A “Thinking-Man’s” Religion?
by Thomas Hohstadt
A terrible virus has spread through today’s church—the cold sickness of a faith that simply "thinks"—a "thinking-man’s" religion. Mere words, hard facts, and the trivial surface of language hardly suffice in a world of deeper realities. So it’s no surprise that today’s "spiritual leaders" seldom claim "spiritual awareness." They fly blind in the Spirit, yet still expect changes in the "flesh." Indeed,
The spiritual and social implications of Pentecost, which define the relationship of the human spirit to the Holy Spirit, have yet to be explored for the age in which we live.1
So today’s faith is more passive than empowered, more anemic than energized. It’s more an inert mass of doctrines—a group of dormant ideas—a collection of lethargic labels than anything else. As a result, its Milquetoast believers pretend beliefs they don’t even have.
Incredible, as well, the church of a Creative God has no "theology of creativity."2 This fact proves further today’s spiritual fatigue. And this sign shows certainly that we have lost hold of the bold, inspired, and proactive faith of our spiritual fathers.
No wonder churches die day by day at the hands of the unempowered.
"Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."3
"Going Forth" & "Doing Things"
Yet, the trend of history offers just the opposite. It promises a new faith—an empowered faith, a prophetic faith, a deeply personal faith. For we are returning to the faith of an oral culture—or more to the point, the faith of an electronic oral culture. Already, two-thirds of the world’s population live and move in an oral culture.4 This includes not only the stories, songs, and comic books of illiterate societies, but the Internet, TV, movies, cell phones, and computer games of literate societies.
So why is this important? Why should this make any difference to the emerging church?
Unlike modern "words" which merely "supervene" in life (that is, they merely "add to" life), the "words" of an oral culture "intervene" in life (they actually change life.) Unlike written words which passively contemplate, the empowered words of an oral community actively co-create. And, unlike our "educated" lingo which simply "thinks," the intrusive words of in-your-face fellowships do things.
This is not new truth, it’s forgotten truth. This is not new wisdom, it’s neglected wisdom. The Hebrews of the Bible lived in an oral culture and practiced its oral power. God spoke to them through damah—or "prophetic metaphor."5 Then, their God-grounded, God-consigned, and God-impassioned metaphors went forth and did things.
Their believing, speaking, and creating were all the same. All three were cut from the same piece of cloth!
As a result, they possessed a profound understanding of creativity—a potent mixture of power and passion. Contrary to modern opinion, creativity pervades the entire Bible. Its language does not describe what is, it describes what is coming to be. Its foreseen future of faith and its imagined vision of creativity are the same spiritual force.
In other words, God created us to create!
Today, our words are more important than we ever imagined. The casual "word" is finished. In fact, it probably never existed.
Collaborators—Co-laborers—Co-authors
In oral worlds—both then and now—faith and creativity are one. Faith anticipates the "yet-to-be." It looks "to things that are unseen" and "perceives" the things for which we hope.6 The poet Wordsworth echoed the same vision: A creative person is simply one affected more than others "by absent things as if they were present."7
More important, faith and creativity move in simultaneous worlds: In the moment of inspiration, faith gives form to its inspiration. In the moment of vision, faith gives "substance" to its vision.8 Then, as we share this vision with others, we become "prophets"—because that’s what prophets do!
In other words, we have a role to play. We are more partnered with the Almighty than we ever imagined. The fact that oral words "do" things means we "do" things too. Indeed, the future is more formed than found. Our passion is more applied than perceived.
After all, in an oral culture things must get expressed, feelings must be given form, the anointing must get announced. Yes, we contemplate the mystery, but we also express the mystery. Yes, we stand awed in its depth, but we also give form to that depth.
We are collaborators—co-laborers—co-authors. . . .
When whole "systems" and their parts—including us!—mutually determine one another, the role of divine action takes on an entirely new dimension:
Pregnant With the Future
The act of faith is always an act of faith. There’s nothing passive or secondhand about it. The dynamics of faith require an intentional "acting out." We are full-time creators in the kingdom of "As If." And, giving birth to this kingdom, we are no more spectators than Jesus was a spectator.
