"Liturgical" Dancing

Today in chapel there was what people like to call "liturgical dancing." By this I mean 4 people wearing white went on stage and danced to a song with the intention of conveying theological meaning.

As we were gearing up for chapel my friend Chad and I were wondering about the development of dance in the liturgy. I confess that I haven't really researched it but it seems to me that this must (save for probably some isolated instances) be a very very late development in the worshiping life of the Church.

As Chad and i pondered this we thought that maybe there was some use of dance, though not in the liturgy proper, in some of the early Christian meetings as sort of a hold-over from Judaism. But we figured that the current form of dancing probably comes from late, post-reformation roots - maybe around German pietism or later Celtic Christianity. If this is a correct assertion (which has yet to be proven) I wonder if this use of interpretive dance comes from syncretism with Druidic (which is was today's dance looked like) and other folk groups in those areas.

All wondering about development aside, what purpose does "liturgical" dance serve? First off the name is a complete misnomer. Sure it may be technically part of the "work of the people" and whatnot, but it seems to me that it really doesn't fit with the liturgical history of the Church as a whole.

It almost seems that the Protestant church is trying to harness dance and the other arts but that they really have no foundation for how to use art and/or convey theology through art because when they reacted against Rome they stripped the church of art, thus throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath-water.

I'm not really sure what point I'm making here. In fact, I find this post to be very scattered and incoherent. My excuse is that I'm tired and that I'm trying to read through David Bradshaw's book Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom today.

All that to say that I struggled with liturgical dance when I first encountered it in high school, I mildly accepted it out of a generous attitude in college and now that I understand the development and purpose of liturgy and the church service I find that it doesn't really fit. I would appreciate some thoughts and some suggestions on this issue. Maybe I'm narrow-minded, or maybe I'm just overlooking something. Shoot, maybe I'm right and you can help me articulate why.

- Ben

Shared Experiences

Much of what is below is still a work in progress (especially given I just started thinking about this about 3 minutes ago) but I wanted to throw it out there before I forgot it (as I usually do).

I was just youtube-ing at work since the student center is completely empty and I have another hour and a half to work, and I came across a sweet video via my friend Tegan's blog. I promptly sent the link to my sister with whom I was IM-ing to pass the time.

After a period of no response from my sister (not an unusual thing) I asked if she watched it yet? She replied that she hadn't and thus I exhorted her to watch "now." I told her it was great and gave her a few reasons to watch it. After prodding her to watched it I began thinking about the youtube phenomenon and blogging and things of that nature.

I began to wonder how much of this is more the desire for shared experience than actually just the dissemination of cool videos and ideas. I'm sure it's a bit of both, but it seems that one of the driving forces behind youtube and really all the internet fads is shared experience.

As I think about this I wonder if this is need or craving for shared experience has helped to feed into the various popular Christian movements over the past few years. Think about the Emergents. What do they emphasize? They build upon a need for experience and collective-ness at the expense of Christian orthodoxy, even to the point of holding heretical views and ignoring essential Christian tenets. I personally am absolutely dismayed that the emergent movement continues to thrive. This is a cancer growing through protestantism that is causing us to forsake the Christian faith all for some sort of collective experience and liberal idealism. In my mind many of the emergents are no better than the heretics of old such as Arius, Nestorius, Montanus, etc.

I also wonder if desire for shared experience helps to contribute to the Rob Bell craze. While I'm still working on reading through some of this guy's books, I do have to say that I'm not a big fan. His nooma videos are junk and I think they are mostly fueled by this desire for a shared experience or a desire to be 'timely' (see my post: Current? and yes I do realize that I'm being a bit contradictory by posting these thoughts so quickly)

The students here crave Bell and the Emergents. They get all starry-eyed when someone mentions their names and quickly bristle when someone like me says that they're not that great and may indeed hold heretical beliefs (emergents). I find it disturbing that students champion these people and drink the proverbial Kool-Aid so quickly. Why must our shared experience be found in the latest fad and not the timeless beliefs of classic Christian orthodoxy? Why do we champion these new thinkers for innovative ecclesiologies when they lack the substance of the faith and are doing nothing more than leading people down the path to hell with their watered down theology and absence of anything genuine?

