NeoZine

Bottlenecks in History

The distant past throws long shadows across modern life. Americans recently fought a war in the Balkans that lasted from 1991 to 2001. What many do not realize is that this conflict actually began in the 1500’s. Many of the trends in modern Christianity are tied directly to that era. These long chains of the past are now being stressed by secular culture. This has forced Christians to reconsider hallowed institutions once codified during this violent era in European history.

During this war in 16th century, the Holy Roman Empire were attempting to block Ottoman Turk Muslims from invading southern Christian Europe during the reign of King Charles V. However, Charles could not entirely dislodge them. As a result, the area became a perpetual powder keg between Islamic, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox religions. Theoretically, Clinton settled it 500 years later, right here in Ohio at the “Dayton Peace Accords”.

The Birth of a Movement

As strange as it may seem, the Muslim invasions brought welcome relief to the infant Protestant movement. For two decades Charles V was entangled in the Muslim conflict in southern Europe, while Protestant uprisings grew in Germany, far to the north. The Vatican chaffed and issued threats and edicts from Rome, but was unable do anything to prevent Protestants from dismantling a millennium of well-established church authority.

It was a raucous movement led by rowdy, beer-drinking Luther. The Reformation rocked Germany like John Bellushi’s Animal House (minus the sex, drugs and Rock ‘n Roll.) Protestants turned the Sunday Mass into a spirited attack against the papacy. This was all terribly exciting for the peasants.

The movement enjoyed widespread popularity. “High Church” ceremonies were swept away by spiritual freedom and love for a personal Savior. The somber atmosphere of Mass was shattered by a crazy new, beer-hall instrument called an organ. A joyful cry of “Sola Scriptura!” raced across Europe and spilled into France, where the formally, relatively peaceful movement was suddenly crushed in great bloodshed.

One who fled these massacres was John Calvin. While in hiding, he furiously wrote the Institutes a mere three years after his conversion. He loved the Protestant cause, but his disciplined mind was repulsed by its wild pace and enthusiasm. He wanted more law and order, and the Institutes he wrote established a theology of crushing, sovereign authority by Jesus Christ which justified torture, massacres and wars. Calvin soon unleashed his theology in Geneva. There he established an orderly Protestant world and ruled it with an iron will. The Catholics suddenly became the hunted by the previous persecuted Protestants in Switzerland.

Institutionalized Christianity

Without a doubt the institutions of the church are the greatest obstacles for God’s love and the single cause of Christianity’s dark history. With good motives, brilliant men wrapped tight structures around the church to preserve it. But whenever the Gospel gets wrapped in the systems and business of the Kosmos, the sweet message of God’s grace is gripped by a monster that won’t let go. Institutions always grow more complex, and their grip grows continually more fixed and frozen. Out of biblical Christianity arises just more of Institutionalized Christianity.

Continue Reading »

Tags: church history, ecclesiology

If you build plan, prepare, and host it, they will come … or at least that was the dream of the Hughes Home Church. The desire to have substantial discussions in a friendly, open forum with non-Christian family and friends prompted the plan to host a Conversation and Cuisine.

As this home church transitioned from a college-aged to a post-college, professional ministry, a drop in first time guests became noticeable. Jake Lagotte commented:

We have always been a super-fun and happening church. No one can throw a party like our church. We just weren’t getting the same results as we did earlier. Parties didn’t lend an opportunity for conversations of substance. We realized we needed to change.

Though this undertaking was a first for this home group of young couples and professionals, they met the challenge with spirit-led vision and energized resolve, guided by the previous C & C experience of leader Kathryn Hughes. Pressing onward, they were undeterred by several “bumps-in-the-road.” Amy Lagotte recalled:

We understood that a lot of planning was involved - like the logistics of planning a dinner party. We knew that it would be a lot of work. What was surprising was that, as a group, we weren’t as eager to get out there and actively invite our friends and family. This is wartime - people - get out there and reach the dying.

A week prior to the event no one was coming. Invitations didn’t get to most guests until just days before the C & C. The morale was a bit low for a while. Amy took action, called everyone in the church and set a deadline for the final guest list.

