An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

"Potty Papers" and Daddy

Post by Karen Sloan

Karen Sloan’s Manifesto chapter is about sexual integrity and authenticity. A minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she’s a part of the ‘presbymergent’ conversation. She regularly spends time with those in Catholic orders, which she speaks about in the recently released Flirting with Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths.

Something I took for granted living most of my life in California is that public restrooms will always have toilet seat covers. About two years ago I moved to Connecticut and realized that much of the east coast does not require toilet seat covers in their public restrooms. At some point I must have mentioned this lack to my mom, for last Christmas morning I discovered this gift (http://www.amazon.com/Charmin-Toilet-Seat-Covers-Tissue/dp/B000GCRX9I) tucked among the other things in my stocking. Exactly what this topic has to do with Emergent, I’m not sure. Yet I wanted to share this story about toilet seat covers, or as I now refer to them, “potty papers.”

Last year, while engaged in the expected activity of being in a restroom, I overheard the following conversation. A door to an adjacent stall was opened and a little girl’s voice, with a cry of pure delight, said, “Look Mommy! There is potty papers!”

Mommy responded with calm affirmation, “Yes, and we will have you use one.”

But seeking to make sure that everything happened as the little girl expected, she informed Mommy, “When Daddy helps me, he wipes the seat with toilet paper AND he has a potty paper.”

Now a bit flustered, Mommy said, “Well, this seat looks okay. This time it will be enough to use a potty paper.” Satisfied, the girl says nothing further. Mommy’s voice trails off as she tries to figure out why Daddy would also wipe the seat, saying quietly, “perhaps he’s worried there is water on the seat…”

It was difficult not to laugh during their conversation. The little child’s delight in “potty papers” impacted me. Now when I walk into a restroom on the east coast and notice there are toilet seat covers, I smile with the memory of that overheard conversation. But then it usually makes me a bit sad.

Sad? Why would I be sad?
Oh. No Daddy.

When I was that little girl’s age, Daddy was a part of my life. But I don’t remember him ever being as involved in my welfare as this little girl’s daddy was. Though he tried his best, Daddy would eventually become so shut down that he—first emotionally and then actually—fled our family. Much healing has taken place in my life, yet I will always carry the wound caused by his absence. And sometimes the most surprising things will cause sadness, like overhearing a little girl talk about how her daddy cares for her.

But far sadder is the astounding number of my peers who are also fatherless. It’s an uncomfortable reality: the number of young adults struggling to emerge without a father present, and to work through the wounds that still remain.

For me, a place of deep healing is found when I reflect on the One whom Jesus called Father. As an adopted sister of Jesus, I too can draw near to Our Father. Even as this world is at times horrible, there is a Father who cares dearly for me and empowers me to care for others in my Father’s World.

And while we’re on the subject of toilets, fathers, and faith…thanks sis for sharing this discovery with me.

Practice, Practice, Practice

By Nanette Sawyer

Nanette Sawyer is an artist, writer, and founding pastor of Wicker Park Grace which gathers in an art gallery in Chicago. She has studied at McCormick Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School.

I’m writing a book about hospitality as a spiritual practice, and so, not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking about it hospitality a lot lately! Hospitality is a serious and potentially life-changing practice if we really engage it on a spiritual level. It’s no tea-party thing. Spiritually vibrant hospitality means sharing our lives with others, extending ourselves in order to be truly connected and to offer authentic relationship.

In my chapter in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope I wrote:

“Love is a spiritual practice which matures us as we try and try again to leave behind our isolation, expose our vulnerabilities, and make commitments to care truly for one another.”

Hospitality is about loving people, but sometimes loving ourselves is the hardest thing to do. In order to love other people, though, in order to have something sincere and beautiful to offer to them, we have to love ourselves. We can understand that even though we feel vulnerable, exposing our vulnerabilities doesn’t diminish us, but rather affirms that we are human beings. To pretend that we have “got it all together” keeps us separate from other people, and sets us up to fall pretty hard when it comes out that we are, after all, emotionally “messy” emotionally, needy, and haveing a tendency to make mistakes.

