Mind you I know I’ve just opened myself to a little ridicule from some of my fellow Jesus fans.  This is the way tree-huggers think.  This is how people who care more about the spotted owl than the financial well being of the loggers in the Northwest think.

But I say: this it the way those who believe the Bible to be inspired think.  Count me in that camp, if you’re keeping score.

The first time God blessed anything or anyone, he blessed the sea creatures. And his blessing was specific, that said sea creatures were to multiply in numbers (the easiest way to multiply, by the way) and fill the seas.  Note: they were not to decrease in numbers, but multiply.

This first-ever blessing by God of anything or anyone in all of the Bible, took place on the fifth day of creation.  It was followed by God’s blessing of humankind on the sixth day of creation which followed a similar pattern: we (thank God, because it’s fun!) were commanded to multiply and fill the earth, and to subdue it.  As though life for us, as for every species, would involve the struggle for existence. As though, we had a special role in creation to represent a Creator in whose image we were created.

A Tale of Two Movements

In the early days of the environmental movement which were also the early days of the Jesus movement, it was common to blame the growing ecological disaster on the Judeo-Christian ethic. We need a new ethic, said those who read the old one as hostile to all but the human creatures. We need, for example, a new sea ethic–a new moral compass by which we find our way on the earth remembering our dependence on the bath that surrounds all land based creatures like ourselves.

Meanwhile our sea ethic was staring us in the face.  God blessed them first. And as anyone who knows this God would understand, a first blessing is not an easy one to discount. First things first.  Whatever this second blessing–ours–means, it cannot mean that we are empowered to override God’s first blessing.

Which means that we must care about the fate of the sea creatures, regardless of the political climate of our day which pits brother against brother, assuming that the love of God is limited, believing the heresy that if we care for the sea creatures we must care less for our own kind.  Not understanding that it is our destiny and our dignity to care beyond our kind.  If the Bible is inspired that is.

A Man Had Two Sons

And now a story.  A man had two sons born at the same time at the dawn of two movements in the 1970’s: the Jesus movement and the environmental movement.  The brothers parted ways.  One became a Jesus freak, the other an environmentalist. Being young and full of themselves, as is the wont of young men, they forgot to listen to each other.  Instead they succumbed to the temptation, common to our kind, to believe the worst, not the best about each other. Even though–perversely perhaps because–they were brothers.

They went their separate ways, until one day they found themselves near each other again in the father’s house.  How their father had suffered because his two sons had gone their separate ways!  The father’s heart was filled with pain and he urged the sons to be brothers again.  As fathers do.

Because fathers know that the well being of the family depends on the siblings learning to love each other. Otherwise who will care for the family once the father and the mother have gone?    The brothers after all are kin. They are as close to each other as father or mother to child.  If they don’t love each other, who will?

As a Jesus freak, I wish to say to those who care about the fortunes of the blue fin tuna that I am sorry for not caring as well as you have cared.  I am sorry that I got caught up in the culture war and forgot to read my Bible.  I listened to the voices of chaos rather than the voice of the Creator, in love with all his creatures. I failed to love  you and I failed to love Him: a double failure.  For this I am sorry.

God help us to love each other so that we may fulfill our destiny here in the Father’s house–which, of course, if we read our Bible’s well, is the world, his temple.

Paul was a missionary to the Gentile world. As such he faced challenges that the other apostles, operating in the Jewish world, didn’t face.  Should Gentile converts learn to observe Torah?  Be circumcised? Observe the Sabbath, as commanded the Ten Commandments?  Eat meat sacrificed to idols, as most meat was? Be allowed to maintain more than one wife?

A leader needs, among other things, competence to face these complex issues.  C.S. Lewis, writing at the beginning of the post-Christian era in England, focused on what he called “Mere Christianity.” This was his attempt at defining the center of a centered set. Keep it simple, stupid, back to basics.

John Wimber promoted  mere Christianity.  Vineyard churches don’t even have a common view of baptism or communion for heaven’s sake, let alone a complex issue like divorce and remarriage.  Most Vineyard pastors I know haven’t carefully these issues.

It takes a more developed competence to do bounded set churches well.  One has to decide how to handle the second generation, for example.  In a revival movement it’s easy to discern who has been touched by the revival, more difficult to discern what’s going on with the second generation.  All the pesky theological issues that need sorting–predestination, free will, atonement theories, end time scenarios. Oh, and the moral issues.

