First Response to the Manifesto

04.16.2007

I've just begun reading An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, and already have been struck deeply--only one chapter and 32 quickly-consumed pages in. I sit, though shaking, in the East Holly Street downtown Bellingham Starbucks. They keep brewing Gold Coast, and I keep coming in to drink it.

Part One of my new book is written by Mark Scandrette ("a writer, spiritual teacher, executive director of ReIMAGINE"). He writes quite prophetically that as the Emerging friendship progresses, we must seek a deeper friendship than that which we've surely been left unsatisfied with. We need to have a more "Jesus friendship." He recognizes the mis-interpretations, mis-representations, and even the mis-givings and mis-guidedness of people who make up the Emergent conversation, while still clinging to the hope that their confusion, "lost-ness," and awkwardness will somehow bear a variety of good fruits in a world that we are all slowly recognizing is taken for granted and as a beautiful creation of God, deserves our true "Jesus friendship." Scandrette only skims over the current state that the Emergent conversation is born from and surely is a response to. This is probably best, bcause most of us interested are most likely critical and cynical to a fault. His no doubt conscious choice to move on with his submitted essay recognizes this over-critical nature of his audience, friends, and probably himself. I can only hope that any contributions and conversations I facilitate can do the same. Progress, in a progressive way, to the deep, tragicomic hope that Jesus allows us to have.

I have only recently felt interested in hosting "conversations" that cultivate a healthy, conscious awareness of how Christians are changing, and how we must change in the midst of such a chaotic culture. I am convicted to facilitate dialogue(s) among my peers that demand a more conscious approach to the language we employ to express our emotions, tell our stories, and flesh out our spirituality. Shedding language that contributes to the sterility of our faith can be the catalyst for shedding ourselves of anything else that deters us from a more genuine approach to God. I find that most of us are trying very, very hard to read the "right books," attend religiously the "right church," pray aloud the "right words," vote for the "right candidates/political party," have the "right friendships," the "right marriage," feel the "right way" about the "right controversies" and issues, pursue the "right degrees" that lead to the "right jobs," give the "right amounts" to the "right organizations/causes," and all with the "right attitude" and "right reflection" of God. That is just too much pressure. When submitted to that kind of pressure, one knows that he or she is bound to fail, and from that fear, we allow a shallow defensive pride to represent us to the world that we falsely accuse of pressing this weight upon us. So we tell everyone we know what book we read last (with little to say about it except that it was either "so good" & "you should read it," or that it was "not that great"), or that they should really come check out the church we idly attend, put bumper stickers on our vehicles that boastfully associate us with some politician we've never met (much less shared a meal with), subtly interject the fact that we tithe in to otherwise spiritual discussions, portray ourselves as missional renegades in money-hungry career fields, all the while casually sipping a latte, surfing the web, scrolling on our ipods, and feeling like we really ought to be reading our bibles.
We work and work and work, foolishly deceived into believing deeply that what God really wants us to be is tireless, relentlessly optimistic busybodies with an appreciation for our privilege but a secondary desire to share the privileges to anyone not born with such luck. True, serving out of conviction and the idea of potential shame is incomplete service. But perhaps we all need to start somewhere, and this is where the privileged class enters the age-old internal debate of what "service" is.

Do we know what God desires of us? Can we know, and translate that in to a tangible orthopraxy? Our bible only provides stories of how our ancestors responded to these critical internal wrestlings. We have to leave those in their own contexts. The only case in which we get to see an example of how God practiced life was of course, through the example of Jesus. Jesus responded to the Roman Empire and it's societal misgivings by having many conversations that sought manifestations of Truth, shared meals with the powerful & the powerless, and eventually accepted that his prayers and actions both would be held under the soveriegnty of his father, God. Jesus did not respond with pride, "right practice" alone, or monasticism. Nor mere criticism or righteous anger. Surely he employed these things in his time, but always understanding that all comes from God, and all shall return to God. So he refused to work to be right, and instead worked to honor the Truth by spreading it, one person, one meal, one conversation at a time. Let's look at this example, strip down all else, and let's do it now.

-hvc