Sister Michaeline on Suffering

Yesterday I heard the most remarkable witness to Christ on National Public Ratio's "Morning Edition" show. You can hear it too, at

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4855590

Katrina: Baton Rouge Parochial Schools Overwhelmed
by Claudio Sanchez
Morning Edition, September 20, 2005 ·
Public schools in New Orleans were devastated, as were the region's Catholic schools. And the Baton Rouge Catholic school system is struggling to accommodate evacuee families in this heavily Catholic region.

...SISTER MICHAELINE: "We have to help them not to waste their suffering. Suffering is a part of our church. Christ died and he saved us through suffering and dying on the cross..."

Why is it that I never hear Protestants--American evangelicals in particular-- talking like this? I think it must have something to do with the turn toward "mystery/fideism" in the late middle ages, as the Devotio Moderna became popular.

In my experience, Protestants think that suffering is always and everywhere ultimately bad/absurd. That is, it is either meaningless, or so mysterious that we finite, fallen human beings can never understand its meaning. Catholics on the other hand are able to say suffering is bad, but not absurd. They are even so bold as to suggest that human beings not only are able to ponder its meaning, but as followers of Christ, are invited to share in the mystery of His making suffering meaningful.

As emergent evangelicals begin to rediscover mystery, they will be faced with a the question of their relationship to suffering. Will they continue to view it from a fideistic perspective, or will they take a different path-- Devotio Antiqua? Will they challenge the prevailing American evangelical wisdom that "suffering has no part of our church," and instead say-- with Sister Michaeline--that it does?

Reinventing the Dairy

Sigh. I'm such a square peg in a round hole. I never was "modern" so it's difficult for me to get all excited like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell are about about the church in postmodern culture.

I didn't grow up Plymouth Bretheren like McLaren or in the Reformed hothouse of Grand Rapids, like Bell did. I didn't go to Wheaton, or bible camps or even church business meetings. I don't seem to have the same baggage they do, because I was born into a home where my mother was Southern Baptist and my dad was Catholic. (!)

From all that I can figure, it sounds like for them, mystery is a big deal: like they've been on a low fat diet all these years and now are tasting butter for the first time.

For sure, I have my own baggage; but I grew up with "butter" on the table. I even got to taste it later on at St. Louis University and Maryville College. I know where the butter is made, and where they serve it with bread and wine. That's why it's so hard for me to understand why emergents think they need to reinvent the Dairy.

I confess I've been sneaking "butter" for years now, but someday I won't have to. ; )

Emerging and/or Arrived?

In a recent exchange
on the VCC worship blog,
Rob referred us
to the Quest Church
website. It was there that I discovered a very stimulating piece by Pastor Eugene Cho, a sort of apologia for this emergent Covenant church in Seattle. You can read it at http://www.seattlequest.org/whyquest.html.
Here's my initial response to one part of what Cho has written.

Eugene Cho asks a critical question: "How do you take the absolute Truth of Jesus Christ to a postmodern generation of relativism? In response, I have a question: "Is there a place for a church which invites and equips its members to use their Christ-renewed minds/reason/intellects to challenge the postmodern generation's relativistic assumptions?"

I realize that if there is, it will be a small niche in the larger Kingdom; but is it not a necessary part for the full functioning of the Body? Modernism's idolization of reason has left our culture with a bad taste; but does that entail throwing out the baby with the bathwater? At philosophically transitional times like these, it becomes difficult to hold on to the mean, and not be swept off to the opposite extreme.

Bottom line: it is important to understand that this peculiar calling doesn't necessarily have to eclipse the mystery, justice, compassion, and creativity that should also characterize Christ's Body. But doesn't somebody need to do the work of humbly showing the Truth Who is not only emerging in our experience, but Who has arrived and is living among us, calling us to Himself, and inviting us to conform ourselves to Him?

Kathy, it seems to me that it is that latter part you are pointing to when you spoke about the importance of Christian formation. To that end, I wonder what the relationship is between worship and biblical literacy. Of course, being able to quote Bible verses is no guarantee for encountering God. But in my opinion, we need to strive for a balance of subjectivity/experience with objectivity/content, and vice versa. But maybe there are other opinions here. Is that balance a goal for the new service? Is it a goal for Valley Covenant Church?