Missionaries tend to be pragmatists, like Wimber was.  Let’s get the job done.  In the case of reaching those left behind by the institutional churches, let’s get the job done that isn’t being done by the current approaches.  Yes, all these theological and moral questions are important, but they take time, energy and attention that we don’t have.  People need Christianity who don’t have Christianity.  Instead of working to refine Christianity even further, perhaps we should offer them mere Christianity.

The centered set approach may or may not be the “ideal” approach.  Who cares, says the missionary.  It’s the handiest approach for getting the job done.

Or, thinking about set theory may be driven by the evangelical impulse.  The evangelical impulse is the desire to proclaim the good news so that as many people as possible can come to a saving faith in the dear Lord Jesus.

Let me just say it straight: if you come to this conversation with the fear that looking at set theory is driven by the desire to dodge the Bible, especially when it comes to the exacting demands of justice, righteousness, and holiness, then you will be extraordinarily nervous about the whole thing.

Of course, you may be right.  It’s very difficult to know what goes on in the human heart.  Motives are notoriously difficult to discern.  As Paul said, my conscience may be clear but that doesn’t mean I’m not guilty.  A person might think they are driven by one thing when in fact, they are driven by another.

I think my interest in this topic is driven by the evangelical impulse.  But I could be wrong.  You might think it’s driven by a different impulse.  You could be wrong, theoretically, at least.

It won’t be easy to have a reasoned discourse about this if you think that the motive for the discourse is suspect.

All I can say is this about that: this conversation about set theory began many years ago, at Fuller Theological Seminary.  It was raised by Paul Hiebert, a missiologist, meaning a guy who studies missions, and who presumably is laser focused on how the church can be most effective in doing our job to spread the gospel to every nook and cranny of creation.  John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard, was deeply affected by Hiebert’s thinking.  Wimber was a practioner, not a theorist.  He personally led hundreds, perhaps thousands of people into relationship with Jesus. The man was an evangelist long before he was an internationally known and controversial pastor.

Wimber used to say that the centered set approach was more effective in our culture than the bounded set approach because people in our culture are more like cats than cattle.  They resist efforts to round them up and fence them in.  You’re not very likely to draw them unless you take a “draw the cats back home” strategy: put a bowl of milk out and trust their little sniffers and their empty bellies to lead them home.

So this is what it looks like: a centered set way of conceiving of categories–in this case the category “Christian.”   Christians are those who are oriented toward the center (Jesus) and are willing to take the next step closer to Him.  Christians, in other words, are followers of Jesus. They start wherever they are (every day), orient toward Him, and move in his direction. Like pilgrims coming to the Holy City from many different points of origin.

It doesn’t matter so much in a centered set way of understanding the category “Christian” whether a person is close to or far away from the center.  Let me restate that more carefully, it doesn’t matter so much from the perspective of whether or not they are viewed as Christian, or whether or not they are considered to be part of the Christian community.  (Of course it matters whether we are close to the destination or far away, but not for the sake of our understanding of the category.)

But notice something in the diagram, which comes straight out of Paul Hiebert’s introduction of set theory to missions thinking. There is a delineation between those are who are in the category and outside the category.  It looks like a loopy line of dental floss though, rather than a solid circle, as in the bounded set.

In a very real sense, it’s up to the pilgrim to decide whether or not they are part of the centered set. To be “in” you orient toward the center and take the next step closer. From wherever you happen to be at any given time, you decide to follow Jesus.

Before we get into all the ramifications of this, please keep in mind: this is a conceptual tool, an aid to our thinking.  It reflects different ways that we human beings have of understanding what a category is.  According to Hiebert, there are three main ways of understanding categories: a bounded set way, a fuzzy set way (we haven’t tackled that one yet) and a centered set way.

Different cultures tend to fall into one or another of these ways of understanding categories.  Hiebert makes the case that the Greek-Western way of thinking of categories prefers the bounded set conception and that the Hebrew way of thinking of categories prefers the centered set approach.  The Greeks focused on the intrinsic essence of things: a chair is a chair because it has chair like qualities.  Whereas the Hebrews focused on the relationship between things.  A chair is a chair because someone sits on it.

