Here's the continuation of my response to your blog post and my petition asking Adam to consider withdrawing from the ordination process in the PC(USA).
5) You write,
What historians know but Tony doesn't seem to understand is that he is following precisely the path of the American Fundamentalists of the 1900s. In their zeal to create a purer, more faithful church, they ended up attacking fellow believers and crippling what should have been a golden age of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am calling on Tony and others to stop this destructive behavior now, before it's too late.
Your statement here is particularly untrue. First of all, I don't know that everyone would concur with your verdict that the Christian fundamentalism crippled the spreading of the gospel. Instead, A) I think many would say that mainline Protestantism's embrace of historical critical methods in the late 19th century left biblical literalists with little choice but to propose an alternative. B) There's little evidence that liberals would have ever developed much interest in "spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ." C) The chasm between liberalism and fundamentalism gave rise to the mid-20th century evangelicalism of which our alma mater, Fuller Seminary, is a product.
But second, and more importantly, there is a great difference between what I am doing and what the fundamentalists of the 1890s were doing. They were, as you say, zealous for a purer, more faithful church -- a zeal driven by theology. My dispute with denominationalists is surely not theological. No, my quest is more like that of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Simons, Wesley, and Wimber. I see a system that has outgrown its usefulness, and I am calling those who run that system to reform it, radically and immediately.
What is most strange to me in your response is the line, "Leave the 'fixing' of the denominations to those of us who care about them." I imagine that the Catholic bishop in Geneva might have said that very thing to John Calvin as Calvin railed against the abuses of the papacy and the magisterium. Your desire to silence a provocative and dissenting voice from outside your system is on par with the Diet of Worms considering Luther's writings to be destructive to what they'd built. Similarly, the Anglicans had no patience for Wesley, riding around on the frontier and ordaining whomever he considered called to preach and teach the gospel.
Don't you see that you and your fellow denominationalists are on the opposite side of this argument than the progenitors of your movements? To me, the voices who say, "Shut up and leave us alone to reform our system from within," sounds a lot like the voices who have stood against reformist movements in the past. You think my vituperations hinder my ability to be heard by others. I'd say the same of Calvin. You think I should be more genteel. You might have said the same of Calvin.
6) At one point in your post, you get quite personal. So let me respond. On global standards, my family of origin is, indeed, "very wealthy." So is yours.
My parents paid for my college education, for which I will be forever grateful. For seminary, they gave me no money. I received a total of $6000 from my home church, with whose Deacon Board I was "in care;" I received an academic scholarship from Fuller during my second and third years there which, to the best of my recollection, was a couple thousand dollars. Otherwise, I put myself through seminary debt-free, working two to three jobs at a time -- youth pastor, high school/college baseball umpire, campus tour guide, and anything else I could find to make a few bucks. While at Princeton, I received the standard fellowship of $12,000 per year for four years, money that came from Princeton's $750 million endowment, not from the PC(USA). Needless to say, a family of five cannot live on that, and I took on significant debt to pursue that degree.
We are, indeed, friends, But you have absolutely no idea about my financial situation at the present moment. I consider it a deep breach of our friendship for you to write, presumptuously and publicly, that "your financial security has never been a hindrance or worry to you." Let me unequivocally state that that is untrue. Honestly, I am shocked that you would write such a thing. [UPDATE: John has posted an apology.]
7) Finally, John, you write, "you should be proposing new agendas (as you do) and helping the rest of us reform existing structures from within." That's exactly what I'm trying to do. An online petition is, of course, a gimmick. My point, as I wrote yesterday, is to expose the ridiculousness of the systems by which people use denominations to exert their power over other people -- like Adam. I'm calling all of us as Protestants to embrace the creed, "the priesthood of all believers." I'm saying that there's no ontological difference between "clergy" and "laity" that enables the former to perform sacerdotal functions, and prohibits the latter from said functions.
I'm saying that your systems have become overgrown and abusive. Reform them, or you will lose a generation of leaders.
