This program had an impact on Sunday morning with younger families coming to church. Our church looks very different than it did seven years ago. The average age of our congregation has dropped and our church has grown by about 40%.

Jim
http://www.junctionbarkers.blogspot.com

I mean does emergent work in a place where 33% of the residents have bachelors degrees? These folks could give a rat’s behind about postmodernism. It’s all about bibles and casseroles for them. Yet, we cannot deny that their churches are in danger if we look at the aging boomer population.

As far as experience is concerned, I’m deeply in love with my Lord and am utterly convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt of the Lord of the Universe’s providence in life. No, that doesn’t come from the perspective of a privileged man who has seen little to no pain in life. But, to hear the stories that have led me to that conclusion is not for this forum. Perhaps another time.

I disagree with Tom’s diagnosis of our current divisions, although I would bet that lots of folks on either side of the divide would concur with him. Maybe part of our divisiveness is how we’ve defined the problem. Therefore, as others have been saying, “we talk past each other.”

What I’ve been trying to do here is not talk past others, but engage in a personal conversation. I’m testifying to my experience of G-d in my life and more specifically at GA; to share moments of the deepening of my faith. This is where the ? of emergent church comes in. Can I get a witness?

Come on Tom, work with me man. Get out of your head and tell me about how Jesus’ love has been revealed to you in another person.

Anybody: where have you seen Jesus lately? Are you willing to have the conversations with someone on another side and listen hard enough to their story to fall in love with their spirit and love them the way G-d loves you? I’m not “couching.” I’m looking for real stories of real people’s faith. What do you say?

I hear that love and the experience we have of G-d is no basis for an institution — I wonder, can the church be based on anything less? I personally have very little interested in serving a church of ideology no matter how many folks agree, or how well thought out it is, or frankly which ideology it is.

Susan, unfortunately whether you accept the dialogue as culture v scripture isn’t really the issue. Each person has a personal story behind their perspective, and respecting that perspective is important. Unfortunately, experience and perspective aren’t the foundations for debate that leads to decisions for larger groups. That’s where postmodernism is misleading, at some point there must be a decision for the larger whole, at least when it boils down to ideology. I point you to a great resource that can help called “Christ and Culture.” The author presents a good discussion on the four ways Christians disagree over the relationship between culture and scripture. What we’re enmeshed in is a classic example of one of those ways.

Yes, many of us taut the authority of scripture. Most of us, if not all of us, are selective! In this case, one group claims that on issues where the text is unequivocal on morality there is no other perspective adoptable. On the contrary, and I was embroiled in this discussion in the early ’90’s, another group claims that on issues where culture and scripture disagree, with respect to morality, the voice of culture/science outweighs the voice of scripture. That issue is close to the heart of the matter for people on what we may call the more evangelical/conservative side of the debate, which those on the progressive/liberal side dispute. For this latter group the issue typically is couched in terms of “love” and “grace,” or even “ethics,” as if those in the first group don’t believe in those things. People on both sides of the aisle have hearts for the Lord and others, but the ideologies that lay at some of their core faith beliefs are very much in opposition. Consequence: even though we use the same language, we talk over each other, and that, I think, is what our new moderator was seeing occur at GA218.

And when we talk over each other, regardless of our perspective, beliefs, values, language, etc, we make little progress. I hope we can make it through all this because as dismissive as the comments were about those who wanted to leave the denomination, in the end, our failure to hold together will be catastrophic for both sides. I’m praying that if reconciliation is not possible that the Spirit infuses people with sanctified creativity to allow a solution that will give us each room to be where we are in faith yet not destroy the mission and Great Commission to which the church is called supremely.

Presfolks may not think that gender is a moral issue, but ordination of women is very much a moral issue for some of our sisters and brothers — and we were discussing ordination with G6. Just a quick peek at the Anglicans threatening schism over last week’s decision to allow women into the House of Bishops is a good example. My colleagues in small town Ammerica definitely think my ordination and ministry violates Scripture. As a denomination, we’ve come to see it differently — that’s my point.

I don’t know about the context of the Loyola discussion (I probably would have enjoyed it), but what I do know is that in every instance when I have been able to make real progress in conversation and faithful exchange with folks who disagree with me it is because we have shared a deep concern, love, for each other. I live in an interfaith family. This is possible only because of our love for one another and respect for each other’s traditions. The same has been true for the friendships I’ve nurtured with church folks across theological divides: we have be able to offer faithful ministry together because we were lead by our love for each other in Christ.

I know loving each other despite our differences sounds naive, but I believe it is deeply faithful, scriptural, and ethically binding in a way no impersonal discourse can be. If we were to discuss “essentials,” I think loving others as G-d loves us should be one of our highest priorities — least that’s what Jesus said.

I simply don’t accept that this is a scriptural v cultural. We all claim the authority of scripture, but we certainly read the Bible differently. I do not accept the authority of culture over scripture and I think the suggestion that any of us are less biblically-based than the other leads us in uncharitable directions.