Lets also remember that humanity is a messy business. Nothing is as consistent as some of us want it to be.  Most actual human groups probably share aspects of bounded set and centered set thinking.   For example, a centered set church might only consider human beings as candidates to be in the category “Christian.”  Inanimate objects or other creatures are not elible to be part of the category “Christian” or members of the Christian community. Very bounded set thinking!

One could have a centered set church which includes a membership with membership requirements. If you fulfill the membership requirements (participate in the community, give as you are able, serve as able, respect the by-laws or rules of engagement) then you are a member.  If not, you are not.  But in a centered set church, the bounded set aspects would be kept to a minimum.

In a centered set church, the center needs to be clear.  And the church needs to understand how to articulate the center. In our church we have four core values: Jesus is our center; the Gospel is our message; the Bible is our book; Love is our aim.  These values are “core” because they are part of our center.  We consider the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed to be faithful summaries of our understanding of the Jesus who is the center.

This is the center toward which those who identify with our church are willing to move.  It doesn’t meant that every member of the church has digested, understood, can articulate and swear allegiance to every article of the Nicene Creed. But it means that they understand this is our center and they are willing to move in the direction of Jesus understood in this framework.   It’s not the gnostic Jesus we are moving toward.  It is the Jesus of the canonical gospels followed by the church in history which understood Jesus in the context of the larger story summarized in those creeds.

This is a substantial but not exhaustive approach to the articulation of the center, what C.S. Lewis calls “mere Christianity.”  We don’t have a position on the doctrine of predestination or statements of the exact nature of the Eucharist-Lord’s Supper, or a whole set of positions on particular moral questions there at the center.  It’s enough to say what we’ve said, for us, that is, knowing that Jesus has the answer to all those other matters.

If you want to follow Jesus; if the Gospel is your message; if the Bible is your book; if Love is your aim–well, then lets go together!  Jesus is a Risen and Living Lord; he has given us His Spirit to guide us; we’re not alone on the journey, so he can help us with all the other things that come up along the way. That’s one expression of a centered set approach.

But first, a reminder about where this got started for me. I think we need new nets.  That is, we need new ways to draw and gather those who are being drawn and gathered to Jesus.  More, I think Jesus has some new nets to offer us.  If you don’t think we need new nets– that everything is working just fine with the ones we have, then this discussion is going be irrelevant or worse, annoying.

Some comments seem to suggest that new nets aren’t needed, everything is going great as is.  I think it’s quite possible that in different settings everything is fine and new nets aren’t needed.  But I’m deeply (or stubbornly?) convinced that new nets are needed to reach those who haven’t been reached by the existing ones–at least for the people I know who are on the outside of faith looking in.  Plus I had that experience in prayer where I saw Jesus offering new nets.  So I’m kinda dug in on this.

Also, I realize that this all seems complex, and that there is a natural distrust of complexity. But that doesn’t bother me.  Missionaries have to buckle down and think new thoughts. Missionaries have to examine the cultures they are trying to reach and that means examining their own cultural assumptions.  It’s labor intensive.  Not everyone is interested in it, or called to do it.  But I’m interested and feel called.

John Wimber, who shaped the Vineyard movement, was interested and felt called. He studied under Paul Heibert (who is now deceased, by the way) at Fuller Theological Seminary. Wimber is the one who took Heibert’s teaching on set theory adapted to missions and tried to apply it.  Like it or not, Vineyard has been shaped by this, so for that reason alone, I’m interested.  As a matter of fact, I think Wimber talked about set theory at the first Vineyard pastors conference I ever attended (in Denver, early 1990’s), which is probably why I’ve always thought this was a central concern of my tribe.   The way Vineyard works, there’s probably lots of other Vineyard pastors who don’t see it that way, but I do.  (By the way if there are any Vineyard pastors out there who can direct me to Wimber’s talk at that conference, I’d love to know how I can get my hands on it.)

So, if you’re still on this bus, let’s move on to the distinction Heibert makes between intrinsic sets or extrinsic sets. “Intrinsic sets are formed based on the essential nature of the members themselves–on what they are in and of themselves.” (Heibert, p. 110)  Apples are apples by virtue of being apples. Most nouns in English, according to Heibert, are intrinsic.

Extrinsic sets are formed on the basis, not of what they are in themselves, but on their relationship to other things.  An apple is not an apple by virtue of it being related to anything in particular.  But a friend is a friend by virtue of their relationship to another person.

