In this dispatch filed by Audie Thacker, he makes a cogent observation about the thinking behind the emergent morality, and deconstructs the baseball analogy that the author of TNC uses in his book. He also includes evidence for where this new morality leads, and adds valuable information regarding some of the organizations that the emerging church is in fellowship with to the conversation.
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The Strike Zone
I’ve been thinking about Jones’ use of the baseball strike zone for a bit, since he used that analogy in a paper he presented at a college, and posted that paper on-line. It’s an interesting analogy, very clever of him. He uses it again in his book “The New Christians”. That is what I’m going to refer to here, and maybe even “deconstruct” a little, to borrow their word. He gives the definition on p. 148.
The strike zone is the area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pant, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the knee cap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batters stance as the batter is preparing to swing at a pitched ball.
He then makes the odd statement that “this rule actually leaves a lot of room for interpretation“. Really? Where?
For example, the rules give us a fixed width for the strike zone–the width of the home plate. Having set that, the rules also give the upper and lower limits of the strike zone. So, we have a strike zone width that is always fixed, because the width of home plate if fixed. But because players vary is body makeup, the height of the strike zone will vary from person to person. The rules state where the limits are in relation to each player.
One could, for example, find some interesting analogies here in regards to biblical ethics and morality. For example, there are some things that God says are always wrong–murder, lying, stealing, lust, adultery, homosexuality. These are not up for debate, they are not subject to conscience, God did not consult us when he called those things sins. They are absolutes, just like the width of the strike zone.
But the Bible also makes mention of things that are subject to individual conscience. The Bible refers to eating meat, which some would have no problem with but others may. We are not commanded to eat meat in the Bible, but nor are we commanded to abstain from it. It is a matter of conscience. Many things could fall into this category. Some people are comfortable listening to some kinds of music that others find disagreeable. Some people follow certain church calendar events like Lent, others don’t feel the need. Some celebrate Christmas, others don’t. The important thing is that if one does it, one does it because one believes it is what God would them to do. I can see these as analogies to the relative aspect of the height of the strike zone. Of course, it is also only an analogy. That is, perhaps, a bit of a rabbit trail, but there it is, for what it’s worth.
Sadly, Jones seems to want to relativize the whole thing, when he says that “this rule actually leaves a lot of room for interpretation“. Here is the story he gives from a Stanley Fish, who presumably got it from an umpire or former umpire.
Klem’s behind the plate…The pitcher winds up, throws the ball. The pitch comes. The batter doesn’t swing. Klem for an instant says nothing. The batter turns around and says “OK, so what was it, a ball or a strike?” And Klem says, “Sonny, it ain’t nothing till I call it.” What the batter is assuming is that balls and strikes are facts in the world and that the umpire’s job is to accurately say which one each pitch is. But in fact balls and strikes come into being only on the call of an umpire.
Oh, yes, pity that poor player, thinking that the umpire is actually suppose to make a determination based on a real strike zone on whether or not a taken pitch is a strike or not. How naive of him. One may wonder if the pitch had landed in the dirt three feet in front of the plate and the umpire had called it a strike, upon what basis would Jones argue that the umpire is wrong. The truth is, any given pitch (assuming the batter does not swing at it) is in reality a ball or a strike, based on its position in relation to the strike zone as it passes home plate. That is a FACT.
Now, does that mean that an umpire will call it correctly? No. I can image that calling balls and strikes is not an easy thing. Even the slowest of major league pitcher throws around 80 mph, and the fastest can top 100 mph. Also, the ball curves and slides and rises and falls based on how it is thrown and what kind of spin the pitcher puts on it (not to mention spit or other outside substances). And let’s not even talk about knuckle-balls. In other words, the umpire has to make a judgment based on the position of a small, swiftly-travelling orb at one minute point in time and space, while trying to take into account all of the ways that the ball has twisted and turned on its way to the plate.
Moral Calls
At first, I had thought that the analogy between the strike zone and our pursuit of a moral life may have broken down here. But as I’ve thought about it, they may be more similar then I would have thought at first.
Very often, like the umpire, we must make a decision quickly. If, for example, I’m watching a movie, and a scene with a provocatively-dressed (or undressed) woman comes on the screen, my decision of whether to continue looking or to look away is perhaps not unlike the decision an umpire must make. Many temptations are unexpected, and very often our responses are based as much on our previous decisions when similarly tempted, and even how we have responded to the times when we’ve acted rightly or wrongly in the past.
So let’s make an analogy between a baseball pitch and a temptation. Say that one particular pitch is the temptation to steal something. Whether armed robbery or something more subtle and sophisticated is unimportant, just so long as it’s tempting, and the temptation is strong. You want desperately for the act to be ok, you want to rationalize it, you want badly to do it. It will be good for you, and you can do it with little risk. You can rationalize it (the victim is rich, won’t miss it, and anyway is a scoundrel or cad or witch or all around bad guy), you can excuse it, you can even clear it with your own conscience to some degree. But you can’t do away with that annoying biblical command “Do not steal”.
Thus, you can change your strike zone a little, or at least your perception of it. You can maybe widen it a little, so as to allow for your little theft. Or maybe lower it some, to allow for your now singed conscience. And while the real strike zone remains the same, your perception of it does not match the reality. You’ve compromised, you’ve given in to temptation, you’ve fallen, and now you’re deconstructing the strike zone to excuse what you’re doing.
And so what is good is now called evil, and what is evil is now called acceptable. Instead of repentance and contrition, there is excuse-making and rationalizing. Instead of using the Bible as the measure of what we are to do, we begin to reinterpret and re-imagine and deconstruct it so that in some ways now and others later it is made to agree with us.
