A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 3 – So That You May Hope Again

1.  Steinke’s stated intention in this chapter is to “look at hope in the context of God’s people in exile, a time of dislocation and near despair, like ours.”  To that end, we receive an excellent, although truncated, biblical history lesson.  The Babylonian captivity is paramount to Jewish history, as demonstrated by the deep involvement of its prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. 

In review, what series of circumstances led to this predicament and how did the exiles learn to find hope in the midst of exile?

2.  Steinke points out the necessity of dialectical thinking here, citing Brueggemann that, “In a broken world, hope and lament are partners.  Hope does not need to silence the rumbling of crisis to be hope.”  Steinke adds that, “The paradoxical nature of faith as exile and homecoming defines the Christian in the world.”

How to you relate to these statements?

3.  Church leaders today likewise face the temptations of denial, despair, and magic.  Take time to examine how each of these temptations poses a threat to the health and vitality of today’s congregations and church leaders.

4.  “To many, religion is a good thing, as long as it provides personal comfort and meets individual needs. Consequently, they want the church to double the offer—to give them not only a message of salvation but also the elements of a benefits plan, such as self-improvement methods, life-coping skills, satisfaction enhancement, and stress reduction.” 

How does this “double offer” expectation lead to the dark side, namely…the three temptations of denial, despair, and magic?  How can the church communicate and extend genuine hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ in today’s shifting culture?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 2 – Emotional Systems & the New Anxiety

1.  Boy, am I ever familiar with this chapter’s material!  And if you’ve spent some portion of your adult life ensconced in church life (i.e., politics), chances are, you are, too.  We’re right at home with this discussion involving emotions and anxiety.  Steinke describes congregations as “emotional systems”…quite prepared to engage in self-deceit, when threatened.

“When the challenge of change confronts a congregation, members’ survival brains surely will excite their emotional forces. Supervised by the amygdala (the anxiety alarm in the brain), a rapid line of defense takes over in threatening situations. The amygdala functions to protect an organism by:

• appraising danger and acting faster than consciousness,

• operating apart from awareness,

• eliminating any set of options that might delay action,

• generalizing for rapid reaction,

• pairing an outside threat with any previous thought, feeling, or prior experience.”

What situations or circumstances might evoke such responses?

2.  Steinke then discusses homeostasis, “to function in the same way,” hanging on to the familiar.  Must be a Lutheran thing!  This “persistence of form,” as Friedman defines it, can be explained by: A) emotional barriers, B) imaginative gridlock, and C) resistance.  (My, my, my…where should we begin?)

A.  “An artificial limit born of mythology and preserved by anxiety.”  Why are churches susceptible to emotional barriers?    What promotes their popularity and duration?

B.  “Friedman’s second concept involves human survival instincts. During anxious periods, what is most needed—imagination—is most unavailable. Reacting supersedes thoughtfulness. Anxiety locks up the imagination and misplaces the key.”  Again, what are some examples that come to mind?

C.  “Emotional resistance to change is powerful. In our minds is this formula: Stability equals safety. The amygdala is keyed to suddenness and newness, for either could be threatening. Since the amygdala is ready to react if something is strange, new, or novel, resistance serves as a defensive action, usually apparent in sabotaging behavior. Friedman called dealing with resistance ‘the key to the kingdom.’ Minimal reaction to the resisting positions of others, whether exhibited in apathy or aggression, is “the key.

If the leader stays the course without compromising, abandoning, or corrupting the goal, good outcomes, though not guaranteed, are more apt to happen.”

Where have you seen such leadership demonstrated wisely and effectively for the good of the congregation?

3.  “A natural response of any emotional system is to return to its previous state when challenged and strained. After the initial steps toward change, a leader will therefore encounter resistance, mostly from those who are emotionally invested. As Friedman noted, such resistance is predictable: ‘Most theories of leadership recognize the problem of mistakes, but there is a deeper systemic phenomenon that occurs when leaders do precisely what they are supposed to do—lead.’ People who can differentiate well—act maturely—will arouse anxiety in less mature people.

“The ensuing sabotage is sometimes organized and sometimes just mindless opposition. The challenge to the leader is to self-regulate in the midst of anxious reactivity. Being focused on principle and direction, the leader does not get caught up on rash behaviors or cruel comments. As a last resort, reactors will demonize the leader.”  (Would this a good time to recruit new Council members?!) 

