sub-cultural papua new guinea

To this point we have lovingly (for the most part) critiqued the Christendom mode of church and questioned its relevance for our current missional situation. The Constantianian compact established the religious hegemony know as Christendom–a form of church that has lasted in various forms to this very day. It ruled over Western culture for at least 15 centuries. However, the status of the church in the West was not fundamentally challenged until the Modern, or Enlightenment period. It was here that the external context changed and eventually forced the church from the center of society to the margins (called the secularization of culture).

The Enlightenment sought to establish reason over revelation through philosophy and science, eventually forced a separation of the power of the church from dominating that of the State (French Revolution). The State, and the public sphere along with it was thereby was stripped of religious influences and the secular state was born with science as the mediator of truth and the market as the mediator of meaning. And so the result of in the enlightenment period, among many other things, was the secularization of society and the subsequent marginalization of the Church and its message. We who have lived in the 20th Century know this experientially all too well. The problem we face is that while as a socio-political-cultural force Christendom is dead, and we now live in what has been aptly called the post-Christendom era, the Church still operates in exactly the same mode. In terms of how we understand and ‘do’ church, for us little has changed for 17 centuries.

With the breakup of the modern period and the subsequent postmodern period, things have begun to radically change. For one, the power of hegemonic ideologies has come to an end, and with that, the breakdown of the power of the state (e.g. the Soviet Union) and other forms of ‘grand stories’ that bind societies or groups together in a grand vision. The net effect of this has been the resultant flourishing of sub-cultures, and what sociologists call, the heteroginization, or simply the tribalization, of western culture. Just as we had intuited from the local level at SMRC, a new tribalism was born in the postmodern era.

People now identify themselves less by grand ideologies, national identities, or political allegiances, but by much less grander stories: like those of interest groups, new religious movements (the new age), sexual identity (gays, lesbians, transsexuals, etc.), sports activities, competing ideologies (neo-Marxist, neo-fascist, eco-rats, etc.), class, conspicuous consumption (meterosexuals, urban grunge, etc.), work types (computer geeks, hackers, designers, etc.) and so forth. On one occasion some youth ministry specialists I work with identified in an hour fifty easily discernable youth sub-cultures alone. (computer nerds, petrol heads, skaters, homies, surfies, punks, etc.) Each of them takes their sub-cultural identity with utmost seriousness and hence any missional response to them must as well.

The point here is that of the comparison between the situation of the Christendom church and that of our own: that to reach beyond our own cultural reference (m0 – m1) and beyond significant cultural barriers (m1 through to m4) is an entirely different thing. The problem is that the average church in the Christendom mode tends to be reasonably effective only within its own cultural reference (m0 – m1). The Christendom church was built for that—it’s called outreach and indrag (and I’m not making fun, its how we actually operate.) The Seeker Sensitive approach is a pumped up model of this…and only in relatively rare cases is it ever successful on a large scale (there are now 1200 churches over 2000 in the USA.  There are over 480 000 churches in the USA–work it out) . The Christendom idea of church is now literally out-moded.

February 28, 2007 | Filed Under missional church, the forgotten ways |  

Comments

17 Responses to “sub-cultural papua new guinea”

  1. Peggy on February 28th, 2007 1:04 pm

    Well, Alan, the further I get into TFW (over half way, now) the more impressed I am with your ability to effectively hit the highlights back in Long Beach last month! Nicely done!

    I am also impressed with your restraint with those of us who haven’t finished (started? gotten?) the book yet, while we wonder aloud our thoughts about the tid bits you place in your blog–without the benefit of your precise context. I wonder how many others of my co-bloggers will say to themselves: “Hmmm, yes, I guess that is what he was trying to get across…” You are a patient pedigogue… ;)

    Which is to say that it will really make a difference to read the book…and process the charts…and let Alan build the whole picture. I think you’ll find that it is a rather comprehensive one.

    So, while he throws us chunks of meat and a bone here and there…and we all rush into the fray…I hope everyone is having fun! But stay tuned…and don’t spend all your enthusiam up front…there’s lots more to come. :)

    So, based on Alan’s fourth paragraph: how many subcultures might you be related to? Hmmm….