It was amazing. God really honored our meager efforts. One day we had no one coming. A day or two later we had 16 to 20 possible attendees. Things were getting exciting.

So, What is Conversation and Cuisine?

Scrumptious fare, and engaging, thoughtful discussions - this describes the night in a nutshell. The goal of the C & C is to provide a hospitable and an other’s centered environment, where all views are openly welcomed. The views are respectfully heard and then discussed. More questions are asked rather than answers given. The goal is to engage in meaningful conversation and to establish a platform for deepening relationships. Remember people matter.

Discussion moderator Jake added:

The idea is to get people to a place where they are comfortable and can talk about what they believe. Our goal was to get to know where people are spiritually. The measure of a successful C & C is whether opportunities for follow-up develop and if relationships deepen.

Continue Reading »

Chaos suddenly flared across Europe, tearing apart the fragile coalitions of the Holy Roman Empire, the “Protector of the Church.” This was bad timing, because Muslim Turks were marching into the soft underbelly of Europe and advancing to the heart of the Empire.

Europeans were romantic and hopeful about their Holy Roman Empire. It was the rebirth of ancient Rome and Europe’s best hope for holding back the invasions of Muslims equally bent on world domination. When Charles V (1519–1558) came to power, he wore the crowns of Spain, Austria and Germany, which could finally unify most of Europe under church rule.

But a crazy monk messed it up early one frosty morning in 1517 with a hammer, a nail, and a handwritten list of “protests” against local abuses by church authorities. As he tapped the nail he had no idea his protests would expose deep fractures lying beneath the glossy surface of the HRE.

His complaints became a movement defying the Vatican’s monopoly on Christianity. It was infectious and flashed across Europe, triggering religious confusion, chaos in revered social structures, riots and wars. The armies of Charles V were preoccupied with the invading Turks and could do little to quash the Protestant Reformation for years, and then it was too popular and unstoppable. Continue Reading »

Tags: church history, ecclesiology, reformed theology

You just gotta love ‘em: the “New Calvinists” they’re called, which means they embrace Reformed theology, commonly known as Calvinism.

A young generation of Christian leaders like Mark Driscoll are capturing headlines even in the NeoZine! They are dubbed “the young and restless Reformed” because they are innovative church-planters, but they still maintain a strict diet of old-fashioned Reformed theology.

Driscoll is speaking in July at the Xenos Summer Institute, so it’s worthwhile to study Reformed theology and its history in order to appreciate Driscoll. Especially at Xenos, people are largely unfamiliar with the old, tired dog of Reformed Christianity called Covenant Theology.

Reformed churches were once-monolithic Protestant denominations, such as the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Baptists, but since the ’60s they are growing increasingly irrelevant, with few exceptions. The newest research now shows about 7% of the population is “evangelical”, and the hardest-hit are these Reformed denominations.¹

But changes are underway, and some Protestant churches are trying to stop the bleeding.

A Gen-X Revolution?

Generation-X made a big splash in the pool of American church life with “Emergents” (Emergent Church) and young, Restless Reformed. The Emergents and Restless Reformed are driving new directions, but with very different theologies.

Emergents are represented by the Emergent Village, and is renown for blending Postmodernism with the Bible,² but the Restless Reformed maintain a classical epistemology (view of truth).

Driscoll characterizes Gen-X as largely ineffective, silly Christianity:

This generation can be a whiny bunch of idealists getting together in small groups to complain about mega-churches and the religious right rather than doing something. - quoted in Relevant Magazine

He then describes his Restless Reformed theopraxy³ as a backlash against the “whiny” Emergent church:

In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.

The Thrill is Gone

Still, these very different Gen-X movements bear the same prominent Gen-X trademark: a penchant for the banal. (What does “Generation-X” stand for, anyway? Nobody knows, and nobody cares.) They know how take the zing out of the Bible.

