A crisis of faith & life (3)

It is here that the theologians of the exile can help us in hearing and responding to the call of God:

• First, because they have been there before us - they were the divorcees of God – we can understand from them something of why we feel as we do.
• Second, because their pattern of reflection and re-interpretation based on the tradition gives a biblical means of reviving our roots and re-claiming our disputed lineage. We need to dream up what Church is and can be for future generations all over again. As a start, we could re-examine our biblical and church heritage by retelling the stories to ourselves and to others. This is where developments in narrative theology and storytelling may be of some use to us in finding a way forward. Graham Cray has argued that we are a ‘hinge generation’ making the transition between a Church that was addressing modernity and one that will in future address post-modernity and beyond. Therefore, we should not expect to have all the answers to hand but instead should engage in a re-examination of our roots in order to imagine our future on a scale that is at least equal to that of the theologians of the exile.
• Third, our interim strategy should involve the threefold approach of assimilation, voicing hurt and articulating hope:
  
  · Assimilation: as we operate within a culture which is at best ambiguous towards Christianity, the Church needs to develop the Joseph’s, Daniel’s, Nehemiah’s and Esther’s for our generation. These will be people able to be hidden advocates for our faith and able too from within to show up the inadequacies of the dominant culture and point that culture towards Christ. The examples of The Relationship Foundation and Work Structuring Ltd give us two models from the worlds of public policy and work that provide hints about the way to go;
  
  · Voicing hurt: following Jesus – who has removed all the barriers to intimacy - we should expect to move corporately into the intimate relationship with God that these theologians experienced individually, thinking and acting as God does. Our experience as the body of Christ should be that we think with the mind of Christ. Jesus’ thought and action was modelled on the suffering servant and our aim should be to live as Jesus’ body in and through that same model.
  
  · Articulating hope: we need to protest the present because it hurts and is less desirable and faithful than what is promised in the theological tradition. Hope springs from hurt and therefore the future will only be re-imagined if we do not feel satisfied with the present. We need to make common cause with those most hurt by the dominant culture because God hears and wants to respond to their cries through us. They are also in the places where the inadequacies of the dominant culture are most apparent. Common cause can also be made with those identifying judgement on the dominant culture. Judgement on consumer capitalism is most likely to come through the changes that it has and is making to the eco-system. We need to further develop our theology of green issues speaking and acting publicly and symbolically in this arena.

In the West we exist within a time of crisis. We are the generation for whom the city has fallen - the ‘hinge generation’ existing between paradigms. Our experience may be of exile, loss, and bereavement, the ending of our known world. This experience can be a means of identification with Jesus in suffering, a means of entering in to the paradigm of the suffering servant – a paradigm that is more authentically Christian than that of the dominant culture – and a means of entering into a mature, intimate relationship with our God. Our God is a God of new beginnings, of fresh starts. He is the resurrection God and, therefore, the one who gives hope that we can rise from the ruins:

“There ain’t nobody asks to be born There ain’t nobody wishes to die Everybody whiles away the interim time Sworn to rise from the ruins by and by

The engines are droning with progress The pistons are pounding out time And it’s you and me caught in this juggernaut jaunt Left to rise from the ruins down the line

We will roll like an old Chevrolet The road to ruin is something to see Hang on to the wheel For the highway to hell needs chauffeurs For the powers that be

Go and tell all your friends and relations Go and say what ain’t easy to say Go and give them some hope That we might rock this boat And rise from the ruins one day

Ever try to carry water in a basket Ever try to carry fire in your hand Ever try to take on the weight of the everyday freight Til’ you find that you’re too weak to stand

Why so pale and wan, fond lover Why so downcast and desperately sad We can walk, we can talk We ain’t yet pillars of salt We will rise from the ruins while we can."

(Mark Heard - Rise from the Ruins)

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The Mark Heard Tribute Project - We Know Too Much.