Aug 29 2006
Open Source/Any Source Theology
News Forge carries a piece on the further devolution of the church [can we call it that anymore?] into random, postmodernist swill. The current flavor of the day is tagged “open source theology”. The title is derived from open source software, which refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit.
Now that idea has been extended to religion.
[Open source theology] is an offshoot of the emergent church branch of Christianity. The founder of the open source theology movement, Andrew Perriman, says he started it “out of the conviction that if there is such a thing as the emerging church … it urgently needs an emerging theology. In the narrative world of the emerging culture, open source developers are the good guys — quirky, generous, iconoclastic heroes — and the commercial producers are the bad guys, with Microsoft dominating the axis of evil.” Perriman says that in this postmodern culture, the Christian church is struggling to “rebuild credibility” and needs to change its theology from one that has generated by so-called “experts” to an open source theology that is the product of “public conversation. It is exploratory, open-ended, incomplete, less concerned to establish fixed points and boundaries than to nurture a thoughtful and constructive dialogue between text and context.”
Perriman first encountered open source software and philosophies when he began using Postnuke. “I had been looking for a way to post some theological articles on the Web and see if I could generate some discussion around them — this was before blogging really took off,” he says. “The search for low-cost software solutions coincided with a growing awareness that theology — evangelical theology in particular — was going through some sort of transition or crisis, and was on the lookout for new methods, a new rhetoric, new ways of formulating old truths, and perhaps even a quite radical overhaul of old truths.“
Sounds like the same old song and dance: truth is what you make it and we certainly can’t be bound by the authoritarian dictates of Scripture. Yechh…
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August 29th, 2006 at 13:25 pm
[...] Uncle Steve, of the Careful Thought blog in my blogroll, has posted something on this topic in his blog today, and it’s worth a peep. [...]
August 29th, 2006 at 14:02 pm
You might read some of this RE the emergent church….I particularly loved Mark Driscoll’s great, albeit naughty and scathing commentary on the pitfalls of the emergent movement. He ended up having to apologize. I believe, though he was only wrong in spirit:
Chuck’s first article: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/012/24.72.html
McLaren’s response: http://www.youthspecialties.com/arti…pen_letter.php
Chuck’s response to McLaren’s response:
http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives…ponse_128.html
Mark Driscol’s rant against McLaren: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ou…laren_o_2.html
McLaren’s response: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ou…laren_o_3.html
Mark’s Apology: http://www.theresurgence.com/apology
August 31st, 2006 at 04:04 am
Steve, I’m curious to know how you infer from that quote that open source theology in principle entails a refusal to be bound by the ‘authoritarian dictates of Scripture’. I agree that there are some within the emerging church movement who don’t like some of the things that scripture appears to teach. But from my observation there are plenty of people who would regard themselves as mainstream or conservative evangelicals whose behaviour and thought falls a long way short of the standards set by scripture. None of us is righteous, not one.
In my view the emerging church should be profoundly and consistently biblical - more, not less, biblical than traditional evangelicalism. The question is whether we have always and in all respects read the Bible correctly. Broadly speaking, the post-modern perspective has done two important things. It has made us more careful about how we formulate and assert truth statements (very different to saying that truth is what you make of it); and it has brought into focus the narrative and historical context of scripture. A lot of confusion and ‘random postmodernist swill’ has admittedly been produced in the process, but I think that in the long run the mission of the people of God will benefit greatly from this rethinking of what it means to be faithful to the biblical narrative.
What I would ask from you is that you refrain from making hasty judgments and take time to engage constructively (and if necessary critically) with people who for the most part are trying very hard to understand what it means to live faithful Christ-like lives in a changing world.
August 31st, 2006 at 09:04 am
Andrew,
I suppose I am a literalist when it comes to Scripture and will stand on its authority as the inspired Word. We read and interpret it as the Holy Spirit leads. Obviously when we stray from the leading of the Spirit and instead apply our own man-based interpretation we very quickly find ourselves on shaky ground.
Societies and cultures change, but the eternal is, well, eternal. The quotes that concerned me in the NewsForge piece were highlighted in my post: “open source theology that is the product of public conversation” and “evangelical theology in particular — was going through some sort of transition or crisis, and was on the lookout for new methods, a new rhetoric, new ways of formulating old truths, and perhaps even a quite radical overhaul of old truths.”
Scripture and its interpretation is not consensus-driven, it’s God driven.
August 31st, 2006 at 11:06 am
Steve said, “Scripture and its interpretation is not consensus-driven, it’s God driven.”
Amen to that. It’s too easy to find a consensus of those who would really like for Scripture to not be an authority to which we must submit. That whole bit about authority, submitting, etc. is a sticky subject within our culture. It’s a short trip to find someone who has “discovered” something in Scripture (or another source!) that releases them from that requirement.
It’s much easier to talk about Scripture and debate its meanings and its mandates (and to discredit various authors of various books, or debate whether or not a particular book should have been canonized) than to actually do what it says.
