First of all, my apologies for, once again, taking a month off from blogging. I had a rough end of December/beginning of January that caused me to reflect, but now I'm back on track and no less tantalizing or scintillating than before. Also, as most of my good blogging ideas do, this has come to me paired up with another....so a second blog entry has been written and will be posted shortly.Now then, when I was younger, we had this game closet which stored all the crappy games my mom had picked up at rummage sales - some busted, others boring, and the occasional cool one. Most confusing to me, however, was one of these monstrosities you'll see on the right, a labrynthspel. "A what?" you might ask. A labrynthspel. Essentially they consist of two floating wooden surfaces controlled by knobs on two connected sides, one to control the north/south movement, if you will, and one to control the east west movement. The idea is to keep the tilt correct enough so that the marble which is sitting on the top of the board doesn't fall in one of the holes, but rather, makes it through the maze to the other corner.
Today, I had a conversation with another student who's having a rough time seeing themselves as Christian Reformed - not because of the theology, but because of the people and because of the practice. I have to admit that this is something I struggle with a lot, even being told point blank, "Mark, you're not CRC!" Maybe I am just embarking on a vocational facade, trying to be a non-CRC pastor in the CRC church. Maybe the only people who "get me" are the fringe home missions-types who challenge the norm. Maybe I should just stick with the Church of God or go non-denom or just find a denomination that isn't so out of character for me.
But my conversation today helped. He was complaining to me that CRC people are just too obsessed with "walking the line" when it comes to our engagement with the culture. You know the line - being in the world, but not of it - engaging and transforming culture rather than sticking our heads in the sand. This is what Dordt College is all about! But his argument went something like this: people in the CRC go too far to the "worldly" side of things - they immerse themselves so much in culture that there is not enough distinguishable difference between Christians and the world. There are just some things that Christians shouldn't do. Porn would be an easy example...but what about television, what about movies (and what kind of movies) - oh, and what about music? You know, even the Christian music market has become dreadfully commercial, so should we boycott that, too? All this is very confusing.
It has been fascinating to work in the Church of God, a holiness denomination, which stresses holy living, perhaps best represented by the commonly heard phrase, "We don't smoke, drink, dance or chew, or hang around with those that do." Many of our older members can quote that off the top of their heads as the common refrain of their parents. My senior pastor recently attended a denominational pastor's retreat where the issue of alcohol use came up among new people applying for ordination, often a common theme in emerging-type churches. While it fascinates me that they can hold to any sort of belief as a non-confessional "movement", it fascinates me even more that they tow the party line on alcohol for no apparent reason. Even my senior pastor, who is a tetoller like myself, admits that there's no real Biblical support for the position, its more of a traditional purist holiness party line. But its a line.
Now, granted, the Church of God or Wesleyans in general might have more lines than the CRC does, but it doesn't line off everything! In fact, it only tends to line things off that are culturally contextual (alcohol is a no-no in the American Church of God, but the German wing drinks). So, in the Church of God, we've got lines, but they're limited in scope and rationality.
What my friend was arguing with me was that, in the CRC, we need more lines. He said that, because we have so much ambiguity and allow for so much Christian freedom in so many areas, fallen people have no real direction to go other than a downward spiral. He argued, like my ethics professor, that Christians can get involved in politics and movies and the like, but the risk of falling into that lifestyle far outweighs the possibility of redeeming it, and especially to what extent it will be redeemed.
This hit me hard as a Dordt College Defender. After all, Luke Schelhaas, writer for "Touched by an Angel" and "Smallville" was touted as the heroic alumni for engaging culture and attempting to redeem it. What about Kuyper describing Christ as shouting over every square inch of creation, "This is mine!"? What about Colson arguing for Christian worldview defining the approach as Christian or secular instead of defining the action as Christian or secular? There might not be Christian art or Christian music, but there sure as heck is a way to do art or music as a Christian in a redemptive way. I actually side with Carl Zylstra on this one....I don't have to go to NC-17 movies to reach my culture for Christ, but I sure as heck better be engaging His good creation.
Still not convinced? How about this. There's really only two extremes here when it comes to "worldly actions" or "worldly amusements" as the CRC has historically called them. On the one hand, you could fully submerge yourself with culture, like a chameleon, unable to tell you apart from your backdrop. The other option is the Amish one - pull yourself completely out of culture and try to be affected by it the least. Anything else is a matter of discernment. Yup, I just said it. Let's take TV as a good example. You've really got three logical options as a Christian. First, you watch whatever you want to, whenever you want to and get sucked in little by little. Second, you don't have a TV at all. Once again, good logical option, especially if you follow my friend's logic. Third, you keep the TV, count technology as a good gift of God's creation and watch TV in a Christian way. That isn't a comment on posture or on which channels or on maximum TV rating - it is an example of starting with a Christian worldview, enjoying God's creation and practicing discernment. What is not logical is dumping cable out of moral precept and keeping the TV for local channels. Half an apple is still apple. So, I would argue that for almost every forseeable action and worldly amusement, there are two Christian approaches: abstain or engage with discernment.
But here's my issue. I don't like drawing lines in the sand where Scripture does not. My Greek professor at Seminary said one thing I actually valued: "Shout what Scripture shouts and whisper what Scripture whispers" - be obnoxious about the obvious things, and tread lightly on things where Scripture goes either way. The CRC is not Mennonite and it is not holiness and its not fundamentalist. What it is is a culturally-engaging denomination. But with privilege comes responsibility. What my friend saw was selling out to culture - a moral decay within the CRC community that was as bad or worse than the one outside it. So we've reached the crux of the matter: if we are going to be a denomination or a Church that walks the line, then we sure as heck better be preaching discernment.
If you're going to throw rocks at culture, throw rocks at culture. If you're going to abstain from culture, abstain from it. But, by all means, if you are going to engage culture for Christ, then you better be constantly practicing discernment. For pastor and leaders in general, it is our responsibility to remind people where they are walking the line. Teach discernment - teach engagement. But pastors must also be thermometers - able to tell if a group is swinging too far in one direction or the other. When you normalize an audio file, you pitch the extremes - the high sounds and the low sounds. We need to realize in which directions we're overstepping the boundaries and swing the crux of the people back to the middle again. The pastor is like the labrynthspel operator, tilting the table back and forth, trying to keep the balance because discerned balance is a commitment of the church he represents.
Especially as a postmodern, blurry lines with boundaries are good - in fact, they're all over in Christianity. But we need to keep reminding ourselves and others that we're walking the line.
