Matt Wiebe’s blog about faith and life.
Why is it that the types of Christians most comfortable with thinking of themselves as different than the world are most inclined towards unquestioning consumerism and war-mongering?
Note: I have no research to back this up, only impressions, perceived patterns and, no doubt, prejudice.
The bagging lawnmower is an irrevocable sign of our impending doom. I am tempted to let you figure out the rest, but I would rather enjoy spelling it out.
The first and most obvious reason is that your lawn clippings should stay on your lawn as plant material to keep the soil rich enough to support life. Without it, you’re slowly murdering your lawn. That the vast majority of suburban drones don’t understand this basic principle of how the last pathetic artifact of nature left to them — the “lawn” — functions is staggering.
Furthermore, the fact that it is impossible to buy a new lawnmower without a bagger furthers the case for our impending doom. We are such stupid, brainwashed consumeristic sheep that we blindly accept that adding something to an everyday product makes it “better.” Even though it creates a helluva lot more work.
This will, of course, become a moot point when the impending energy crisis converts most lawns into vegetable gardens. Maybe we’ll use the bag to hold the ears of corn we’re picking.
One of the fundamental instincts we walk around with is that “things are not as they should be.” Indeed, I would say that, while what we do with this instinct varies enormously, the instinct itself might even be called a universal truth.
One of the reactions to this instinct could be called idealism, which for my own purposes I’ll define as the construction of a lofty notion of the way things should be. This is particularly complicated for Christians, because we do have an apocalyptic hope for the in-breaking of the kingdom of God and therefore have a very different idea of the way things should be. However, this idealism can (and does) become idolatrous at many points.
Idealism becomes idolatry when it breeds an anti-incarnational attitude. This attitude is exmplified when we prefer to live in our ideas of the way things should be and begin to despise the real world we find ourselves in. This gnostic tendency is especially pervasive in North American Christianity, as it justifies our lack of working towards the kingdom amidst the mess we find ourselves in.
On a related note, idealism becomes idolatrous when it breeds hatred of those people who do not measure up to our ideals. After reading the prior sentence, you probably picked out some group that was especially guilty of this. This makes you guilty of it as well. (Count me in.) I won’t belabor the irony of a group whose founder commanded love of neighbor and enemy being filled with hatred for those who don’t measure up. I just don’t get it.
Idealism also often tends towards narcissism. We are very proud of ourselves for knowing the way that things should be. Look at us, we’re so clever and superior to the rest of you idiots! Pointing at our ideas also tends to serve as an excellent distraction from our actual behavior, which might just be miles away from what we’re talking about. This narcissism applies equally to individuals and groups, and is usually used by groups to reinforce their identity against an exterior group. For Christians who believe that we are saved by grace and that all we possess is sheer gift, this is unconscionable. And common, Lord help us.
Idealism quite easily produces paralysis, as the gulf between our ideals and the way things actually are can loom large. We cover up this paralysis by redoubling our efforts to guard the boundaries of our ideals, defining them with increasing precision so as to guard them from being debased by anything low and common. Idealism produces warriors of words who would be shocked if someone asked them why they aren’t doing anything about making their ideals happen. They have mistaken thought for life.
Finally, idealism in many of its instantiations should be called nothing less than anti-Christ. A basic tendency of idealism is scorn, mockery, and disownership of anything that does not live up to its lofty ideals. This is anti-Christ for two reasons. Firstly, Christ occupies a much better vantage point than we do from which to make the various judgments required to measure just what does and does not measure up. Secondly, when Christ views those who do not measure up, he does so with compassion, as the doctor sent to tend to the sick, not the healthy. It is for the sick, the less-than-ideal, that Christ came. He looked upon those who fell so far short of anything that could rightly be called holy and, instead of scorning them, gave his life for them. Idealists cannot generally even bear to be civil to them.
Now, for full disclosure. I am an idealist, and this is a polemic against myself. Insofar as I have snagged anyone else in my net, please join me in asking for mercy, grace and truth from the Living God. Idealism is hope turned inwards. Lord, turn us loose with a reckless hope.
David Fitch excels in raising issues that need to be thought about, and has done so again with When Liturgy Goes Bad: Constantinian Liturgy in a Post-Constantinian World.
I am certainly someone who has been attracted to liturgy because of the emotionalism inherent within a non-liturgical free church tradition, where spontaneity bears a burden larger than I believe it can handle. But moving from (so-called) spontaneous worship forms to more liturgical forms might simply exchange one set of problems for another. This is particularly because established liturgies were largely formed in a period often dubbed “Constantinian” by those who follow the work of Yoder and Hauerwas. (Read a helpful brief on the Anabaptist critique of Constantinianism)
In short, the problem is that these liturgies make too many assumptions about the world we’re living in and the relationship of the church to power which range between unhelpful and destructive. I myself am still wrestling through these issues, and I’m glad that David has articulated them so succinctly. As always, problems and solutions are more complicated than choosing from two available options.
Here’s the opening couple of paragraphs from Fitch’s post:
I am a strong advocate of liturgical worship as the centerpiece for spiritual formation for missional communities. (As I wrote in the Great Giveaway) Over against the lecture hall or the feel-good pep-rally worship that has driven so much of Christendom evangelicalism, we gather to worship God as a holy transformative immersive engagement with God that shapes us for life with God and Mission.
Sometimes however, there is a danger in liturgy that must be discerned. We realize the inadequacies of modern evangelical worship practices for our day, and then we go immediately to high church practices (Anglican/Roman Catholic) and adopt high church liturgy as it is and impose it on a bunch of people who have no idea what we’re doing. In the process, our liturgy becomes inaccessible, foreign and imposed (in a Constantianian way which I will explain in a minute). And this is where I think most people get turned off to liturgy. This is why liturgy is incomprehensible to so many emerging types and they just reject it. Or, even worse, in a reaction to its imposed and inaccessible forms as found for instance sometimes in Roman Catholicism, emerging folk turn liturgy into trite new age experiential exercises. This is a problem for those of us who desire to go beyond lecture hall-ism and feel-good pep-rally-ism and proceed into the depths of encounter made possible via liturgical formation.
When Liturgy Goes Bad: Constantinian Liturgy in a Post-Constantinian World
Mozilla Labs’ new Ubiquity product looks very, very cool. Watch the video:
I’ve already installed it.
Terrific opening, and it doesn’t let up:
Let me put my cards on the table right from the outset. I am sick and tired of hearing Christians who have something at stake in the status quo of economic, social and political systems of injustice appealing to Romans 13 to legitimate unswerving obedience to oppressive and deceitful regimes.