This is not an illusion, it’s reality! Scripture insists our vision of the future is more real than the world in which we now live, which is already passing away!9 In other words, the "actual" universe is the one coming into being. So our present faith is pregnant with the future, with the not-yet inside the already.
We may understand life backwards, but we live it forwards.
Indeed, everything we "expect" we are bringing into being. No matter how small, no matter how insignificant, every movement, every moment, has a never-ending ripple effect—engaging and shaping history.
. . . for better or worse! Whether we are conscious or unconscious, good or bad, believers or unbelievers, concerned or unconcerned, encouraged or discouraged—one way or another, we will change history.
The only question is which way.
So we must intentionally focus the field of our intention. We must decide our destiny from the One who has already destined. We must bring to pass what the Spirit has already brought to pass. This means we "create," we don’t "invent." For creative inspiration is something spoken to humans, not by humans to themselves.
This also means life is a dialogue, not a monologue—an anointing, not a procedure—an inspiration, not a doctrine. Today’s religious leaders have spoken eloquently "about" God and "to" God. Now it’s time to let God speak too!
Did You See the Gorilla?
So we turn toward authentic, firsthand living—we seek the intensity of sheer life—we enter a far larger "reality"—we plunge into an unknown, yet absolute, Presence. . . .
How I wish!
Usually, we walk blindly through the bored humdrum of a day-to-day, take-for-granted world. If we look at life, we look from a distance. If we consider spiritual things, we simply talk or read about them. "If there is a Holy Spirit," we say, "it’s certainly not part of ‘real life’." As a result, we crowd God’s "presence" to the margins. Worse still, we trivialize it or set it aside for "special occasions."
But prophetic awareness is a different awareness. It is a "wonderful waiting," a "loud listening," a "ready resting," a "wild patience." Of course, these paradoxical sensations more clearly reflect Scriptural "senses" than the knee-jerk urges of the selfish self. Spiritual senses, for example, disclose the otherworldly difference between merely "hearing" and truly "listening." And, they belong, as well, to a much "bigger" realm—transpersonal, transcultural, transrational. . . .
In other words, they think "outside the envelope." Here’s an example:
In a recent experiment,10 volunteers were shown a brief basketball film. Before the film, they were told to count how many times one team passed the ball. Then, at the end of the film, they were asked if they saw anything unusual. Most did not. Yet, halfway through the film, a man wearing a gorilla suit walked through the players, beat his chest to the camera, then walked off.
Showing the film again, the reality of the "gorilla" stunned the blindly focused volunteers. For finally, they were forced to think "outside the envelope."
This experiment proves we see what we expect to see—and we don’t see what we don’t expect to see. Again, we are talking about the powerful role of prophetic awareness—or, the lack of it.
A "different" awareness, by the way, doesn’t mean a loss of common sense. We still have one foot in this world. We still see the extraordinary within the ordinary. And, welcoming this wonder, we never surrender good reasons for reason.
No Junk
In prophetic awareness, though, nothing is junk. Anything can catch on fire at any moment. Everything "points." Everything "speaks." Absolutely everything is important and significant.
"The whole earth is full of his glory."11
So inspired awareness comes to us in any form—and through any awareness of any form. This means the religious artifacts, rituals, and symbols we’ve constructed are not the only mediators to His Presence. In fact, everything—whether secular or sacred—surpasses its appearance. Everything presents a message beyond its medium. Everything serves as a potential metaphor.
What we have wrongly set aside as "art," for example, shows up incognito in life itself—anywhere, any time, and in any form. What a profound opportunity!
When Spirit takes on body and body takes on Spirit—when the "Word becomes flesh," in other words—there is a powerful sense of another world being rendered. At first, we may be stunned beyond belief. But, later, we are stunned beyond disbelief. For this is the evidence of "immediate experience"—the same evidence that proves anything and everything.
No prima donnas
Obviously, I’m speaking to the leaders of the emerging church. Yet, I must speak for the "sheep" as well as the "shepherds."
