More from Eugene Peterson
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : March 4, 2005
More from the interview on CT. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, since he pushes a lot of great buttons:
What if we were to frame
this not in terms of needs but relevance? Many Christians hope to speak
to generation X or Y or postmoderns, or some subgroup, like cowboys or
bikers-people for whom the typical church seems irrelevant.When you start tailoring the gospel to the culture, whether it’s a
youth culture, a generation culture or any other kind of culture, you
have taken the guts out of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
not the kingdom of this world. It’s a different kingdom.My son Eric organized a new church six years ago.
The Presbyterians have kind of a boot camp for new church pastors where
you learn what you’re supposed to do. So Eric went. One of the teachers
there said he shouldn’t put on a robe and a stole: "You get out there
and you meet this generation where they are."So Eric, being a good student and wanting to please
his peers, didn’t wear a robe. His church started meeting in a
high-school auditorium. He started out by wearing a business suit every
Sunday. But when the first Sunday of Advent rolled around, and they
were going to have Communion, he told me, "Dad, I just couldn’t do it.
So I put my robe on."Their neighbors, Joel and his wife, attended his
church. Joel was the stereotype of the person the new church
development was designed for-suburban, middle management, never been to
church, totally secular. Eric figured he was coming because they were
neighbors, or because he liked him. After that Advent service, he asked
Joel what he thought of his wearing a robe.He said, "It made an impression. My wife and I
talked about it. I think what we’re really looking for is sacred space.
We both think we found it."I think relevance is a crock. I don’t think people
care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the
service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they’re
taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or
their consumer needs.Why did we get captured by this advertising, publicity mindset? I think it’s destroying our church.
But someone else might
walk into Eric’s church, see him with his robe, and walk out, thinking
the whole place was too religious, too churchy.So why are they going if it’s not going to be religious? What do they go to church for?
Of course, there’s another aspect to this. If you’re
going to a church where everybody’s playing a religious role, that’s
going to be off putting. But that performance mentality, role mentality
can be seen in the cowboy church or whatever-everybody is performing a
role there, too.But we’re involved with something that has a huge
mystery to it. Are we going to wipe out all the mystery so we can be in
control of it? Isn’t reverence at the very heart of the worship of God?And if we present a rendition of the faith in which
all the mystery is removed, and there’s no reverence, how are people
ever going to know there’s something more than just their own emotions,
their own needs? There’s something a lot bigger than my needs that’s
going on. How do I ever get to that if the church service and worship
program is all centered on my needs?Some people would argue
that it’s important to have a worship service in which people feel
comfortable so they can hear the gospel.I think they’re wrong. Take the story I told you about this family in
front of us on Sunday. Nobody was comfortable. The whole church was
miserable.And yet, they might have experienced more gospel in
going up and putting their arms around that poor mother, who was
embarrassed to death.How do we know when they have moved from merely adapting ministry to the culture to sacrificing the gospel?
One test I think is this: Am I working out of the Jesus story, the
Jesus methods, the Jesus way? Am I sacrificing relationship, personal
attention, personal relationship for a shortcut, a program so I can get
stuff done? You can’t do Jesus’ work in a non-Jesus way and get by with
it-although you can be very "successful."One thing that I think is characteristic of me is I
stay local. I’m rooted in a pastoral life, which is an ordinary life.
So while all this glitter and image of spirituality is going around, I
feel quite indifferent to it, to tell you the truth. And I’m somewhat
suspicious of it because it seems to be uprooted, not grounded in local
conditions, which are the only conditions in which you can live a
Christian life.
for further reading . . .
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Eugene Peterson on the “Relavent” Church
Eugene Peterson speaks out in an interview with MissionThink on what might be missed when we are too concerned with making our churches “comfortable” for niche groups in our culture.
Here’s an excerpt:
I think relevance is a crock. I don’t th…
Eugene Peterson and the postmodern church
Kudos to the Sage for always having such good thoughts and links for me to peruse when I have time to devote to reading through his thoughts. It’s always a challenge to me.