So how do we practice hospitality towards ourselves? One thing that has helped me is to metaphorically walk straight into the vulnerability. It’s almost as though I’m holding God’s hand while I do it, though. God and I walk directly into my fear or shame or whatever. I hold on to God’s hand and God holds on to my hand. I look around and say, “Oh, that’s what I’ve been feeling! Oh, I feel angry and I feel ashamed of feeling angry.” Or whatever it is.
I name the feelings, and then I realize that I am not those feelings. I’m something so much more than the feelings. I’m the one holding God’s hand while I look honestly at myself. And God never let’s go of my hand.

This kind of honest engagement with my own emotions is a spiritual practice which helps me leave behind my human tendency toward isolation, because it helps me feel a deep worthiness from God’s perspective. I feel more connected to God, and I feel more connected to myself—the core of myself.

Once I accept and forgive myself, it’s so much easier to accept and forgive and welcome others. Acceptance, forgiveness, welcome: these are foundational to hospitality and they require practice. Lots of it.

Secular Media, Politics, and An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

By Brian McLaren

Brian McLaren served as church planter and pastor (crcc.org) for twenty-four years, and now is an author, international speaker, and networker active with emergent (emergentvillage.com), Sojourners/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and others. His books include A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and the Secret Message of Jesus. You can learn more about him at brianmclaren.net.

In the last several presidential election cycles, the “Evangelical” identity has been largely synonymous with “the Religious Right” in the secular media (and much religious media too). In recent years, many journalists have become a little more savvy—realizing that the term “Evangelical” is not as monolithic as many people have assumed.

One of the significant players in the deconstruction of the tired and paralyzing polarity of “left/right”, “liberal/conservative”, or “Democrat/Republican” has been Emergent Village. It has transgressed old polarizations on many levels. For journalists seeking to understand the changing religious landscape of the United States during this election cycle, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope will be a must-read. They will discover a mélange of Evangelical, Mainline, and Catholic voices addressing issues of theology, social justice, the environment, poverty, racism, globalization/colonialism, leadership, sustainability, and more.

Museum as Church--Church as Museum

Karen Sloan’s Manifesto chapter is about sexual integrity and authenticity. A minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she’s a part of the ‘presbymergent’ conversation. She regularly spends time with those in Catholic orders, which she speaks about in the recently released Flirting with Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths.

One of my favorite “cathedrals” in Los Angeles is the Getty Museum. Exhibits there will inevitably draw me into prayerful reflection. On a visit earlier this year, the experience of Church was overwhelming. Or more precisely, the experience of being in an ancient Egyptian monastery was magnificent.

Hidden away in an isolated corner, the Eastern Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai has avoided much religious and political conflict. Prayerful people have resided there, seeking an intimate life with the Lord, since the 200s. In centuries of hosting pilgrims who contributed to the monastery, it has gained the largest collection of Byzantine icons anywhere.

I do not expect to make a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai, a place where both Moses and Elijah powerfully encountered God. Yet in the trip up the mountain where the Getty Museum is located, riding the electric people-mover and then walking up the many wide and inviting steps into the temporary Mount Sinai[a1] exhibit, I was drawn into the space. For rather than containing a series of icons hung on a wall, the exhibit’s layout invited viewers to gain a sense of the icons within the context of their monastery. The largest room was even set up as a model of the monastery’s church, with icons and other objects placed accordingly.

In the room beyond the church model, there was a short film playing on life in the monastery. It ended with a reminder from a monk that, even in all the changes globalization is bringing, there remains a need to care for one’s spirit.

By the monastery allowing some of its treasures to travel to museums in major cities, contemporary people are hearing proclamations of the Good News, both ancient and new. The Eastern Orthodox Church is a part of the Church that I had known very little about; this visit to a museum brought me a bit closer to these Christian brothers and sisters.

As I shared about the moving museum exhibit, I also learned of a growing number of Eastern Orthodox churches that are becoming museums (http://www.archeparchy.ca/info/museum.htm) because worshipers no longer gather there. These churches’ beautiful objects, given their depth of meaning, are viewed as something worth maintaining, a witness to faith.

What does it mean for church buildings to be museums, and what does it mean for museums to be church buildings?

Something like LOVE

By Nanette Sawyer

Nanette Sawyer is an artist, writer, and founding pastor of Wicker Park Grace which gathers in an art gallery in Chicago. She has studied at McCormick Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School.

