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Sunday, January 31, 1999
The parlor game known as SIX DEGREES FROM KEVIN BACON and also known as SIX STEPS OF SEPARATION FROM KEVIN BACON, is a fun game which tests your knowledge of Hollywood trivia. There are 95,000 living actors who are members of the Screen Actors Guild and another 400,000 or more actors, many now dead, identified in other movie/theatre sources. The designers of this game, using computer technology, have listed about 5,000 better known actors and actresses, most from Hollywood present and past, and catalogued every other actor who has appeared in the screen credits of the total of films of each of the identified actors. The surprising finding is that some lesser known actors like Kevin Bacon have thousands of collegial actors with whom they have worked where as much better known actors like John Wayne have only a few hundred actors with whom they have worked in much longer careers. The reason is that many actors, especially the more famous, appear in genre films - most of John Wayne's l30 films were westerns or war stories, and the same sets of fellow actors were drawn to these genre films. Much younger Bacon has appeared in more diverse films and so varying groups of actors have worked with him. Kevin Bacon is a symbol of other actors who can be substituted as the target of search and connection. The way the game is played is someone knows that O.J. Simpson was in NAKED GUN with Priscilla Presley, who was in THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE with Gilbert Gottfriend, who was in BEVERY HILLS COP TWO with Paul Reiser, who was in DINER with Kevin Bacon. That's four steps to Kevin Bacon. The idea is to develop a network leading to the principal actor in less than six steps but more than one. Everyone is looking for something: someone or something and a principle derived from this game is that the greater anyone's circle of friends and diversity of contacts the greater the likelihood that you will find what or whom you are seeking. When we replace an actor with Jesus of Nazareth, we who are believers become participants in the links which lead seekers to Jesus. That is why everyone in the modern church is an evangelist, a minister, and key player in making the introductions which result in seekers getting introduced to Jesus. The typical way of introducing someone to Jesus is to introduce the person to the church of Jesus. And this is sound and orthodox networking because as the great Reformation thinker John Calvin said: WHEREVER WE SEE THE WORD OF GOD PURELY PREACHED AND HEARD, AND THE SACRAMENTS ADMINISTERED ACCORDING TO CHRIST'S INSTITUTION, THERE, IT IS NOT TO BE DOUBTED, A CHURCH OF GOD EXISTS. FOR HIS PROMISE CANNOT FAIL. WHEREVER TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED IN MY NAME, THERE I AM IN THE MIDST OF THEM. The downside of John Calvin's idea of the church is that, as Paul found at Corinth, where two or three or more are gathered together to be the church there can be disunity as readily as unity; there can be squabbling and bickering as quickly as enthusiasm and cooperation. The further downside is that when we finally get skeptics and seekers to a church, they may experience only boredom and indifference. The coming Millennium, as a date, does nothing for me but as a symbol I agree with those who believe it marks our transition, from the Modern Era which has governed us for the last 300 years to a future which is called the Post-Modern Era. I do believe that what has served the church well during the Modern Era will not serve it well during the Post-Modern Millennium just as what served the Church well for the l700 years or so of the pre-Modern Era had to be abandoned once the Enlightenment and Rationalism became the context for the church. The Church embraced the rationalism and scientism of the Modern Era about l700, and most of the Church then abandoned the cult of relics, going on pilgrimages, daily devotion at the Mass, and fear of hell and damnation, as the main crutches and incentives for faithfulness to Christ and even to his church. In the Modern era the church became rationalistic with the Bible being argued and defended with tenacious logic and reasonable appeals. The post-modern age began probably 40 years ago with the collapse of belief in rationalism as the saving form of society. Rationale government gave us Fascism and Communism; rationale science gave us the atomic bomb. People grew disillusioned with relying upon the reasonableness of men and their institutions. The last 50 years of technological advances in travel and communications opened the cultural floodgates to individual self-determinism and self-expression. One mark of the emerging Post Modern era is that people are much more in touch with their emotions and feelings and personal needs and increasingly intolerant and indifferent to anybody, including the Church, which defines the meaning of their lives through a series of propositions about an abstract Truth. Surprising though it is, increased spirituality is a hallmark of the non-conformist Post Modern