In search of a new apologetic

One of my favorite shows of this moment is Dharma and Greg (ABC, Wednesday nights). The concept is very simple. Greg, a straight-up young lawyer, the son of upper-class wealthy industrialists, is married to Dharma, the daughter of two hippies, who never married and are now in their fifties. Dharma is everything that is alternative to our culture, while Greg is everything that our culture used to be. Where Dharma pursues the spiritual, Greg pursues the material. Where Greg pursues success, Dharma seeks relationship.
In spite of their differences the two actually have a very happy marriage (such things are possible, at least on television), but their lives are continually complicated by their parents.

Greg’s parents lead the wealthy retirement life of the country club. While they refuse to come right out and say it, their hope was for Greg to marry well, which, at least in their opinion, is not quite what he has done. Dharma’s parents on the other hand, never married. They are vegetarian, teetotalers who live to set the oppressed free, experience the spiritual, and pursue relational happiness without the encumbrance of anything material.

Every episode of Dharma and Greg is a further exploration of the tension that arrives when such different life styles come together. The clash of such different ideas and life-styles is all too familiar. Indeed, the show draws high ratings and high praise from critics, precisely because it is such a wonderful reflection of the tension our culture is in now.
On the one side, our culture is marked by technological progress, the pursuit of success and materialism. On the other side our culture is displaying an ever stronger fascination with the spiritual and mysterious. While thoroughly western, we nevertheless seek the richness from other cultures. We struggle to create societies in which there is room for every way of life, and every worldview, precisely because we have given up believing that there is only one way to see the world. And so we live in a tension. As cultural observers call it, we live in that between phase between two eras: between the modern era and the postmodern era.
The modern era was characterized by rationalism, individualism, and empiricism. Modernism was the fundamental belief that one day science would discover everything there was to know, we would be able to solve all the problems of the world, and create the society in which everyone could be happy.
The postmodern era is marked by a disappointment with the modern era, an understanding that the modern dream was false, and the understanding that we need to pursue alternative ways to create that society in which there is place for everyone.

The pluralistic society

The scriptwriters of Dharma and Greg understand the tension in which we live well. Like the characters in the show contemporary people try to juggle science and spirituality, materialism and relationship, individualism and community. On the edge of the 3^rd millennium we are searching for ways forward, and think we have found them in what we call the pluralistic society.
In the pluralistic society there is room for everyone. By emphasizing that which unites, and de-emphasizing that which divides us, we hope to create a society in which every person can have their own worldview and their own life-style. The idea is to maximize freedom by reducing the constraints one worldview places on another, or one life-style on the other.

Such a pursuit, of course, comes at a price. In the pluralistic society you can believe what you want, and some anthropologist will always be happy to study whatever you believe. But you cannot be dogmatic about what you believe. You can be absolutely convinced about what you believe, but if you fail to see that your worldview is just one among many, you will yourself opposed by the proponents of the pluralistic society.

As Christians we tend to have a love-hate relationship with the pluralistic society. On the one side we enjoy the freedom it gives, and the rights it gives to live by our sense of morality. On the other side we often dislike the fact that it also awards that freedom and those rights to those who do not share our worldview or preferred life style.

A subtle reformation

So what kind of church do postmodern people need? What style of ministry is going to be effective in reaching postmodern people? Where will Dharma and Greg feel at home? What type of church will speak a message that they can understand, and that will appeal to them? Because in its current form, the church is not appealing to them. On that rare occasion that a pastor or priest makes an appearance in the show he is unappealing and irrelevant. Part of the establishment, and thus part of the scenery, but no more than that. Institutionalism, a constant desire to the way things were, and traditionalism mark the church in the eyes of the producers of Dharma and Greg.

And that in fact is how much of the world sees the church. For reasons that go beyond the scope of this article the church has been slow to change. Even churches that actively seek to be innovative often are a decade or two behind the times.

Creating a new church

I often wonder about the first Christians. They formed a church unencumbered by historical forms and traditions. With the memory of Jesus’ words and life so fresh in their minds, and with theological giants like Paul and Peter in their presence, they experienced a level of ecclesiological purity that we probably have never seen again. Where their ecclesiological understanding didn’t direct them, they were free to create their forms and traditions as they saw fit, and probably as their culture inspired them. Thus they became a church that had a tremendous appeal to the world, was relevant, and, in time, subsumed the whole Roman empire.

Throughout history we have seen numerous occasions in which the church questioned its nature, structure and style. The reformation is a clear example. While originally not desiring to separate from the Roman Catholic Church, Luther and associates gradually came to understand that change was needed. They changed form, tradition, structure, even theology. Granted, they endeavored to return to a Biblical theology. But let’s not forget that they too were products of their time. They lived on the edge of two great periods in time, that were similar on the surface, but fundamentally different underneath. The Middle Ages had given way to the Renaissance, and Rationalism was rapidly taking over as the main philosophy, undermining Catholic authority. In Calvin’s institutes we see a clear example of how rationalism had entered Protestant thinking; a clear delineation of principles, definitions and theological dogma’s.

Upon being excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, the reformers started churches that became a movement. The churches they started were marked by a cultural relevance and style. That these churches appealed to the context they were in, is obvious, for soon Protestantism took Europe by storm.

Now we who live on the edge of the 21^st century find ourselves again in a time of great transition. As our world exchanges the modern era for the postmodern era, questions about the nature of church, ministry and faith arise again. While not recommending that we painfully separate from the churches we are in, and start a whole new set of religious wars, it seems advisable that we take advantage of the questions our culture poses to us. Times of transition open our eyes to things we did not see before. We suddenly find in scripture insights we somehow missed before. We change the things we emphasize. Suddenly we look at the world through different eyes, and everything changes. Perhaps we do not change what believe, but we do change how we believe.

Of course our understanding of church changes also. Like the reformers reformed their churches, so we too have an opportunity to look again at what we do, how we do it, and who does it. And the changes in our culture are prompting many of these questions already. Around the world we see people experimenting with new forms, new insights, new concepts and new styles.

Such experiments can leave us to feel a little uncomfortable. We ask questions about what is Biblical. We wonder if some experiments are not messing with non-negotiables (can Pepsi and Potato-chips ever replace bread and wine in communion?). We can feel threatened or attacked. And, perhaps regretfully, there is nothing that can take the insecurity of these times of change. All we can do is hope and pray that God will raise up for himself in the postmodern era a church that is faithful to him and his word, that cares for the lost, that seeks to be the representative of the Kingdom as best it can.

A church for Dharma and Greg?

And so our mission stands before us. Amidst change we have great opportunity to rediscover for ourselves Biblical Christianity, Biblical faith. Biblical community and Biblical living. We can shake of some of the influences of the Modern context that turned out to be not so healthy. And no doubt we will make our own mistakes, which those after us get to correct.

But our mission is simple: to discover what Biblical Christianity in the Postmodern era looks like, and then, armed with understanding, to go out into the world, becoming all things to all men, in the hope that we might win… Dharma and Greg?

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Rogier Bos and his wife Sophie live in Palm Desert, CA. They come from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a country where they hope to return later this year to be involved in church planting and leadership. Rogier is currently finishing a M.A. degree in world-evangelization. Rogier is the editor of NEXT WAVE.

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