We were discussing my chapter (3) at a dinner gathering at Wicker Park Grace and one person expressed some discomfort with my writing the following:
“…we affirm that we are centered in a generous and dynamic Christianity.”
When I wrote that, in my mind the emphasis was on describing a new way of being Christian, a way which is generous and dynamic. I’m trying to redefine the word “Christian” and reclaim it from its stereotype of being “judgmental.”
The person who felt uncomfortable about this couldn’t go there with me. He could only understand the word “Christianity” to be referring to a historic institution, and he rightly wanted to say that we at Wicker Park Grace are not centered in a historic institution.
He asked the question, “Aren’t we really centered more in something like LOVE?” In his mind, “Christianity” is not and cannot be “something like LOVE.” Really, the whole point I was trying to make is that we can live a “Christianity” which is not only something like love, but which is fundamentally an expression of love. That’s what “walking the love talk,” the subtitle of the last section of my chapter, means.

Nevertheless, I truly understand his discomfort with the word, “Christianity,” and he made me remember again the tremendous struggle with we have with language. I had to question whether I should be much more cautious about using the term “Christianity” for descriptive purposes.
Isn’t it sad that so many people think that Christianity is not something like love?

Where We Stand

By Will Samson

Will Samson is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Kentucky where he is working on research in the areas of sustainability and Christian community. He, his wife, novelist Lisa Samson, and their family are participants in the life of Communality , a missional Christian community in Lexington, KY.

I think one of the most important concepts in philosophy (Hegel) and sociol social theory (Marx, Habermas) is the notion of immanent critique. Among other things, immanent critique assumes that the best place to stand when offering organizational assessment is on the inside. Advice is better heard from a fellow laborer than from a bystander.

I remember a story from my childhood. A friend and I had decided to turn on the hose, which was connected in the garage. The hose leaked, the garage flooded and we were given the task of cleaning it up. Rather than help, my friend leaned on his broom and offering me suggestions. In fact, he kept quoting from a movie he had seen recently, saying, “Move it along, this ain't ain’t no Lover’s Lane.” It was a lot of years before that joke got funny.

An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, by contrast, is written by practitioners. The authors are pastors, missionaries, and community activists. People from the Evangelical world, the mainline, and New Monasticism. When we speak of hope, it is the kind of hope that keeps us all on the inside of this thing we call the Church, our sleeves rolled up,  and our hands on the broom, even when we seem to be sweeping in different directions.

I look forward to the conversations this book will spark and I trust it is a blessing to those laboring in God’s field.

The Concreteness of Writing

By Adam Walker Cleaveland

Adam Walker Cleaveland is an M.Div./M.A. (Youth Ministry) student at Princeton Theological Seminary (will graduate in 2008), blogs regularly at pomomusings.com and does web and graphic design at cleavedesign.com. Adam and his wife Sarah currently live in Decatur, GA and Adam can be contacted at cleave@gmail.com.

I have to be honest; I've I’ve always wanted to write a book. Other than the numerous books I used to write and illustrate for our local county Young Authors’ Conferences, being able to be a part of this writing project is the closest I’ve come to actually writing a book. I’ve got a chapter. And and that feels pretty cool. However, as soon as I finished my chapter, “Presbymergent: The Story of One Mainliner’s Quest to be a Loyal Radical,” I experienced an odd emotion: fear.

The words were now going to be in print— they were going to actually be printed and people were going to read them, and, most likely, some would critique them. I think, perhaps, these are the thoughts of many first-time authors: what if someone doesn’t like my chapter? What if someone blogs(!) about how they don’t like my chapter? But most importantly, what happens if I change my mind?
That was what worried me most, and still does to some degree. What happens if I change my mind? What happens if I don't don’t want to be a loyal radical anymore? What happens if I get fed up with the mainline church and decide I don’t want to be a part of a denomination? I’m currently still in the PCUSA ordination process, and I don’t see anything changing that, but that was something I have been thinking about.

What does it mean to write something that I can’t change? I can go back and edit a post on my blog, but the printed word...that seems so much more concrete, more permanent. However, I do have faith that those who read my chapter...all of our chapters, will share our belief that we are all on a journey — and I'm confident my journey will take me to many places I can’t even imagine right now. If that means I’ll continue to pursue a call in a mainline PCUSA church — wonderful. If God calls me in a new and different direction — I have to honor that as well, whether or not I wrote in a chapter of a book once that I wanted to remain a 'loyal radical.'

