Rachel Held Evans recently posted a blog entry on her website which is receiving a lot of attention. Entitled The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart, it’s worth reading and pondering I’ve come to a lot of the same places as she has – it’s been by different routes for me.

Many churches, at least in the Western world, resemble a three-legged stool with underpinning legs of faith, culture, and politics. A major shift in any of the three causes the organization to tilt, dumping people off the edge. Yes I know Christ is supposed to be the one foundation of the church yet it’s rarely found. Sometimes (maybe frequently) we emphasize the sameness in culture at the expense of unity in faith.

The major shifts are occurring in culture now that we are at the end of the Enlightenment (or modernist) era. The modernist thinking fed into our theology and the same skeptical eyes questioning how we do things also question what we know about theology. These shifts are redefining how we “know” and understand (epistemology), and tie impact is as great as the shift from Medieval to Enlightenment thought.

Now we’re asking different questions and our Evangelical mindset doesn’t know how to answer them. Maybe there isn’t an answer. Maybe things don’t fit into a systematic approach. Maybe our church leaders respond like the friends of Job, trying to place blame when there isn’t a place for blame.

The mainline denominations don’t have it any better – they tend to be more politically liberal but they’re undergoing the same challenges as Evangelicals. That’s why I don’t think shifting politics doesn’t have a major effect on the issues Rachel explores.

So what should we do? The only meaningful response that I can see is to follow Christ and let him been seen, heard, touched and felt in our lives. Rachel catches the essence in the key passage from her blog post:

The bravest decision I’ll ever make is the decision to follow Jesus with both my head and heart engaged—no checking out, no pretending.

We follow Jesus – no other. How that works out in each of our lives will be different. We’ll be forced to live in ambiguity, there are no solid answers save one – WE FOLLOW JESUS.

If you want more background about the shifts in thinking and culture plus an exploration of ways forward, why don’t you pick up a copy of my new book, Good Faith Hunting. It’s written about baby boomers since they are the cusp generation that is leading us into new territory (whether they like it or not!). It’s applicable to all age groups since all of us undergo faith transitions and we wonder if we are weird or have we “lost our faith” when we ask questions. It’s available from the publisher, Wipf & Stock, now and will be available shortly on Amazon, or for Kindle and Nook.

I am a sometimes Dr. Who fan, and recently I’ve been catching up with the newer series (2005-on). At times I can go overboard – here’s the Tardis bookcase I built for my daughter and son-in-law.

Tardis Bookcase. It’s bigger on the inside because it opens up.

I hope what follows makes sense – I’m not sure I’ve thought it through fully yet.

A few days ago I watched the last episode of the 2005 season, The Parting of Ways. The Daleks, the exterminating scourge of the universe, have come back to life from extinction after being re-created by their Emperor. The irony in the episode is the extent to which the writers adapted Biblical themes of creation using the concepts of Genesis 1 to explore, God the creator and how false gods are destroyers.

The doctor questioned the Dalek Emperor about where all the Daleks came from. The Emperor started from Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” But the emperor twisted the passage and the meaning in his reply,”Harvesting the waste of humanity, the prisoners, the refugees, the dispossed, they all came to us. The bodies were filleted, pulped, sifted…only one cell in a billion…Everything human has been purged. I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek.”

Now look at Genesis 1:2, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Emperor tells the doctor, “I reached into the dark and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks”

The Daleks plan to destroy the earth and make a new creation, “Purify the earth with fire. The planet will become my temple and we shall rise. This will be our paradise.” Sounds like the Garden of Eden – if you go around holding a plumber’s plunger in front of you!

Again we see the Genesis language “And God saw that it was good” in the Emperor’s comments after half the earth is wiped clean, “This is perfection, I have created heaven on earth.”

Meanwhile Rose (the doctor’s travel companion) returns to rescue him. She has looked into the living vortex and soul of the Tardis and becomes consumed almost to the point of death. The writers suggest that soul has characteristics in common with the creator God, the one true God of the universe. Rose says she must “protect from the false god – (the Emporer)…Everything must come to dust – all things, everything must die.” But because she has absorbed the vortex she becomes God-like. “How can this be wrong – I bring life.” The doctor responds, “This is wrong – you can’t control life and death.” Then Rose replies, “But I can – the sun and the moon, the day and the night. Why do they hurt – I can see everything -all that was all that is, all that ever will be.”

In the end everything works out OK (it’s a TV show, after all). The doctor pulls Rose away from the vortex by taking it himself.

