I’ve been invited to correspond with theooze.com’s Viral Bloggers network. It’s a marketing ploy really, and one that I happen to like, with the jist being that I get all the free books I want, provided I blog through it. This first one I picked was Leonard Sweet’s new So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church. I’ve heard Sweet’s name and even listened to several interviews with him, but have never actually read him, so I jumped at the chance.
The analogue used throughout from which the book draws it’s title is that of the double helix DNA strand. The secret of life at the most basic biochemical level, for which a Nobel prize was rewarded for discovering, is not that we have DNA; instead, it is the structure of the DNA makeup. Two strands twirl around a central core. No part can create life without the other two, regardless of the fact that all the necessary information (like doctrine or mission) is contained within one element. For life to form, the three have to coexist simultaneously. Three is everywhere, in fact.
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So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church, Leonard Sweet.
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So Beautiful has a writing style won’t sit well with those wanting a linear case-building project. The best way I can describe Leonard Sweet’s writing style is that he is much more like a painter than a writer; each chapter has its overarching theme, but is replete with allegory and quotation. Barely a page goes by without two or three quotes from across the theological spectrum (quoting Talmudic Rabbis, Augustine and Aquinas, Karl Barth, Gandhi, and even Rick Warren) and an allegory in vague parabolic fashion making it’s own point without his explanation. He does an excellent job of painting his point from every conceivable direction in order to drive the image home.
His central thesis is that the Church, which tends to function as an APC program (Attractional, Propositional, and Colonial), will die into itself without a shift to become MRI (Missional, Relational, and Incarnational. In its lust for success, the Church creates all sorts of programs and marketing ploys to gather numbers (attractional). The core is doctrinal purity, with the defense being that it is not Christian if it is not correct belief first and foremost, making this the crucial tenant of inclusion (propositional). In turn, the Church becomes colonial, transforming peoples and culture where they are found. To understand this, look no further than Rwanda, in which nearly 90% of the population by the early nineties had been converted to Christianity (numbered, doctrined, and colonized), but had failed to emphasize incarnation and balance. As a result, when the 1994 genocide broke out, churches killed churches, converted Christians raped and killed other converted Christians. Nevermind the neglect of Christian nonviolent teaching; we went to Africa (much as we teach our suburban congregants) teaching that belief in Christ is what makes one a Christian. Correct action, while important, becomes a second tier issue. Action is crucial, we say, but independent of your eternal destination. The violence of colonial conversion removes the soul of a culture and replaces it with something far more insidious, all in the name of the gospel.
Instead the Gospel is a never-ending call for mission. We are not called to “Go and convert people to your beliefs.” Instead the Commission correctly translates as “As you are going, make disciples.” A correct praxis cannot help but create interest in this way as it is seen. Secondly, the Christ never created all our wonderful doctrine and position statements. For example, when he came across a Roman centurion and his homosexual servant, he challenged neither to change his ways in that moment. He could have told the centurion to stop his violence and oppression; he could have told the servant to stop his adultery. Instead, Jesus healed the servant and left the inspiration to do its own work. This is not to say that we don’t have discussions about beliefs (I’m quite a fan of that, in case you have not noticed), but that it is not the driving part of invitation into a way of life. Lastly, we must become incarnational; we become salvation. We are not called to convert and colonize indigenous cultures into a quasi-Western construct. There is a reason that pictures of the Christ, at their best, are of a white Jesus in North America, a black Jesus in Africa, and an Asian Jesus in China. The sad truth is that, just as Jesus is often white in colonized Africa, we made it our mission to be more concerned that African tribal women covered their breasts when we took the “gospel” to the nations. What I mean to say is that we were more concerned with transforming them to a Western culture (with all our hang-ups and shortcomings) than teaching about justice and reconciliation. Again, recall Rwanda (or Uganda, or Darfur for that matter). “Speading the gospel” is not, as so often misunderstood, supposed to be about creating doctrinally similar proxies who will in turn create more believer proxies. Such action can be remarkably destructive. And anyways, our job is not really so much to teach someone something that they did not know; it is much more our mission to help them (especially Christians) see what they already know but have suppressed.
