Does the soul of any movement lie in its traditions or its courage to change? And is the cost of change always tradition?
I was watching the movie, The Queen, with Helen Mirren, a Miramax film about the battle between Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth during aftermath of the Princess Diana tragedy, and it reminded me of the struggle between the church and the movement that is the emerging church.
The opening lines of the movie captured my attention because the two characters have an interesting conversation about tension inherent in change which comes at the loss of tradition.
The Queen: Have you voted yet Mr. Crawford?
Crawford: Yes maam. I was there when they opened. First in line. Seven o’clock. I don’t mind telling you…it wasn’t for Mr. Blair.
The Queen: You’re not a modernizer then.
Crawford: Certainly not. We’re in danger of losing too much that is good about this country as it is.
The question is simply that. Are we in danger of losing too much that is good about the church as it is?
And I began to really think about the emerging church, deconstruction, and the cost of generation change. We are beginning to see the first generations that have only lived in an accelerated society. My children have never known a world without computers, mass media on an epic scale, the Internet, and change at the speed of light. They have also never know much of the traditions that I grew up in (slower pace of life, less media, traditional church life, no cell phones) because a lot of those traditions have since passed.
I somewhat lament the loss of the world that I grew up in because it was vastly simpler. Life was simpler. It had tradition. It had things that didn’t change on me, things that could be counted on. There was a time in my life when I didn’t buy something that was obsolete the moment I bought it. We fixed our appliances as opposed to buying new ones. My phone actually had a ring as opposed to a ringtone. I wore my clothes until the wore out, not until they went out of style. Disposable was the food you put in the disposal, not the iPod that is abandoned in six months. Gaming was something we did with a board and fake money on a Monopoly board on Saturday night, not something in front of the television that gave me ADD. I remember rooting for the Raiders because my Dad loved them, yet now favor individual players on my fantasy football team because they switch teams so much. I remember going to the church down the street because…well it was the closest one. I remember my dad working for IBM for 30 years because they believed in longevity.
The world my children have inherited is filled with complexity. We have new technologies that virtually wire us to the world. Some days life seems like it should resemble the six million dollar man. But even that would be obsolete. We’re better, stronger faster.
And yet are we?
Cancer and heart disease affect 1 out of 2 people. Obesity is now an epidemic. The economy is in the toilet and our current President has the lowest approval rating…EVER. Social Security is a sham. Our government is getting ready to post the largest budget deficit…ever. We have yet to solve the world water crisis even though we could with one year’s Christmas money. ADD, ADHD, RAD, and ED have virtually cornered the market on the letter D. Slavery still exists…in this country. We’re just now considering the possibility of voting for a black man for President of the United States. Divorce is still hovering at 50% and is even higher in the church. Ford just lost 8.7 billion dollars because they refused to make smaller cars.
Has all this change done us good? Are we better, stronger, faster? Are we smarter?
You see I am a realist at heart. I recognize that the change doesn’t always produce what we want it to. I consider my own journey with the changing of the church. The cost of my journey within the emerging church could have drastic consequences for some, perhaps even my children. And the risk I take in participating is change that comes at the loss of valuable tradition, which at best is very destabilizing and at worse could be completely wrong.
I wrestle with the traditions we have inherited that seem stifling and even oppressive to some. The value of the traditions is also their burden. Like Queen Elizabeth who was virtually locked in her incapacity to respond to Princess Diana’s death because of protocol, the traditions with the church can and often do incapacitate us to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. In one scene Prince Charles ask his mother, the Queen,
Charles: Don’t you think you should be getting a new one of these. (referring to her car)
The Queen: (put off) What for? This one works perfectly alright.
The scene is a statement in the dynamic tensions between two generations wrestling change in their own way. One is to call for it. One is to avoid it because of the perception that the traditions do and will continue to work (if only for those at the top). One seems to be the heart drawing towards change, and one seems to be the head avoiding it at all costs.
Perhaps the most important moment in the movie is when Blair, who seems to love his country, finds the true soul of Britain and defends the Queen against those who simply want to tear her down. This moment reminded me of those who are struggling to understand the emerging church and wrestling with the emotions that can easily feel like an attack on the church herself.
And I get this struggle. I too share in it. But the reality is that my desire to participate in a movement for change is deeply embedded in my love for the church. I feel the weight of the statements, “Come follow me,” and, “Go and make disciples,” and ask why it looks virtually nothing like what we do now. And yet this call puts me at odds with the very traditions with which it comes from. So I am left with the question, does the soul of a movement lie in its traditions or its courage to change? And is the cost of change always tradition?
The quest(ion) for me is then how do we restore the soul of the church so that our traditions reflect that restoration, that we reflect His kingdom that never grows old.
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