A Generous Orthodoxy

I’ve spent this past week away. Away from home, away from church, away from noise… which like most people, I find I miss. Mostly I miss the noise of my wife and sons. Other than the daily trip into the Starbucks which gives me the opportunity of a 3 minute interchange with the Barista, I know, why should it take three minutes to order coffee… well, when that’s the only living soul you actually chat with in a week, you don’t want to rush it. Of course I’ve had a few phone calls and misc. email, but that doesn’t count as real human contact.

I’ve gone out each day for about 2 hours to do some cross-country skiing… I’m horrible at it, but it’s given a nice break from the Condo… yesterday was especially delightful at the top of Echo Ridge. I came around a corner of the trail and thought I could see a million miles of sky and mountains… I tried to stay back from the edge!

I’ve spent a lot of time quiet, and a bunch of time reading and thinking. Finished Of Mice and Men (see book review), then read Playing for Pizza (see book review), and started a book that I’ve had on my reading list for quite some time A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren. I haven’t read McLaren before, but have heard plenty about him (also heard him speak once). One thing that resonates with me so far in the book is the confusion that he’s felt about the church. Perhaps it’s characterized as well as anywhere in a statement on pg.21, “But often I have felt like an ambulance driver bringing injured people to a hospital where there’s an epidemic spreading among the patients and doctors and nurses.” The professor and I speak long and often about the church, our confusion, and for my part at least, my place in it. Probably seems strange since I’ve now been in church ministry for 21 or 22 years and at my current post for nearly 20! I love our church, wouldn’t want to go anywhere else… if I wasn’t on the staff, it’s still where I’d want to go, and yet there’s something missing. As much as we talk about being a “caravan rather than a commissary” I fear that we’re still a commissary. There is a group in the center who are deeply devoted to the body, and then much coming and going around the edges. It’s confusing to me at times. I surely do love the people there though; they are in so many ways, my family.

I appreciate McLaren’s desire to embrace a diverse orthodoxy, as well as a generous one, and I’m on that page in so many ways. What troubles me is at what point we say about a thing, “this is truth.” This is really it. Not so that we can say, “I’m right about this!” But because in saying, “this is truth” we’re saying something about the way things really are… we’re describing not our favorite idea of a thing, but actually saying what “is”. It is exclusive, I know, but then there is exclusivity in our world, there is discrimination. I don’t mean discrimination necessarily as picking someone out for unfair treatment, rather to be “discriminating” is to make a judgment between one thing and another, to discern. There isn’t anything inherently evil in that process. It’s certainly wrong to discriminate regarding race and some of the other issues that get us exercised… but some discrimination, some discernment reflects how the world is and ought to be. I’m honestly struggling a bit with that line just now. I’m sure I’ll reflect more on it and on McLaren as time goes by… I’m on page 140.