THE SWINGS

How (church) culture tends to go to extremes and it’s a bad thing

Most cultures tend to swing. They move from one extreme to the other. And this can be a bad thing when you are on either end of the extremes. Occupying one end of the spectrum, we see the immense problems generated at this extreme, and we want to go as far away as possible from it, as soon as possible. This sends us to other extreme with little or no reflection. Here, occupying the extreme at the other end of the spectrum, we end up succumbing to same problems (in reverse) generated by first extreme. This could take a while. But it does happen. “The swings” happen in cultures at large. “The swings” happens in Christian culture. It happens in our churches. Here’s some examples of what I am talking about.

THERAPY

Therapy was frowned upon in evangelical fundamentalism. It was an extreme reaction. Going to a therapist was looked upon as spiritual weakness, lack of character. Instead, you needed to pray more, center yourself in God. Trust God, be strong and learn how to persevere. This strong-arming fundamentalism also promoted a culture where if you did talk about mental struggles (as opposed to physical struggles) you would invite looks of judgement. For those struggling with mental illness in their lives, it was a disastrous combination. It was an extreme.

The corrective to this extreme was necessary. In a church culture where people don’t talk about mental illness, and where there are so many layers to these struggles, talking to a therapist is an essential practice for the Christian in this world. Just talking about our mental struggles with someone who understands and can give perspective on how to manage the struggle is amazingly fruitful. But even further, there will be times when our psycho biological processes get severely damaged through trauma and other psychological pain. As with physical illness, we will need medical intervention. We will need psychiatric bio-chemical intervention. And so the corrective reaction is to recognize and discern the rightful place of therapy and psychiatric intervention in the life of the Christian.

But this corrective can sometimes elevate therapy/psychiatry to be the end unto itself. We separate the treatment of our mental illness via psychology/psychiatry from God and all the ways God in Christ reorients/recenters and works in all things to heal our mental psyches. We exclude God from the therapeutics of mental illness. It can turn us towards the management of our mental illness without the work of God in our lives. This is the ultimate extreme on the other end of the spectrum and it too can be disastrous for the Christian.

Make no mistake, therapies, within the various schools of psychology and psychiatry, can aid in one’s healing in mental illness. Just like medical doctors can aid and make possible healing through medical interventions in our physical bodies, so psychological therapy/psychiatric intervention can aid the healing of our psychic and mental faculties. But just like we do not exclude God, in all he has done in Christ, from physical healing, neither should we do so with mental healing. The research is immense on the psychosocial causes of depression, social anxiety, suicidal ideation. We need a church to participate in shaping a social space for mental healing in the Spirit.

There are so many psycho-social and meaning making issues in the shaping our psychic health, we must make space for God to work in these places, and that includes the therapist’s office, therapy groups etc.. God helps us see and heal relationships, transforms how we see purpose and meaning in everything we do, gives hope and possibility through his working and enabling. I cannot imagine how God cannot be a major part of all of our healing, whether physical, mental or social.  

And so we must avoid “the swings,” as I’m calling it, when it comes to the Christian and therapy, and the therapeutic culture.  

GENDER RELATIONS

Women have been excluded from the office of ministry in most Western churches since Constantine. Christendom alignments with worldly power, including hierarchical organization, marginalized women from offices of ministry.

Under the influence of said Christendom, gender relations (in the modern landscape), have often been scripted via a so-called ‘complementarian” model. Here male and female are different, each having separate roles according to gender. Although many complementarians (so-called soft complementarians) argue for defining these roles as equal, often the complementarian model devolves into a scripting of gender where the female is put under (or in submission to) the male in marriage and in church ministry. It is here that the extreme becomes ugly. Patriarchy becomes justified. Women end up being marginalized, dismissed from leadership, and even encouraged to be within abusive relationships. These complementarian cultures become toxic for women.

Again, a corrective to this extreme was necessary. The corrective is the ‘egalitarian’ model. Using Biblical exegesis and history, the egalitarians clarify that women and men together are equally included within the structures of authority and ministry of the church. Likewise, in marriage there is no male “over” female. The “over” of patriarchy is the result of the fall (Gen 3:16) and obliterated in the salvific work of Christ.

