work for meaningful change. “Go out with a bang!” And to those of us who are younger, he says, “Just do the right thing in whatever ways you can.”
• On the charge that he has been sucked into a culture of relativism, that he stands for nothing and has sacrificed absolute truth:
  [paraphrased]
  “The word ‘absolute’ is never used to modify ‘truth’ in the scripture.”“Absolute is a word co-opted by dominant cultures and backed by weapons. ‘You are with us or against us. Capitulate to our control, our view of the world, or else.’

  “I’m no relativist. Relativism is a problem. If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. Relativism is destructive. It’s a poison, but it’s a poison like chemotherapy is a poison. A little bit of relativism is necessary and good to counter the cancer of absolutism, which equates an itemized list of bullet points with truth. Truth is not a set of bullet points, truth is a person, a relationship, Jesus Christ.”

  “Besides, let’s assume that I have been sucked into a culture of postmodernism, relativism, whatever. Isn’t it also possible that the church has been sucked into a culture that is just as destructive?”

• “We hear so much about pastors misbehaving, having affairs. Wouldn’t it be great if we had pastors misbehaving in an equal and opposite direction—doing good in non-traditional ways and contexts?”
• For too long conservatives and liberals in the church have defined themselves in opposition to the other, growing further apart. In the meantime we have experienced what he called (quoting a book by Nancy Murphy) a “postmodern interruption” that renders much of that debate irrelevant to those not in it. Meanwhile we keep fighting the old battles and the world doesn’t resonate with that. The church needs to come together around a common mission—service to the world, the poor.The question is not, does the church have a mission? The question is, does Christ’s mission have a church?
• A study of young people ages 16-29 asking for images they associated with Christianity. Of the top 12, 9 were negative, 1 was neutral, and 2 were positive. This is the reality of doing ministry in the era of religious broadcasting. “Anti-homosexual” was near the top of the images. “Regardless of where you might be on that issue,” he said, “I think we can all agree that that that is not a good thing, to have that as a predominant image of the Christian.”
• Talked about the story after the tsunami of the baby hippo whose mother died and who befriended an old tortoise in a zoo in Kenya. The tortoise is a solitary creature, didn’t want this, tried to run away from it, but eventually, they became inseparable. Cute pictures, everyone oohed and aahed.“There are many analogies to be drawn between the mainline and a turtle!…”

  “There is a whole generation of people who have been orphaned by religion, which has NOT brought peace in the world; orphaned by governments who seem more interested in hoarding their own power than in serving the world, even by science that has yielded technology to blow one another up, made incredible advances yet we don’t know how to manage the change. And these orphans have been washed onto our doorstep. What will we do?”

That’s all for today.