kester blogged yesterday a piece on whether what has emerged is retreating
i rang him to chat about it (old school conversation?!). i was thinking i wouldn't blog about it even though i was implicated as some sort of a sell out by working with institutions - can't see much point in getting defensive. i suggested to kester that his post was romantic tosh! well today he has blogged about our conversation saying that i said that so i'm left with little choice but to say something...
here's a few thoughts.
i say it's romantic because the track record of people leaving institutions to effect change whether in political or religious life is pretty poor. it seems a romantic idea of course. but the new institution free zone is also run by broken humans so can be as life denying or life giving as the institution it left which is also run by broken human beings. in fact my own experience is that new things have a tendency to become more dogmatic and controlling than the very things they left with no system in place for passing on leadership - check the house church movement of the seventies as a case in point. this view was re-inforced for me when i read nation of rebels which i have mentioned on here before which has a pop at guardian reading lefties who sit at dinner parties theorising about change and being counter cultural. heath and potter point out that change is invariably from those who have engaged in the political process over the long term, gone on civil rights marches, campaigned and so on. in that sense being alternative may be a poor strategy for change.
secondly the church is not an oppressive or repressive regime at least not in this country! i'm not sure what churches kester has being going to but they sound like a cartoon. there is plenty of research around that suggest that if you have a local church in your community it will be full of people who make life better giving themselves away on behalf of others in the community, getting involved in soup runs, parent associations, prison visiting - generally all round kind and caring people. ok it's not news to say that there are churches that are time warped or frustrating or with controlling leaders - welcome to broken humanity and an environment of massive cultural change that virtually every institution has struggled to navigate. but at a time when there has been an amazing amount of permission giving and creativity and energy around new forms of church i am baffled at kester's depressing take on church. rowan williams and desmond tutu must be up there on his hero list?!
thirdly for change it is wonderful to have newness at both the centre and the edge. i am a stuck record on this - apologies. but i have tried to celebrate with generosity both organic/emerging communities that have left institutions. and those that have either renewed from within or been birthed in and out of institutions. i thank god for both and for the loyal radicals who have remained faithful and the pioneers who have sailed off the edges. that is how change happens. again kester suggests there is nothing happening in the church in the uk - again i am absolutely baffled how you can say that at a moment when the energy around newness has been noticed by so many other people. i was at a weekend this last weekend full of inspiring people sharing faith and creating community in mission - half organic outside of structures and half inside - not that that was a question/judgement that was bothering anyone who was there. i actually think there is a whole wave of small organic communities meeting in homes that is probably the kind of thing kester is hoping is happening! but as an example of old and new the recent day with old monks and nuns meeting and sharing wisdom felt to me much more like a picture of the hopeful exchanges that are taking place as the church (an organic system after all) self organises for the future.
fourthly i suggested in my conversation with kester that perhaps he should start homeschooling as he is teacher before accusing people in another sphere for selling out by taking a paid role in an institution. you can't have it both ways. he works for a privileged institution (privately funded) that has entrusted education to professionals for an outcome of enabling them to learn and grow to presumably earn a crust and grow up to be creative human beings. well the church exists for transformation (the liturgy after the liturgy as discussed in the last post) and appoints professionals to enable a learning transforming community. there are crap schools and there are crap churches. but get some consistency kester - in the comments on the post you even recommend to readers to go to church house bookshop to buy your book - purrrrrleeease!!!
and ordination... well of course it has problems. and i'm sure we share many frustrations on it. but the church is going to recognise and appoint leaders - of course it will. though simple economics mean there will be less paid roles. self funding and bi-vocational is the way forward for pioneers i have no doubt. the church has also recognised that the current cultural change is calling for a different kind of leadership and created a new category for that. why be surprised that people are going for that? and it's not for the money or to run back to mummy - i really don't believe that. it's not an easy path - ask anyone doing it. of course some people are leading outside of that - and great. let's have both! i do worry of course that the power of the old will swallow the new.
and as for me selling out - i choose to connect with both the centre and the edge. i've tried to be bi-lingual i guess. i am currently developing leadership training. i suspect most of that will be for people not getting ordained but i really hope some that are getting ordained will be able to go this route because i think it will be brilliant! why not?