The label “egalitarian” however comes with baggage inherited from within political liberalism (as classically defined by John Rawls). Here egalitarian means equal rights and the obliteration of difference (the “original position”). The critique of political liberalism is that people are stripped of any particularities in the process of becoming equal. In the political arena, ethnicities are stripped of cultural difference, religious groupings are stripped of their formation, and gender is stripped of any social difference. There’s signs of this baggage when the egalitarian model moves to the extreme.

This egalitarian extreme can be problematic when it defaults into an equality that obliterates gender difference. Obliterating difference can result in women being invited into male systems of power and authority on male terms. Just like obliterating ethnic cultural differences in a so-called multi ethnic church can result in the ensconcing of the dominant culture under the name of “multi-ethnic,” so also can obliterating difference in gender cover over the powers at work in male dominated structures. Once we lose gender difference, we lose the wherewithal to learn from each other, grow, see our weaknesses revealed, grow in our strengths. Obliterating gender difference eliminates the reason for men and women to be together in leadership in the first place.

Having said all this, gender roles, characteristics, and defining feminine and masculine is not a purely essentialist enterprise. To be a man and or a woman is worked out through bodies (which are different) engaging and working out roles and ways of being in economy, arts, family and culture. There are both inherent and cultural aspects to gender. But this topic is too big to deal with here.

All this to say, a much better way to understand gender relations within the church is what I’ll call the “mutualist approach.” Mutuality recognizes no “over” in the exercise of authority, or in the relation between women and men in marriage or church ministry. “Mutualist” recognizies there is a difference between men and women and that we come together in mutuality, mutually learning and growing in “submission one to another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21). Mutualist recognizes that it is out of relation to one another that we grow, critique, and listen, and it is the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as given from the Lord of the church (Eph 4) that authority is exercised and power released. And so, in refusing complementarian for its historical problematics, and resisting egalitarian for its blind spots, we avoid both problematics with the mutualist vision of the new testament for men and women exercising authority together in the church.

If we are to navigate gender, what it means to be a man or a woman, in marriage, church and all of our lives, we must avoid the swings. If we are to unwind the power, the patriarchy and the antagonism of gender relations, we must avoid the swings. If we are to maintain gender distinction, and navigate them in ways which overcome sin, coercive power, misogyny and patriarchy, we must avoid the swings. We can avoid the extremes in “complementarian” and “egalitarian” models of gender relations through the “mutualist” approach.

THE MANY SWINGS

There are an endless number of swings in the histories of the church and I’m tired of all of them. I can think of at least thirty more.

Consumer Mega church to Liturgical High Church. I’ve seen many of the young raised in mega church recognize how it forms you into being a consumer of God. This complete lack of formation leads to these leaders swinging to the other extreme to high liturgy. The extreme that I see as dangerous is when those going to liturgy become liturgical purists, locking in on ancient liturgy, refusing to contextualize liturgy at all. Instead of a reflective process of liturgical contextualization that provides the means for new Christians to enter in, it become exclusive and high brow. Bleh!!

Inerrancy to the Bible is Inspired People Witnessing To God: All I’ll say here is that inerrancy was a decent attempt at defending the historical veracity of the text after Higher Criticism wanted to obliterate all historicity. But inerrancy hardened, to dictation and other frankly absurd defenses. And the rebound from it, by those who found themselves deceived, was to give up divine inspiration altogether. It’s now a testimony we can learn from, which to me is a theological act of unfaithfulness to the way the Bible came into being.

Coercive Purity Culture to All Self Expression of Sex is Good. Sorry, it was a nice try. But once you imported coercion, guilt tactics, consequentialism, rules in to keep teenagers in line, it all backfired. Again, teenagers felt lied to and deceived. The reaction however is just as bad: all authentic self expression of sex is good and of the creator. This ignores the way sin works, the way abuse, misogyny works. It ignores the deeper experiences of sexual life made possible via the practices of marriage and embodied faithfulness over time. But none of this can be coerced. It must be taught within a vision that comes from God and the way he created us as embodied selves.

I’ve got about thirty more. But for now, here are my closing questions.

What other extremes have you experienced?

Can we be a church which discerns the swings?

Can we avoid the hazards of the extremes.

Can we lead to a space that carefully discerns a Jesus centered way of life.

Let’s do this.