Like every pastor of 30 years in the trenches, I could write a book on this subject…and it’s not pretty.  I see and hear efforts of sabotage all the time…some of it unintentional, and much of it quite intentional (but never admitted).

How can pastors & congregations work to counter sabotage?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 1 – There Once Was a World

1.  In many ways, Peter Steinke picks up where Douglas John Hall left off…namely, the sad but inevitable demise of American mainline churches.  Steinke assigns this change to a confluence of factors, noting the sea change is external or contextual. 

For purposes of discussion, let’s review/discuss each of these factors or forces briefly:

- Postmodern Philosophy

- Dogmatic Atheism

- Supermodernity

- Science and Religion

- The Neuro Society

- The Ghost of Gnosticism

- Therapeutic Dominance

2.  Steinke notes that the cultural response in spiritual things has shifted away from churches, which are challenged by the astonishing pace of change in the world.  Steinke believes this constitutes a rich opportunity for the church.  God has set the door open to the future, arriving in the person of Jesus Christ. 

Where is all this “dislocation” taking us as Christians today?

What new “opportunities” for mission do you envision before us?

Waiting for Gospel, by Douglas John Hall

Waiting for Gospel

Chapter 13

A Latter-Day Kierkegaardian Visits a Mega-church

Douglas John Hall saved his best critique for last!  As he recalls aloud his mega-church experience in various stages of confusion and repulsion, he invites us to reflect and respond in earnestness.  I shall simply quote his conclusion and invite us all to consider his departing questions:

“The point, however, is to ask what is being offered in these new temples (and our duller, less successful, and often nearly defunct churches)—not how it is packaged! What is it, and how does it stack up against the Bible, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Tillich, Ruether, Soelle—and (sic!) Kierkegaard. And others. Concretely speaking, in view of the four previous observations, I ask the following four questions:

“First, can Christians in North America today affirm and encourage the much beleaguered and belittled human individual without, in the process, implying that the lifestyle, together with the racial, sexual, economic and other assumptions and pursuits of persons shaped by our consumer society, is just what is ordered by the Master of the Universe?

“Second, how can Christian communities be hospitable without reducing faith to sentimentality, mystery to ordinariness, truth to slogan, hope to optimism, love to luv?

“Third, is it possible to perceive and present Jesus as the representative and revealer of true God without making of him all the God of God there is?

“Fourth, how shall we keep the cross at the center without turning God into a transcendent Shylock and relegating humankind and all the rest of creation to the status of a failed experiment?”

Waiting for Gospel, by Douglas John Hall

Chapter 12 – Many Churches * Many Faiths * One Planet

1.  Hall introduces this chapter with the heading, “The ambiguity of religion in the light of the new world-consciousness.”  He illustrates with the words, “Religion Kills,” which were used as graffiti on the outer wall of the Presbyterian College in Montreal.  A letter to the editor of the International Herald Tribune echoed a similar sentiment, citing “religious fanaticism and extreme belief systems.”  How has the rapid expansion of the global community forever changed the way we view religion and its role in our culture? 

2.  How do you respond to Hall’s statement, “Is there in this extended Christian experience of ecumenical dialogue any wisdom to be gained that is applicable to the larger diversity of religious faiths?”

3.  Next, Hall asks, “How Can Christian Ecumenical Experience Facilitate Interfaith Dialogue?”  He responds with four areas of ecumenical Christian experience from which certain principles may be deduced.  Briefly review and discuss each:

(1) That the well being of the world is the foundational rationale of ecumenical endeavor;

(2) That particularity profoundly appreciated is our entrée to a deeper universality;

(3) That the quest for power always impairs ecumenical discourse;

(4) That hospitality towards and dialogue with other traditions does not diminish but can in fact enhance one’s knowledge and appreciation of one’s own tradition.

“While keeping our eyes wide open to the conflicts that religion inspires or is caused to sanction, we should never lose sight of the blessings that all humankind’s great faiths, at their best, wish to bestow upon the world.”  What are these blessings for us?

Waiting for Gospel, by Douglas John Hall

Chapter 11 – Christianity and Empire

1.  What a great chapter (as opposed to last week)!  Hall’s basic thesis here is that the Christian Empire serves as an oxymoron…a bold contradiction of values and agendas.  He begins with the assertion that empires need religion; then backs it up with numerous examples throughout history…the greatest of these being Rome and the United States. 