It seems to me that the term “Christian” is an intrinsic label, while the term “follower of Jesus” is an extrinsic label.  While my brother-in-law assures me that the word “Christian” doesn’t actually mean “little Christ,” that is a standard way for Americans to understand what the word Christian means.  It’s also a bounded set way.  A Christian is a person who is like Christ [or a "little Christ"] according to that common understanding of the term “Christian.”  That particular definition of what the word Christian means–commonly assumed by American Christians to be the meaning of the term–is a classic example of intrinsic thinking at work.

A “follower of Jesus,” by contrast, leans toward an extrinsic understanding. Lots of people who are not very much like Christ (Mary Magdalene, who wasn’t a male like Christ, or Cornelius, who wasn’t a Jew like Christ) can be followers of Christ.

Heibert, not surprisingly classifies bounded sets as an an example of an intrinsic set while centered sets are one example of an extrinsic set.

This is a big reason Heibert thinks that centered set is closer to Hebrew and therefore biblical thought than it is to Greek and therefore western thought.  (American culture is closer to western thought than Hebrew, obviously.)

Don’t worry, we’ll get there eventually.

To quote Volf’s footnote on p.71: “In analyzing the category ‘Christian’ missiologist Paul Hiebert suggests that we make use of the mathematical categories of ‘bounded sets,’ ‘fuzzy,’ and ‘centered sets.’ Bounded sets function on the principle ‘either/or’; an apple is either an apple or it is not; it cannot be partly apple and partly pear. Fuzzy sets, on the other hand, have no sharp boundaries; things are fluid with no stable point of reference and with various degrees of inclusion–as when a mountan merges into the plains.  A centered set is defined by a center and the relationship of things to that center, by a movement toward it or away from it. The category of ‘Christian,’ Hiebert suggests, should be understood as a centered set. A demarcation line exists, but the focus is not on ‘maintaining the boundary’ but on reaffirming the center.”

That’s as good a one paragraph summary of set theory as you’ll find applied to the Christian mission.

The bounded set way of understanding the category “Christian” tends toward clear boundaries of belief or behavior. Those who ascribe to the beliefs and conform to the behaviors are in the set; those who don’t are outside the set.  It takes a while to get in, either through a lengthy catechism–in the case of children born into a church tradition, a matter of years, or in the case of adult converts over the course of months.  One isn’t allowed in by adhering to only certain of the beliefs.  It’s the whole creed or nothing, so the speak.  Leaving the bounded set is similarly difficult. The more bounded set, the more social sanctions there are for those who leave.

The centered set approach emphasizes direction and movement.  Which way is a person oriented? Is the person moving toward the center or away from the center?  The person determines whether he or she is part of the centered set by their orientation toward and movement toward the center.

This fits the biblical motif of pilgrimage.  We’re all pilgrims on a journey toward a promised land, to a holy city, to a final destination.  We come from many different points of origion, but we are drawn to the common center.  This defines the set. To be a Christian, in the centered set understanding of the category “Christian” is to be one who is facing the center (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) and is moving toward the center.  Period.

Like the earliest disciples of Jesus. They were disciples by virtue of his summons and their willingness to reorient their lives toward his.  To follow him, day by day, step by step.  Their beliefs about Jesus at first were fairly unformed.  He was their rabbi.  They came into a deeper understanding of his identity over time.  Their behavior was, at the beginning, whatever it was. They came as they were.  They were changed, each them, over time–the way people change.  One moment, they might be speaking by the inspiration of the Spirit, at another moment they might be rebuked for channeling the devil.  No matter, they followed. Or rather, those who followed, followed.

I like the centered set understanding of the category “Christian” because it fits with the biblical understanding that we are pilgrims.  It fits with the understanding that to be a Christian is first and foremost to be a disciple, one who follows, one who learns. Following and learning are processes, not static states.

The centered set approach gives space for people to start where they are and to grow the way people grow–in fits and starts, at a pace that differs from person to person.  But it is also demanding, just like the gospel. As Bonhoeffer said, “Jesus bids us come and die.”

Sometimes people think that bounded set is hard and fast–the difficult approach to Christianity and centered set is loosely goosey, laid back, Christianity lite.  I think that’s a misunderstanding of a centered set approach. John Wimber said, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”

Different people in different cultures think differently about categories. What could account for these differences?  Culture could.  People in different cultures think differently about categories which affect their understanding of very important issues like “Who is a Christian?