  2. Alan Hirsch on February 28th, 2007 1:20 pm

    Peggy, sounds like you should do a review on amazon. And yeah, you others too. :-)

  3. Peggy on February 28th, 2007 1:25 pm

    I think I’ll wait until I’m totally finished with the book…you think? :)

  4. brad on February 28th, 2007 3:35 pm

    ummm … i have waited for over two weeks i think to receive a “special order” copy of TFW at my local Christendom bookstore. this is both absurd (amazon could have satisfied my consumerist nature quicker than this bookstore!) and irritating (ditto). [or is this providential? spiritual warfare? am i misinterpreting the absence of the book?]

    so, i am out of context with your book, Alan, but then, i am also perhaps out of context with some aspects of cultural distance. let me take a stab at some concepts here…

    in my observation, not everyone is of a singularly(sub)cultural tribe in identity. for a variety of reasons, some people (myself included) ended up with social formation that seems to give us broader cultural fluidity possibilities. it’s as if cultural distance is diminished between us and many other cultures on the m0-m4 scale. in fact, for us it’s as if the scale is not linear, but perhaps more like an arc where we are off the line in a way that makes us nearly equidistant from all other m# points.

    i find this intriguing, not only because that is relatively more descriptive of my cultural formation (and often of Third Culture Kids), but also because it seems clear enough from Acts and New Testament epistles that those of apostolic teams were typically at least bicultural in background, sometimes even more culturally complex. for instance, barnabas was from a levitical jewish family, reared on the gentile island of cyprus. paul was a pharisaic jew, reared in syria, and a roman citizen. (i know, this is reading between the lines, but hey, the human condition of learning involves figuring out patterns among a dataset of facts - even if the patterns may turn out spurious, sooner or laterous!)

    and i wonder, if we embodied a robust set of “Kingdom Culture” values, based squarely in God’s character and His specific revelation, would we be able to move with more cultural fluidity, since that value set would give us more bridge-building points with people of any given identity subculture around us (excepting those that are exceptionally steeped in evil)?

    so, i think this raises some questions related for most disciples and congregations in going beyond m0 and m1 for them:

    * have we misinterpreted or misapplied the scriptures in Acts about going from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the utmost ends of the earth - and made it a sequential task instead of a simultaneous set of tasks? does “going glocal” mean doing something (hopefully consistent, sustainable, and long-term) at every level, m0 through m4? and if m0 is actually a Christendom-oriented mindset, is it okay to m0/m1 at home if we intentionally m2 thru m4 outside our zone? (guess that relates to the issue of whether Christendom can ever really be missional, or just colonial …)

    * if we adopt the mo-m4 scale outright, should we equip/train ourselves and next generations to go cross-cultural incrementally (e.g., +/- one or two increments on the scale), or is it possible to train/equip so that we are off the scale - more interculturally apostolic?

    * are some people more culturally fluid by spiritual gifting? by natural abilities? by socio-cultural formation processes? and if so, what are the typical gifts, abilities, and/or processes?

    i guess my mind is full of questions like these, but that’s enough (or too many?) for the mo…

  5. James Petticrew on February 28th, 2007 9:01 pm

    Alan I am doing my doctoral research project into the “cluster groups” at St Toms in Sheffield, I think these have the ability to help the church adapt to this new tribal era, as the theory is that each cluster is gathered round a specific missional purpose and yet being linked together these cluster groups still have the potential to embody that important transcultural aspect to the gospel, that the gospel draws people from all cultures into the people of God as a sign of the Kingdom.
    Have you read “A Mosaic of Believers”? Its someone PHD on Erwin McManus’ Mosaic in LA which looks at how they have managed to create such an ethnically diverse church when most churches in the States tend to be mono-cultural. The author, if I understand him correctly, basically argues that Mosaic has created a new radical Christian identity with which people from various ethnic identities can coalesce around. I think this may be an important part of missiology and ecclesiology in this “tribal era” we do have to incarnationally enter the various cultures with the Gospel but there is a challenge in the Gospel which means that all of us have to leave behind certain values of our culture (the world in NT terms) to embrace the values of the Kingdom. I constantly see the danger of contemporary missiology becoming old liberalism where everything in culture is sanctified and deemed acceptable. We must work at hard at this integration with culture but also hold on to a critique of culture.
    BTW I think your critique of consumer culture is about the best I have read.

  6. brad on March 1st, 2007 2:28 am

    James, check out *People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States* by Michael O. Emerson with Rodney Woo (Princeton Univ. Press, 2006), if you haven’t already. Emerson is a professor of sociology who has the ability to explain research and statistics for those of us who are laypeople to that profession. Woo pastors Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and Wilcrest is used as a major case study throughout the book, though Emerson did research on the very small percentage of multicultural churches throughout the U.S.