Loyalty is not inherently bad, John. But it can be blinding.
Don't you see that you and your fellow denominationalists are on the opposite side of this argument than the progenitors of your movements? To me, the voices who say, "Shut up and leave us alone to reform our system from within," sounds a lot like the voices who have stood against reformist movements in the past. You think my vituperations hinder my ability to be heard by others. I'd say the same of Calvin. You think I should be more genteel. You might have said the same of Calvin.
6) At one point in your post, you get quite personal. So let me respond. On global standards, my family of origin is, indeed, "very wealthy." So is yours.
My parents paid for my college education, for which I will be forever grateful. For seminary, they gave me no money. I received a total of $6000 from my home church, with whose Deacon Board I was "in care;" I received an academic scholarship from Fuller during my second and third years there which, to the best of my recollection, was a couple thousand dollars. Otherwise, I put myself through seminary debt-free, working two to three jobs at a time -- youth pastor, high school/college baseball umpire, campus tour guide, and anything else I could find to make a few bucks. While at Princeton, I received the standard fellowship of $12,000 per year for four years, money that came from Princeton's $750 million endowment, not from the PC(USA). Needless to say, a family of five cannot live on that, and I took on significant debt to pursue that degree.
We are, indeed, friends, But you have absolutely no idea about my financial situation at the present moment. I consider it a deep breach of our friendship for you to write, presumptuously and publicly, that "your financial security has never been a hindrance or worry to you." Let me unequivocally state that that is untrue. Honestly, I am shocked that you would write such a thing. [UPDATE: John has posted an apology.]
7) Finally, John, you write, "you should be proposing new agendas (as you do) and helping the rest of us reform existing structures from within." That's exactly what I'm trying to do. An online petition is, of course, a gimmick. My point, as I wrote yesterday, is to expose the ridiculousness of the systems by which people use denominations to exert their power over other people -- like Adam. I'm calling all of us as Protestants to embrace the creed, "the priesthood of all believers." I'm saying that there's no ontological difference between "clergy" and "laity" that enables the former to perform sacerdotal functions, and prohibits the latter from said functions.
I'm saying that your systems have become overgrown and abusive. Reform them, or you will lose a generation of leaders.
Loyalty is not inherently bad, John. But it can be blinding.
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I have been (mostly) enjoying this exchange with Tony over ordination, which has really become for me a discussion of how Christians treat each other as they push for change. I've posted a longer response to Tony on my own site, which you can read here:
http://ministryintheuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-attempt-at-collegial-rejoinder-to.html
In many ways I'm an odd choice to defend traditional ordination in a denomination. While I am a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PCUSA, most of my career has been spent in non-profit management, mostly in the fringes of denominational life. The church I serve now is a multi-denominational congregation in Central London. But I do have enormous respect for my brothers and sisters who have served Christ faithfully and effectively within the institutional structures of the Presbyterian Church, and so I am offering an opposing viewpoint to Tony's 'all babies out with the bathwater' argument.
Wherever else this discussion goes, the crux of my argument is this: The choice of denominational ordination is precisely that. It's a choice, made prayerfully and with integrity, to serve Christ and the world in partnership with, and in submission to, agreed upon organizing principles.
That's it. That's the point I'm trying to make for Tony and his readers. I make no claim of superiority for my Presbyterian tradition, and I would never, ever, argue that only large denominations have the authority to define and practice the ordination of ministers.
I simply want my choice of denominational participation, and the similar choices of others, to be respected in partnership with the groundbreaking work of Tony and other Emergent leaders and thinkers. The attacks really do have to stop. The missiles Tony is sending at those of us in denominations misrepresent the experiences of thousands of ministers, hurt the body of Christ, and they distract us from our true calling: To worship and serve in Christ's name, and to model the transforming love of Jesus to a hurting world. The attacks really do have to stop.
Tony,
I echo the comments of others above to the effect that the notion that emergent or the emerging missional way is the one right way to be church and the denominations, whatever else they may be, are just plain the wrong way to be church, is a non-starter.