era. And spiritual seekers are now networking with an intensity and a breadth unique in human history. Search, find, hit via the Internet is a new thing. The post-modern search for degrees of meaning and steps to conviction is underway and this church, like all churches that are awake on the threshold of the Millennium, is searching its collective soul to learn how we can be relevant within this emerging global spirituality. It's a new day coming, brothers and sisters, and the church is given the chance to play a new game of networking for Christ and toward Christ with others. Those churches which insist on playing the old games of the dying modern era by declaring the revealed truth of our faith, on a take it or leave basis for humanity, will become irrelevant, revealed like the Emperor who had no clothes on, as posturing in a role of authority which is no longer respected. Post-modern people will simply not pay attention to the appeals of a Christian ministry still living out the dying Modern era. Let's look at some of the new, post-modern steps which a survival church will be taking to be relevant in the coming Millennium: The new Church shall invite people to embrace the stories of the Scriptures instead of the texts of the bible. In the modern period, these past 3 centuries or so, the Church said to the world: If you believe, you will be saved. The Church at least in the West still had a playing field which favored its' unilateral claims. The only real threat to Christian Orthodoxy was Science and the religion of Scientism; and the Church accommodated to Science by embracing the principles of rationalism and declaring that biblical truth claims were wholly rationale, logical, demonstrable and compatible with modern methods of research, discovery and publication. While making Christianity intellectually nice, it tended to drain all mystery, passion, feeling and radicalism from the underlying Gospel. But in the post modern period Christianity is not favored anywhere. Global common education and the global internet make every faith claim of equal validity with Christianity. The era has ended when sermons and vast missionary energy will be expended to convince people that every verse and chapter of the bible is self-validating truth which only must be understood and then believed. Rather the Church will invite people to consider the stories of the bible and how those stories link-up with their life stories. Church teaching will aim to illumine and offer the stories of the Bible to non-believers as real and relevant spiritual happenings which relate God to us. Some of those stories that run deeply under the thousands of proof texts are: God's constant search for a faithful people and God's graciousness to such peoples even when they fail; God's commitment to the fallen, poor, despised among every society; God's inclusive creation which embraces every group within his love and his purposes; and the greatest story of them all: God's love shown in Jesus. The main form of teaching will be much more like Nury Vittachi's story telling on Sundays with our children, linking a scriptural story with the lives of kids, than the modern era's reliance on three point teaching sermons and canned Q&A plans for evangelism and conversion. In the post-modern era we live in an imaginative and story-conscious world in which one's faith perspective is dictated by life-transforming stories. And we have become nearly entirely visual in our imaging of reality. I believe even in the year 2525 there will be a use for verbal preaching, but church and Christian education will be much more like a "discovery" channel with which we interact than a radio before whose sounds we sit passively. Divine moments happen all the time to us; sometimes, though not often enough, in the context of church; often in the context of reading a story, seeing a movie or play, or reading or hearing of a news event, we experience the sighs or tears or reproaches or other movements of the Divine; we feel we are on a network of meaning and sharing that meaning with others and with God. A news event which touched many of us this past week was to learn of the murder of the Australian missionary Staines and his two young boys in India by Hindu fanatics. I cannot believe the Staines lost their lives because they were defending a propositional faith! Surely they did not die for a series of rationalistic and fundamentalist claims on behalf of Jesus and his God against the Hindu religion. They died because they were living their faith; they were helping the Christian story become the life affirming story of villagers in India. Mr. Staines had lived in India for 24 years. His three children were born there. The Gospel is not an affront to the world because of its verbal claims. It becomes a scandal and an offense when real Christians, like the Staines family, live out the biblical stories of sacrifice, service and suffering for Christ and for the poor. Which brings us to another emerging trait of the churches which will survive and grow in the Millennium: In the post modern world it will not be what Christians say but who