What does culture have to do with the Bible, you may ask?  A lot.  Paul warns us about adopting the “patterns of this world.”  We need to have our minds renewed so that we don’t do that.  Culture is one expression of “the patterns of this world.”

We all know what it’s like to have Christians insist on a their particular interpretation of the Bible without examining their cultural assumptions.  It’s obvious to us that some ardent Christians read the Bible with cultural lenses that distort their interpretation.  Other Christians usually.  Not us.   Because we don’t talk with an accent, do we?  We talk normal. It’s those other people who sound funny. 

For most of human history, most cultures assumed that slavery was normal.  There were good ways to do slavery and bad ways to do slavery but very few cultures questioned the institution of slavery.   Over time, we began to question that assumption.  We allowed the Spirit to renew our minds so that we wouldn’t continue to blindly walk in the ways of the world regarding slavery.

It took Christians (and others) willing to examine their cultural assumptions in order for slavery to be abolished.  It took people willing to challenge the cultural assumptions that led the vast majority of Christians to read the Bible through the lens of the assumption that slavery itself wasn’t wrong.

Why are most major American denominations divided along the lines of North and South? Why is is there a Southern Baptist Convention and an American Baptist Church? Why was there once a Southern Methodist Church from which the Free Methodist Church split off?  Because Christians in the northern states were the first to question the nearly universal cultural assumption that slavery wasn’t intrinsically evil.  Of course, it was easier for the Christians in the northern states to do this because their economy didn’t depend on slavery. They afford to question the assumption.

It takes work and the moving of the Spirit for the church to examine cultural assumptions. It don’t come naturally.  It comes supernaturally. That’s why it don’t come easy.  When it comes, it’s almost always controversial at first.  Later, it’s like, “Why was that even an issue?”

Honestly, who wants to think about set theory?  Who gives a rip whether we have a cultural preference for bounded set vs. centered set vs. fuzzy set categories? Who cares if our cultural preference for one approach to categories over another shapes our reading of Scripture, say, or the way we do church?  If ever there were something that sounds like an academic exersise, an esoteric, waste your time in some kind of intellectual entertainment exercise, it is this.  Who the heck cares to examine how our cultural assumptions regarding categories [say, what?] might affect our reading of Scripture?

I do. Because that’s what missionaries have to do. They have to examine the cultural assumptions that may affect their presentation and their incarnation of the gospel. They have to study the language of the people to whom they are sent and discover the cultural assumptions that are imbedded in the language.  And other seemingly tedious and esoteric things.   Like my daughter’s field hockey coach says, “love the grind!”

That’s why I’m grinding my way through this topic, taking my time.

A bounded set approach to categories, according to Hiebert, is the default setting of Western culture.  If you don’t agree with that, none of the rest of this grind will make sense.

We’ve got some fruit flies in the house. They are harmless. They don’t bite.  I don’t think they carry terrible diseases. We haven’t gotten sick as a result of the fruit flies, so far as I know.  My daughter HATES the fruit flies being in the house. They also annoy me.  Why?  Because we live in a Western culture that has a bounded set approach to categories.  Like inside-outside, indoors-outdoors.  A bunded set apporach to this category means that there should be a very clear boundary between inside-outside and indoors-outdoors.  Fruit flies belong outdoors not indoors.  When they are indoors they are out of place and we are out of sorts.

That’s the way it is everywhere right? Wrong.  In cultures with a different default setting on categories (fuzzy set, say, which doesn’t depend on sharp boundary distinctions) people are not nearly so concerned about having fruit flies in the house.  I was just in Costa Rica, where they have, according to the locals, “a dirty floor culture.”  They expect floors to be dirty. They don’t think you should be able to eat food off the floor.   They survive, they even thrive.  They  can be faithful to God, even though they have a different cultural assumption regarding categories which affects their underestanding of what indoor and outdoor spaces should be like.

So the question is, is there something about the way we do church that is affected by some unexamined cultural assumptions?  Of course there is.  There must be, cultures being what they are.  Is it possible that the way we think about categories, which seems like a pretty fundamental thing since we think categorically ALL THE TIME, could affect the way we read the Bible and the way we do church?   Is there a benefit in examining what might be cultural assumptions, just in case we are assuming that our faithfulness to Scripture may actually be a blind faitfulness to something that is in reality, simply a pattern of this world?

