(Originally posted Jan 4, 2007 on randehle.com) What is the American dream? While the term may mean very different things to different people, it usually conjures up images of material success: home, car, family, financial security, independence. For many, The Dream is associated with immigration and what America offered: religious freedom, economic prosperity, limitless opportunity. For most, perhaps, the dream is centered on freedom of some sort – religious, financial, geographic, etc.

I wonder, though, if the American dream lines up with God’s dream for his people? Certainly freedom is a central aspect of Biblical truth, but perhaps not the type of freedom we hold so dearly in this country.

Sadly, I think, the church in America – under the burden of freedom – has bought into the American dream … and in so doing has become drunk on its own success. In a big country where bigger is better, the church has enjoyed an extended period of growth both locally and nationally; we have more churches and bigger churches. At the same time, we have promoted – sometimes actively, sometimes passively – the American dream. We explain church growth in terms of God’s blessing and equate personal faithfulness with the same: if the church is growing, it must be because God is pleased; if a family experiences material “blessing” (i.e., lots of stuff), then God must be pleased. The same theology says that hard times show God’s displeasure.

I don’t think that’s true, though, and there’s a lot of evidence in scripture to back me up. Just look at Joseph’s life – beaten up by his brothers, sold into slavery, thrown in jail for a rape he didn’t commit…hardly a “blessed” life! Yet he himself acknowledged to his brothers that “God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20) Job’s counselors came to him with a similar message, yet listen to God’s rebuke: “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

God has been working in my wife’s and my hearts in this area; we see him striking down much of what we have grown up with in the American Evangelical church. It’s not that what we grew up with was wrong; but it seems to me that somehow, over the past couple centuries, the line between “Christian” and “American” has been worn thin. Unfortunately, it has been “American” values that have gained prominence over “Christian” values, rather than vice versa.

This week my wife started reading a new book, This Beautiful Mess, by Pastor Rick McKinley of the Imago Dei community in Portland, Oregon. In at least one of the chapters, Rick talks about some of these kinds things, and the message is very much at the core of what Imago Dei is about as a body. My wife and I are wondering where and how God will lead us in this new adventure of faith, of striving after the true freedom he offers rather than the false freedoms of financial security, independence, and material things.

(Originally posted Nov 13, 2006 on randehle.com) Many of the leading voices in the emerging church prefer the term “conversation” to “movement.” In that vein, D.A. Carson has attempted to join the discussion with his book, Becoming Conversant With The Emerging Church (Zondervan, 2005). In his preface, Carson writes, “Whenever a Christian movement comes along that presents itself as reformist, it should not be summarily dismissed.” He expresses his desire to engage in the conversation in a manner that encourages mutual learning – certainly an admirable and necessary aim.

It strikes me as unfortunate, then, that Carson’s book is so clearly biased against the emerging church; so much so that I am afraid he has struck down any real hope for bilateral communication. For example, consider the scathing remarks of my friend and seminary classmate, Dustin, in response to what Carson has written: “[It] should have the subtitle ‘Why I despise Brian Mclaren[sic] and why everything he thinks is wrong.’ …most of the accusations posed in the book are simply untrue.” (For whatever it’s worth, I find Dustin’s comments no more beneficial to healthy dialogue than what Carson has written.)

From the initial pages, Carson expresses his desire to engage in a well-reasoned and balanced conversation about substantive areas of difference as well as agreement. If he has fallen short of the target, as I believe he has, then what may be needed in place of his work? First, it is necessary to establish the foundation upon which the conversation will be based. It would be easy to say that the Bible is our foundation but among theologians, that is so simplistic as to be meaningless. After all, a key element of Emergent involves reevaluating how the Bible is to be read and understood. It has long been difficult for us evangelicals to reduce our core beliefs – what we consider the essentials of faith – to a bare minimum. Whether it is the mode of baptism, the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper, or the form of church government, we tend to define our position, draw the battle lines, and take a firm stand in defense of those beliefs. Those in the emerging church, on the other hand, may not only hold different views of those core beliefs, but even consider them as so non-essential as to be essentially insignificant…to which we respond with a shocked gasp, a disgusted rolling of the eyes, and a quick about-face. As evangelicals, we need to instead respond with the grace of a counselor who at times must mask his disgust at his patient’s behavior if he is to help him overcome that behavior. We must remain at the table and reason through our faith; as Peter exhorted, we must “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

Likewise, those in the emerging church who tend toward a carte blanche rejection of all that has preceded them must put aside such prejudices and listen attentively to those who have truly investigated and become prayerfully convinced of their convictions. When a couple become parents for the first time, it can be tempting to reject all the methods of their parents, believing they can do a better job raising their own children. Wisdom suggests otherwise; wisdom would have the young parents thoughtfully consider both what their own parents did well and what they did poorly, then emulate the former even as they seek to avoid the latter. And in this they must recognize that they, too, will make mistakes…which their own children will one day need to redeem.

Finally, engaging in a mutually-beneficial dialogue will require that evangelicals recognize the value in allowing for uncertainty while emergents recognize a similar value in certainty. Key to both of these is appropriately – and biblically – determining where to allow for uncertainty and where to look for certainty. Let us consider two examples, baptism and homosexuality. In baptism, is it really essential that an individual be completely soaked – especially if, as most evangelicals believe, baptism is purely symbolic and has no effect on salvation? Many times I have seen someone immersed whose head didn’t quite go all the way under the water. Does she, like the mythical Achilles, somehow have a spiritual weak spot as a result? Or could it be that in our desire to stay true to the most accurate translation of the word baptize, we have become like the Pharisees who so narrowly defined exactly how much work was allowed to be done on the Sabbath without breaking the fourth commandment?

In choosing the topic of homosexuality as my second example, I recognize that I face the great risk of having the rest of my comments overlooked and of having the reader focus only on expressing their own views on this important but controversial topic. I beg you to flee that temptation and remember that I am merely using this as an example of an area that many in the emerging church are viewing with a measure of uncertainty. Could it be, however, that God really does detest homosexuality as much as our English translations of the Bible suggest? Scripture is certainly unambiguous about God’s hatred of sin; no less certain is the biblical mandate that my attitude and behavior toward a homosexual – or any other sinner – be constrained by God’s grace as exemplified by the life and teachings of Jesus, such as his words to the woman caught in adultery (John 8). Thus constrained, is it really so harmful to conclude from diligent study that homosexuality is sinful? Perhaps not.

If the church in any of its manifestations is to reclaim its place in God’s redemptive plan for a world separated from him, then we must work together as the body that we are – and that means that the various parts of the body must communicate – with each other and with the world around us – in grace and truth. Doing so will require from all sides that we put off our personal prejudices, our biases, our preferences, and that we learn to communicate much as a missionary does: crossing barriers of culture, language, and theology, and so opening the doors to meaningful, life-changing dialogue focused on the eternally life-changing message of salvation in Jesus Christ.