I was recently saddened to learn of the home-going of an old acquaintance. Dr. Harold O.J. Brown recently passed away. Years ago, as a precocious Campus Crusade Staff person working in their nascent School of Theology I had the privilege of serving as Joe’s teaching assistant for a 4-week summer course in Cultural Apologetics. Harvard educated, Joe was a brilliant thinker, a passionate pro-life advocate (He ad his wife Grace adopted their children) and just a fun person to be around. The last day of classes he dressed as Francis Schaeffer, complete with knickers. He taught a class of nearly 300 budding Campus Crusade staffers and radicals while I graded papers, cracked the whip and played Australian sheep dog to the unruly group. It was a lot of fun, and I had the privilege of picking Joe’s brain on Cultural Apologetics.

In the course of the class Joe told the story of the time, years ago, when Harvard University was building a new building for the Philosophy Department. There was considerable discussion as to what "motto" should be inscribed on the outer cornice of the building. The consensus among the faculty favored the declaration by the Greek Philosopher, Protagoras of Abdera ( c. 480-410 B.C.), "Man the measure of all things". But when the building was finally completed the declaration appearing on the cornice was quite different (generating much discussion as to who was responsible). It read: "What Is Man That Thou Art Mindful of Him" (Psalm 8:4). If that same decision were being made today, I can only imagine what the outcome on the Cornice might be. Probably something along the line of "Whatever . . ." !

As I started writing this article I was reminded of this and another recent event. The other was an e-mail I recently received an article from Christianity Today On-Line entitled "Not Your Father’s L’Abri: The Swiss retreat now trends less to philosophical skeptics than to disaffected evangelicals". I was reminded of this partly because one of the requirements of the class Joe taught was that everyone had to watch Francis Schaeffer’s "How Should We Then Live?" film series. For those of us who came to faith in the 60s & 70s Francis Schaeffer was one of our "guiding lights" and L’Abri (his home and study center in Heumoz, Switzerland) was a refuge for atheists, skeptics, intellectuals and hippies. One of my college roommates (Tom Morris) spent a summer there and went on to write one of the first books critiquing Schaeffer’s ministry. Tom went on for a PhD at Yale, taught at Notre Dame and now travels and lectures. Schaeffer’s clear theology and call to Christians for both cultural engagement and authentic Christianity (what he called "true spirituality") grabbed the heart and attention of a generation - including me. For Schaeffer and those of us who studied under him, truth was propositional and his theology was objective and clear. Not so today, as the recent article pointed out. The age of Schaeffer and "objective" theology has given way to Postmodern "subjectivity". Theological discussions are no longer about the objective truth of what Scripture teaches about God (and everything else). Rather, today’s discussions are "subjective," focusing upon how we "feel" about what the Scriptures teach concerning God. In the contest between what Schaeffer would undoubtedly call "Christian existentialism" and "Propositional truth," existentialism has won the day. Clear belief in objective truth has given way to doubt & uncertainty and how doctrine makes us feel about ourselves and the world around us. Welcome to our Postmodern world: "I doubt, therefore I am."

Even in the Church, ours is a postmodern world. "Postmodernism" as articulated by the late French Postmodernist Jacques Lyotard is characterized by "skepticism regarding meta-narratives" and distrust of institutions; meta-narratives such as "Calvinism" or "Arminianism" (or "Christianity" for that matter), and institutions such as the "institutional church" or "organized religion". Add to this the collapse of any clear epistemology (theory of knowledge) which promises to yield anything resembling "objective" truth and the result is a cultural cruise ship sailing the seas without compass, map or rudder while the passengers and crew all sing along with Blues Image (also done later by Blood, Sweat & Tears), "We're calling everyone to ride along to another shore, Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more." Right. That always works.

Most of us have no idea how thoroughly "postmodern" we have become and how it is affecting nearly everything we do and believe - including how we think and talk about God. We don’t want anyone else telling us what to believe, or what the Church has historically believed. Question everything and everyone (except, of course, the guru who told us to question everything). In less than a generation we have moved from "Sola Scriptura" to "Sola Ego," from "Scripture alone" to "Me Alone" (or "Sola Spiritus" - i.e., "the Holy Spirit told me"). PLEASE NOTE: My point is not that any of this is necessarily bad or wrong. But such a "sea change" in the life of the Church has tossed us up upon the shore of a very different world from the one we knew only 25 years ago. Only time will tell if in the process we have become pioneers . . . or merely castaways having imaginary conversations with "Wilson" (O.K., had to see the movie for that one).

The current mantra of Postmodernism as expressed among contemporary Christians (particularly in the "emergent church," but there are also strong echoes of it in the organic house church movement) is, "Everything must change". It is an attractive motto, especially when applied by sacred cow tippers to aspects of institutional Christianity which have never made sense, or have never proven their effectiveness for the Kingdom of God or have been discovered to be outright unbiblical. There is a reason why Viola & Barna’s "Pagan Christianity" has become such a recent sensation in the organic house church movement. In a greater sense than most of us understand, it is a Christian expression of the postmodern skepticism toward institutions. As such it has tapped into this postmodern tidal wave of angst among Christians who are ready to question everything traditional or institutional ("Everything must change!"). Please don’t misunderstand me at this point. The book is a worthwhile examination of the roots of many (if not most) institutional church practices, and I encourage you to read it. But read it with understanding concerning how it has tapped into the postmodern "spirit of the age".