The "sheep" languish with gifts even more latent than those of the "shepherds." They’re taught, for example, not to compete with "real" spiritual leadership. So they stand in line for their cupful of stale, second-hand spirituality. And, all the while, they suffer this mean-spirited paradox:
. . . a Spirit that is much too obvious to see and much too close to reach.
Yet, God shares His Spirit equally among all sentient beings. There are no prima donnas here. Wonder and sacred power are available to all. Sadly, though, these "powers" usually come as carbon copies of someone else’s story. And these hand-me-down reports always prove poor substitutes for the "original copy."
Let’s face it. Each of us is an active, proactive, creative agent. In other words, we ignite every moment of our history—no matter how big or how small that moment may be. And regardless of our ineptness, God still works through the least of us to accomplish His purpose.
So we count, and what we do counts. The Lord of History places awesome imperatives on those responsible for empowering the "sheep." And this empowerment is far more significant than "getting what’s-his-name to read a prayer."
If future leaders refuse this responsibility, who will teach the sheep? Who will stake their lives on lived parables—dangerous make-believe—and grace-filled "fictions"? Who will boldly demand the prophetic lifestyles needed in today’s prophetic world?
The leaders of the emerging church! There is no one else.
Come join the real world—a place where the world’s action truly takes place.
© 2007 Thomas Hohstadt
http://www.futurechurch.net/
For more, see the author's Beyond the Emerging Church: The End and the Beginning of a Movement.
Endnotes
1. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in the New Millennium Culture," (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999) p. 378.
2. We have long worshiped the great artistic achievements of the ancient Greeks and have blindly put down similar attempts among the ancient Hebrews. A closer, more honest examination of Scripture reveals, however, the Hebrews understood prophetic creativity far more than any culture then or since then.
3. Benjamin Franklyn, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1739.
4. Erich Bridges, "Reaching the ‘Oral Majority’" Bp News, October, 2004 http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=19311
5. Hosea 12:10.
6. Hebrews 11:1.
7. William Wordsworth, quoted in Richard Dover, "What is a Poet?" Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth, May 4, 1995 http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/words/ballads.htm
8. Hebrews 11:1.
10. Richard Wiseman, quoted in "Did You Spot the Gorilla?" Web Evangelism Bulletin, August, 2004 http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/webull04aug2.php#did_you_spot_the_gorilla_
11. Isaiah 6:3.
12. Ken Wilber, A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality (Boston: Shambhala, 2000) p 141.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Though I understand some of your intellectual posturing I say it has little relevance to the uneducated unregenerate poor and also it embraces very much of the hegellian dialect approach (thesis-your theory ….. antithesis-my differing theory …… synthesis - amalgamation of both……..compromise through dialogue which is not christian at all but a supposition by George hegel as an excuse to cirumnavigate truth by replacing reasoned faith with cultural and oral emotional felt response. We are commanded to be didactic math 28:19-20 people not dialectic people. People of acts not people who just speak words and serve with their lips. Subtle as it is, sound didactic doctrine is what we are told would be replaced by fables and ideas of man; seducing spirits. Jesus was the word, is the word and when he returns will be again known as the WORD the Omniscienent one of the Godhead. That is why the whole emergent church fallacy is wrong, either the word is true and imutable or it is not, and Gods own nature depends on his absolute imovable logos. WORD. Emergent church philosophy makes everything transient and interpretive which is contrary to biblical exergesis and surprises me you would endorse it backed by the same new age folk promoting THE SECRET etc. I do not accept emerging church fallacy and believe it to be the great deception enveloping much of christianity I do not asccept this nonsense regards Brian Hay
September 27th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I love what Thomas Hohstadt has written. I find myself puzzled with why Brian Hay would struggle so with it. A few years back I wrote a sermon that I think speaks similarly to the things Thomas has written, and offer it here as another supportive angle.
Creative Faith
Releasing Creatorship Blessings into your Life
Is faith a primarily static thing? You either have it or don’t? Is faith simply a mental assent to historical facts? Or, is faith a dynamic and living force that can truly change the course of personal and world history? Is faith primarily a cerebral function of careful exegesis of historical documents, or is it a living dynamic experience of the timeless God intersecting time via men and women who understand how to link heaven and earth, bringing forth dynamic wisdom and creative acts?