August 31st, 2006 at 15:54 pm
Steve, I’d like to know how you determine when an interpretation is Spirit-led and when it is man-based. And what do you mean by ‘literalist’? What would a literalist reading of the sentence ‘Pull your socks up and go get a job’ be? Should the addressee literally pull his socks up before going out to look for work? I’m not trying to be clever. It always puzzles me when people claim to read the scriptures literally - especially when they then say that they interpret it as the Holy Spirit leads. What if the Spirit says, ‘Don’t read that literally, that’s a metaphor’? Or ‘Don’t take that literally, it’s the poetic language of prophecy’? Or ‘Don’t take that literally, it belongs in a different context’? Where does this principle of literal interpretation come from? Does scripture demand to be read literally.
As for your other point, to my way of thinking there is a fairly straightforward and necessary distinction to be made between scripture as a God-given text and theological discourse, which is our attempt to make sense of that text. This is not about selective use of scripture to suit our personal preferences. It is about whether the practice of theology in the church does justice to the text. My argument would be that the sort of literalism that you advocate does not do justice to the text, it is (you might say) unbiblical. Of course, you won’t accept that, but my point is simply that I am as keen as you are to honour the Word of God. For various and complex reasons, we disagree about what this means, but the right response is not to hurl insults but to seek better understanding.
Incidentally, how much of Open Source Theology have you read? The site hosts an open conversation about what sort of theological discourse is needed following the collapse of modernism and more importantly perhaps the demise of Christendom. It would be too much to say that a clear-cut or definitive theological position is arising out of this conversation. It is only a conversation. But I would venture to say that God is using it to reshape the Christian mind for the new state of affairs that is emerging.
August 31st, 2006 at 16:49 pm
Andrew,
Perhaps “literalism” is a poor choice of wording. As you’ve stated, there are many forms of literature in Scripture, from the poetic to the historical and prophetic. Even a strict literalist wouldn’t seek to interpret the poetry of the Song of Solomon in the same context as the history of Chronicles or the prophecy of Daniel or Revelation. Still, there is a tendency in post-modern/emergent circles to play down the plain language of Scripture when it doesn’t suit. Then again, maybe that’s just a human trait.
And you’re on track if you seek to honor the Word, though not as a literary work, but rather as the inspired and revealed Word of God.
A couple of your points are troubling: the implied “demise of Christendom” and the perceived need “to reshape the Christian mind for the new state of affairs that is emerging.” Christendom, read as the active, believing body of Christ (i.e., His church), is not in danger. Specific denominations or modes of worship may come and go, even modes of interpretation of the Word may evolve, but God is unchanging. He doesn’t change in response to the culture. If there is a need to reshape the Christian mind, it is to point it back to Scripture and more specifically, back to the risen Christ. Anything else is fluff.
Yes, I’ve seen a lot that comes from emergent circles. I found Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz to be very self-indulgent, to the point of being tiresome. Miller (and the “emergent church”) doesn’t seem to want to give primacy to Christ. There is emphasis on personal interpretation of the divine that is reminiscent of Unitarian thought.
September 1st, 2006 at 02:46 am
Steve, thanks for engaging over these issues. A few comments in response…
I wouldn’t regard honouring scripture as a literary work and honouring it as the ‘inspired and revealed word of God’ as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I don’t think we can properly understand how scripture informs us without taking into account its distinctive literary and historical character.
By ‘Christendom’ I do not mean the ‘active, believing body of Christ’ but the church as a dominant cultural, intellectual and political force in the West. Things may look different in the US but Christendom in Europe is effectively a thing of the past - and the likelihood is that the same thing will happen in America (I would recommend Stuart Murray’s books Post-Christendom and The Church After Christendom). This constitutes a massive adjustment and I would suggest that we ignore it at our peril. The fact is - whether you like it or not - the mind of the church is changing, and I think we have to face the challenge to rethink what it means to be Christian in the world courageously and biblically. Of course the risen Christ is central to this, but to dismiss everything else as fluff is irresponsible.
I’m sure you’re right that Christ gets omitted from a lot of emerging discourse, but my impression has been (perhaps again from the European perspective) that the desire to follow Jesus is a key characteristic of the emerging church.
Finally, I was curious to know specifically whether you had read much on http://www.opensourcetheology.net. The website is part of the emerging church conversation, but it does not pretend to represent any sort of emerging consensus, and many people who contribute would probably not want to be labelled as emergent.
September 5th, 2006 at 21:15 pm
I keep telling folks, we have just entered the phase where we have a liberal charismatic/evangelical branch. It seems to be a history repeating itself thing.
I also loved the same quote that Karen commented on, so I’ll let that stand.
September 14th, 2006 at 22:52 pm
[...] This is the dangerous trap that McLaren, Andrew Perriman, Donald Miller and the rest of the emergents fall into - they seem to hate “the Church” and seek to recreate it in the shape of a social organization solving the social ills of society, unencumbered by a risen, atoning Christ or the need for Christlikeness. [...]