This is not to say that attraction is a bad thing. Sweet notes that a key test of spirituality is attraction. But attraction by a church can be driven by numerous factors, many consumeristicly impressive or self-servingly counterproductive. Sweet likens this common issue to a bird that, in the turn of evolution, acquires all sorts of colors and qualities to attract a mate. But in its genetic drive to creative attractions for a mate, it seals its own fate as a target for predators. We too create all these attractions to grab people in the church, without asking why we want so many people who come because our church makes them feel a certain way.
“There is always an easy solution to every human problem- neat, plausible, and wrong” -H.L. Mencken
“Philosophy is not so much a matter of acquiring beliefs as of turning the soul away from fantasy and towards reality.” – Plato
In our beliefs, Sweet writes that we need to embrace, not solve, paradox. “Dualism, either/or exclusionism is… plug ugly. Nondualism, both/and nonlocalism is… so beautiful.” We make a joke of the Scriptures when we vie to solve out every paradox or discrepancy. When we harp on an item of belief as a requirement for inclusion (fill in your particular crucial belief), we come dangerously close to making a god of that belief. Most Christians would even affirm that last sentence, but without noticing that they too have their beliefs they are not willing to budge on (and I have those too). Truth is not what changes us; it is the journey of seeking Truth that alters our perceptions and matures us. Sweet writes, “Our idolatry of propositions is so severe that we have even made “affirmations” into principles, not people.” In turn, we tenaciously say “I believe in absolute Truth” while living as if we are the only people living on the Earth, consuming and destroying as we go about converting. This is our “absolute Truth”; this is where this perspective leads us.
Len Sweet opens his section on Incarnation with thoughts on the sermon. He writes of how poorly his messages often came across when he was speaking to an audience he rarely spoke to. At first, he thought it was his error, but he came to realize that if a message is incarnated into a culture, it should not travel so well. It reminded me of a time I was at an Acts 29 conference (stereotypically full of hipsters trying to prove how cool they are by how many obscure indie bands they can name-drop) and the speaker, a pastor from a crime ridden neighborhood in Philadelphia, starts mocking us for it. He ranted, “ ‘Oh, look at me, I’m an indie-pastor and we are planting a church in the ‘artsy’ part town.’ I don’t care! That doesn’t matter; being cool is not the goal!… if you have a church full of rednecks, you should sound and look like a redneck.” Sweet writes that perhaps a test of incarnation is whether or not our message travels well. Now, this is not a section about sermons, but it does present an analogue to the greater message for Incarnation. We are to become salvation, not just hand it out. We are medium and message. If we are not deeply concerned about living like Gospel in our own contexts, then it does not really matter how many people we convert or how much money we give to Africa. It has been said that the image of the Cross is not complete without the crosses of the two criminals next to the Christ; he lived and died among the outcasts, putting flesh/action on his message even as the religious despised him for doing so. I think a lot of Christians don’t realize that when Jesus was partying with the drunkards, that sort of implies that he drank right along with them. If your circle is uber-Christian, you might have to use a lot of Evangelical sub-culture language to communicate the Gospel with them or go with them to converse as they hand out tracks. If your circle smokes, then you enjoy nicotine and conversation right along with them. If your culture is highly Pro-(whatever the nation or issue that fills in the blank), then it does little good to perpetually rant for or against this. Be Rescue and Redemption in your context. To “go out” and bring the “sinners” to the church for saving is colonial. To live in a reconciled way in your context is deeply good.
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This has been summary. Now for my perspective on this book: I loved it, but it wasn’t so much written for me. It was good, and challenging, but I feel it is far better suited for someone who is just beginning to ponder why their church, or even personal doxis/praxis (belief/action) has gone stale. It is a book for the pastor tired of what his church is quickly becoming, with the incurable requirements for congregant numbers and position statements and conversion counting. If you brag about numbers and the general fanciness of your church (or are under fire to generate more numbers and fanciness), then this is for you. If you have a list of beliefs that you will not budge on, and perhaps even judge whether someone is a real Christian based on said list, then this may be for you. If you feel that the gospel can be summed up as a call to convert as many people as possible to “belief in Christ,” as you may put it, then this may be a book for you. It’s for those that are just beginning to realize that their Christianity is not, in fact, worth believing at all, and nor is it transformative or good for the world in which they find themselves.
If that is you, then you may be interested.
Posted by taddelay 