Exposing a Secret/Correcting a Myth

By Brian McLaren

Brian McLaren served as church planter and pastor (crcc.org) for twenty-four years, and now is an author, international speaker, and networker active with emergent (emergentvillage.com), Sojourners/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and others. His books include A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and the Secret Message of Jesus. You can learn more about him at brianmclaren.net.

It’s easy to understand why so many people have been saying that “emergent village is a conversation among highly educated, white, middle-class, younger evangelicals.” After all, when Emergent Village puts on events midweek which require air travel and hotel accommodations and rental cars, large numbers of people—notably poor people—are unintentionally excluded. The same is true regarding publishing—which tends to favor certain kinds of “insiders” and disfavors others. The Internet is more egalitarian, but even there blogging still has a kind of elitism. These problems aren’t unique to Emergent Village, of course.

The truth is, emergent did begin with a lot of young, white, male evangelicals (plus some older ones, ahem). But soon, an emerging women’s leaders’ network helped balance the gender difference; simultaneously, the conversation became a hybrid between post-conservative evangelicals and post-liberal mainliners. A number of Roman Catholics and some Eastern Orthodox became involved as well, and people of color are possessing an increasingly high profile.

For evidence of that growing diversity one only needs to read An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. The list of authors shows how diverse the US emergent conversation has become.

Of course, the book is intentionally a manifesto of the emergent village in the United States, which may mislead some people to think that this conversation is exclusively or primarily North American. This would be another misjudgment, but that’s another story.

+++++

On Pseudo-Orthodoxy

By Barry Taylor

Barry Taylor is a Brit who lives and works in LA. He does quite a few things: teaches on theology and contemporary culture at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena as well leading classes on advertising and consumer culture at Art Center College of Design. Taylor also composes music, some of it for films, and spends a lot of time exploring the various intersections between faith and culture.

In my chapter, I write a little bit about how some in the church seem to be held captive by what I term “pseudo-orthodoxy. ” I have noticed a few comments here and there wondering what this means precisely, so I thought I’d clarify it a little. One of the things I have noticed about those who are resistant, fearful, or perhaps just concerned about change (or new theological or ecclesiological explorations) is that they often use a commitment to “orthodox” faith as a way of challenging things they either don’t like or don’t understand. The easiest way to derail something these days, it seems, is to question its legitimacy. Quite often these critiques are couched in an assumption that what is happening in and through the emerging church is somehow a departure from orthodoxy, but I would argue that orthodoxy is not the issue here at all.
Instead, what we are experiencing is a clash of differing visions about how we should view and understand the Christian life. Those who raise the issue of orthodoxy often assume that their view of the faith is somehow more of a direct continuation of ‘traditional’ Christianity than that of the emerging church, but I would argue that their faith has its roots in the encounter between Christianity and the Enlightenment—in other words, it is modern, not classically orthodox.
Marcus Borg writes about this in his book, An Emerging Christian Way, positing that there are two paradigms which he calls quite simply (1) the earlier paradigm, and (2) the emerging paradigm. These paradigms are pulling at each other in the North American Church today. In his view, both are products of modernity, certainly at different ends of the chronological spectrum, but both are engaging with the concepts and constructs that have shaped Western culture for the last few hundred years.  This is what I mean when I speak about “pseudo-orthodoxy.” I call it that because I see it as a call back to modernity, and to a particular period of modernity, as much as anything else. Many of the critics who direct their concerns towards the emerging church and others who are rethinking faith today naïvely assume that their form of “orthodoxy” has a direct line all the way back to the early church and, therefore, is not to be questioned or challenged. I would argue that this orthodoxy is simply a particular manifestation of the Christian faith that is also a particular, cultural manifestation of the very thing they desire to criticize and inhibit; namely, a dialog between faith and cultural context.
   I am all for orthodoxy; I believe in orthodoxy; I am against the idea that modern Christianity has any monopoly on what exactly constitutes orthodoxy, or can assume, out of a misplaced sense of finality about our understanding of the Scriptures, that it has the right to hold people back from exploring. As my friend Pete Rollins might say, orthodoxy is not necessarily about believing the right thing, but believing in the right way. For me, the path to believing in the right way involves questioning the assumptions and the underpinnings of our faith.

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