Interesting Proposal(?)

Read this over the weekend from Odyssey:

Chris Erdman writes:  Brian McLaren, Al Roxburgh, and I led the Ministry Forum at Fresno Pacific University last week (Brian and Al on Thursday, Al and I Thursday night and Friday). Brian and Al said a number of provocative things. Most provocative for me was Alan’s call for a moratorium on talking about the church. He argued that we are talking too much about the church—and it’s a conversation not unlike that of three friends who re-united after several decades only to find that one of them finds a way to turn every conversation into a conversation about herself. So long as we keep asking church questions, Al maintains we may avoid the more challenging questions about the gospel, the Powers at work around us, real gospel involvement in the concrete realities of the immediate world around us. I heard him saying that we too often treat the gospel as a product of the church (something we control and broker) rather than the church being a product of the gospel (derived, formed, sustained, “controlled” by the gospel rather than the other way around)

Any thoughts?

Someday soon, I might like to propose my own moratorium on the adjective "local" to describe the church when "church" is also preceded by "this" or "our".  Everyone knows that all of us have some sort of gripe with the historical development of the concept of the universal church (though that needs some work too, in my opinion).  However, I don't think anyone will wonder if you are talking about the universal church when you say "this church"; therefore there is no need to say "this local church"-- but that is another rant for another time.

Comments

[Daling]

I wish to go off about this quote, but I would like to temper my rage a bit from the outset. If they mean 'we' to be the people involved in their 'conversation', then it is alarming but understandable. If this is the context that this is said, then I think that they are misguided. However, I don't think it wold make sense to go off on something that is meant to shake things up in a 'conversation' that I am not a part of.

If this is meant to be a general comment to others as well, I have a few major problems with it - but I will wrap them all into one. I suppose that I would like Alan to tell me what are these more 'challenging questions of the gospel, etc.'? How exactly do you divorce these things from the church? Roxburgh is certainly not the only one to do this, but I believe that he is putting forth a false dichotomy for absolutely no reason.

If there is a problem with the amount of time and attention being paid to the church and its nature RATHER than the gospel - fine. Do something about it. These guys have the ability to shape the conversation, so why don't they? Not talking about the church will just result in the same mistake that he sees being made now. I would agree with him (at least somewhat) in his comment that we try to 'control and broker' the gospel at times. The answer to this is not to cease speaking of the church, but to work harder on its nature.

Come to think of it, the quotes you have put up from Eugene Peterson are probably the best reactions to this type of statement. If I have misunderstood Roxburgh or Erdman, I do apologize. It just seems to me that what was put forth here is a false dichotomy - a very overused and limited way of argument. How can any questions of the gospel be formulated without including the church?