they are which will convince spiritual seekers of the truth of our faith. Spirituality is flowing through post modern people; people want to network toward a higher truth and belief. Angels and mysteries and conversions are returning with powerful claims upon post modern spirits. By contrast, few are interested in arguments and prooftexting the claims of Christianity. I really believe what brings some post modern people into the Mormon fold is not the prooftexting approach which is as highly developed among Mormon missionaries as any religious groups; but isn't it the powerful impression made by tens of thousands young men and women are living out their faith for two years in strange places. This means we should stop insisting, as, alas, do the Mormons and every fundamentalist group, at least in the beginning of our dialogue with non-Christians, that our story about Jesus is the only story. This approach is no longer effective in the post-modern world. Instead let's say that our story is based upon our view of reality, and that, yes, there are many stories out there that people are free to believe. This does not mean that we compromise the gospel story in any way. It still is the single true Story for us. We believe it, and we encourage others to see it with us. We live life by this story and share it freely and joyfully with others who, thank God, are in the post-modern world open to honest life sharing. Post modern people really are into spirituality and faith and lifechanging experiences. We live life by the story of Jesus and we quite naturally want others to experience it. But the only prooftext which will convince anyone is to see the joy and love and energy of God in our lives, and not in our arguments. That brings me to a third observation of the emerging post modern church: when people do take us up on our invitation to meet Jesus by coming to our church we will want to offer joyful worship. A bit of advice: We should start inviting people to Christ and not to Church. There's a difference, but sooner or later the Church is, or is supposed to be, the most probable place to meet Christ. When that normal link up occurs, people will expect to find an experience that makes a difference for them and not be bored to death! Did you see those joy-filled nuns in St. Louis doing their jumping dances and cheer routines for the Pope? Post modern religion will speak to and call upon the emotions, feelings, bodily expression, and spontaneity of worshipers and believers. Of course, there will still be a desirable order and mental discipline to Christian worship but not of the kind that has produced so many arid and lifeless congregations falling to sleep during the sermon and shuffling through tired liturgies. Communion, for one example, is coming to life again as a joyful, affirming celebration within the body of Christ and putting to rest the three century of Calvinist restraint and rationalism that viewed and feared Communion as a sober experience to be undertaken only once a year. I believe God is calling our church and many others to venture with Him across the threshold to the next millennium. We are given the opportunity to seek out degrees and steps beyond the Jesus whom we have clung to. In the venture we shall discover that the networks which flow from and lead back to Jesus are vast and found in places and among people we have not dreamed of. We shall find that Jesus has never been content to stay put on the cross where institutional piety safely has kept him nor assigned to a vague, shadowy place off the cross where modernist attitudes needed him to get lost. Fortunately, as a new church founded on the eve of the post modern period we do not have a great deal of institutional baggage from which to unburden ourselves. . But like every congregation we are still tempted to play at "doing church" instead of to live at being the church. The embracing of change, which is so troubling to established churches, looks to me to not be our problem. We are not threatened and destabilized by the popular and secular renewal of spirituality, nor do we tremble at the ideas that the Holy Spirit might be real, that angels might really exist and visit us, that the renewal of the ministry of healing through prayers and gestures has an authentic place in modern worship, that the affirmation of integrity of the whole person in worship comes when all five senses combine with mind, body, emotions, feelings, and spirit; and the need for a discipling experience through committed fellowship and study groups. These, I believe, will be strong traits of churches that advance in the post modern age. Community Church Hong Kong will be in the forefront of that great adventure which part of the Church of Jesus Christ is now undertaking. Aren't you glad you are given the opportunity to be among those who respond to the millennium which God is giving us. We are privileged to consider doing some new things in a new age. God calls us to be a new spiritual people and to work with Him.
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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