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I am in the middle of reading Bishop N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope, which deals with the doctrine of Heaven and what Wright calls “life after life after death.”  It’s blowing the minds of some evangelicals who don’t like being told that Heaven isn’t necessarily the goal.

I was quite surprised to hear that Bishop Wright was interviewed last week on The Colbert Report, a somewhat dangerous place for nearly anyone in which to find themselves.  In the interview, Wright dialogues with Colbert about Heaven, dogma and other fun stuff.  Check it out, Wright is on about the 13:30 mark. (And, Cookie Monster is a surprise guest earlier in the show!)

The final chapter in Webber’s The Divine Embrace is entitled Life Together, which is, of course, where all this ends, in church. One of my repeated critiques of a contemporary church experience is that it is essentially existential, focusing on the self. Webber agrees, saying that the problem is that spirituality itself is taught as generating from the self: “It is a view that seems to permeate the evangelical culture.”

Webber proposes that when spirituality is situated in God’s embrace, church and worship then reveals that to us. We are no longer cheerleaders (my term) that have to conjur up some sense of worship and spirituality, but are rather participants who have God revealed to us as we respond to his embrace. 

Webber criticizes the modern business model of the church, which has created, as you’d expect, a consumerist mentality. This has followed a natural progression, with churches focusing on what the unchurched want, and making the church culturally relevant. As a result, many churches merely reflect not only the look, but the “narrative of culture.” Churches offer programs to meet the needs and desires of the congregation, as opposed to nurturing new converts and discipling them.

This chapter also discusses what Webber calls the crisis of worship. As I have mentioned before, contemporary worship sees God as the object God who needs to be worshipped by us, which originates worship in the self. Webber believes that a Biblical and historical view of worship is that “worship does God’s story.” Worshp proclaims God and what he is doing, and in worship we enact the story. A worship that is nourishing focuses on historical events (not emotions), uses Biblical language, and includes prayer that discloses and echoes God’s story.

Since I’ve started reading this book, I have paid even closer attention to what kind of worship happens in the churches I attend, and I think Webber is correct. The further and further we have “progressed” into evengelicalism, our worship songs have become more and more meaningless, offering little if anything of the truth of the Gospel. Even in my own Vineyard culture, the contemporary worship songs have become less and less doctrinal. No longer is the Trinity mentioned (in fact, often the Persons are confused). In fact, it’s rare to find Biblical language used that hasn’t been edited and lost among less meaningful phrases.

What now?  As I’ve probably mentioned in the past, I really don’t have a great deal of hope that the Evangelical church will stop the nonsense and realign itself with a Biblical concept of spirituality. I also don’t have hope for the emerging church, which to me is simply modernism will the lid off.  That’s not to say I haven’t lost  faith in God’s church, or his ability to pull it together.

As for what I do, I’m not sure. Next Sunday is Easter, and at the moment, I’m looking for a good church that remembers what it’s like to celebrate a resurrection. Then, I’ll go to our church with my family.

It seems that I’ve lived a very sheltered life, at least as far as life in the evangelical world goes. I thought that I had a pretty eclectic theological history, and understood evangelicals pretty well. I was raised Lutheran, as I’ve mentioned before, but was deeply influenced in high school and college by a variety of non-Lutheran folks, attended an Evangelical Covenant Bible school, and even served on the board of an Evangelical Free Church. I have hung around with both Southern and American Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, holiness folks and Greek Orthodox. I’ve been traveling in Vineyard circles for over 20 years, and for the last 10 have been investigating what is now being called the “emerging” church. I’ve read Christianity Today, The Purpose-Driven Church/Life, and tons of other best-sellers. I have owned at least 3 systematic theologies. And, I often use the NIV (although I do prefer RSV).

So, I’ve “been around,” as they say. However, over the last few months I have been exploring the vast resources of the internet, only to find that I apparently haven’t a clue about what Evangelicalism is all about. I knew that I didn’t agree with fundamentalists of any stripe, John MacArther, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye or James Dobson (and still don’t). However, I really had no idea there were such strong and volatile groups of Calvinists, Baptists, Calvinist Baptists, Anabaptists, and other random evangelicals out there. I’ve discovered that I don’t understand Calvinists at all (and still don’t really care to) and that I’m getting tired of Baptists who think they understand Martin Luther. However, I’ve discovered that there are a number of really sharp Lutherans who really do understand Martin Luther.

I also didn’t know that orthodoxy was such a big deal (not just “who’s in and who’s out,” but what it is that makes you in or out). I didn’t know that the Nicene Creed was an issue for some people. And, I’m very glad that I have had no reason to know these things.

There are a few decent evangelical blogs that I have been reading (and occasionally commenting on), including Parchment and Pen, the blog of C. Michael Patton, a dispensational Calvinist. On that basis alone, I shouldn’t understand his point of view at all. However, he “reaches across the aisle,” as it were, and has started some very interesting discussions in the last couple of weeks concerning who is “emerging,” who is and is not “orthodox,” and who are the Eastern Orthodox. On the latter topic, he has invited Dr. Bradley Nassif, an Eastern Orthodox theology professor at North Park University, to write a series of posts to introduce the Orthodox to Patton’s mostly evangelical audience.

The resulting discussions on each of these three topics are quite interesting, as well as being very educational. If you are at all interested in the variety of theologies held by the large group(s) calling itself “Evangelical,” or if you just want to find out what a strange world evangelicalism can be, it’s well worth an hour or 2 of your time to read through these discussions. I have especially enjoyed the Eastern Orthodox discussions, and am impressed with Dr. Nassif, who exhibits much more grace and patience than I would in dealing with some of the comments.

I have not drawn any conclusions, per se, from these discussions, but I have a few hunches and perceptions:

• Evangelicalism appears to be half - perhaps more - Modernism.
• There is at least a very strong commitment to submitting theology to a rationalistic analysis
• There is also an ahistorical attitude that borders on arrogance.
• Evangelicals more often than not cannot properly understand Luther or the early church, as they can’t accept that modernism has changed the meanings of many words and concepts.
• I have never been “evangelical” in the sense that most people use the term.
• I am okay - actually, I am more than okay - with that.
• I tend to like many of these people, anyway.
• The more theology I study, the more Lutheran I get.

What I find really intriguing, as I read through Robert Webber and other books dealing with historical theology, is that much of today’s evangelical church probably would have been considered heretical (at least heterodox) by Luther and many of the other reformers, not to mention everyone’s favorite, Augustine. Oh well… the beat goes on.