If these men and women teach something contradictory to classic Christian Orthodoxy and they cease to become "nice" and "slightly misguided" people that we should learn from and they become impious God-haters (to use some of the phrasing for those anathematized at the ecumenical councils).

Just so I don't get misunderstood and get a ton of backlash let me be clear: I am not calling Rob Bell a heretic. I am also not calling ALL of the Emergents heretics. I have, however, had a conversation with one high-profile Emergent leader in which he claimed the Trinity was just Greek philosophical ideals and not really Christian and thus not a necessary or even important doctrine. I also think that Emergent theology down plays Christian orthodoxy to a dangerous extreme and thus runs fearfully close to falling into heresy (like the aforementioned leader).

My concern is that Asbury Seminary students and undoubtedly students, ministers, and lay people across the country and buying into these faulty paradigms because they desire a shared experience. This is absurd. The shared experience should be the Holy doctrines of the Church which help us to partake of the divine essence of God as St. Peter says. I am absolutely disgusted with the hero worship the students around this campus give to folks like Rob Bell and the emergents.

While the same charge of hero worship could be thrown at me and the way I read the saints of the church, I will just say that my hero's have lasted the test of time, and were actually building up and codifying Christian orthodoxy not ignoring it and leading people astray.

- Ben

Quick Update

If you were wondering how the reader situation described the post below ended up I got an email today that said they were opting to strike the Nestorian Liturgy quote but keep the Origen quote.

I'm not thrilled with this option, but it's a little better and I have to live with it. Personally I think that both should have been taken out of the reader, but I'm not in charge and I can't make those decisions.

So if you're at Asbury and you are using the 2008 Lent reader for your devotions please know that I had nothing to do with that. Also know that I can only place my wholehearted endorsement on the Lent/Easter Day section of the reader. The other half may be great, but I still feel uncomfortable with Origen in the mix. I can appreciate the major contributions that Origen made to biblical studies and I can agree that it sucks that he was condemned a heretic posthumously, but I cannot agree with including him in a devotional reader knowing that he was condemned a heretic by people much wiser and knowledgeable than we are.

I'm sure these last two posts have bored almost all of the 5 people that read this blog so I'll try to post something light and/or funny next time around. Though I'm not making promises.


- Ben

Does anyone care about Christian orthodoxy anymore?!

I should be reading for class right now so I'll try to make this quick. As a few of you probably know, I have spent my last few semesters here working on a couple devotional readers for the seminary for use during the seasons of Lent and KingdomTide (a season created in the 60s or 70s during the season commonly called Pentecost or proper time). I recently finished the Lent/EasterTide reader for 2008, of which I was responsible for all of Lent and Easter Sunday. The EasterTide section was taken by a student down at the Florida campus. In case you're wondering a typical day in the reader would consists of the following:

Opening Prayer - from the Book of Common Prayer, a Psalm or a Saint.
Gospel Reading - We segmented out the Gospel of John for each day on this one.
Historical Reading - A reading form a major figure in Church history. I use mostly cannonized saints (east and west) and John and Charles Wesley.
Prayer of Response - from the Book of Common Prayer, a Psalm, a Saint, or often I will write this to bring more cohesion to the above elements.

Some days will also include an OT reading, or be missing either an historical reading or prayer of response, but you get the idea. The woman with whom I am working at the Florida campus also uses roughly the same format, though I've noticed she likes to bring cohesion by writing more of her own material other than prayers.

Now to the issue that leads to my thoughts:

At the end of the reader we usually write short biographies to help the readership know more about the figures we use. As I was compiling the biographies I noticed that she used two sources that seemed suspect to me: "The Nestorian Liturgy" and Origen.

