Modernity in all its forms held out the utopian promise of indefinite progress for the human race. Science Fiction throughout the 50’s promised a future free of disease, war, poverty, and even religion. Star Trek epitomized this with its stellar character whose driving force was rational logic. Liberal and Marxist ideologies were based on the same dreams of a progressive society where religion would be replaced by more enlightend pursuits. Modernity, of course has failed to deliver.

With this failure, a new generation is reacting against the intellectual optimism of their parents and embracing a much more questioning attitude. Under modernism our faith faced the challenge of rationalism – and it endured, of course. But now we need to rethink our methods of communicating and defending the Gospel because it is being questioned from a whole new perspective… from those who are not born into modernity, but post-modernity.

Samuel Escobar delineates the challenge when he writes; “We must accept as valid the search for a missionary approach that will take seriously the cultural context of that mission field.” “That field” is postmodern Europe and North America. Missiologist George Hunter III sets the bar high when he writes that “the cultural barrier between the churches and the unchurched people is the largest single cause of the decline of European Christianity and a bigger problem for mainline American Christianity. He asks: “The U.S.A. is a vast secular mission field with many cultures and subcultures. Are we imaginative enough to sponsor and unleash many forms of indigenous Christianity in this land?”

To those “contributors from various discernment ministries” the answer is “NO!” We dare not attempt to translate the Gospel into the cultural context of a new mission field lest we allow corruption of the Gospel – or more accurately – their cultural praxis of it.

Hunter points out how some churches in North and Latin America are addressing this gulf;

“In their liturgy, their style of preaching, their way of organizing of people through small groups, and their comfortable atmosphere in terms of dress and lifestyle, these churches have removed the cultural barriers that have kept people away from the traditional churches.”

 

Who could oppose this? Those “contributors [to] various discernment ministries.” – that’s who. We all know who I’m referring to, and we all know what they oppose – any who dare make changes to their culturally bound version of Christianity. True enough, evangelicals in general have always emphasized the need for true doctrine and in this the watch bloggers (to their credit) are no different. Good for them – seriously! But these neo-fundamentalists (great blog here – but don’t get side-tracked and forget to read the rest of mine!) have a “misplaced zeal to preserve cultural forms of previous generations with no regard for cultural change.” While correctly pursuing adherence to biblical doctrine, they institute a modern inquisition on any who want to implement new methods. For example, one such overly-zealous crusade is against those trying to recapture the historical understanding and use of ritual and symbol. And when a supposed misuse is found they wail from their wall.

Every once in a while one of them makes a valid point, but the majority of their wailing from the wall is against form, not beliefs… against methods that they oppose as different from how things should remain… in other words to them “cloneliness is next to godliness” and the way they do it is the sample from which we derive what it means to be truly Christian.

For example, Ken Silva’s Apprising Ministries pages are full of warnings against methodologies that are unbiblical. A quick perusal will show that most of his posts oppose new methods, not new theologies – though he himself often assumes that the former is tantamount to the latter. In a post against Dan Kimball, Silva attacks Kimball for the practice of “contemplative mysticism commonly known as Lectio Divina.”  Silva inserted “mysticism” into the title – with no defense or explanation of his rationale.

This is, of course, the Modus Operandi, of the watchers – Silva is but one. There is a veritable cottage-industry of watchers, most see themselves as Ezekiel-esque… men and women staffing the wall that separates Christianity from apostasy. Yet the wall they sit on does not surround true Christianity – opposing error from within or without – the wall upon which they sit protects their own traditions, their particular cultural expression of the faith, and the warnings they wail are not in defense of true Christianity… but a defense of their own ethnocentricity, how it’s always been done — rarely do they wail against any real dangers to the true faith.

Part two will illustrate this ethnocentric wailing.