Continue Reading »

1. See Dennis McCallum’s review of “Fall of the Evangelical Nation”. [⇑]
2. See Wikipedia - Emerging Church: Postmodern World View and the language of deconstruction. [⇑]
3. Theopraxy is the practice of theology, or what some call “the practice of God.” [⇑]

Tags: ecclesiology, reformed theology

By Dennis McCallum

Now, I was not happy to see that McLaren is on the cover of Bruxy’s book because the emergent movement is headed directly away from biblical orthodoxy. I should make clear that I know most of these leaders personally (not McLaren), have attended their conferences, visited their churches, had lengthy arguments with them in public debate, blogs, email, and by phone.

McLaren is at this print doubting the reality of hell, saying universalism is okay for Christians, denying the need for penal substitution at the cross and suggesting that would be child abuse, declaring all language to be indefinite and incapable of transmitting objective truth, and all “truth” to be discursive (which undermines the usefulness of Scripture, and flies in the face of what Jesus and Paul taught). So, I believe McLaren is a bad player, and I’m not surprised to see the top evangelical thinkers here and abroad finally critiquing his stuff.

One of their own, Mark Driscoll, has broken with them over their increasingly extreme theology. He was one of the original leaders of the movement gathered by Leadership Network. He participated in their leadership councils for a decade and knows exactly what they think. He mentions the following serious problems in his critique:

1. Scripture. This includes the divine inspiration, perfection, and authority of Scripture.
2. Jesus Christ. This includes his deity and sovereignty over human history as Lord.
3. Gender. This includes whether or not people are created with inherent gender differences, whether or not those gender roles have any implications for the governments of home and church, and whether or not homosexual practice is sinful. This also includes whether or not it is appropriate to use gender specific names for God, such as Father, like Jesus did.
4. Sin. The primary issue here is whether or not human beings are conceived as sinners or are essentially morally neutral and are internally corrupted solely by external forces.
5. Salvation. The issue is whether Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation and whether or not salvation exists for people in other religions who do not worship Jesus Christ.
6. The Cross. The issue here is the doctrine of penal substitution and whether or not Jesus died in our place for our sins or if He went to the cross solely as an example for us to follow when we suffer.
7. Hell. The issue is whether or not anyone will experience conscious eternal torment, or if unbelievers will simply cease to exist (annihilationism) or eventually be saved and taken to heaven (universalism).
8. Authority. This issue is perhaps the most difficult of all. Much of this conversation is happening online with blogs and chat rooms. However, as the conversation becomes a conflict, the inherent flaw of postmodernism is becoming a practical obstacle to unity because there is no source of authority to determine what constitutes orthodox or heretical doctrine.

With the authority of Scripture open for debate and even long-established Church councils open for discussion (e.g. the Council of Carthage that denounced Pelagius as a heretic for denying human sinfulness), the conversation continues while the original purpose of getting on mission may be overlooked
because there is little agreement on the message or the mission of the Church.

I think there is a range of views represented within the group calling themselves emergent. You can see this range if you read the book, “Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches” (Zondervan) which ranges from Driscoll at the conservative end to Paggit and Ward at the liberal end. In between, you see Kimball and Burke, who are not that bad, whereas Paggit sounds like a non-believer. Driscoll’s views are no more liberal (probably more conservative) than ours. McLaren is at the liberal end of this continuum, in my opinion.

Keith mentioned their problems with evangelism, which are acute. Even one of their own leaders, McKnight, acknowledged that he sees a huge problem here — and it’s not just because they are ineffective at reaching non-Christian postmoderns (which would be a major problem, considering that their literature implies that they are the ones who know how this should be done) but that they are increasingly unwilling to witness at all! This is because they don’t want to be arrogant in asserting that Christians are right and everyone else is wrong. So you just witness with your life, not your words. McLaren is in the vanguard of this view as you can see in his treatment of other religions in “A Generous Orthodoxy.” I can only say, my Bible does not take the same view of other religions that McLaren does. Rather than respecting them and learning from them, refusing to view what we teach as superior, Paul says the gods people worship are in fact demons (see 1Cor. 10). Both New and Old Testaments agree on this.

Why Navpress would have no problem with McLaren, or Zondervan, or Baker, is a baffling question. The only answer I can imagine is 1. they have no idea what he teaches, or (more likely) 2. Dollars and cents mean more than being faithful to God’s word.