What do the Roman and U.S. empires have in common in this regard?  Where are these oxymorons most visible today?

2.  Next, Hall discusses what empires find attractive about the Christian religion.  The most attractive ingredient was the Christian emphasis upon the unity of the deity…of all things “under God.”  A second attractive element is its potentiality for triumphalism.  A third advantage is Christianity’s tendency to foster personal morality and to downplay or neglect social ethics.  Fourth, empires could count on religion to promote imperial authority.

Review and reflect on each of these four attractions.  How do they live on today?

3.  Hall then moves to the role of prophetic faith and the rub it causes against the empire.  He notes several clashes that emerge.  First, prophetic faith is oriented towards truth.  Second, the prophetic tradition never allows its hope in God’s purposes to blind it to the actual negations that mar existence under the conditions of history.  Third, prophetic faith manifests a particular awareness of and concern for those whose suffering is the greatest…those victimized by the dominant culture.

Where, exactly, has the church failed and succeeded in each of these historically?  How is the church managing these three roles today?

4.  Hall contends that contemporary Christians are living on the edge of empire.  Christendom, the alliance of the Christian religion and imperial cultures, was always an oxymoron…one that finds itself in its final stages of decay.  But this is not all bad, Hall urges.  In fact, it is the stance that prophetic faith finds most natural. 

He goes on, “Because of its inherent contextuality, this theology constantly involves the submission of its theoretical ideas, doctrines, concerns and hunches to the realities of the here and now.  Therefore it is ready to make distinctions and to entertain paradox and nuance.”  But not all activity of empires is evil or unacceptable.  In spite of such, much good has emerged in certain pockets and corners of the empire that have promoted genuine Christian ethics and activity.  Hall cites the United States as one such empire that has elicited much good in the soupy mix of Christendom.

So, how does it feel to you to be living “on the edge of empire?”  What does it mean to you to be a faithful, participating Christian in America today?

Waiting for Gospel, by Douglas John Hall

Chapter 10 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer & the Ethics of Participation

*I have to admit, this chapter left me disappointed.  It was slow and arduous reading, with very little in the way of good discussion material.  So, let’s touch briefly upon the major points and see what we can get out of this chapter together.  ;-)

1.  Bonhoeffer is the contemporary champion of Luther’s “theology of the cross.”  Hall divides his chapter into four distinct sections as he flushes out this theology.  First, we have, “The Theology of the Cross as the Link.”  While few of us share in the scholarly concern over Bonhoeffer’s earlier versus later works, we can all benefits from the common appreciation of his life-story.  “There are not two Bonhoeffers, only one.”

I have no idea why Hall includes this information in this introduction…do you?  Did I miss something?  Please jump in!

2.  Next, Hall asks, “What is the Theology of the Cross?”  In this instance, it is the “essential thread” that runs through the complex tapestry of Bonhoeffer’s life and work.  Hall then proceeds to discuss at great length the various interpretations of this theology by myriad theologians over the centuries.  This is a lot to take in! 

As you consider Hall’s eight terse observations (only seven are numbered), did any of them interest you?  Did you connect with one or more in any meaningful way?

3.  Next, Hall discusses, “Bonhoeffer’s Theology of the Cross.”  Finally, it gets interesting!  As Visser ‘t Hooft writes, Bonhoeffer insisted that “the church must stop defending itself and its particular “religiosity” and simply be present in the world for others, as Jesus Christ was.”

“Instead of pursuing a God who carries us off to some ecstatic supranatural sphere, discipleship means pursuing the God who penetrates more and more deeply into the life of the world…that is, among the abandoned, the abused, the suffering, the marginalized.”

How do you draw a distinction between Christian faith and “religion,” per se?  Where was Bonhoeffer headed with this?

4.  Fourth, we have, “The Ethic of the Theology of the Cross.”  Basically, Hall directs us from a world-oriented theology of the cross to an ethic of the cross, which is participatory in character.  “Bonhoeffer’s contribution is to envision and embody a community of the cross with an ethic of imitation, or participation, as the church’s societal vocation and presence.”  Hall suggest we move from social to personal ethics as a means of engagement (invoking sexual orientation as an example).

What does it mean for us to engage in Christian ethics, and where “in the world” are we called to participate?