i also don't buy the overall narrative that kester spells out of what has emerged retreating. it's his own story - of vaux and communities that did leave institutions. but a ton of us have never actually left. i have always been part of a community that is part of the church of england. that doesn't mean i always will. but my gut instinct is that i want to be connected in to the wider body of christ historically and globally and the c of e has enough space for creative communities to thrive within its edges. i appreciate that the narrative kester spells out is shared by others but it's by no means the dominant one. but i totally appreciate people on that journey and the contributions they bring. i loved what vaux had to offer and was saddened to see it go.
back to kester's new book which i'm half way through and enjoying. he mentions this in his last post that to mature as persons is to take responsibility as parents to bring the new to birth. people taking the risk of putting legs on ideas and living christian community life in the way of christ whether in the institution, on its edges or beyond its edges are all a gift to the world as they take up that mantle.
kester and i are good friends, we regularly take the rip out of each other, support rival football teams and send fruity text messages around games to each other. so please don't read into this anything more than a conversation we have had and are having and will have over a beer. i am not anticipating writing more posts on this - enough said, maybe too much
Glad to read this. I'm thinking it all through...
Peace.
Posted by: Adam Moore | June 22, 2010 at 05:45 PM
Good post Jonny. Just point me to the bit in my posts where I suggest you've 'sold out'?! I didn’t mean to suggest that, and apologise if that’s what you’ve implied.
I also tried to be very clear in my posts that my inability to think of something that excited me was 'a critique of my own failings'. Yes, I am frustrated with my own church experience, but I'm happy to admit that's mostly my own expectations and hang-ups, and I'd never want to deny the brilliant stuff some churches are doing - I just don't see it connecting particularly well with culture in general: the church is still a by-word for homophobia and irrational thinking.
On the education thing, I don't buy your parallel. Schools are unique institutions - private or otherwise - because education is compulsory. If you wanted to use that parallel, one might consider the case of the teacher who becomes disillusioned with school-based education, takes up home-schooling, but then when things get tough goes back into the mainstream.
What’s wrong with that? Well, nothing. And my point was not a dig at institutions at all. Seriously, I'm not sure where you've picked that up. You’re right to say that they are a fact of life. The post was really not much more than an observation of one particular vector: that which has emerged has retreated. I didn’t intend any value judgement, and on re-reading don’t perceive one from what I’ve written.
However, I do think that that trajectory is interesting. In my perception – which again I’ve tried to balance with an acknowledgement of my limitations – people were moving away from institutional forms, but many leaders of those groups have now re-entered institutions. And those who were moving away were critical, but now have become more institutionalised and conservative - again, that's just an observation of that vector and, as you say, "I do worry of course that the power of the old will swallow the new."
And in a plea for consistency – you have to be joking about pointing someone looking for a central London bookshop to Church House Bookshop?! Come on mate! I'm pleased about the permission-giving going on - but that's not what the post was on about. So don't worry Rowan or Desmond, you can rely on my support!
(And Chelsea - well, don't get me started ;-)
Posted by: KB | June 22, 2010 at 06:16 PM
Sorry meant 'that's what you think I'd implied'
Posted by: KB | June 22, 2010 at 06:17 PM
The bi-lingualism is a helpful way to approach it. For some of us, we are perfectly comfortable conversing in both traditional and new forms and don't find it difficult to operate in both, switch between both and introduce one to the other. For those who come into new forms there can be a huge depth to be gained by connecting with the traditional and for those who have known only the inherited there is a freedom and release by learning to listen to and speak with a new language.
Of course, a language is at its best when listening and speaking complement each other.
Posted by: Christine Dutton | June 22, 2010 at 06:30 PM
I appreciate your exchanges. I have been attracted to the Emerging Church movement for what it offers my parish by way of reinforcing our emphases on Jesus' life and ministry, his proclamation of the kingdom, and engaging local ministries and needs. I would also second from an American and Episcopal Church perspective Jonny's commment: "the new institution free zone is also run by broken humans so can be as life denying or life giving as the institution it left which is also run by broken human beings. in fact my own experience is that new things have a tendency to become more dogmatic and controlling than the very things they left." That has been our experience. People who leave for negative reasons-- i.e., those who escape from what they perceive as a failed or flawed institution-- tend not only to become what they flee, but also to splinter from the successor group when it loses its "purity."