I think Bruxy Cavey should consider removing his endorsement in a new edition of his book. McLaren’s Secret Message was a more innocuous book. Also read his more inflamatory stuff like Generous Orthodoxy, and some of the careful and fair critiques by many of the leading thinkers in the Christian world today, such as D. A. Carsen, Millard Eriksen (editor of RECLAIMING THE CENTER:
CONFRONTING EVANGELICAL ACCOMMODATION IN POSTMODERN TIMES, which includes a dozen of our best theologians writing essays about why they are so worried about the movement), and many others. Groothius’ book, Truth Decay is good.

Amazingly, it has taken over ten years for the evangelical church to realize what we are dealing with in the emergent movement, and they are still partially asleep on this. But I do believe that finally we will see in the next few years the believing church mobilize against the extreme liberal wing of this movement.

Tags: emergent church

Finding Xenos

I’ll never forget finding Xenos. Kathryn and I moved from Colorado Springs to Columbus in 1996 where Kathryn worked for Focus on the Family in the marketing department. A copy of “The Death of Truth” by Dennis McCallum, senior elder with Xenos, came across her desk. She was intrigued by the book and brought it home for me to read. The book struck a chord with me because of its philosophical bent. It agreed with much I had picked up as an undergraduate student of J. P. Moreland at Biola University. Once we moved to Columbus, despite the 45 minute drive from our apartment in Delaware, OH, we decided to check out Xenos.

The first day we strolled into the warehouse there a band was playing Steely Dan music. I was able to get a donut and coffee to eat during the service. I’d never seen a church with a snack bar! In addition, everyone was dressed like they were about to wash their car! But the best part occurred when Dennis got up to speak. I looked at Kathryn and said “this is our church.”

We were passive pew-sitters for a while but everyone kept talking about “getting incorporated” by checking out a home church. We decided to check out a home church and were referred to a home church in Upper Arlington led by Eric and Vicky Schroer and Anne Blackwell. Continue Reading »

Tags: church growth, ecclesiology, methods, str2008, xenos

It’s fair to blame the failures in Prince Caspian on Kingly-Leadership working independently from Prophetic-Leadership. We covered these failures in the first Caspian review, and they typify the “Natural Man” Paul describes:

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1 Corinthians 2:14

The efforts of King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund and Prince Caspian were brilliant. Their “hidden hole,” the ambush of the castle, their call to attack and not defend were all sound, practical solutions, but also doomed to fail.

Why was failure inevitable? Yes, their youthful characters were flawed, and they cracked under pressure. But as the story unfolds, it becomes evident they must fail, even without the flaws: quite simply, Narnians were too weak and too few against the power of the dark lord and his swarming armies.

In the ferocity of spiritual warfare, the Kingly-Leader’s brilliance and power is worn down into a dull and pathetic leadership. I’ve been there. I sympathize with those brave Narnian leaders when their escape routes were severed, their strength and strategies all exhausted. Meanwhile, fresh hordes of the enemy advance with trebuchets pounding mercilessly away.

“We’ve waited for Aslan long enough,” Peter told Lucy earlier. Oh what fatal words those were.

Continue Reading »

Tags: leadership, movies, prince caspian, prophecy, spiritual warfare

Go watch the movie Prince Caspian, and do it quickly! If you watch it knowing that C.S. Lewis was not only a Christian, but someone deeply in love with God’s Kingdom, it helps explains the “The Deep Magic” that governs the movie.

Prince Caspian is the study of a Christian’s greatest weakness: “the Natural Man”, as Paul calls it, or “Carnal Christianity.” We’ve all struggled with this handicap, and we get so confused by it, mostly because we feel so much strength in the Natural Man…

Until the “fog of war” descends.

That’s when Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy reappear and take turns thrashing, fighting and scheming in a series of brilliant failures, until they reach utter despair and the end of their brilliant plans.

To those familiar with Christian leadership, it’s a familiar task these brave souls undertake. They must lead a strange, motley crew of Narnians out of their snug habitats in the deep, dark woods and into a bloody crusade. On unfamiliar ground the gentle Narnians clash with a savage dark lord who is the epitome of “The Father of Lies.” Christians in the modern era face a tidal wave of spiritual hostility, and these Narnians likewise take such a pathetic stand against hoards of rabid, advancing enemies rising out of “the pit of darkness.”

