King of the Hill on Christianity

I used to watch King of the Hill a lot.

There is something quintessenially American about the television show–the perfectly arranged front yards, men grouping together around the beer, the women looking out their kitchen windows over their children with careful eyes. There is something about that show that describes the life of working class family, in a wonderfully stereotyped kind of way that is. Actually, TIME magazine have gone so far as to say that King of the Hill was one of the “most acutely observed, realistic sitcom about regional American life bar none”.

Because of this, I watched with interest an episode on Youtube for how it interpreted Christianity. It actually was a slimcast, which condenses the episode into 10 minutes instead of the original 25–which is probably why it was on youtube legally. Anyway, it was illuminating in how they present an image of the Nu-Christianity that has taken over a youth group that Bobby (the son) has joined. In many ways, it is not very much different from the Christianity that is given in churches today. 

Erasing Hell: Thoughts on Francis Chan and his new book

Francis Chan’s new book Erasing Hell will be coming out July 5th.

That isn’t important though, the more important thing is that this post is better than the JesusneedsnewPR blog. Teehee, I’ll delete that sentence later, but anyway–I can’t say I’m a fanatical fan of Francis Chan, I’m excited with what he says and what an influence he has on other people. Ask any youth group who their favourite preacher is and it most likely will be either Rob Bell or Francis Chan. I much prefer the latter by a long shot, and indeed, Francis Chan has, since the release of “Crazy Love”, exploded in popularity. I’m currently listening to Crazy Love through audiobook, and I’m about halfway through it and I can see why. There is a certain humility in his work, that is relevant and relatable to the audience to whom he is addressing. This is further amplified listening to him speak, he speaks with utmost conviction, which comes across, you’ll see in the video below. Reading that he has given all royalties from Crazy Love to a ministry to children trapped in sex trafficking — his ambition and convictions are ever clearer.

There is another side to Francis Chan that makes me uncomfortable though. I’ve read Forgotten God before–actually I’ve read it a couple of times because I was blessed by it a lot the first time. It undeniably has had a great influence on my Christian walk actually. Yet for all its importance and relevance, what is distressing to me so is how little was dedicated to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I’m not doubting he knows his material about the Holy Spirit, but he jumps quickly to the application of the Scripture without addressing the subject where he drew it from. Without creating that Scriptural foundation, his applications seem bare and according to his own agenda. Why yes, in case you were wondering, I do have complaints about every single author out there! Naw, I truly do like Francis Chan, he’s a great guy. I truly hope you get to the time to watch the video and purchase his new book though — you won’t regret it.

Nevertheless, I always look forward with anticipation to any new project of his. This one seems in a direct reaction to he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned. There is a simple honesty and down-to earth attitude that pervades everything that he says, and I admire that in him above all else that he does. Apparently in the youtube comments, his honesty and fervour is taken as over-acting and false, but I would argue otherwise. I see his willingness to engage and provoke thought in people is wonderful.

There is a moment in the video where he muses the relationship between God and men described by Paul as the relationship between a clay and a potter. He laments how he is a piece of clay, and it is expected of him to teach other pieces of clay about the Potter, and what he is like. At about 1 minutes in, his genuine nature comes through especially in this scene. I wonder what depth that statement truly means in our own lives–perhaps with greater humility we do need to approach things.

There was an interview I read where Francis Chan was asked about the emergent church, a potential hot potato that no one wants to own up to or reject often. This is what he said: “As a pastor I hear a lot of emergent leaders talk about what is wrong with the church. It comes across as someone who doesn’t love the church. I’m a pastor first and foremost, and I’m trying to offer a solution or a model of what church should look like. I’m going back to scripture and seeing what the church was in its simplest form and trying to recreate that in my own church. I’m not coming up with anything new. I’m calling people to go back to the way it was. I’m not bashing the church. I’m loving it.”

What do you think about Francis Chan, which books of his have you read? Would you be purchasing Erasing Hell? Does he have a lesser emphasis on doctrine and understanding, and greater emphasis on the application of bible verses? Do you see this in his writing, and how does it compare to other authors who have written on similar topics like “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper or even, “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne?

How Emergent is Your Christianity?

At the moment, I’m working through the book, “Why We’re Not Emergent” by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. To be honest, I’m only picking it up because David F. Wells wrote the foreword, and he’s a fantastic theologian, one of my favourites.

I’ve only finished the first chapter so far, so I have no particular opinion on the book so far. In the introduction though, there was something fascinating with how much of my form of Christianity is similar to the emergent Christianity described within the book. I admit I’m a bit of a hipster, but the correlations to emergent Christianity is interesting, almost when alternativeness is taken to an extreme and applied to theological epistemology.

DeYoung gives a long list of attributes which are somewhat generalised, but such measures are important when describing a diverse and somewhat undefined movement in Christianity. Then again, it is all the more dangerous because there is no single proponent of it, but a collective message of many pastors who are more subtle in their change. It is difficult to combat because there is no Le Corbusier, no Jean Paul Sartre, no Thomas Hardy, no one  pushing ambitiously the movement forward.

Anyway, the following quote is a checklist of sorts that I seem to somewhat fulfil most, which is kind of disparaging to me, for all my efforts to be not one of this group:

“You might be an emergent Christian:

If you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from the Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists of primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Breannan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, david Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Wink and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic naive and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritise urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular vide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism – if all or most of this torturously long sentence describe you, then you might be an emergent Christian.”

How emergent are you? Does it worry you that your favourite blogger is seesawing on the fringes of emergent churchery?