The Radical Reformission, pt. 1

It is probably not the wisest thing to review a book before you have read it completely, but I wanted to put my thoughts on paper mid-stream about this book before I lost them. And if I was going to do that, why not do it on a blog and share it?

The book, written by Mark Driscoll, has become for me an example of what is hopeful in Christian consciousness today. I have struggled for so long between the legalism and folk-encrusted Christianity of fundamentalists, and the barely hidden liberal agenda of the emergent church. I have found much with which to resonate with both extremes and yet haven't found a "home" among many writers and speakers philosophically and theologically.

I'm not sure I've found one with Mark, either, but what he is writing about in "Radical Reformission" resonates with my own experience and outlook. Maybe it's because he didn't come from a Christian background, or maybe it's because he too, despises both extremes I alluded to in the previous paragraph. In this middle ground, (although I am not comfortable with THAT term "middle" either) one is forced to look at people for who they are, not from their stereotypes. What they present when you first meet them and what are your first impressions may not be who they really are and you have to get to know them in order to understand that. And doesn't everyone deserve that in the first place? From the book:

All of these ingredients (thinking, values, and experiences) combine to create the cultures in which people live. From the outside, these cultrues can easily be misunderstood. For example, some people at our church dress in a gothic fashion, complete with faces painted whie, hair dyed black, and dark clothing. I was speaking with a visiting pastor once before a church service when a woman dressed in this style walked by, and the pastor commented that it was good for the woman to be in church because she obviously needed to meet Jesus and overcome her depression. But the woman he spoke of was a leader in our church and a godly woman who dressed that way because of her sense of personal style. She was in no way depressed.

I like that quote because I could have easily been the pastor Mark was talking about. Perhaps when the gothic trends first started it was from a spirit of depression, but as time goes by, it's amazing how people will adopt styles independent of how they got started. People dress because they like the look, and not always because of some inner conflict. And though many still do express their struggles on the outside in such a way, you must get to know them personally in order to know that.

Perhaps I resonate with that because I felt that way when I was a teenager participating in a fundamental Baptist church. I looked a certain way in the beginning because of the culture I came from, which was NOT churched. The more involved I got with the church, and the more God began to change my heart, the more I wanted to please Him. The best way I knew to please God was to look and act and talk like the people I knew who I thought best pleased Him, so I cut my hair and quit cussing.

I still didn't cut it, and I never quite made it to the inner circle occupied by those who grew up in church. And perhaps this is why I see more of what Mark is talking about.

So while I am steeped in orthodox theology, one of the things I am most thankful for from that fundamentalist experience and subsequent schooling, I find myself rebelling from some of the cultural mud attached to it. To be transparent, sometimes I find myself wanting to say, do and wear things just to shock my old buddies and those still deep in the fundamentalist mindset. (though others would still say I shock no one.)

May God continue to raise up a remnant within the church who can look beyond the simple stereotypes and begin to love their neighbor as much as they love themselves.

Phil