In bounded set church groups, the criteria for membership in the group may be applied more or less consistently. Human nature being what it is, the criteria is often applied inconsistently. For example certain behaviors may be sanctioned by the group as incompatible with group membership, but the sanctions are not enforced.  Behavior being a very complex phenomena, this is understandable.  Groups often resort to focusing on  a limited number of behaviors or beliefs, ignoring others.  The behaviors and beliefs that are targeted as “critical criteria” may shift over time.   Often the groups involved aren’t aware of these shifts, especially in cultures like ours that don’t value an historical perspective.

For example, as late as the 1950’s most churches–Catholic and Protestant (I’m less informed about Orthodox churches)–had very strict approaches to divorce and remarriage.  These approaches were enforced through different mechanisms (annulment in the case of Roman Catholicism, allowable reasons for remarriage in the case of Protestantism) but the effects trended in the same direction.  A second marriage, unless a previous spouse had died, was often a cause for exclusion from the group.

Fifty years later, the situation is much different.  Many more annulments are granted for divorced Catholics, leaving them free to marry again, and there are many more “sanctioned remarriages” for Protestants. In both cases, Catholic and Protestant, it’s much easier to marry a second or third person than it was fifty years ago.  The pastoral practice, if not the teaching, has shifted substantially. These shifts have occurred across the board in the church–in “strict” churches and “loose” churches alike.

In other words, bounded set approaches to church membership are not fixed over time.  They typically shift over time. But many people in the American context are not aware of these shifts because we don’t value history.

I was shocked to learn that the marriage of C.S. Lewis to a divorced woman, Joy Davidman, was not sanctioned by his own church, the Church of England.  I assumed that the Church of England wasn’t strict on such things, because the Episcopal Church in the United States in the 1970’s, when I read about Lewis’ marriage to Davidman, didn’t have a “strict moral code” reputation.  C.S. Lewis was a celebrated defender of Christian orthodoxy in the 1970’s, at least in my circles, and to think that he was outside the bounds of his own church on this important issue, was a real eye opener to me.

There are shifts in the essentials of Christian doctrine as well. Some things are added over time that weren’t required before. Many denominations banned speaking in tongues as a response to the Pentecostal movement of the early 20th Century, for example. “Inerrancy” began to appear as the required view of Scripture around the same time in some denominations in response to the modernist controversy.

Other things are subtracted over time in essential doctrinal matters.   Often the subtractions aren’t offically recognized. The church body simply doesn’t enforce certain doctrines.  This happens in “strict” churches and “loose” churches.

The Bounded Set Approach Has Advantages and Disadvantages

My purpose in discussing bounded set approaches to membership in various churches isn’t to insist that bounded set approaches are necessarily or intrinsically inferior to other approaches (fuzzy set and centered set).  In fact, there are certain advantages to the bounded set approach.  Bounded set churches often do a better job at “holding the line” on important matters of faith, doctrine and morals.  Of course, sometimes they are slow to reform when reform is called for, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also serve an important role in resisting change that may not lead to greater faithfulness.

But I think it behooves us to be discerning about the advantages and disadvantages of a bounded set approach to church because we live in a culture that leans toward bounded set thinking.  The bounded set approach to groups is part of our western cultural heritage.  This means that it’s especially easy for us to simply assume that the bounded set way is the biblical way, or the faithful to God way.  In fact, this assumption is rampant today.

When we don’t examine our own cultural assumptions, we become enslaved to them.  We lose spiritiual discernment.  We label something “the Lord’s” which may or may not be the Lord’s.  It sets us up for following the way of the world rather than the Lord’s way.

The Mission Task: Examine Assumptions

And this is  part of the mission task: to examine cultural assumptions.   When a missionary goes to a foreign land to share the gospel, they spend a great deal of time learning the cultural assumptions of the land to which they go.   They take years to learn the language, which is where cultural assumptions are powerfully enshrined.  They look for cultural assumptions that offer landing pads for the gospel, so that they can share the gospel more effectively.

But we have an even greater challenge than those sent to share the gospel in our own culture. We have to examine our OWN cultural assumptions.  We have to step back and consider how we have been influenced by assumptions that we’ve never examined.  Some of  our cultural assumptions are sacred cows.  We feel insecure, threatened, nervous when our sacred  cows are being examined.  Our sacred cows bellow when poked.  Things that we ASSUMED to reflect faithfulness to God, may simply be faithfulness to our particular culture.   Or they may, more likely, be a confusing mixture of faithfulness to God and faithfulness to our own culture. And so we have to go through the laborious sifting process.