God’s appointed way to get things done is through “Creative Faith.”
What is creative faith? It is loosing the powers of Creator God into every aspect of life. It is discovering the Kingdom mind of God for your life, your business, for your family finances, and for providing for the needs of His Church, for health and healing, and then speaking it into existence. It is releasing kingdom power for divine prosperity and kingdom development at every level.
God taught Abraham, the power principles of creative faith. He taught him, through his experience with Isaac, how to operate in true faith for all aspects of his life.
Let’s turn to Genesis 11:27-32 It all begins with Terah.
1. A Word of Faith for Blessing.
Genesis 12:1-2
Now the Lord had said to Abram: 1 “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
Notice: The Lord had said…. Abraham didn’t think this up on his own. He heard from God.
We MUST learn to hear from God, otherwise we will dream up our own blessings, add God’s name to it, and become cursed with self centered living. This is the great danger with “The Secret.” Not that it necessarily has a poor vision, or has even misdescribed the laws of Quantum Physics, but it has erred by putting man’s will at the center of universe, and left a personal God out of the picture. It assumes man is able, of his own, to determine what is best for himself, without God’s help.
It is God who commands the universe. It is God who set up the laws of Quantum Physics. And, it is God who wants to co-create with man, inspiring him with His vision and power to bring forth His will in the earth in creative ways. When man acts as if he were God himself, and can command the universe on his behalf, he misses out on the grandest of all journies. Let God be God, and let Him be so through you, and watch how exciting life can really be.
Abraham was about to learn that life is much more than just existing, consuming, or dreaming. It is about becoming God’s creative agent on earth, because at His core, God is ever and always creating and thus looking for those to co-create in and through.
2. Inheritance is better than hard work alone.
Romans 4:13
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Divine Inheritance has more to do with faith than works. Works are good and necessary, but the real power of creation lies in faith. Inheritance is the result of faith, weariness of spirit is the result of work without faith. Weariness of body from good hard work is a good thing, as long as faith in your spirit is producing the divine Inheritance.
3. The Inheritance works by Faith.
Romans 4:14
14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,
God has a promise for your life, your business, your family, and your Church. Do you know what it is? You must get before Him, like Abraham, hear the promise, and then speak it into existence. If you believe perfect performance is necessary to bring it into existence you will wear out. If you speak it into existence - By Faith - you will inherit it. You’ll either work for it alone, or you will inherit it. God’s way is inheritance. Worse yet, if you just attempt to mentally comprehend the historical elements of God’s involvement with man, and the truths He has already communicated, as if He is silent or worse yet dead, then you will miss out on the wonder of your potential to bring forth, into the created realm, that which is yours in Christ, but waiting for you to speak it forth creatively.
4. It operates by Grace, not Human Merit.
Romans 4:16
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
Your life, your business, your family, and your Church prospering and functioning in creative glory, must be due primarily to grace, not self effort. Faith, according to grace, secures the inheritance, works administrate it. To dwell in the smallness of a fearful performance orientation is to miss the hugeness of our potential to bridge the creative realm of God with earth.
5. Faith Sees and Speaks the Impossible as Possible.
Romans 4:17
17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
Faith Calls/Speaks, what the spirit has seen and heard, into existence.
Faith always Speaks, as the Creator speaks, and things come into existence.
Paul tells us in Romans 10:6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way…
Again in 2 Cor. 4:13-15 And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak, 14knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. 15For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.
6. Faith resists Doubts and Negativity.
Romans 4:18
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
Faith never settles in negativity, passivity, or apathy. It keeps speaking until it receives the inheritance. So much of the world, and even the world of many believer’s in Christ, is an orientation to life that sucks the potential of life right out of it. To only see the bad in things, as though we are essentially helpless victims, and thus express a pessimism of life, is to fail to see how we can, by God’s grace, through faith, through spiritual sight into the heart and mind of God, bring forth those things which change our miserable world and existence into something that is more akin to His paradise, than the fallen world we’ve been dropped into.