The reality is both are limited.
And that means we both need each other.
You can say what you like as an individual demanding denominations change. Your own voice, because you are not part of the life of any of the denominations, may have some resonance here and there but will not have authority. What it will do, since you are also identified as a significant spokesperson for the larger emerging missional movement, is build up unnecessary tension between those of us pursuing that way as part of denominational life and those of us who are not. And the reality is, those of us who are doing so within denominations are not, generally, in positions of power-- at least not yet.
We on the inside continue to try to make the case that emerging missional is not our enemy. Your recent and continuing broadside rants against denominations-- all of them-- are making that argument harder for us to sustain.
I'm not telling you to sit down and shut up, Tony. I've been told to do that before. I hate it when people tell me that. And I don't want to do that to anyone. I am asking you to stop your broadside attacks. And I am asking you to keep raising important questions we need to hear. But that's the point-- ask pointed questions-- don't try to tell us what to do. Especially don't try to demand we meet your vision of things. That just hurts us all.
One last thing-- the "ontological shibboleth." I know of no Christian denomination, anywhere, that embraces the notion that ordination creates an ontological change in the ordained. That idea has been bandied about by Protestants against Roman Catholics and Orthodox for far too long, and it is a gross misrepresentation that actually harms us all. What nearly all of us who believe the Holy Spirit acts decisively in ordination DO say is that here the Holy Spirit, through the church, bestows and seals gifts for the particular work those who are ordained are expected to perform within the church. Like all gifts of these Spirit, these gifts are irrevocable. This is pneumatological action, not ontological change. And these gifts do not make a person better than another-- instead they empower and define the particular role the ordained are to play in the community.
Ordination is thus a further specification, a tighter binding, if you will, for how those ordained will live out the baptismal covenant among the baptized. Ordination is thus defining-- limiting-- as much as it is empowering. It is true too many of the ordained have forgotten that. But not all of us have. And I think those of us in the emerging missional way-- in denominations or otherwise-- may understand this dual reality-- empowering AND binding-- quite deeply.
Peace in Christ...
I appreciate what Taylor Burton-Edwards said (and the tone in which it was said), Tony. I think he's someone worth listening to.
Tony~
I think that it is interesting that you have so easily been offended by a friend talking about coming from a higher socio-economic background (which you do not deny). You would have had a much more difficult path to Fuller and Princeton if you had parents that worked for a meat packing plant in the Midwest or worked the fields in California. Many in the emergent community have finally had the revelation that there are poor and that the Bible actually has a lot to say about them. Welcome to the dance. Yet many of them do not want to admit the backgrounds that they come from and the relative homogeneous nature of their own emergent communities.
Some of us think that this is at the crux of the denominational ordination issue. For every Adam there are 10 to 20 Poor, Latino, African-American or LGBT people that could never undertake such a process in a denominational structure or most emerging ones for that matter. Let's add women in there for the emergents because they are coming quite late to that one. Some women feel quite silenced by their equal "priesthood of all believers" emergent male gurus.
Again I think that it must be hard to hear that you come from an advantaged background. I grew up poor, but in comparison to many that I have worked with in the delta, inner city Chicago and internationally I have experienced abundance that they could never dream of. Hopefully, both experiences will make us more humble, not in judgement. I would like to think about how painful it is to hear such a comment about origins that you have just experienced when you tell people who have a deep love for their church that they are sinners for caring about it and Adam.
I am sorry to hear about the current financial difficulties that you seem to allude to in this post. I hope that maybe this controversy helps you sell more books and get more speaking engagements. I do think that this painful discussion is something that the institutional church must be forced to talk about. I do not have a problem it coming from the outside, I just wish that emergents were more willing to see that they are not immune from the hubris of abusiveness by powerful men.
what about Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Near East Christianity? We are we stuck in evangelical/mainline rut? How relevant is that to the "holy catholic" - universal - church?
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