A quote:
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

If you are going to walk on thin ice you might as well dance

The Road to Enlightenment

This is the personal website of Matthew Dellinger. I use it speak my mind on the continuing work of God in my life, our culture, the the church, and anything else that comes to mind.

I'm currently trying to move into a more serious realm. I want to use this space primarily to address the second and third topics I mentioned: culture and the church. I'm always looking for something to write about, so if ya'll think of anything, just ask and I'll talk about it.

Enjoy, or at least think about what I post.

As Unto the Lord

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men"

We have all heard that about five hundred times, to the point where it is meaningless for us. We've all been told that it means that we are to work like God was watching us. Is that what it means? I was lying in bed last night, thinking about this "Statement and Career and Professional goals" that I had to write for the engineering dept. That verse just came to me, and I started thinking. Is it a valid interpretation that we are to do our work not as if God is our boss, but as if he is our goal? What would happen if we were to view Christ as the purpose of our work, rather than the employer for whom we work? What would it change if we could honestly write that the reason we chose the career we did was to glorify and exalt our Lord? Paul's call in the passage is to servants, that they work "fearing the Lord" know that "from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as a reward." Like Mike Brown said about heaven "it's not the goal, it's the reward." The goal of our work is not excellence, nor is it to succeed at what we do; it is the ultimate glory of the ultimately glorious one.

(8/23/07)

What is the Emerging Church

I realize that this question has been answered before my many more qualified than I to answer it. Scot Mcknight?s article ?What is the Emerging Church? is an excellent summary. My goal is to provide a shorter, more concise summary which will be sufficient for the later articles of this series.

The emerging church has been described by its proponents ?as a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.? According to D.A. Carson, the emerging church movement "arose as a protest against the institutional church, modernism and seeker-sensitive churches... It has encouraged evangelicals to take note of cultural trends and has emphasized authenticity among believers." Brian McLaren describes the EC as "a group of people who are talking about the gospel and church and mission, especially in terms of changes going on in our culture that some people call a shift from modern to postmodern culture."

To call it a church is treading on thin ice; it?s not a denomination, but rather a way of thinking about the interaction between the church (meaning the group of believers) and the world. So from here on I?ll just refer to it as the emerging movement.

Essentially, the EM has four goals; the first is cultural relevance. It takes the call to be "in the world" and applies it to the church. This is often misunderstood to mean that emerging churches employ pyrotechnic and popular music styles to attract the younger generation. While that may or may not be true about any particular church, it is completely missing the intent; the cultural relevance the EM desires is the kind that asks "how am I going to reach people without going where they are?" They look at Jesus, and desire to follow his example of reaching "tax collectors and sinners" by eating and drinking with them. They believe strongly that the church should be taking salt and light into the world, instead of waiting for the world to come and ask for it. This calling to cultural relevance is also visible in the way the EM does church. Instead of trying to fit the square peg of the traditional American church into the round hole of our culture, they take the basic truths of the gospel and try to present them in a way that makes sense in the culture. The idea is that as long as the truths are preserved, the form is open for debate. This leads directly into the next goal, but I think the two are intricately connect.

The second is praxis - the interaction between what we believe and what we do. The EMs follow the idea that what we do and what we believe influence each other, therefore everything we do should be thought out; they desire to practice intentional Christianity - Christianity that has put logical thought into why it does everything it does. They are willing to call into question everything they do to ascertain it's agreement with their theology. This means that Ems are neither throwing out the old because it's old nor embracing the new because it?s new. Instead "They ask this question: 'is the sermon the most important thing on Sunday morning because that's all you can do when you are in room shaped as most churches are?' They ask, 'if we sat in circles or in the round would we engender a different theology? If we lit some hippie-like incense would we see our prayers differently? If we took down the pulpit and put the preacher on the level with us would we create a clearer sense of the priesthood of all believers? If we acted out what we believe would we come to terms more emphatically with incarnation?'"

The third is a focus on lifestyle rather than knowledge or specific actions. This is precisely the same as Mcknight's orthopraxy river. He says that "the emerging movement thinks how a person lives is more important than what they believe." It's not that Ems believe that a good theology is not important; it's that they recognize that we won?t ever get everything exactly right. Therefore, the argument goes, we should focus on really living out the unquestionable basic. Jesus said that "by their fruits [not theology] you will know them." The goal is to get enough of the theology right so that we know what to do, and then really focus on applying that.

This focus can, I think be overdone; Brian McLaren believes that "Christians should present Christianity through loving attitudes rather than logical arguments." Furthermore, "[t]he gospel is made credible not by how we argue and make truth claims. But it's made credible by the love and the good deeds that flow from our lives and our community."

It seems to me that Scot's social justice river is really just a branch of this; he says that "the emerging movement believes, nearly uniformly, that Christians are summoned by God to work for justice in this world." This to me is just a logical outgrowth of desiring to practice their theology - recognition of the call to be peacemakers and to "do justly."

