GLOSSARY FOR THIS POST:
Third Way--an approach that seeks to find a middle road that affirms the good of the two opposing sides and seeks to blend them into a new approach that the two sides can agree to.
Hegelian Synthesis--19th century philosopher Georg Hegel conceived all of history as the successive emergence of third ways. Ideas would polarize and a synthesis would be formed. The new synthesis would be opposed, ideas would polarize, and a new synthesis would be formed. (I know I spelled this differently in the Title--in the title, it's plural).
Tri-Perspectivalism--all of life can be seen and evaluated from three different perspectives: the Normative Perspective (the vision or rules governing the way things ought to be), the Situational Perspective (how the vision or rules ought to apply in a given situation, or the plan for how the vision or rules could be accomplished), and the Existential Perspective (the way we experience life). John Frame has made this Tri-Perspectival approach famous (John is the Normative), Dick Kaufmann has applied this approach to the three offices of Jesus--Normative is Prophet, Situational is King, and Existential is Priest (Dick is the Situational), and we get to enjoy a greater understanding of life as we learn to think about life in these categories (we are the Existential). Think of triangles, where the three perspectives are the three corners of the triangle. In short, the three perspectives are Prophet, King, and Priest which correspond to Vision, Plan, and Fuel.
THE NEW IDEA
I was just thinking about the idea of a third way and it connected with the tri-perspectival approach. Third ways are seeking some king of Hegelian synthesis between two perspectives that have merit.
THEORY: All polarized opposites that need to be synthesized are actually reflections of two corners of the triangle that need the third to balance each of them out?
EXAMPLE: The Emerging church seems to have been birthed by a recognition that there are a lot of people who simply haven’t found genuine spirituality in the traditional church. Thus, a strong Existential (priestly) need arose that the Emerging church has met. The Emerging church recognized that it was meeting this need, so it felt affirmed by God to keep going.
The Traditional church saw this phenomenon and panicked because it couldn’t understand why all these people weren’t being ministered to by them. The Traditional church had a ministry design (kingly) that had weaknesses that kept it from actually fueling the people who left for the Traditional church, but it responded with defensiveness, digging its heels deeper into the structure of its traditional ministry programs, and began to cast stones when the Emerging church began to do things differently. Instead of adapting some of its Situational programs to accommodate the Existential needs of its people, it began to throw theological stones at the Emerging church.
This drove the Emerging church theologically to find other safe havens. This is how the rift that was really about the Existential and the Situational fell into the Normative. It’s interesting that this happened because the Normative was probably the thing that the Emerging folks cared about the least, but it was “home field advantage” for the Traditional church, since it has majored on Normative feuds for a long time and it feels very comfortable fighting on that turf.
As the sides have begun to form, the Emerging church has felt more justified in leaving the Normative of the Traditional church, since it has concluded that the real reason for the Existential and Situational problems in the Traditional church are actually the result of its Normative stance (it’s theology). “You see, it’s the rigidity of their theology that continually causes these problems. These are Machen’s warrior children and we don’t want to have anything to do with Machen’s theology, because its fruits are obviously bad.”
The Traditional church then felt justified in condemning the Emerging church because of their theological liberalism. “You see, we knew they were really just liberals in the first place. Their departure from our theology only shows what they have been from the beginning.” But their liberalism was greatly caused by the caustic response of the Traditional church in the first place!
So you’ve got the Existential in a fight with the Situational, but the war is being fought in the territory of the Normative. It seems to watchers that they are now actually fighting over the Normative, but they aren’t. The war that is being fought is simply the Normative explanation of the Existential needs of the Emerging church vs. the Normative explanation of the Situational needs of the Traditional Church. Both of these can be defended Normatively (biblically), but this will never help because the Emerging folks are on the Existential field and the Traditional folks are on the Situational field. It’s tragic that both teams continue to declare victory when they both think they’re playing home games and the other team isn’t showing up!
When you add to this misguided fight the defensiveness that exists on both sides (and the reality that both are really protecting different perspectives), this is what creates a situation where both are talking past each other, both feel like they aren’t being heard by the other, and both are fully convinced they are right and wonder how the other side can be so stupid.
And into this darkness and chaos comes a new book: Deep Church, by Jim Belcher. Jim is a good friend and colleague (I worked with him at Redeemer Church in Newport Beach, CA). Jim is presenting a Normative Third Way that validates the Existential Needs of the Emerging church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Situational solutions) and validates the Situational Needs of the Traditional Church (while critiquing their currently inadequate Existential solutions).
So the war over two corners of the triangle (Situational and Existential) is being answered by third corner (Normative), and answered in a way that joins the two other corners and calls them to move forward.
Graphically this becomes interesting when you think about it this way. A third point on an equilateral triangle is better than a mid point on a continuum because it shows that you are actually moving the conversation forward.
Plus, it's also psychologically more effective for the folks who are at war with each other. Typically it’s better to have the two sides focused on a third thing that they can both agree with, rather than having them facing each other at all. Better for them to grow closer to each other as they approach the third point, recognizing that they’re getting closer to each other as they are moved forward.
So kudos to Jim for his forthcoming book (Situational), and also for the more general insight that it exemplifies (Normative), so that we can experience greater unity in the church and the world (Existential).
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Church-Beyond-Emerging-Traditional/dp/0830837167/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239648638&sr=1-1
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