Why should an unbeliever be drawn to a people with an essentially negative view of life? What is the draw in that? When we live out our lives before the lost with the positive confidence in an ever creating God, we entice the unbelief up and out of the lost, and into a whole new worldview and mindset. We bring them to a Jesus who describes the reality by which He lived:
John 5:16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
What had Jesus just done? He had looked at the negative, which everyone around Him had grown accepting of, passive before, and saw a positive love and creativity in the Father’s heart, turned and healed a man. And what was the response of the religious leaders? To continue in their negativity and want to stone Him for such behavior. There will always be those who are far quicker to deny the creative motion of God in the earth, than anticipate it at every turn of life.
7. Faith may Struggle, but it never Wavers.
Romans 4:19-20
19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
Abraham struggled, he wondered, he tried a few flesh ideas out, but he did not waver. We’re either going to have health, life, a business, and strong family finances, that is about God’s glory, and operates by faith, or we’re going to have a life perspective that just works by human effort and is much more about man’s glory.
We are continually faced with the choice to believe for God’s better, or passively retreat into what “is” or always “has been.” Only those who see with creative faith can move beyond their struggles and into God’s power.
8. A Kingdom Mentality releases the needed Faith.
Matthew 6:33
33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
We have to make a decision. Are we about building His kingdom or ours?
Are we cemented to a kingdom that resides in simply historical stories of past creative acts and the exploits of God, or are we filled with the joy of anticipation of yet writing future history’s creative story?
9. Reject a Kingdoms of this world mentality.
Matthew 4:8-10
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Jesus passed this test. Have we?
1 John 2:15
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
If we have a proper faith then we “will” prosper to the degree God desires to build His Kingdom through us. That may or may not be as much as we desired, but since it isn’t about our kingdom prospering then it doesn’t matter.
10. Living in the Confidence of His Blessings.
Romans 4:21
21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
Are you “Fully Convinced” or just partially? Abraham had to wait 25 years to get “Fully Convinced.” How long have you waited? Are you person of creative promise or suspicious God’s promises are all past tense?
11. The bottom line should evidence Blessings.
Romans 4:22
22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
When he got Fully Convinced God’s hand reached out, took up the accountant’s ledger and filled in the bottom line - i.e. Inheritance took place. He’ll do it again and again for His people who give their lives to Him, to build His Kingdom and not theirs.
Those who see in God an emerging Church, do so because their faith is dynamic, not static. They are a people who refuse to believe what is, is what will always be. It knows in it’s spirit that God is looking for a people who will loose his love and power into the earth to bring forth a healthier expression of Church than the world has ever seen. They emerge, like Israel of old, who simply believed when they stepped into the Jordan river it would part. Of course they did, because their God was not just a God of history, but of the moment. They looked into His creative heart and knew He could restrain the river on their behalf so that the great things to come would have a people to come through. How totally cool!!!
12. Abraham’s faith is a timeless example, not an irrelevant fact of History.
Romans 4:23-25
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
Others, who are watching you, are learning about what you believe about God, faith, divine prosperity, and the Kingdom of God.
13. Kingdom Covenant people Release the blessing.
Deuteronomy 8:18
18 “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Be sure you read it right. It is “All” about establishing His Covenant, His business plan, His portfolio, not yours. We can partner with Him, enjoy a rich expense account, and be blessed in His covenant, or we can fall into 1 Jn. 2:15
1 John 2:15
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
14. Speak your Vision.
Like Abraham, we must hear from God, believe for the Inheritance, base it in Faith, let God enable it by Grace, see the Impossible, resist Doubt, work through your Struggles, connect to the Kingdom, resist Self Centeredness, maintain Strong Confidence, and enter into the Covenant Blessings.
The world is waiting for this kind of people to emerge. Will we be old order people, or a people ready to fulfill the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray:
“Your kingdom come…your will be done…on earth, as it is in heaven…”
This is speaking much more to creative dynamic living now, than praying for the end of this world and the dawning of the millennial age.
The whole thing excites me.