  7. Peggy on March 1st, 2007 4:05 am

    Well, Brad, this is just another opportunity to remember that we are really never, any of us, completely (perfectly?) in proper context with another without lots of intentional preparation ;)

    But, we certainly have lots of questions to consider, don’t we! I’m sure the book will arrive “in the fullness of time”…. :)

    And James, I am excited to hear about your area of work…since “clusters” (as you have described them) is central to the vision I’m working to implement :)

    Brad likes to call these serendipidous moments “Divine Dominoes”…I always liked dominoes ;)

  8. James Petticrew on March 1st, 2007 7:11 am

    Peggy drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you some of my dissertation (in case you can’t sleep)

  9. James Petticrew on March 1st, 2007 7:11 am

    oops forgot the address james_petticrew@asburyseminary.edu

  10. Peggy on March 1st, 2007 8:45 am

    Thanks, James…I’ve sent the e-mail. And I never have trouble sleeping (being 9 years into chronic sleep deprivation…), it’s all about time! I have found that God gives me the strength for the things I need.

  11. Janet on March 1st, 2007 6:16 pm

    Brad, I think your comments about Paul are interesting… I wonder if it’s a characteristic of those with apostolic giftings that they have the capacity to be “culturally fluid” while holding unwaveringly to essential gospel truths?

  12. brad on March 2nd, 2007 2:36 am

    That really makes sense to me, Janet, and I like your use of the word “unwavering.” Seems to me that real apostles have both tenacity with core truth, and flexibility and perseverance in encouraging people to keep moving on a trajectory toward Christ from their own cultural starting point.

    So their ministry is more about movement than conformity, about being secure (in Christ) than about being safe, etc. I don’t know about you, but I’ve experienced the “oppostles” - where it’s about them, becoming like them, their emotional and cultural fragility or sociopathology, yadda-yadda. The basics of a cult …

  13. Janet on March 2nd, 2007 4:31 pm

    Yes, I think I know what you mean. In the modern context, we should beware of those with “apostolic titles”… the self-appointed spiritual entrepreneur / CEO… the “oppostles” you describe. Such people may even have apostolic spiritual giftings, but they’ve gone a bit feral and become overblown with self-importance.

    Alan emphasises apostolic function rather than positional “apostles”… those that help create a missional environment, who guard the core integrity of the message and the health of the movement, but who also push the church into frontiers of mission because of their passion for Christ and the gospel. This is apostolic function. It is usually carried out by “high capacity” people… but it can only be done safely by those whom Christ has broken into humble servants! Not by the “oppostles” you describe.

  14. Peggy on March 2nd, 2007 5:18 pm

    I agree, Janet, that those “high capacity” people must also be broken into humble servants before functioning apostically. I think one of the great things Alan has done is restored the APEST model of leadership, which also can provide a significant balance of power safety net.

    Hey…if some “high capacity” person was to have some level of gifting in all five areas, would that make them as A PEST? ;) Just wondering….

  15. Janet on March 2nd, 2007 8:40 pm

    Yep, I think they usually are! (especially to denominational systems… complicated for everyone!)

  16. Matt Stone on March 3rd, 2007 10:54 am

    Alan, personally I would draw a more explicit distinction between the secularization of society on the one hand and the spread of atheism on the other. While secularization continues apace, the expectation that it spelled the death of religion has clearly been shown as erronious, so the two are far from synonymous. Indeed I think much of what used to be called the New Age is now better spoken of as ’secularized spirituality’.

    I agree that we need to recognize the tribalization phenomena. All too often I see emerging authors speak of postmodern culture as if it is a homogenous beast that can be captured by a simple discussion of the influence of Derrida and friends [slaps head]. Most postmoderns I know couldn’t give a toss about Derrida so what passes for EC wisdom begins to look very reified. What needs to be more widely recognised is that globalization AND tribalization are BOTH signposts of postmodernity and that incarnation requires us to come to grips with both.

    With this tribalization though, I agree with an earlier commenter that the situation is complex. I see myself as belonging to multiple tribes for instance - alt metal / grunge, geek, evangelical and esoteric/occult tribes just being a few I identify with. The situation is unlike overseas mission (in Papua New Guinea for instance) in that contextualization requires us to come to grips with multiple tribes simultaneously. Engaging with pluralism requires us to fully appreciate the plurality of perspectives postmodernity represents.

  17. Peggy on March 4th, 2007 1:24 pm

    Okay…I’ve finished the book–and written my review on Amazon. I have just one little two-part question/comment: when are the two on-line tools talked about in the book going to be fully operational??? I hope that “coming soon” in those links doesn’t mean the same as it does in Revelation, or there may be a small rebellion amongst the holy rebels ;)

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