I took contention to these to figures because both Nestorius and Origen were condemned by the Church (back when it was unified) as heretics. I debated on whether or not to say anything because there is some debate whether Origen actually was a heretic (he was condmned posthumously) and it is popular to quote him. I was going to let Origen slide but I could not remain silent about including part of a heretical liturgy for our campus community to read devotionally. Nestorius (and thus the Nestorians) held that Jesus existed in two persons: Jesus the Son of God and Jesus the man. This means that it was not Jesus the Son of God who died on the cross, but that it was just the man that suffered.

Nestorianism is problematic because, as I believe it was St. Athanasias (though I could be wrong) said, "that which has not been assumed cannot be redeemed." In other words only God could free us from our Sin and thus Jesus Christ who was indeed fully man must be fully God in order for their to be any merit in his death and resurrection. I am aware that this is a truncated argument, but it will have to suffice.

After an exchange of emails she said that she was aware that these men were heretics but that they were condemned under "shady" circumstances and that we can still learn from them because they got "sidetracked." I'd be willing to allow her argument that his condemnation was "shady" to hold a little weight as Origen was dead when this happened, but not Nestorius. And she is dead wrong that Nestorius "got sidetracked" he was confronted by the Church and he refused to deviate his teaching. Nestorius' view strikes at the heart of the incarnation and devalues the entire Christ event. This is not a little slip up, this is huge!

To be fair the readings she included were not in and of themselves heretical. In fact, the small phrases she used were very orthodox, but that is not the point. While it may be important to read these things and talk about them in the classroom to help firm up our foundation on orthodox Christian teaching I do not agree that even the seemingly orthodox statements of heretics should become devotional material. I know that I am dangerously close to separating that which feeds the spirit from that which feeds the soul (something I don't like to do), but we cannot just openly endorse heretics.

I am also confused as to how one can be "open to exploration [of heretics] (as long as it is not teaching heretical stances)." We cannot think that one's heretical beliefs can be fully separate from the rest of one's beliefs. I argue that it is impossible to dichotomize a major belief unit from the rest of one's beliefs. How can one speak praise to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (which is what her Nestorian quote consisted of) while holding that the Son - Jesus Christ is two persons. To whom are you giving praise? The Son that is born of Mary and thus fully human or the Son that is only fully God and thus did not really die and rise for our transgressions?

I'm not intending to get on her case, but I do see this as problematic and didn't know how else to discuss it. She means very well, but in my opinion this is a major issue. I think the part that bothers me the most though is the reaction to many of those whom I've shared this with. People just don't care. I know that I'm a church history nerd and I know that I am very excitable when it comes to the doctrines of the faith, but am I really barking up the wrong tree here?

Why are these heresies that strike right at the heart of our faith suddenly open for discussion? Why is it ok to exalt these heretics to such high levels? Do we not care about the Faith?

We fight long and hard about moral issues, but yet we are not willing to fight for the substance of the Faith? The early church fathers saw little to no distinction between right belief and right practice. It is right belief in who Christ is that as Paul teaches is the basis for our right belief. Maybe, just maybe if we worried a little bit about what our faith is saying we would begin to put together correct Christian morality.

Maybe for us (though I think it's a long shot) we need to worry about other things more than doctrine. But even if that is so what kind of faith will we have to pass on to the next generation? If we continue to ignore the substance of faith and allow heretics to pass as Saints we will have no substance to pass on to our children and to their children. I don't believe it's an accident that the earliest Christian hymns and creeds embedded in the New Testament are very doctrinal and Christ focused - the doctrines of right faith are the soil out of which right morality grows.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not arguing for immoral behavior. I am just wondering why no one cares about the substance of the faith.

Frankly it just makes me sad.