The final focus is on community. Mcknight doesn?t mention this, for whatever reason. Bolger says that "ECs believe in community more than they do in 'church' -- thus community gives rise to a church service and not vice-versa --." The EM rejects the one-way street from the pastor to the congregation and says with Bill Kinnon "We are people - flesh and blood - image bearers of the Creator - eikons, if you will. We are not numbers." The Ems believe that church is something we constantly are, and should constantly be doing. Sunday morning is just when the church happens to gather together. The idea is that we are all one body all the time. We all pour into each other, minister to each other, etc. Hospitality becomes a key practice, because it is a way to do this. Church leadership is one area where this focus becomes obvious. Bolger says that "Leading is not fixed around the single leader -- leaders lead, but the single leader leading all things is anathema. Those who are gifted to lead particular activities, because of their passion, expertise, or wisdom, are able to do so without restraint. A move in the direction of consensus and shared leadership occurs."

I?m sure there are other things I've missed. The Emerging Movement is slippery fellow, constantly changing directions and gaining new limbs. I think though I've managed to hit at least most of what's important for the conservative evangelicals to know to understand what this thing is. I realize that I've totally avoided the whole postmodernist issue; I'll deal with that later, but mostly I left it out because I don?t really find that anywhere but McKnight. I think he tends to get to much of his stuff from the emergent wing, because they?re the ones publishing books are being organized about it. I also think that the postmodern jaunt has to some extent been swallowed by the postevangelical stuff, which I?m still trying to figure out.

(8/15/07)

A Kingdom of Noise

So the emerging church stuff is on its way. It is in the process of being written. IN the meantime, I'm going to post something that I've been meaning to post for years. Its written by Erik Lokkesmoe and is entitled "A Kingdom of Noise: A Screwtape Letter for the Media Age." Enjoy!

A Kingdom of Noise

(8/9/07)

Delayed!

So the first article will not be going up today. I have a somewhat more immediate issue I'm thinking about right now, and have in no way been in a writing mood. In lieu of the article, here's a little Lewis I was reading today. It's from the Screwtape Letters.

"I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naif? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time, humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking and doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning... Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head."

Later, Lewis's Wormwood makes a very interesting statement. He is speaking of a man whom he was in the process of corrupting, and who one day began to reason. Wormwood kept him from reaching the ultimate end of his thoughts by distracting him with sensations, the "real world," if you will. He says "he knew he'd had a narrow escape, and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic. He is now safe in our Father's house."

What Lewis is saying is that we as Christians are not called to do what makes sense in the "real" world, but to be idealists - to believe what is true for no other reason, despite the fact that it doesn't always make us happy, and then to allow that belief to change our lives. This may be uncomfortable for us, but it is none the less the right thing to do.

There are also some new photos.

(8/7/07)

Its On It's Way

So, over the next week or so, I will be posting a series about the emerging church, with the goal of helping ya'll understand what it is and why it is important. The series will consist of four articles addressing the following topics.

What is the Emerging Church?
The Differences Between Emerging, Emergent, and Missional
The Dangers of the Emerging Church
What Should the Conservative Evangelicals Learn from the ECM?

The first article will hopefully go up tomorrow, as I am in the process of writing it.

(8/6/07)

Owned

I always knew that those Defcon fools were crazy, but an own the box contest?


"New this year: ?wn the box? Own the box!
Are you a defensive ninja? Are your services unbreakable, your builds airtight? Do your countermeasures have countermeasures for counter-countermeasures?

So prove it, bucko... Bet your box on it, on the most hostile network in the world. Bring a laptop/server/desktop, hardened to the nines, running exactly two (2) visible services, to our specs, and we'll offer you up for the slaughter.

The first person to take you down walks away with your gear. When you're ?wned, you're owned. It's that simple.

The last box(en) standing, unowned, wins, and the winner(s) can take his/her precious back home, safe in the knowledge that if it survived at DC, it can survive anywhere. Plus, get some way cool prizes. We haven't figured out what just yet. But they'll be way cool. We promise. We're thinking t-shirts with "Nobody ?wned me at DC15" would be a source of much pride, no?

For the other side of the fence, the reward is clear... Pick your target, bring your best sploits, 0wn the box, and own the box. A shopping spree for the elite."

Yeah, so they are officailly crazy. Who on earth would risk a box against the best collection of hackers the world has ever seen? It's fast and furious in the digital era. Whatever. I'm going to get back to my theological roots soon, with more on the EMC (emerging church movement) coming up as soon as I write it.

(8/5/07)

Personalities

So I was looking at Jdeng's facebook, and he said something about a ISTP and an ISTJ. Being me, I had to look that up and find out what it is, so I did. It's a way of classifying personalities. So I decided to look for what I am; I'm a diehard, no-questions ask INTP. I don't know why anyone would care, but whatever. I just thought I'd throw that out there. Anyway, g'night ya'll.

(8/4/07)

Origins of Jesus Rock

Budding from the culturally tumultuous 1960's, Slate has a fascinating piece about the beginning of what has now become Christian rock: "The Christian embrace of hip youth scenes can be traced, like so much, to the cultural ferment of the 1960s. Given that we are all weathering a Summer of Love flashback, it might spice up the tired images of the Haight Ashbury rebels to realize that a few of them were Christians. These mystic hippies sparked the mass Jesus People movement, which injected a distinctly Christian feeling for love and apocalypse into a counterculture already up to its mala beads in love and apocalypse. By the early 1970s, a new Jesus had hit the American mind?communal, earthy, spontaneous, anti-establishment. And this Jesus continued to transform American worship long after the patchouli wore off, inspiring a more informal and contemporary style of communion and celebration that, while holding true to core principles, unbuckled the Bible Belt from American Christian life."

(8/3/07)