Continue Reading »

Tags: leadership, sanctification, spiritual warfare

When you read the history of Xenos, you read about chaos - or so it seems to the institutional mind. But to those who enjoy the love of Christ, it’s called freedom, and freedom is chaotic for legalistic minds. This is the “real Xenos model” in a nutshell: some call it chaos, while others call it “freedom through the love of Christ”. (What a cool slogan!)

Here’s the kind of chaos I love: listen to The Road Less Traveled by Dave Browning, some dude from the West Coast.¹ He’s a Willow Creek mega-church business-model dropout who is now more relaxed and happier than ever — and more fruitful than ever, too! This was Dave’s life in the business-model church:

Dave’s high didn’t come from a bottle or a needle, but from those Sunday mornings when a big crowd packed his church, everything went just right and he hit the ball out of the park with another power-packed sermon. The need for that rush nearly destroyed everything Dave cared about.²

The Business-Leader Model

Such is the life of the business-model church leader: it’s all about “Kingly-Leadership” which kills a good Church Planting Movement. The business-leader model also kills the kingly leaders through exhaustion.

Willow Creek’s own research now reveals a disturbing trend with this entire approach. I recently blogged about the “Revolving Door Syndrome” that kept us stagnated here in Northeastern Ohio, and Willow is discovering the same trend through research. It’s called the “Old Christian Syndrome” (or OCS), and it looks like this:³

Continue Reading »

1. The Road Less Traveled, by Dave Browning from Christ the King church in Washington. His podcast is from last month’s Multi-Site Exposed 2008 conference [⇑]
2. Quoted from Leadership Network. [⇑]
3. Research from the Reveal Web site. [⇑]

Tags: church growth, ecclesiology, leadership, methods, retreats, str2008, xenos

A Word of Prophecy

Tom Dixon’s teaching began with some fumbling and mumbling mishaps with the microphone and sound system, which probably shook Tom up a little. It promised to be a dismal teaching from an obscure figure.

But then Tom launched into a strong message about what it means to carry out the Great Commission: “GO!” It’s all there in the first word. Aside from Tom, there was a surprising paucity of insights about the Great Commission at the STR.

This Great Commission oversight was not only unusual for the STR, but very noticeable since Calvary Chapel was often cited. As a model of a healthy church, if Calvary is actually driven by the Prophet-Leader extolled in the “Tri-Perspectival View,” there should be a clear path to follow in their footsteps. But what is it?

Dennis strongly endorsed Calvary’s “hot theology of ministry,” but then grew vague about exactly why it was so hot. It was difficult to discern what changes leaders could implement from the STR, beyond avoiding the obsession with statistics. The deemphasis on counting was only marginally-helpful for NeoXenos leaders, since our statistical work is already sloppy and pathetic enough.¹

NeoNews reported the aspects of Calvary which Dennis said were not enviable or easily-transferred into a Xenos ethos, and the list eliminated most of the distinctive differences from Xenos.

But there was one major distinction from Xenos which Calvary pursues with gusto: Calvary is perpetually sending out leaders to plant extra-local churches. This was, of course, the point of Tom’s teaching about “GO!” Unfortunately, only Tom’s teaching tackled this issue. Some of the other teachings casually mentioned the “sending” ministry of Calvary, but without much practical benefit.

The Multi-Site Movement

Driscoll’s “Tri-Perspectival View” of leadership is merely an introduction to the real excitement and drama in Driscoll’s teaching. He uses the Prophet-Leader concept to call for potentially-unsettling changes at Mars Hill in Seattle. He calls it “Multi-Site Church”, and whatever else may be said about his vision, it is certainly valuable for Xenos in two big ways. Continue Reading »

1. Leaders discuss statistics about once every six months: the October leader retreat and February FST retreat. View a slide show of the 2008 retreat slide online. [⇑]

Tags: church growth, ecclesiology, methods, missions, retreats, str2008, surveys, willow creek, xenos