The episode captures several ideas which are Biblically based and deeply ironic:

1. The ultimate power of creation (which also includes destruction) will be corrupted if it’s in anyone hands but God’s.
2. Paradise (the Garden) becomes a wasteland unless God creates it. Any other attempt gives rise to corruption and destruction.
3. False gods look similar to the true God but have some inherent flaw that leads to their own destruction.
4. False gods and movements downplay our own humanity – We have commonality with God yet there is still an uncrossable gap. Even if we approached the “heart” of God, we still could not withstand the knowledge across time and space.

I have a fondness for old time country music. If you dig down deep enough, you find my Southern Appalachian redneck roots which is why I guess I like country music. Sometimes I’ll listen to it in the car, which is what I was doing early this morning on the way to the hardware store.

One of the songs I heard was “The Outlaw’s Prayer” by Johnny Paycheck. Released in the late 1970’s he told about the time he finished up a show Saturday night and stayed over through Sunday waiting for a flight. On Sunday morning he went walking to “clear my head” and ended up in front of a large church listening to the music.

Boy, I could hear that singin’ way out in the street, sure was a beautiful sound.
So I just walked up the steps an’ opened the door an’ started to go inside an’ sit down.
But before I could, a young man walked over to me an said: “Excuse me, Sir,
“But I can’t let you in with that big black hat, those jeans, that beard an’ long hair.

Later the song becomes a rant about the excesses of money and privilege, typical of the themes in the outlaw country music of the time.

Still the words of the song jostles something inside me. How many times do we make it clear that some particular type of person is not welcome in church? Are they too over-dressed? Are they too under-dressed? Are they from the wrong tribe? Are they unwelcome because they don’t know the customs of our congregation or tribe? Are they an imposition because if we talk to them, we can’t talk to our friends?

How many times do my own actions say, “But I can’t let you in.”

May we have the heart of Christ to accept people as they are, as God’s precious children, even when really don’t want to accept them.

My new book, Good Faith Hunting: How Baby Boomers Help Recapture a Biblical View of Faith has just been released by Wipf & Stock.

Currently you can order it directly from Wipf & Stock. In a few weeks it will be available from Amazon and other book sellers, plus Kindle and Nook e-book formats.

Description:

Church attendance in the United States and other Western nations is rapidly declining, and the losses are not solely because “young people don’t like church.” Baby boomers are also leaving, frequently because the church leadership assumes a believer’s faith and how it plays out is constant over a lifetime. Boomers are a transition generation, undergoing profound faith journeys as they transition through life’s phases. Many churches struggle to connect with people on a journey because the corporate, modernist mindset doesn’t have room for changes and journey.

Good Faith Hunting is a book of hope for church leaders and major influencers who want to celebrate the faith journeys of baby boomers and others through life, allegiance, and experience, as an opportunity to show the love of Christ as they sojourn alongside people in their community.

From the endorsements:

“Here is a book that does more than show us how to think and talk in story. Good Faith Hunting demonstrates the need for the church to become a culture of storytellers, creating stories worth telling. Don’t miss how Henry Stewart has reinvented ‘testimony time’ for the twenty-first century.”
—Leonard Sweet, futurist/semiotician, author of I Am a Follower, Viral, co-author of The Jesus Manifesto & Jesus: A Theography (and many others)

“Good Faith Hunting points the way forward for interacting with our fellow journeyers the way the Apostle Peter suggests: as living stones being built into a spiritual house. In contrast, religious institutions often want to cement us into their walls as dead bricks. Smart leaders engage in the power of persuasive listening, attending to the stories and journeys of those committed to Christ but unsure about the church. If you notice this trend and want to be a positive force in it, pick up this book and read it.”
—Todd Hunter, author of Giving Church Another Chance; Bishop, The Anglican Church in North America

“Smart, passionate, and hopeful, Good Faith Hunting affirms that more often than not, and especially for the hippie generation, one’s faith journey is rarely neat and tidy. This generation, like those of us who follow, knows spiritual life as a wandering-through-the-wilderness trek with God beyond the confines of organized church. What are we to do with lagging church attendance and loving our neighbors? Henry Stewart shows us the way.”
—Donna K. Wallace, author of What Good Is God? Finding Hope in Troubled Times, NY Times bestselling author, writer’s guide and spiritual director

“In this book, Henry Stewart takes us on a journey through the community narrative. He asks the question, how did we get here? and ends with the question, where do we go next? But the joy of the journey is found between those questions. Stewart captures the heart of faith, our journey, and the community narrative. Good Faith Hunting is a book I have enjoyed reading, and one I would say needs to be added to every library.”
—John C. O’Keefe, author of The Church Creative, boneYard and Misfits

If you’re frustrated with “church as we know it” and don’t know where to turn next, you can find some signposts that give voice and show a way forward in  the pages of Good Faith Hunting. Pick up a copy for yourself and if you  resonate with the themes, give key members of your local congregation their own copy.