SPIRITUAL MUSINGS - A New Version of Christianity

A New Version of Christianity.

Yesterday I read some of what Bruce Sterling writes about needing a new version of the Green movement. Some of his thoughts grabbed me as applying directly to the Christian movement also.

He says, concerning today’s environmental movement, “Civil society does not respond at all well to moralistic scolding.” I agree. The old moralistic variety of Christianity does not work, either. Reasonable people do not respond to the church’s moralisms of the past. Moralisms are those fussy, sex-focused, rulesy, pronouncements from church clerics who don’t seem to know the difference between the fresh wind of the Spirit and an institutional fart. Jesus’ ethical guidelines were quite clean, fresh, and simple – If it’s loving do it. If it’s not loving, don’t do it.

He continues with, “This can’t be one of these diffuse, anything-goes, eclectic, postmodern things. Forget about that, that’s over, that’s yesterday. It’s got to be a narrow, doctrinaire, high-velocity movement. Inventive, not eclectic. New, not cut-and-pasted from the debris of past trends.”

The postmodern version of Christianity has brought some good things, but it is not enough. It is diffuse, anything-goes, and eclectic, considering that the essence of being progressive. Postmodern Christianity drifts into New Age eclecticism. Let’s take a little bit of this religion, a little bit of that, a little bit of all religions, blend it together, and call it the new spirituality. After all, we want to be inclusive. It considers focusing on Jesus to be narrow and doctrinaire. But that is exactly what we need. Being all things to all people means that we are two miles wide and two inches deep. I find that Jesus gives me that “narrow, high velocity” path that this new age now needs. Give me those high velocity rapids that cram a lazy river into a rushing torrent of heady, white water rafting.

He writes, “About abundance of clean power and clean goods and clean products, not conservative of dirty power and dirty goods and dirty products. Explosive, not thrifty. Expansive, not niggling. Mainstream, not underground. Creative of a new order, not subversive of an old order. Making a new cultural narrative, not calling the old narrative into question.”

Traditional Christianity not only appears “dirty” to an increasing number of people today, it is dirty! We desperately need a “clean” version – one that smell clean, looks clean, and is clean. That’s what Jesus brought to the Jewish culture 2000 years ago and eventually the whole world. But his freshness has gotten dirty with the debris of religious institutionalism and bogged down in the past. I love the words “explosive, not thrifty, expansive, not niggling, mainstream, not underground. Those of us Christians yearning for more need to explode, expand and unniggle! We no longer need to hide underground. Not only are we mainstream, we are the future!

As we create a new order, we do not need to focus on how bad the old order is. We must save our energy for shouting the new, not blasting the old. (Although am occasional blast or two can be helpful.)

Finally, Sterling challenges us with, “The limits aren’t to be found in the technology anymore. The limits are behind your own eyes, people. They are limits of habit, things you’ve accepted, things you’ve been told, realities you’re ignoring. Stop being afraid. Wake up. It’s yours if you want it. It’s yours if you’re bold enough.”

Yes, the church needs to embrace every new technology at hand to spread its message. But the limits as behind our own eyes. Those of us at the edge cannot afford to be afraid. We can be as bold as Jesus was in his day. The Spirit of Jesus comes to us from the future, not the past. It lures us into the realm of God that is ahead of us, not behind us. It builds on the past but is in no way limited to the past. It dares to boldly go where no one has gone before.

This is what the Spirit is saying to the churches today!


©Paul R. Smith 2009

Quotes from Bruce Sterling, Enlightenment Next.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j38/bright-green.asp