So let’s not rush this thing, this examination of one of the most fundamental cultural assumptions of all: how we form categories–all sorts of categories, including who belongs in what group and why.

There’s a reason we haven’t taken hold of the new nets that Jesus is offering us, if in fact there are new nets that he is offering us.  It’s not easy.  We like our old nets. They feel comfortable. They feel safe.  Even more, they feel RIGHT.  We know that discernment is a perilous task.  The serpent is crafty.   He whispers in our ears and appeals to our moral sense, our sense of good and right.  So we are understandably cautious in these matters.

But a blog is a great tool for a conversation like this.  I throw something out, and you respond.  Your response affects my thinking, perhaps, or at least my way of communicating. Blogs are not just monologues.   Nor are they true dialogues.  They are something in between.  But they are closer to conversations than many forms of one way communication. So they are a little more relational. And  God likes relationships–they are at the heart of the Godhead, after all, and they are the landing pad for love.

You can read all about it in a real page turner, Antropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, by Paul Hiebert.   Hiebert uses a concept for categorizing groups in mathmatetics which has been adapted to sociology and now missions called set theory.  It pertains to missions because missionaries are about making disciples. So missionaries have to understand categories: what does it mean to be a Christian for example?  The Bibe is full of categories: faithful, unfaithful; children of light, children of darkness, believer, non-believer.  But we bring to our reading and application of the Bible our unexamined cultural assumptions, including set theory.

Are you still with me?

Western culture has a tendency to understand categories through the lens of bounded set thinking.  Going back to Greek philosophy we view things in terms of their intrinsic nature. An apple is an apple because it partakes of appleness; an orange is likewise an orange, and never the twain shall meet.  That’s Plato, baby.  This affects the way we think about everything.   Our roads are clearly marked and deliniated by curbs.  Cars are expected to stay in their lanes.  Our musical notes are clearly deliniated: seven notes per scale, with half steps between.  Everything else? Off key.

This is the way we do our politics.  There are conservatives and liberals.  A liberal can’t be pro-life and a conservative can’t support gay marriage (without rocking the boat.)

It’s a bounded set approach to categories.  Groups (like churches) have members based on whether or not they are inside the boundaries established by the group.  The Amish are a bounded set group as are Roman Catholics, Missouri Synod Lutherans, and, unless you want to rock the boat, virtually every other form of organized Christianity in America.

Such churches define members by clarifying boundaries–usually of belief and behavior, but often by ethnicity as well. Those who hold to the specified beliefs or behaviors are in the group. Those who don’t are not.  Clear insiders, clear outsiders.

Bounded set thinking is digital: you’re either on or off, nothing in between.  So bonded set groups tend to ignore the middle.  They may even be blind to the existence of a middle.

John Wimber came along and violated bounded set thinking by recognizing the neglected middle beweeen Pentecostals and Evangelicals.   He said, “We can learn from Pentecostals about the Holy Spirit and healing, and gifts and miracles without having to adopt all the Pentecostal doctrines and customs.”   This upset many people, Pentecostal and Evangelical alike.  It created intense controversy that wore heavily on Wimber.  But he was right and now there are plenty of Evangelicals who embrace Pentecostal power and many Pentecostals who don’t believe that you have to speak in tongues in order to be “baptized in the Spirit.”

Do all cultures approach categories like this?  No.  Hiebert says Hebrew culture, compared to Greek culture doesn’t think in terms of bounded sets.  In India, drivers relate differently to lanes and roads and musical notes, because the boundaries are much fuzzier.  (Hiebert describes three different set types: bounded, fuzzy, and centered.)

Churches can be more or less bounded set in their thinking.  The Amish are more bounded set than the Methodists. Fundamentalists are more bounded set than Evangelicals.  The more bounded set you are the more sharply defined the boundaries and the more intense the difference between insiders and outsiders.

But all churches in the United States feel a strong pull toward bounded set thinking.  I’m friends with a liberal Episcopalian pastor.  Yes, I consider him a brother in Christ.  He told me that he had a few Republicans in his church but they don’t wear their colors on their bumpers.  I have many evangelical pastor friends who would gladly give you a nickel for every Obama bumper sticker in their parking lots last November.

