Indeed The Emperor Has No Clothes.

Andrew Tatum says what I’m saying about “there is no spoon” slightly differently by asserting that the emperor perhaps has no clothes. He’s observing all of this ruckus the last few weeks from a perspective that is still inside a traditional model of church. So I’m not sure whether this quote is relevant because of that or because he says I might be right. 

Maybe Josh Brown is right – maybe church as we know it in any institutional form other than the “institution” of family and friendship is dead.  And all of this is terribly ironic because I’m preaching this Sunday on the Trinity – on community and relationship, on justice and peace.  I’m preaching this in a very traditional church and I’m pretty sure I know what will happen.  The people will listen, they’ll either like or hate what I’ve got to say, and then they’ll all file out of the building we call the church and say, “nice job, preacher.”  And I’ll be screaming inside, “the emperor church has no clothes on!”

I think that is a better and more understandable way of saying what I was attempting to say with my confusing no spoon analogy.

“Maybe church as we know it in any institutional form other than the “institution” of family and friendship is dead.”

I think that is much closer to the truth of what I was attempting to say. I think if we are practicing family and friendship and simple ideas like throwing parties and living locally then church becomes unnecessary to a certain extent and for most people. And while Marx is a general all around weiner, I think we could rephrase his mantra that religion is the opiate of the masses into church is the opiate of the evangelicals, a soft lulling static that is beyond irrelevant to the problems of the world.

At the very least, it certainly becomes more irrelevant to a spiritualized, agnostic culture. Again, I reiterate that this is what Europe already knows and every American who has little to no ties with evangelicalism already knows to be true.

Beliefnet Has Sold Out (but not Tony Jones), Rick Bennett & Nick Fiedler Are Freedom Fighters, and Emergent Is Way Too Self-Serious For It’s Own Good.

Tony, you know I love your moose loving ass, but I just went to your blog trying to read Kristi’s comments and got bombarded with 2 pop-up ads (see below) despite using my Mac (the Holy Grail) and Firefox (Geronimo’s head). Either Beliefnet needs to make their end-user experience less whoreish or you need to grab another place to blog. I half say this tongue in cheek and I half say it as serious as Rick Bennett is about loving Nickelback (which is also not so very serious). And if it means I’m a bully (sorry Rick) or a dick (that rhymed) because I’m calling out the absurdity of a blog that pimps Britney’s wait loss secrets and Wal-Mart gift cards, then so be it. Perhaps keeping it real can’t be done playfully after all. These are questions that I’ve asked about the nature of Beliefnet before (almost a year ago today), so I’m not trying to pile on. Just keeping it real.

Moving on . . .

At the risk of sounding like a bully, I need to get some shit off my chest. While I no doubt owe a butt ton of my spiritual/personal journey to Emergent and still to this day loosely align myself under their banner and still have countless people that I consider close and remote friends (too many to name), it’s time to call a spade a spade.

Most people in leadership in Emergent are way to damn self-serious about themselves and their little movement. They/We say over and over and over and over again that it’s not a movement (as if it’s some kind of street cred-like badge of honor). Let’s keep it real. If any other “christian” movement had tons of books, logos, events, and non-profit status, we would be the first to say it’s a movement, however small it may be. If your goal is to bring others into the conversation, then you have indirectly created a recruitment of sorts. And if you have a recruitment of sorts and strategic planning for growth (even degrowth), you have a movement.

If everything must change and you are calling on us to help change it. It’s a movement. Period. Let’s get over our self-righteous badge of honor by trying to pretend like it’s not so we don’t feel our post-evangelical guilt.

Futhering my point about self-seriousness, let’s get some perspective on just how many people are a part of this movement/conversation. I love me some Phyllis Tickle and would probably leave Anna for her, so I agree that we are entering into a period of epochal change that only happens every 500 years, yada yada yada. But political, social, and cultural changes are creating the ripples that church/spirituality are just now beginning to feel. Not the other way around. So when we start to talk about how Emergent or emerging church or any other version of church is on the ground floor creating the change that is revolutionizing spirituality in the world, let’s get some perspective.

Pentecostalism is running rampant across the third world and changing Christianity there. Fundamentalism is battling secularism for America’s attention. And Europe is/has become the true melting pot of spirituality. All of this talk that Emergent is somehow a catalyst for the church changing is a bit misleading. At the end of the day there are larger cultural shifts outside of religion that are playing a more substantitative role in reshaping the spirituality of America.

