Anti-intellectual, trop intellectual, you tell me...

So last week I was in Geneva more or less attending Divergent (PDF) an Emergent conversation hosted by the Shema Community. I say more or less because I was really feeling too good and I just sort of slumped around from one event to another. It was great meeting the folks that were there and you can pick out some of their names in my bizarro post. Reports have been popping up in the blogosphere and I'm finding it interesting.

I got to carry Andrew Jones' bags while I was there though he doesn't mention this valuable service in his post, Divergent, maybe its because I did a poor job of guiding him around Geneva though we did spend a few happy moments trying to get into the United Nations... for another time. So he writes,

I moderated the panel on the ethics discussion and also found myself on the missional-language panel, as well as the wrap-up panel - where i shared that the conversation we had was necessary but a little too intellectual. Maybe I am partly to blame for that. As I said in that final panel, if we demand that everyone know all these philosophers, history and must go through Seminary to participate in this conversation, then we are in need of Reformation ourselves.

Then over on Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank Jamie Smith wrote a post called Emergent Reflections Post-Divergent. Here's a slice,

5. There are surprising elements of anti-intellectualism in the conversation. One of the things that attracted me to the emergent conversation was what I saw as a surprising degree of interest in taking ideas seriously, particularly philosophical issues (as in McLaren's New Kind of Christian). And I think this is confirmed in the planned Emergent Academic series with Abingdon. So I must asmit I was surprised by a still significant anti-intellectualism in the conversation, all in the name of "practice" - as if theory wasn't always already a practice, and as if practice wasn't theory-laden. There still seems to be quite a bit of hangover of "just-give-us-mor-of-Jesus" evangelicalism here (though it might manifest as "just-give-us-more-community," etc.).

So sitting here in my little corner of the world I'm wondering what to do with all of this. Take a look at the comments on the two posts and you'll get a good idea of their main audiences. I made a feeble attempt at a comment on the Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank (for sake of brevity I'll call them GOTT) site and realize that I was way out of my depth...

Since this is my site and I can say what I want. So here's what I think.

The folks at GOTT are doing some really serious and really important stuff. And Jamie is right saying you can't separate theory from practice... Maybe it is simply about language. Read the comments over there and you soon realize there is a sub-culture thing going on that has its own rules and codes. If you head over to TSK you hear some folks lauding the need for simplicity. And there too you'll find a sub-culture with its own rules and codes.

Deep ecclesiology is one of the ideas that Brian McLaren throws around. He says he got it from Andrew. By it he's looking for an openness in the emerging church to appreciate all forms of church from the most hierarchical to the most organic. So over on GOTT I made a weak attempt at introducing an idea I call deep-intellectualism. By this we would embrace the whole spectrum of Christian thought. From the academics who wrestle intensely with ideas looking to be true and consistent in their ideas to the folk who simple say, I love Jesus and his word and that's all I need to know. One can't be better than the other. Each needs to give space for the other. Having met both Andrew and Jamie I'm pretty certain that this is something they both want. The hard part comes in creating spaces where both crowds can share the same space and hear what the other is saying.

I know of a church in Paris, L'Eglise du Tabernacle, that attempted to create this kind of space by having one church service a month being pretty much the equivalent of a seminary class. Henri Blocher, probably the best know French evangelical theologian outside of France, was a leader in the church and you really needed to put on your thinking cap when he taught...

Anyway the only way we're getting beyond these types of distinctions is in talking them out, in taking the time to understand the other culture...

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Comments

[andrew]

great to hang with you in geneva