The issue with the reader is just symptom of what is going on in the Church. We must read heretics as heretics and saints as saints. Heretics have no place in our devotional life and must be read cautiously. We can examine them to help inform as to how we got where we are, but we cannot just flippantly include them in communal devotional reading. Especially reading that as my friend Anna pointed out is inherently not conversational with the work or others. In my opinion the inclusion of a figure in the reader implies their endorsement for those who don't have the time or desire to read a lot of these figures. These quotes may get used in sermons, bible studies, and youth group lessons. These quotes may get googled and used within the context of the whole. My biggest fear with the quote form the Nestorian liturgy is that some student hoping to do a nice 'emergent' liturgical service will Google the liturgy and unknowingly have his or her parishioners partake in a heretical liturgy. For what we practice will slowly become embedded in us and become part of our belief system. This is one of the reasons why we must continue to celebrate the creeds in our services. But that's another post for another time.

As always I'd appreciate your thoughts on this matter even if you disagree with me, as I'm sure many of you will given the reaction I've gotten so far from some friends.

Flippancy with Orthodoxy

I'm writing a paper this semester on the addition of the "Filioque" clause (for a more detailed explanation click here) in the Nicene Creed. While this may seem like a really nerdy project, and indeed it probably is, the reason I've elected to write on it is because this is a topic that is historically important but also one that I find to be very important for personal piety - especially if I am going to lead a congregation in saying the creed some day.

One may think that this is just a creedal variant and thus it only makes a difference in the deep realm of theology and not in that of the average church. Let me say that I agree with the early church fathers when they often argued that godliness (holiness) were one and the same with correct belief. They taught that out of correct belief comes correct action. While I don't want to get into the deep ramifications of the Filioque insertion, I do believe that it affects our view of the Trinity and thus it effects our view of God. Since I believe we should try to think rightly about God I also believe that I should be concerned with this issue, especially since I hold the Nicene Creed close to my heart as a definitive statement of Orthodoxy.

Since I'm not sure how this inserted statement lines up with scriptural orthodoxy I have chosen to err on the side of not saying "and the Son" when I recite the Nicene Creed. Please know that I'm not saying all this to condemn those who don't think about this, I simply bring it up for two reasons: 1. it's something that I've been thinking through for the past year or so and 2. I catch a lot of crap for thinking this way.

The second reason is the one that I would like to address. Most of the crap that I catch for thinking so intently on this subject are from good friends who joke about it in good fun. I have no problem with this. I don't think it's sacrilege and I can take a joke. I'm sure I've probably been more sacrilegious than all of them combined. However, I am concerned with the number of people who flippantly don't care about this issue and joke about it based on that.

I don't want to be condemnatory toward the laity but I very disappointed in the seminarians who openly mock the notion that one would seriously think about this issue. This is seminary, this is the place where we are suppose to think on these sorts of things and I find it extremely disheartening that there are people on our campus that will argue about our ethos statement against drinking but will not think seriously about the creed we recite and what is says about our God. I am even more depressed when I think about being on chapel team last year. I was on a team that was supposed to lead the community in worship, of which the creeds were occasionally a part, and I was openly mocked by the team for declining to lead the congregation in the recitation of the Nicene Creed because I didn't want to lead them astray one way or the other.

I am amazed with the flippant nature Orthodoxy is treated with among the student body. I allow that this may be a "small issue" (though historically it may be the largest) but there is also a great deal of contempt that is shown toward historic orthodox doctrines in an effort to be creative and think outside of the box. While it is ok to think critically I find it disturbing when we treat historical Christian orthodoxy as chains from which to be freed. This even occurs among the faculty at times. I was in class the other day with a highly published professor and he closely approached the Arian line as he openly pondered if there was a point in eternity before creation at which Christ was unbegotten. He was very careful to say that there was always a Trinity (and thus avoided complete Arianism), but that there may have been a point in eternity when Christ was not begotten of the Father.

I shudder when i think about the generation of Pastors this seminary is training. We are neglecting the substance of the faith in an effort to create pastors that are able to memorize their sermons, use good illustrations, and learn how to be 'relevant'...and for what? So that they can recite sermons without substance from memory? So they can illustrate and perpetuate a form of weak Christianity? So they can lead people away from the Holy Faith and straight into nominal Christianity, in a nominal way?