In reality, there are probably no more than 1,000 people who would identify under the label Emergent. And less than 5,000 who would consider themselves loosely affiliated with Emergent (of which I would consider myself a card carrying member). To be generous, that puts our total at a little over 5,000 people. Are you bleeping kidding me? Seriously . . . this group is what all the self-seriousness is about?

I don’t know if we’re so serious because none of our former peers and churches take us seriously, but come on . . . let’s not get psycho with it just because nobody else will take us seriously. We can still play at being adults without having to dress up in daddy’s clothes and stand in front of the mirror to prove ourselves with our self-seriousness.

In terms of all this stuff that my cohort inadvertently stirred up last week, I think what Nick, myself, and others are trying to say that Emergent is kind of like therapy for evangelicals. You go to therapy to get some shit off your chest. And then hopefully you get better and move on with the business of living the rest of your life. Therapy can’t go on forever because if it does it means that you’re certifiably insane.

While I’m high strung and passionate, I don’t want to be considered insane.

It’s time some of us graduated from this “conversation” and moved onto other things. Therapy is good for fixing the root problems. But it’s a terrible substitute for living the rest of your life. We need to thank Emergent for the space/place that it offered for us to fix our problems. And we need to encourage others who have problems to go through the healing process through the therapy that has come to be known as Emergent. But then we need to move on. Grow up. Graduate. In order to stay sane.

The problem (as I perceive it) is that the therapy/conversation/movement that still swirls around Emergent centers around trying to fix our theology so that we can go back and have healthier foundations for churches or faith groups or communities or whatever you want to call them. And while I no doubt see many valuable expressions of “church” (as previously listed) these days, in my opinion, the circle is still drawn way to tight around that particular expression of encountering god.

This is something that most everybody else besides evangelicals and Emergent (the post-evangelical in therapy) get. The world around us (now more than ever) could give a rat’s ass about church or faith communities or cohorts. They are fine where they are and could never see the need for any type of organization to experience their faith or spirituality. I am of this persuasion as well. I am more concerned about doing a better job of living more honestly and locally for the good of the world than I am about ever trying to reinterpret my theology or to somehow reappropriate my new theology into any type of organized expression that would resemble church.

Like I said, this is something that non-church goers are already crystal clear on. It is something that non-evangelical people of faith have been saying forever. And it’s something that European people of faith have been practicing and experiencing for at least a decade. While the third world just thinks we’re full of ourselves because we think we are so important that we should spend 10 years talking.

Again, while I love Emergent for the therapy it offered me, I think everyone at some point needs to get over themselves and get on with the business of living.

This is what I meant when I said Church Is Dead. It’s like going to therapy for the boogie man in the closet. It no longer exists as we think it exists or like it used to exist. But yet we are still trying to recover from it so that we can go back out and reestablish it. Just better this time. THERE IS NO SPOON!

Seriously . . .

“Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth . . . that there is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only ourselves.”

I’m not trying to play linguistic Buddha-like games. My point is that once we graduate from our theraphy sessions, it would be wise for us to start considering the idea that perhaps all of this conversation is a moot point and we would be much wiser to invest ourselves into enterprises that did not center around 4 walls, whether they be christened with a steeple or a tap.

Until then, I shall follow Rick (against my better judgement, no offense Rick) and Nick (to the grave) as freedom fighters that declare that everything must change.

Vermicomposting.

Vermicomposting is where it’s at. In 4 days my new worms ate over 5 lbs. of old newspaper, bush clippings, and 4 old bananas. Not a bad start. Stocked it with some more “food” this afternoon. Old strawberries, leftover salad, and 2 newspapers. Should last less than a week! Woot!

Loose Suggestions For Reclaiming The Real.

Per Matt and Blake’s request below and in the vein of Bob’s post (who laid out some great tips for productivity while at work), I’ve decided to layout my suggestions for how to transition out of the world of computers and back into the world of flesh and blood. And while I have no doubt a long way to go, I do feel like I have some street cred as a recovering level 80 World of Warcraft player who hasn’t played in 4 months, a former Facebook and Twitter member, and someone who has been blogging for 7+ years.

Here are some tips that I’ve been easing myself into for the last few months for whatever they are worth. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that my 7 month old son Dylan didn’t have a lot to do with this new found maturity I’m learning.