Posted by: Bill Roberts | June 23, 2010 at 12:37 AM
Great blog and liked the way you picked through the issues. A personal perspective, from someone deeply involved in the 'house church' of the 70s and beyond. The most discouraging part of that scene was the rapid move toward institutionalisation that took place. Mid 90s I completed a thesis on the shaping eschatology behind the house churches in the UK. It was at a time of many emerging shapes / ideas circulating. I anticipated that there would be a welcoming of those concepts, and a response to the challenges, and even a renewing that would take place. But...
My take is that many simply closed in, saw their movement as the centre, and structure took over.
Emerging language is important. However, often institutions learn the language and end up shutting down change.
I write as one who is seeking to make a journey beyond the institution - ever mindful of the (right) critique of the lack of historical influence by many of those who have embarked on that journey. I also write as one who has connected to the established scenario in city contexts. But I also write as one who is highly sceptical of all forms of centralisation. So, of course, my 'support' is for those who are disconnected institutionally.
Posted by: Martin Scott | June 23, 2010 at 10:58 AM
Off the topic, but in the UK the preferred term is usually "home education" rather than the American usage "home schooling".
I assume this to be because in the US, where in many States the regulations are more draconian than here, the decision to home school children appears to be made more often on religious grounds and is seen as replacing/replicating school. Whereas in the UK the decision is often based more directly upon educational philosophy.
Posted by: Jonathan - a different one :) | June 23, 2010 at 11:58 AM
Oh yes Jonathan a different one, what a brilliant statement by someone how must have a vast knowledge of that damn Yankee home schooling system. Unfortunately for u ur wrong because of ur broad generalization. now I'm sure u make ur assertion based on the only news to come out of hmschooling in the US is stories about fundamentalist who have brain washed their children through hmschooling. But to sum up how we as Americans use this alternative to how it is used across the Atlantic as we r draconian and u all r so much more advanced in ur use is insulting. I'm sure there are Just as many in the UK who use it on religious grounds as there are americans who use it because of philosophical difference. I live in Los Angeles one of the most disfunctional educational institutions around which is y I and many of my friends were hmschooled. What's ur expertise?
Posted by: Jmathies | June 23, 2010 at 06:53 PM
Hey Jonny (and Kester),
You appear to have hit a nerve - I feel your pain! I speak as one who gave up my role as a clergyman over these issues, but who now considers my reasons for this to have been misguided.
This feels like a very similar conversation to the one that some Christians have about working in politics and government. Some want to 'get their hands dirty'; others refuse to make the many inevitable compromises. Most of us have fundamental values that trump others. It would appear that Kester's desire for moral purity and autonomy trump institutionalism and church, but not the pleasure of teaching and making a living.
I think this is partly an indicator of how much our society has changed over 100 years. Privatised individualism is becoming not only the norm, but the ideal: when the Guardian switched to the Lib Dems I realised how entrenched the worship of individual freedom has become among so called 'lefties', who now despise any notion of socialism.
For an older generation, community has always been one of the benefits of being part of church, but now it feels like one of the costs, something counter-cultural. From a broader cultural perspective, Kester is the conformist, Jonny the rebel!
In my study of education I came across a great quote, which I now can't find! However it went something like this: 'the institution is the enemy of best practice, but without the institution no idea of best practice is ever handed on.' Or something.
I think this is a vital debate, particularly as I believe the future of the church in the UK to be located in the very large and the very small. Whether one or other is 'right', or will endure, I really don't know...
Zygmunt Bauman has written brilliantly on this issue in a broader context (particularly how we deal with the victory of individualism over community): 'Exit Homo Politicus, Enter Homo Consumens' www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/citizenship/Zygmunt%20Bauman.doc
Having said all that I'm not sure that being a romantic is a bad thing!
Posted by: Simon Hall | June 24, 2010 at 09:00 AM
kester sorry you feel i have not been been fair but your comments and posts are value laden rather than neutral - choosing the term retreat in the title of your post, finding ordination troubling, suggesting people have got conservative etc. in fact if i was ordained i'd feel pretty judged especially having read your take on it in the book.
my comment about church house bookshop was of course humourous - i'm delighted there is a shop people can go to to get your (and other) books. but it's just a cheeky example of how instutions are part of our lives and that you are engaging with and feeding off.
martin thanks for dropping by - i now feel bad that i used the house church as an example. i did find it an exciting/liberating movement initially though that seemed to morph. i'm interested in your take on it. i don't know if our paths have crossed but i have heard your name many times - hope life is good for you...
si i think the point you are raising is so important and along with steve hollinghurst's comment on one of kester's posts that this is about navigating mission in a new cultural space whether in or out of institutions are the two most poignant comments as far as i am concerned. i have been thinking since reading the posts and kester's book a lot about individualism and bizarrely about zygmunt bauman so it's weird you mention him. i think you name the big issue that this trajectory sets up. i hope you are well - been a while since we caught up.