Today’s challenge came from an interview between Eugene Peterson and mis…
I’m just about ready begin reading his new book and I will be blogging on it throughout. I thought this conversation with Peterson in CT was great. Really thoughtful.
Great Eugene Peterson Quote
Mark VanS at Mission:Think has a great little quote from Eugene Peterson about the futility of structuring your church around meeting the “felt needs” of people you’re hoping to reach. It’s worth a couple minutes to head over there and read it.
…
When I first glossed over this, I liked it a lot. But when I re-read it, I noticed Peterson’s comment about tailoring the gospel to a culture. He almost seems to be insinuating that there is some sort of culture-free gospel that is not tailored to a particular culture. I don’t know if that’s what he believes, but if it is it is completely wrong. A lot of messed-up stuff can be done in pursuit of “relevance,” but he may be forgetting that the gospel is continuing to be tailored to whatever hegemonic culture he is advocating.
I think Peterson is reacting to an extreme that he sees in many evangelical churches today. He would think it just as wrong to go to the opposite extreme and try to make the gospel completely culture free.
Peterson tends to speak in black and white in order to oppose trends and to make people think. He doesn’t explore nuances; I’m not sure that he thinks that he needs to. He wants to wake people up. The danger of his style is that churches that are not trendy may use his words to validate their “culture-free” (but also irrelevant) gospel.
Quotes XXI: Peterson
I’m in the middle of reading Eugene Peterson’s Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work - I have to write a 1000 word book review on it for Ministry Formation. Anyway, I saw this in an interview with him on Van S’ blog:
I feel we must all ask ourselves one question.
What is the Gospel?
Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 15 what the Gospel is. Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and resurrected.
That’s the message plain and simple.
How many ways can you tell that message. Forget the surroundings and focus on the message.
Salvation is of the LORD. God saves by the gift of Grace through Faith.
He gives every man a measure of Faith.
Therefore, Salvation is completely of God!
I don’t care if you are a trucker, biker, prisoner, or accountant. The message is the same.
Paul became what he needed to become in relation to the surroundings but he NEVER compromised the message.
We can meet people on their own turf but we must NEVER change the message because the Man of God should take the Word of God and allow the Spirit of God to change the Heart of the Sinner and make a New Child of God.
God Bless!!!
I don’t disagree. But the outworking of the Gospel isn’t exactly simple. If it were a simple task, then the New Testament would be 6 pages long. And while 1 Corinthians 15 is a telling of the Gospel events, it isn’t an encapsulation of the Gospel, since elsewhere Scripture tells us that the Gospel is (among other things):
The reconcilliation between God and humanity
The reconcilliation between Jew and Gentile
The power of God unto salvation
The Kingdom of God is at hand
The coming of the Spirit
Etc.
There is a very concrete relationship between Eugene Peterson and Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, I have been to several churches that have jumped on the band wagon of the purpose driven life, and wherever that happens the pastor will change from instructing his congregation on Bible Scripture to using Eugene Peterson’s Message Bible.
It reminds me of the false prophet who will turn over those that follow him to the antichrist. The Message is dangerous because of the following reasons using John 3:16 of the Message.
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
We all know that we are not to add to or take away from the Word of God, but in the Scripture above, the consequences of sin has been strip and those who read it will not be moved through the convicting power that a true inspire translation delivers.
In regular translations there is a consequence for not believing in Christ, in the passage above the consequences has been removed.
Second, the Scriptures can only be understood through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. When one destroys the convicting power of Scriptures they create a false security to those who follow.
The Message removes reverence and the ability to create a holy fear of the Almighty. It is not our place to strip God of that honor. Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He returns? Not faith in man but faith in what He gave those He ordained to write Scripture. There is alot of faith in the wrong thing but faith in the Christ has greatly been replaced by faith in such like Eugene Peterson and Rick Warren and what these man say about what Christianity should be.
I don’t know of any church these days that teach there congregation strictly by the Scriptures that were hand down by Christ, His Apostles and the Prophets.