Facebook, Castle Anthrax, and Brother Bob

I couldn't slow down on this one. It's a bit long. Split up your read if you need to.
My Facebook family has grown over the years. There are three distinct entry groupings: 1) Family. These are fairly innocuous and newsy entries that I sometimes respond to and immediately pass on to my wife to avoid "why didn't you tell me____" when the topic surfaces at the next reunion. 2) My local church family. These are usually various forms of praise to God for a meeting, a speaker, a community event, a concert, or a prayer request. These are written in a code that an evangelical would not understand. Fortunately, over the years I have developed the ability to speak Charismatic. (For instance, possession is not something you own; it is a state of being, and an undesirable one; and deliverance is not a movie.) 3) Everybody else. In this category are old friends, distant friends, and some distant friends of old distant friends. Many, if not most of these are Christians, and of their number many are into something.

By into something I mean that they are committed to some branch of the church, a commitment which makes me suspicious that it some Facebooky way, I am being evangelized. They may think this is effective, but the truth is that I am being evangelized from so many perspectives that they cancel each other out. I lapse into ecclesiastical overload. For every proponent of Orthodoxy there are at least two Calvinists, a handful of Reconstructionists (mostly exposing other Reconstructionists), three or four hard shell Baptists, a couple of pissed off liberals (imagine being emancipated into the socialist utopia by a bunch of grumps), some Anglicans, at least one dispensationalist who is far too exuberant over the death of thousands of Japanese because it means the Soon Return, and somewhere in there is a rather quiet Mormon. Funny--no Catholics, except the one who challenged my definition of "imputation" in an old blog. He wasn't even on my Friends list.

I remember a trip to Port-au-Prince back in the 1980's. I wandered into an indoor market, where I was greeted by a mob of budding capitalists who shoved me, grabbed me, and pushed everything from beads to something resembling a mango into my face. I shouted the only phrase I had learned from discerning missionaries, "Pap Ashte" (roughly: "I ain't buying today"), and fled for the door. For some reason my Facebook experience has triggered this memory. I feel pushed and pulled by a variety of fine folks to whom I respond with Christian charity, Pap ashte. It also has brought to mind Galahad's perils in Castle Anthrax, which in the interest of Christian delicateness I will not describe, but you can probably find it on Youtube. Suffice it to say that Galahad heard many siren voices urging him to stay in the Castle. Also suffice it to say that it was his love for the Grail that brought him into a place of such distraction to begin with. But I digress.

I believe some strange things. I believe all men are connected, not in their humanity, especially fallen humanity, but by the image in which they were created. I believe the Logos enlightens all men to some degree or other, which boils down to saying that there is truth everywhere, broken and incomplete, and sometimes almost destroyed, but there. That means that I expect light and darkness in every man I meet, or read, or "friend" on Facebook. I embrace the truth and am suspicious of the darkness. This is especially true of the way I look at the church. Bluntly: every group has a piece, but none has the whole. That is why we so desperately need each other. That means that the body of Christ is wider and deeper than my experience of it. And I want the best of what each part offers. Of course, because portions of the church are closed to all but full-on communicants, some of us are reduced to a kind of theological pilfering--peeking over the walls and grabbing what we can.

In utter perversity, I lay awake sometimes and work on a novel which I will never write, but the plot fascinates me. The protagonist is a young seminary graduate attending a conservative Presbyterian church. The pastor constantly preaches against the evils of subjectivism and enthusiasm. Being a rebel, our hero sneaks off to a store front charismatic fellowship on Sunday evening. He has an encounter with the Holy Spirit, and becomes a tongue-speaking prophet in that congregation. That pastor in turn preaches against the 3 "r's," religion, repetition, and ritual, all of which are prefaced with "vain." So off he goes to a small Anglican church across town that has a Wednesday night Eucharist. After a few months of practice and study, he develops an understanding and appreciation for the liturgy. He is baptized, receives the laying on of hands, and is confirmed in all three in sequence. Our protagonist asks deeply enigmatic questions, such as: "Will I really be a better tennis player if I join the US Tennis Association?" "If I do join, will they cancel my membership if I secretly play basketball?"

