Does God move us or do we move God? I will come back to the issue of the boring conformity (see last 2 posts) that has settled on American church culture in some of the next posts. Today, though, I wanted to address an under-the-surface issue that is a subtle (but extremely influential) driver of conformity.
There is a theological undercurrent in many churches that originates from a similar root idea, even if those churches come from wildly different traditions.
The root idea is that God is essentially inaccessible (off somewhere else doing his thing), and so we need to do something to get God’s attention. To answer the opening question: we must move to get God to move.
From my quadrant I want to pick on Charismatic (high experience/informal) and Reformed (high didactic/formal) churches for a moment (in no small part because they are opposites, at least according to my diagram, but also because true practitioners of each would be scandalized at being lumped together 😀…so this will be fun).
For Charismatics, there is a strong emphasis placed on worship and prayer (this is good!). But, the subtle (or not so subtle) teaching here is that YOU (me/we/people/etc) need to worship and pray really hard to get this inaccessible god to show up and do something cool.
[[Side Note: much has been written about the charismatic take over of worship songs. This article and this book and this book are great examples. One quote from the article: “Adam Perez said the four most influential megachurches come from the charismatic tradition of Protestant churches. All of them, he said, have a spirituality that believes God becomes present in a ‘meaningful and powerful way’ when the congregation sings a particular style of worship song.”
He goes on to say (and this is sobering): “The industry itself becomes this invisible hand,” he said. “We don’t name the theology of praise and worship — we just assume it. And we use this kind of song repertoire to reinforce it.”
That little phrase “we just assume it” contains multitudes. Conformity flourishes in the soil of unexamined reality.]]
While there is a lot to be said about all of that, take note of this statement again: God becomes present in a meaningful and powerful way when the congregation sings. We have to move to get God to move.
For Reformed folks (who are snorting their coffee right now in outrage over this comparison): we have a very different presentation, but a very similar process.
In Reformed circles one must doctrine correctly, think correctly, study and teach the Bible correctly, obey correctly, submit correctly (you get the idea) and then God will be pleased with us and move (see: “right doctrine leads to right living”, the title of any number of sermons from Titus).
We’re still stuck with “we move to get God to move.”
To cut to the chase, this is formulaic spirituality and the only way out is relational spirituality. (PS. formulaic thinking ultimately leads to conformity).
[[Second side note: This is one of the best, and most important, books I have read in the last five years and it walks a beautiful line of being technical and accessible while making a clear case: we are wired for relationships. Another excellent resource would be the collected works of Eugene Peterson. Start here.]]
In a relational theological paradigm (based on the doctrine of the trinity), we are invited into the community of God by God through God. God is the prime mover and initiator.
But (and this is important), the initiated movement is towards relationship. Relationships have give and take. God is already here and moving and he wants us to join in! To participate.
There are a lot of people who are genuinely and earnestly worshiping and learning doctrine (good things) hoping God will show up, meanwhile God is already there doing stuff wondering if any of these worshipping/doctriners will join the party!
Part of my thesis in these posts is that we have a deeper problem than “youtube and instagram are ruining the church.” The problem is both theological and practical, and we’ll get into that more next time…
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