Asking the Right Questions for the Next Regime
“How dare you question me?”
We know this voice well. History knows it well. It’s the voice of authority, and it’s the inevitable result of human culture.
Dogmatism
The need to maintain control tends to turn good intentions sour. History is replete with examples of many regimes, religious and otherwise, that establish their narrative above all others. Don’t get me wrong, there must be control for the world to work. But, unfortunately, control means power.
Dogmatism is the natural effect of such power. It’s the snubbing of open dialogue and masking of transparency. Questioning is neutralized unless it furthers the narrative.
Over time, formal regimes of the past have somewhat stratified into tribalism, where we can, more or less, choose which “regime” we join. The Internet helps facilitate this with its ability to connect like-minded people from around the world.
And yet (perhaps we should be thankful), no tribe, regime or system is capable of handling this control forever. No tribe is without leaks, and eventually, rivers of distrust form gorges that split them apart once again.
All it takes is a cursory look at Human History to see how much this cycle repeats itself: revolutions only make new regimes.
Enter Church
So when Jesus revolutionized the “bi-regime” of his time–the Jewish religious system and the Roman Empire–he did so in an original way. He lost, and led others to lose as well.
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25).
According to Jesus, true life is found in the losing of it. This is not in the Buddhist sense where we’re obliterated. Instead, it’s found in the surrendering to the one who first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Thus, from this “revolution”, the Church was born. And while acknowledging its own sour history, I still believe the Church is the only place where regimes of all forms truly find their end.
This begs the question, though: what’s to stop the Church from becoming a regime (again)? Sure, Jesus started something truly revolutionary, but humans still have the tendency to mess it up. Shouldn’t we just “reshape the Church” per the Emerging Church?
Or is there another option?
Bringing Questions Back
What the Emerging Church–or particularly, the progressive Church–got right was the importance of questions. They should be welcome in Church. It’s actually the best place for them. The Psalmists openly questioned God. Jesus questioned God (Matt. 27:46).
But the right questions need to be asked. Further, endless questioning and doubt, if we truly pursue their logical end, leads to materialism (only believing what can be tangibly verified), which is intrinsically nihilistic (the notion that there is no ultimate meaning to life or reality). The only way to avoid nihilism is to “chicken out” and stop spiraling down the rabbit hole of doubt. We can’t question everything or else life will be unlivable.
Life needs to be lived meaningfully.
In other words, for there to be true meaning, we must believe, or worship, Something Beyond what our material brains can concoct. This, as Christianity posits, is the Triune God.
This is not to say the Church disavows hard questions. But what it does say is that there comes a point where “self” must surrender to something. It cannot fathom the objective truth of reality. It will be left unsatisfied. So it must either submit to society (a particular “regime”)… or God.
Therefore, for the Church to establish this place of trusting God, it’s time to be vulnerable again, to risk its own “security” for the sake of its character. And the future of such character undoubtedly lies with the next generation. They have questions, both intellectual and existential, that must be embraced with grace. Categories like evil and suffering, social justice, engagement with the LGBT community, scientific advancements and Biblical veracity will be laid on the table.
Apologetics is necessary–on the intellectual level–but we must be prepared to go deeper.
So that’s why we need to target the root of the issue, and that is, what we desire and worship.
What is our vision of “the good life”?
What do we worship? Or, to put it another way, what do we surrender to in hopes of finding life?
What story am I a part of?
The “Guts” of the Issue
Stories target the guts of a person. They’re affective, and thus they have the ability to convince a person holistically–not merely intellectually. They make us desire something. They set a telos, or goal, for the audience to latch onto. In other words, they make us want to be someone. All storytelling forms cannot be reduced to mere philosophical or idealogical concepts shrouded with aesthetic coatings. They are all targeting something deeper.
That’s why the current “intellectualized” paradigm of humans, what James K.A. Smith calls “thinking thing-ism,” is erroneous.
We must understand that Faith does not reside in the mind alone. Our whole person is in view (Rom. 6:13; 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 6:20). Our mind, as critical as it is, must be seen as part of this whole. It’s like the navigational instrument to our earthly vessel. Like a paddle to the body’s canoe, the mind directs us across the water towards our destination. How foolish, then, to say that the paddle is the whole point of canoeing across the water? Is it not the crossing of the water, and our destination, that matters?
So, using our minds to direct us to back on course, let’s return to some of the vital questions:
What practices and habits are forming our desires? Do they incubate a selfish “destination”?
Was there something outside the Church that has shaped our vision of “the good life”?
How are we, as parents and exemplars, "fashioning Christ” for the younger generation (Rom. 13:14)? Are we showing them that Christ is, as John Piper puts it, more desirable than life itself?
How else will they, and us as adults, understand that “self” lies in the control of God if not through the sanctified imagination offered by the Church? Where else will we learn how to surrender to the True Authority if not through continual embodiments of the Gospel Story?
Or would we rather raise another regime?
