speaking of harangues

I have not written for a few weeks, which means that a few things have been ruminating for a while, and others have only just caught a snag in my brain and I have to write something somewhere about it. Sometimes it is my journal and sometimes it is this place. You get to read the leftovers. One thing that has been there for a little while is this: I notice that it is a requirement among the great artists, of any genre, to have somewhat of a unique lifestyle, or habits, or persuasions. A man may pluck his own nose hairs and enjoy setting them on fire, but he is also probably a Michaelangelo. Or a legendary Halo gamer on Xbox who eats EasyMac his entire life. To each his own form of art, I guess. But the point is, you have to be crazy to be good. And, unless you count enjoying both metalcore in the music section and Spongebob in the movie section, I am not crazy. I could pretend to be crazy, maybe. Like only picking my nose with my left hand. Maybe it would turn into a real craziness, if I tried it long and hard enough. That is like Aristotle's idea that one can turn habits into virtues. Or quirks. I am rambling.

Something else has snagged my brain, very recently. It is raw. Last night a man called Brian McLaren came and spoke in our chapel building, though it wasn't a chapel service because he would not be allowed to speak his views in that setting (this whole idea and the ideas connected to it set me on fire). I love the truth, and talking about the truth, and how it affects how we live. I understand that McLaren should not be allowed to speak in chapel because he does not hold to the same theological views as Taylor and so we do not condone his ideas entirely, but it is good that there is another venue, like IFC, through which we might still be exposed to his views. Let me take another side route and say that I hardly know what he believes, and so I am no authority on Brian McLaren. But, I can write about what he said last night.

There was a fairly sizeable group of Taylor students there. I looked around online a little beforehand to see what was said about him, what he had written and produced, etc. I got very little introduction to him but did get the sense that he is fairly well known in the States, and even campaigned a little with Obama this year. I also understood a little that his name is connected with the emergent church, though he explicitly disconnected himself from that name (part of being emergent is not making connections. You may tell an emergent church that they are emergent and they will say no we are not, we would not put it that way, and then they would not put it any wayy. But now I am making absolute statements which are not absolutely true. This is one example of how my preconceptions inform my view of absolutes, which is dangerous. Case in point, point in case, whatever.) So, no one told me, He Believes This Thing, or He Is A Satan Worshiper, or He Is Ugly. The first thing I noticed is that he is bald. Baldness is respectable because probably means you are old, which usually means that you are older and wiser than me. So I listened to him.

He was very engaging, as I would expect a well-known and travelled author to be. He spent about a half hour outlining problems in the world, and how our reactions to living our lives in the larger societal context are shaped by what he called "frame narratives". For example, Islamic extremists might fit into an "domination" frame narrative, which means that they would take over everyone and enforce a specific set of doctrines or beliefs. Or another similar group might fit into an "isolationist" frame narrative, and simply push away everything that does not agree with their own worldview. The point that he drew from this was that all world religions, including Christianity, have been informed by these frame narratives, and that we need to get away from them and simply focus on the Kingdom as Jesus Christ described it. To go back to the beginning of his talk, he explained how he had come to where he is today. He noticed many years ago that the church was very concerned with one certain list of things, such as homosexuality, drinking, swearing, and that it was completely disconnected from real world problems, such as poverty and environmental issues. He saw a separation between these two lists of specific issues, and wondered why we as Christians were not concerned with the things on this second list. I disagree that the second list was irrelevant to Christianity, but this was one of his major points.

Now, through all of this, he did not make any profound theological statements, and I did not hear anything that I felt disagreed with Scripture. However, he did not once reference Scripture, and he vaguely avoided questions from the audience about what he believed to be the message of the gospel, and the central role of Christ in our lives as Christians. In general, he was simply evasive and vague. In the end, much of what he said was fluff and nothing new, at least to me.

What strikes me, though, after hearing some discussion about it among friends, has to do with the way we reacted to him as a student body. Having heard and read a little more about Brian McLaren's theological views and positions, I can say that I probably disagree with him on a lot of things. However, in the course of asking questions, I feel that the student body in general came with many presuppositions and simply a poor attitude. Some of the questions were pointed and loaded, more with the intent to publicly paint him in a bad light than to earnestly engage in discussion. I say this as the devil's advocate, though I disagree with Brian's theological views (which he did not state last night). I am concerned that we as Christians are more worried about being right than having a gentle, open, discerning heart. Here at Taylor we hear from many people that already agree with our worldview, and these things are reinforced for us; I feel as though last night shows that we are not very prepared to engage other worldviews, ones that might be contrary to the Bible, in a way that is representative of Jesus and his love. I would prefer to be known as a listener, than a talker, though if you have read this far I have already proven myself wrong. But I think you understand what I mean.

These things make me think quite a bit, and I could write a lot more about this and related topics, but I'll end here. Thanks for reading this far, this was definitely a harangue.