Separation And Mystery

Here is a quote from the man I shall always speak of as Miami Steve Van Zandt in issue 41 (July 2006) of The Word magazine:

When it comes to entertainment and religion a certain amount of separation and mystery is necessary. If you look on stage and you see exactly the same as you are, what is there to aspire to? What is there to inspire you?

Something in there for evangelicals, charismatics and liberals to contemplate. When ‘exactly the same’ is about identifying rather than being remote, it’s OK. But evangelicals reduce it to God the celestial chum, charismatics to God the boyfriend and liberals to, “It’s all right, we (dis)believe the same things as you do.”

Naturally we are nervous about a form of separation which is ‘holier than thou’. Our more recent history as the Church, however, has been to combine the wrong version of separation with the wrong version of ‘exactly the same’. We have become pedestrian Pharisees. We have proclaimed holiness but superficially. It has either been the tick-list of dos and don’ts or it has been the shallow assumption that if everyone is converted the world will automatically become a better place – forgetting that justification needs to be followed by disciples who are sanctified. Witness Rwanda if we want one of the most horrifying examples of that going wrong: not too many evangelicals boast about the twentieth century East African Revival any more.

Mystery has been preserved by the more sacramental section of the Church, although not always helpfully. It has been reduced to theories of the Real Presence and the resulting arguments. Mystery has been resisted by evangelicals and liberals in captivity to the Enlightenment, both of whom in different ways believe that everything is open to explanation.

I am early in a journey of working out what a healthy ‘separation and mystery’ might be. We need a separation, a difference, that is winsome. It needs to be incarnated. Somewhere in the life of Jesus is surely the model. He was ‘exactly the same’ yet clearly different. We need a practical pneumatology (theology of the Holy Spirit) that grounds the Spirit’s work in our lives as being every bit as much in the world as in church activities. John Wimber went a certain way in this respect with the ‘gifts of the Spirit’ being used outside church boundaries; we need more regarding other aspects of the Spirit’s work.

Likewise when it comes to mystery. The parables are a mystery to most of Jesus’ audience. Only on two or three occasions does he explain the meaning, and then only to his inner circle. Mostly they are a mystery if not a tease. It is left to the listeners whether they respond to this narrative teasing. And no wonder we have endless arguments about the meanings of the parables (even before we get to reader-response theories!).

Part of my early response to the issue of mystery is this. My main church has recently bought a digital projection system. They now request a PowerPoint presentation for every sermon. But I have decided to resist the idea of producing PowerPoint slide shows that are lecture notes, with every heading and sub-heading plus the punchy quotes. Instead I am trying to find visuals for each point I make in a sermon: my hunting ground has been Flickr, because the images are of a higher quality than using Google Image Search.

This are just hybrid thoughts. But maybe they can provoke a discussion in the Comments. What are the other ways in which we might portray a healthy ‘separation and mystery’?

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