1. Use only 1 form of social media. Whether it be blogging, Facebook, or Twitter. But never more than 1. And then use that 1 in moderation (see #9). Pick the one that helps you live “for the good of the world” the most and choose that one. I quit Facebook after 4 years a month a go and haven’t missed it at all. I quit Twitter after almost 2 years and haven’t missed it at all.

2. Clean out your RSS reader. Leave only 25 feeds in there and ditch the rest. Then only check it twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening.

3. Throw parties on a regular basis. And by regular I mean once every 2 weeks to a month. It doesn’t have to be 100 people. But get in the habit of having at least 10 people over to your house on a regular basis.

4. Eat 1 slow dinner a week with friends.

5. Get at least 1 hobby that doesn’t involve technology. Preferably one that forces you to be outside and social in nature. And preferably one that forces you to be outside and in reflective solitude by nature (see #6).

6. Practice solitude. Learn to turn off the internet. Learn to turn off the music. Pick up a book. Take a walk. Go kayaking. Sit on your porch or deck. Learn to BE without relying on a soundtrack in the background or a screensaver drawing your attention back to the monitor.

7. Leave your laptop at home. Whatever it is that you think is so important will probably still be there when you get home. No need to carry it with you to work. To your friends. To your parents.

8. Get rid of any stat counters or other analytics that you use to track your blog or podcast. Get back to writing for the art and therapy of writing. Not for a magic number that strokes your ego.

9. Think before you write. Don’t regurgitate. If you are going to speak, say something that hasn’t been said before. Or at the very least builds off of a previous thought. Keep the momentum moving forward. I know blogs are personal so there is nothing wrong with sharing what’s going on in your family life as a way of communicating to close friends and family. But if you’re going to be personal when you blog, keep some perspective that your family doesn’t care about what you ate or what you are currently doing every 10 seconds (cough, cough Twitter). And if you are going to be serious when you blog, be original and thoughtful. It’s time to clean up the blog-o-sphere for all the rubbish that is piling up.

10. Remember technology is a means to an end and not an ends in and of itself. Remember what technology was created for. Keep it utilitarian in nature as opposed to pure entertainment. There are probably healthier more helpful ways to be entertained.

11. When you are around your “emergent-y” friends, find things to talk about besides theology or church or the latest book (see #12).

12. Quit reading theology books. Reality is you’re probably not going to read anything that you don’t already agree with. You’re just going to be reading for more ammunition to make your points on your blog or in your “conversations”. If you’re going to read, read something that you know nothing about.

13. Think and talk locally. Quit talking globally. If you’re going to blog (see #9), blog about ideas or thing that you’re practicing locally. Or conversations that you’re having locally. Quit bitching and/or dreaming about the entire globe. Think locally. Talk locally. Act locally. Save the globe for another day.

We Are Not The Only Ones.

There is something larger going on with this whole “tired of talking” thing that apparently ruffled some feathers. I think for many of us we are realizing that our online personas have become something larger than themselves, even caricatures in a way. Which is why many have started pulling back (MarkO and his cancelation of Facebook, Twitter, and blogging / the Tall Skinny with his slow ride into the sunset / and my own context for why I landed where I landed).

This is not to say that social media is bad. But that the norm for the medium has slowly moved from being about the conversation to being about “the idea of conversation”. We like to talk about conversation and church more than we like to practice it. And online relationships have become an escape from flesh and blood relationships.

Not really sure what, if anything, I want to say about this. Other than just adding another footnote to this whole firestorm that got kicked off this week by mi amigo Nick.

Brian doesn’t really headline conferences anymore. I think that has a large part to do with the fact that he’s gotten involved in activism and music.

Doug doesn’t speak or maintain an online presence like he once did. I think that has a large part to do with the fact that he’s working on some local political aspirations.

You don’t hear their names as often in emerging church conversations anymore. I think that has to do with the fact that they said everything they needed or wanted to say and decided it’s best to get on with their lives and the art of practicing community and activism.

These are good things. They have learned what others like the Samsons, Haws, Sharps, Bronsinks, and Kiwis have learned. They have learned what I am just now beginning to catch a glimpse of. Namely, that the “for the good of the world” will never come about through a blog or podcast or book.

The fact that blogging giants MarkO, Andrew Jones, and others are deciding to hang it up and re-connect locally and relationally with those in their midst is an encouraging sign that we are not alone in our curiousity as to what the hell all of these “emergents” are still talking about when there is so much living to do.