Posted by: jonny | June 24, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Good stuff Simon, though I think your move to set up institutional forms of faith as the rebellious mode is spurious, and could be equally applied to anything that was unpopular. Neat trick, but invalid move in my book!
I do sincerely hope that no one would what I've written as some sort of expression of worship of individualism. Ouch - that's precisely what I don't want! Interestingly, my currently writing is building towards a piece doing a double critique of Marx and Christianity. They were both hugely interested in community and alienation - and I'm convinced that the deeper message of both has been lost in cheap jibes about 'socialism' being bad and 'christianity' being backward. So yes, I'd want to cheer on a communal message.
Your words about the church being located in the very large and very small seems to fit with my latter piece arguing that the Church (big C) will remain eternal, while churches (little c) will form and disappear and re-form. It's this fluid, jubilee infected idea of institutions that I want to see. NOT the disappearance of them!
http://www.kesterbrewin.com/2010/06/23/has-what-emerged-retreated-returning-to-institutions-3/
Jonny - as I said to you on the phone, I enjoy using hyperbole, and I hope people 'get' that. But I did feel that taking the message that I'd said you'd 'sold out' was harsh - when in fact I'd said how good your stuff was... Just to reiterate again - I'm not anti-institution! We can't live without them. But if we leave them to 'harden' without critique - a danger of taking Si's move above and accepting them as some sort of act of rebellion - then they will, and do, do damage to people.
Posted by: KB | June 25, 2010 at 07:39 AM
the emerging schism!
Posted by: Ben Edson | June 25, 2010 at 09:26 AM
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, gents.
Kester, I think what I observe among people playing with ecclesiology (I mean that respectfully) is that most end up in communities of people just like themselves. I hope that the future of church includes encounters with 'the other': Christians who are not like me, my neighbours, people of other faiths or none, God. And beyond encounters, community. This kind of community has a high cost for autonomous individuals, a cost Bauman reckons we are no longer willing to pay. In that sense - of committing to a 'community of others' - I see church as counter-cultural and authentically Christian.
The instituional stuff I can take or leave - I'm a non-conformist!
S
Posted by: Simon Hall | June 27, 2010 at 10:54 AM
hahahahahaha!
Everyone reading this blog has been onto Amazon, so after looking at Nation of Rebels (I have a different edition with a different title) I then got Kester's book recommended to me! So I now realise how ironic my previous 'other' post is... I suppose I'd better shut up and read the book now!
Just a note on your comment (Kester) about the damage that institutions do to individuals. Of course there is terrible harm done by churches, but there is also harm done by leaving churches, though perhaps not to people like you and I. I am currently three quarters of the way through a year's research into how 'post-congregational' Christians look after themselves and I have to say the findings are not encouraging. Those who were already good at self care when they were part of a congregation (normally the leaders, and very often 'professional' Christians in one form or another) are now doing swimmingly, since they don't have to look after everyone else. 'Everyone else' is doing rather badly.
So I think there is quite a bit of harm being done by the process of deconstruction, it's just that its less dramatic and harder to blame on anyone. In Leeds the leaders of a fairly 'successful' church made a principled decision to close down so that its members would realise how much they depended on leaders and meetings for their relationship with God (oh, the irony - being told by our leaders that we don't need leaders!). The idea in the leaders' minds was that once that crutch was removed these infantilised church members would understand their dependence and grow into mature, autonomous Christians. Unfortunately, only the first part of that has happened, resulting in the majority of members either joining other local congregations or losing faith altogether.
That doesn't justify the corruptions and privations of togetherness. But there are corruptions and privations of solitude too.
S
Posted by: Simon Hall | June 28, 2010 at 10:31 AM
Jonny, tnx for this post. Perceptive, diagnostically spot on, and one of the central issues if new forms of church are ever going to get any traction in the real world.
Jase
Posted by: Jason Clark | July 08, 2010 at 08:08 AM
Damn. That was great. A lot of wisdom here, and personally really affirming some tough choices we have been making. Peace brother.
Posted by: len | July 08, 2010 at 11:01 PM