Complex Christianity

 

Mike Frost nails it. Read the whole blogpost here:
https://mikefrost.net/the-danger-of-over-simplifying-the-complex-story-of-christ/

 

The Danger of Over Simplifying the Complex Story of Christ

As Rev Byron Williams says, “Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, trade agreements, illegal immigration, the economy or something else, we crave oversimplification for a recipe that requires nuance. We seek the simplistic answer when only the difficult response will suffice.”

That’s because life is complex. It is richly, beautifully, magnificently baffling at times. All the most splendid things in this world – coral reefs, child-raising, social justice, the raging sea, reconciliation, staying married, Antarctica, South Australian cabernet, extended family meals, a sensational cup of coffee – these things are not simple to describe, nor to sustain. The best things in life are, well, complicated.

The dumbing down of our society is crushing the life out of us, flattening everything into two dimensions, dicing it all into bite-sized pieces.

And the church is just as guilty of this reductionism. We want to shrink-wrap our truth claims too.

So, the big, wide, expansive understanding of the reign of God that Christ taught us has been reduced to merely information about how to go to heaven when you die. The mission of God’s people is downgraded to an ecclesial recruitment strategy. All the recent talk about a missional church is condensed into discussions about style and venue, as if all there is to being missional is to meet in a bar and have a pastor with a hipster beard and tattoos.

As Walter Brueggemann says, “The gospel is a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane. Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. But more than that, our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, quality into quantity, and so takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes.”