Lord Have Mercy!!
May God save his people and bless his inheritance!!

Misappropriating the Incarnation?

I'm not really in the mood to blog right now, so this post (as have so many others) may be lacking in coherence and a well formulated argument, but I will post it nevertheless because it helps me to process things verbally (or in this case through typing).

We recently had Kingdom Conference on campus which is basically the Seminary's attempt at a four day mission conference nestled in the "church season" they like to call KingdomTide. (We'll avoid my soapbox diatribe against KingdomTide for now).

The topic of this conference was rethinking short-term missions and how we can do them well. I think this is a very important topic because so often short-term mission trips turn into vacations with just enough 'ministry' to ease the guilt of taking a vacation. We also want to avoid what my friend Eric Iverson from Youthworks calls "pimping poor people," or in some cases 'pimping the nationals' we go to work with. We want to make sure we do some good and we want to make sure that we are not only sticking a band-aid on the infection, but that we're treating the cause as well. We want to make lasting changes and almost work ourselves and our missionary friends out of a job. I'm not sure if I explained that well, but either way it's more of an aside and not the topic I wanted to discuss. (Don't you just love my flow of consciousness writing style?)

Given the topic we had a speaker in chapel that lectured on improving short-term missions. Our speaker was Dr. Miriam Adeney, a professor at Seattle Pacific, who was a fairly good speaker. I liked most of her points but during one of her lectures she said something that I remember thinking was a very poor analogy at best. In her effort to emphasize making long-term connections through short-term missions she said "What if Jesus had dropped in on earth for only two weeks?" This seemed to me to be an odd analogy and I remember taking some issue with it when she said it. I didn't really get too worked up over her comment until I saw it listed as the "Heard Around Campus" quote of the week from last week. I guess it seems that someone (and since they put it in there, I'm assuming multiple someones) thought that it was a very profound statement.

While it is a good point in that Jesus didn't just "drop in" and we should cherish that because the incarnation is absolutely essential to our salvation and for knowing the mind and the heart of God. It seems to me that she is just citing an extreme case to make a small point about missions. Maybe this is just a type of logical fallacy (and as I type this I think it is, but I can't remember it) or maybe this could be a form of Godwin's Law. To be sure, I have been guilty of such errors (regrettably too often in conversation) but this analogy just seems wrong to me and I'm having trouble articulating it. Maybe I'm not making sense but it just seems to me that placing relationship building in short-term missions (or in any sense) on the same level with the Holy Incarnation is just too extreme of an analogy. It bothers me even more that students (or at least one student) thinks this to be worthy of the quote of the week. Doesn't it bother anyone else that we just use the incarnation as a means to justify almost anything. The incarnation is one of the most glorious things and we treat it as though it were just an example that we should draw from when we want to make our argument fool-proof.

I'm not saying that I disagree with Dr. Adeney's points, I'm just disagree with her argument style/example. Maybe I wouldn't be so quick to point this out if I didn't think that we deified community here at Asbury. Maybe you're thinking that that last statement may indeed be the exact same fallacy that I'm arguing against, but I don't think it is, because I've heard some discussions (many of which come out of the chapel office) that make it seem (and I really think it is the case) that the seminary is more concerned with making sure our students value community than it is that they value and rightly think on the incarnation, the Trinity, or a plethora of other essential doctrines of the Church.

Maybe I'm making a bid deal out of nothing, but maybe these comments by Dr. Adeney and their glorification by the student(s) is just the tip of a bigger problem that is well entrenched in Western Christendom.


- Ben

Cynical?

Given my (and a few of my housemate's) cynical attitude toward the seminary one of them posed the question.

"Is it cynicism if we're right?"

So that's the question I offer up to you. If our percieved cynical attitude is right are we really cynics or just the only ones that can see reality?

I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments. Have at it.