Redefining Morality
Can you see now what’s going on? Can you see now why, of the emergent churches mentioned in the book, several take pride in having members who practice sexual behaviors contrary of plain biblical morality (pp. 69-70, 197-198, 207) and why Jones feels pride in how his church, Solomon’s Porch, doesn’t do things by Paul’s command to “let all things be done decently and in order” (p. 218). Can you see what they’re doing with the biblical “strike zone”? Is it plain how they’ve moved it, warped it, distorted it, and made it all relativistic? Can you see how, having largely abandoned even the attempt to get the “strike zone” right, their thoughts may collapse into almost everything being in their now deconstructed “strike zone”?
Deconstructing The Future
Where are they going now? Go to the site for McLaren’s project, Deep Shift, and look on it’s Resources page. Look at the types of organizations it links to, as being fellow-laborers in whatever they are attempting to do. The site Wiser-Earth is a part of something called the Natural Capital Institute, which on the Who We Are page puts this quote in an obviously favorable manner…
Montana novelist and river walker David James Duncan points out that the world’s people do not need religious or economic fundamentalists or to save them; we need us for our salvation, and us stands for this huge, growing crazy-quilt assemblage of global humanity that is willing to stand up to the raw, cancerous insults that come from the mouths, guns, checkbooks, and policies of ideologues. According to Duncan, there is a movement afoot in the world that is not merely trying to prevent wrongs but actively seeks to love this world. Compassion and love of others are at the heart of all religions, and at the heart of this movement. “When small things are done with love it’s not a flawed you or me who does them: it’s love. I have no faith in any political party, left, right, or centrist. I have boundless faith in love. In keeping with this faith, the only spiritually responsible way I know to be a citizen, artist, or activist in these strange times is by giving little or no thought to ‘great things’ such as saving the planet, achieving world peace, or stopping neocon greed. Great things tend to be undoable things. Whereas small things, lovingly done, are always within our reach.” Some people think the movement is defined by what it is against, but the language of the movement is about keeping the conversation going, because ideas that inform it never end: growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear.
and this one, from the WISER platform page…
I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ~ Krishnamurti
There are two things I want to point out from these, and both may be obvious. First: they are saying that we are the medium of our own salvation, “we” being some kind of global collection of humanity. Second: they, like the EC (is it by accident), use the language of conversation, the conversation does not end, and there are no final answers, no resolution.
These are the people McLaren and Deep Shift are pointing people to, working with, recommending. Are there not Christian organization they could work with? Are their not Christian-based charities they could recommend? Or even organizations that aren’t overtly religiously in nature? Why do they feel the need to point people to an organization that says that we don’t need religion, but that we are the ones responsible for our own salvation?
There is also a third notion that while not explicit, is strongly implicit. In their talk of the “conversation”, some are not invited–religious and economical fundamentalists, and ideologues. Of course, their own statements are statements of their own religious fundamentalism and ideologies, so it is not that they are against ideologies, but stand against ones that are contrary to their own fundamental beliefs. As with all such groups, they are tolerant only of those who buy into their ideas and agenda, and intolerant of those who disagree with them
There are other interesting links there, too. Like the one to Mars Hill Graduate School, whose journal, The Other Journal, has the distinction of condemning capitalism because it works, and supporting extramarital sexual behaviors. The magazine at Faith at Work has one writer telling about visiting a Buddhist temple for some kind of spiritual journey. Consider, as well, this from the blog of Jones’ pastor, Doug Pagitt.
And here is what Seeds of Compassion has to say about it’s Inter-Spiritual Day (funny, look at the URL for that page, and see how there it is called ‘interreligious_day’).
http://www.seedsofcompassion.org/involved/interreligious_day.asp
Quite a list of diverse people on that page, would you agree? And rather curiously, Pagitt and Bell are invited, and while there may be some hope, for whatever reason I doubt they were invited so they could tell all those in the other religions that they need to repent and put their faith in Christ, and that the Bible is the best place to begin learning how to raise children rightly. No, I suspect they were invited because it had been determined that they would ‘play nice’ with the others, and not make waves. That’s probably why those like Piper, Zecharias, Lahaye, and Driscoll were uninvited. They’d probably disrupt the karma or chi or aura or ambiance or whatever.
~ Audie
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What conclusions can we draw from this excellent observation? I’d like to offer a few.
One way to evaluate a movement is to examine those groups and individuals with whom it “links arms”. In the examples given above, it can be plainly seen that the future of the Emerging Church Movement lies in its willingness to work with groups that are decidedly liberal in their understanding of Christianity, and some who are plainly anti-Christian. We suspect that this linkage comes from a desire to be admired by the world, and a systemic rejection of the Biblical call to stand apart from the culture.
The baseball analogy that the author employs is telling. It speaks of the mind-shift that has taken place in viewing holiness of God as something that can be bent to suit the individual’s own moral bias. That paradigm shift leads to an acceptance of a liberal theology, which in turn leads to compromise with the world system, and a synergy with it that, leading people away from the cross and into themselves for salvation. That viewpoint has more in common with New Age philosophy than it does with the a Holy God who has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture.
Following the new thought of the Emerging Church will not lead you to a God who can forgive sin and heal your broken soul, but to the god of self, to a god created in your own image, who can neither heal nor save. In baseball you get three strikes before you are declared out. In this life, the third strike can come at any time and you will face the Great Umpire, The Creator God who will judge you. You will see Him face to face. No mask, no bat to swing again, no second chance.
What call will He make on your life?
~ Doug
Doug
pastorboy
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