The rest of the book is his attempt to keep Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening from touching each other, and the tension builds: narrow escapes, etc. Of course, he is eventually discovered, and is excommunicated from the first two with great indignation. The Anglican priest, being a bit of an Emergent, laughs his head off and then suggests that he drop out of sight to avoid the wrath of the Parish Council. After making promises to behave, he moves to another town. The book closes with him flipping through the phone book looking for the names of churches.

Blasphemous? Rebellious? It does raise certain issues about authority and accountability. But what fun! And why not? The protagonist's constant questions are, "If I am this, why can't I be that?" "If I do this, why can't I do that?" Those are dangerous questions that can tear down walls.

But once again, I digress. Let me return to the original subject. Somewhere back there I was talking about Facebook and evangelism and anthrax. Some final points:

One: Things will never be the same. The age of computer connectedness is upon us, and it is impossible not to be confronted with other ideas, especially where the church is concerned. Gone are the days of hiding in one's own sanctuary and viewing with suspicion those who dwell afar. Ideas are pinging around cyberspace at rates incomprehensible to one who still wants to hide with a book in a quiet place. This is not at all bad. I read somewhere recently (probably Facebook) that Al Queda is ticked off because it is being marginalized in the most recent revolutions in the Middle East. They (so far) have had little to do with the rise of democratic ideas that are passed from laptop to laptop. Borders are increasingly irrelevant. One would think that something similar will happen in the body of Christ.

Two: I can't help it. I love Phyllis Tickle's quadrant. Think of four squares created by a cross in the middle. One square are liturgicals, one consists of social action Christians, another is made up of conservatives (evangelicals), and the fourth are the renewalists (charismatics). At the center, where four corners meet, there is a swirl of conversation and experience that is causing the lines to blur and become indistinct. There's something growing in that mess. She points out in this illustration that a certain number of folks will recoil in horror from this chaos, and retreat, like Dean Smith's Tarheels, into their four corners. It's safe and predictable there. In a gracious openness, she acknowledges the contribution of the corner folks to the security of the others. This is no new concept, and I've blogged about it before. What concerns me today is how pronounced and strong the pursuit of the corners is becoming. The Quest for the True Church has never been healthier. There are just so damned many of them! So one is forced to pick, or to in a supernatural effort confess that he already belongs to all.

Three: I do not want to end with the impression that church membership is some spooky connection to something out there that has no feet, or hands, or heart. Of course the church has a local manifestation--and is most important manifestation of church for the individual believer. And that local expression is deeply cultural. It simply cannot be helped. As long as I live, I will think like a Western man; and more specifically, an American; and most specifically, a southerner. It is not a question of choice, but of birth and conditioning. I have this somewhat exotic notion that the Incarnation includes the capacity of God the Holy Spirit to reach into cultures and speak the language of that culture to its people. I realize that's laying a lot of responsibility on God. But if I must learn think like a 16th Century Englishman, or a Russian, or an Italian in order to find the Light of Christ, I am doomed.

At this point I think of Brother Bob--the (composite) Pastor of Booger Holler Independent Church in Sevier County, TN. Brother Bob is a big man who's worked with his hands all his life and has a raspy voice from shouting hell-fire from the pulpit on the weekends. He comes into our office pushing a snotty-nosed brat who is on probation at our office. He sits the brat in a chair, tells him to shut up, and to obey his probation officer--or every demon in hell will pitchfork his skinny butt for eternity. Now, folks, like it or not, this works. The brat begins to assume some responsibility and clean himself up. And it's not because of demons or pitchforks or the threat of force. It's because for the first time in his life a real man loves him and proves it with his action and his time. And there, in all its power for change, is the gospel. Why, I don't even like the man. He offends my old Anglican sensibilities. But he is what Sevier Countians needs. In their language. In their culture. And it will be different in every county, every region, every nation of the world. But the same Lord, and the same church.