Bounded set is the air we breathe when it comes to categories.  We feel secure when our categories are well defined and the boundaries are clear.   Unless, of course, it impinges on us.  If we enjoy a glass of wine now and again, and we want to join a Free Methodist Church, it annoys that we have to give up our glass of wine to be a member in good standing.  If we are divorced and remarried and haven’t gone through the Catholic anulment process because we actually think that we were married legitimately and now the marriage is over, it bothers us that we can’t receive communion at a Catholic mass.  So we tend to move from one bounded set chuch to another, looking for the one we can get into without giving up our glass of wine or our opinion that we were legitimately married and now the marriage is over and we’ve remarried, hoping to do better this time.

We may not realize how bounded set our thinking is until one of our boundaries is crossed.

Bounded set thinking is our default setting.  We feel secure when it prevails and insecure when it is violated.  We don’t enjoy music with quarter tones; it sound weird.  We don’t like driving in places where the lane markers aren’t respected.   When a pastor says something that sounds “liberal” we assume said pastor is no longer “conservative” (i.e. one of us.)  We focus on the issue, whatever is, and are blind to the possibilty that our response to the issue is touching something even deeper and unexamined: a cultural assumption about categories.

OK, I’ve exhausted you.  I know this is hard.  But broad is the path that leads to the status quo in the American church these days and many are happy to travel it;  and narrow is the path that leads to life for those on the outside looking in and hard to travel for those who take it.

It’s hard to make new nets and just as hard to use them if they are handed to us.  We use the ones we’ve got far beyond their expiration date and hang on to them like a toddler’s well worn blanket.   Because new nets requires us to examine previously unexamined cultural assumptions.

To be continued….

This one was maybe four years ago early on a Sunday morning getting prayed up for church. I’m an observer on the shore of a lake. Before me is Jesus working on some nets near a boat.  He looks up at me and says, “Go find Andrew for me!” Then, after a pause, holds up the nets he’s been working on and says with delight, “New nets!”

Andrew, who was he?  A literal one, probably. And a metaphorical one, maybe.  An early adopter, like Andrew, Peter’s brother?  One who understands fishing nets and has the good sense to try some new ones, especially if they’ve been made by Jesus.  Andrew, someone willing to become a fisher of people with new nets?

New nets, what’s up with that?

We need some new nets these days.  Those of us who care about fishing–especially Jesus style fishing, which is fishing for people.

The old nets are letting too many fish through. We cast ‘em out there and the fish swim in, but when we draw them out of the water the fish are swimming right out. A good fisherman doesn’t curse the fish.  He examines the nets, and tries to make some new ones.

Read the surveys.  The church in the United States has become a kind of club that services its own members and doesn’t draw many new fish in.  If it weren’t for immigration, the church would be in decline in the United States–during the era when more people are coming to faith in Jesus around the world than any time in history.  When it’s a bull market and you’re not making a profit, there’s something wrong.

The fastest growing segment on the religious landscape is composed of people trying to get off the landscape entirely.   The growingest religious order?  Nones.

Who are the people not coming in to our churches? Use your imagination.   Who don’t you see in church?  Don’t see many biologists, or people who subscribe to Scientific American.  Do see a lot of people who think science has got it all wrong.  Don’t see a lot of people who are worried about the environment and what we’re doing to trash it.  Do see a lot of people for whom it’s not a pressing concern.

Don’t see many gay couples, though 58% of gays say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, according to Christianity Today.  (Do see many divorced and remarried ones these days.  In Catholic churches they are not supposed to take communion.  So they feel out of place there, like they are allowed in the house, but can’t come to the table for dinner to eat.  So they go to the churches that allow them to eat.  Our nets catch them.  But not these others.)

Don’t see so many young people post-college, pre-middle-age. Do see middle-age and older people.

Is this the fault of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field?  He does turn people off with his hard teaching, perhaps.  This is the rap I’ve heard.  But it doesn’t wash.  He’s done very well in the drawing-people department for a long time. Kingdom business is flourishing almost everywhere else but here.  What’s up with that?

Who makes the nets we use?  How are they working?  Can Jesus make his own nets?  Would they be the same kind of nets that we make or better?  Knowing how he operates, would the nets he makes be conventional or controversial?

Would just anyone be willing to use them, or would we have to find the early adopters willing to give them a try?