There are, indeed, many aspects of contemporary Christianity which need to change. That’s why I practice, promote and teach organic house church. But there is a "dark side" to this whole "Everything Must Change" mantra. To begin with we must recognize that it is an unprovable axiom offered as an unquestioned first principle. Who said everything must change? What was their agenda for saying this? Why must everything change? Why must I question everything I have ever believed? And what, specifically am I supposed to question? When I am done questioning the traditional structure, what do I question next? How do I determine the difference between "shedding baggage" and shedding "survival gear"? Do I question the authority of Scripture, the person of Christ, the way of salvation, the nature of God? What is the difference between questioning the "dogma of men" and questioning "the faith once for all delivered to the saints"? This is no academic exercise. I have dear friends (at least I believe they are still dear friends) in the house church community who, in the spirit of "questioning everything," are moving in the direction of "Christian Universalism" or "Ultimate Reconciliation." Everyone eventually gets saved and there is no hell. The doctrine of hell was the invention of the evil Constantinian and Medieval Churches in an attempt to control and manipulate people into submission to their authority, and it was then perpetuated by the evil Calvinists. In the end, "all dogs go to heaven" although particularly bad dogs may need to spend some time in "doggy purgatory" in order to punish them and get them cleaned up and ready to spend eternity in heaven with the other good dogs. Yes, this is a serious discussion among serious believers who feel that they are rightly questioning everything, including man-made institutional dogma. I have offered an initial response to this discussion (which you can read by clicking on this link: www.parousianetwork.org/PDF_FIles/All_Dogs_Go_To_Heaven.pdf) and have felt so burdened by it that I am preparing an extended response which I hope to make available soon (tentatively entitled, "All Dogs Go To Heaven, Don’t They: Biblical Reflections on Christian Universalism & Ultimate Reconciliation"). But it is only one example of what happens when we begin to act upon seemingly wise but misguided mantras about how "everything must change".

Welcome to the postmodern Christian world of questioning everything. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy vintage Blues Image music, I for one am not prepared to book passage on this Christian postmodern cruise to nowhere. I am always open to new questions and new answers to old questions. And while I do not oppose any question from any quarter, I am not prepared to "question everything" simply because some Christians are having the equivalent of an "existential crisis" over what they believe. And while I affirm and agree that we Christians have often misused our theology or doctrine to abuse people, that does not mean our theology was wrong. It means we were wrong in how we used God’s truth. We were bad stewards of the mysteries of God. In my own limited opinion (for what it’s worth), I don’t think that the problem of the Church is it’s "theology" (what it believes on such issues as hell, heaven, the person of Christ, the nature of God, etc) so much as it is our "peripatology" (how we "walk out" what we believe - from the Greek verb, peripateo, to walk around, to conduct oneself). It isn’t our "dogma" that is the problem so much as our "practicum". We have committed the unforgivable sin of boring our culture with the greatest story ever told by failing to live it out authentically (as individuals and as believing communities) before the eyes of a skeptical but watching world.

So, do some things need to change? Yes! We need to change from being organizational and institutional to being more organic. We need to change from being "congregation" oriented to being "community" oriented. We need to change from "leadership by position" to "leadership by gift". We need to change our focus from building our "kingdoms" (or ministries) to proclaiming the arrival of His Kingdom. But I am not prepared to turn my back on 2000 years of historic Christian doctrine labored over by godly men and women who sacrificed their freedoms and some times their lives, simply because someone having an existential crisis over "the meaning of it all" has written a new book or set up a new website. Sorry, but I really do try to make it a point not to change my doctrine as often as I do my socks (one is good, the other . . . not so much!).

Calling All House Church Planters

Three years ago when Wolfgang Simson was in Spokane he asked a simple question that has haunted me since then: "How do we prepare for a widespread spiritual outpouring that results in a great harvest?" This question has risen again recently as some of us have realized that we do not have the house church leaders in place to train and equip new believers in their faith and to send them back into the harvest to repeat the process. I now believe that we have reached a point of urgency. The senior prophetic person in our network recently told me, "Maurice, it's weird, but I can smell the wheat of the coming harvest. I've never experienced anything like this before. I can feel my hand brushing over the stalks of wheat. We're on the edge of a great harvest, and I'm nervous. Where are our leaders?"  Well said, grasshopper. To answer this question several of us have decided to begin meeting every Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM at The Service Station in North Spokane to lay down our individual agendas and to begin strategizing about how to quickly train and equip new house church leaders. Our first meeting was this past Tuesday and we decided that our first task was to go home and compile our best ideas on what we believe "the essentials" would be in equipping a young believer to lead the church in their house. It's time to network and to prepare ourselves for what God is about to do. Come join us. 8:00AM Tuesday mornings at The Service Station. Let's begin kitting the organic house church net that God wants to use in the coming harvest.