The New Screwtape Letters: On Emerging Church
I ain't no C.S. Lewis.So here goes nothin'.
My Dearest Wormwood, Jr.
I have nothing but the fondest memories of your father. He was a
I sense your concern about failing with your patient as your father failed with his. Though fear is a never-ending state of being in our realm, you have reason to be optimistic. Your father's task was far more difficult than your's. His patient, you see, was just beginning to see the light of the Enemy's kingdom. Such a subject is difficult to handle. Your's, on the other hand, has a far shorter path to us. I will explain.
I understand your patient is a recent convert to what is being called the "Emerging Church." A dangerous starting point, in one sense, but it also has some wonderfully promising opportunities for us. Dangerous, yes, inasmuch as your patient has caught a glimpse of our clandestine activities within traditional expressions of the Enemy's camp. He has caught a glimpse of our brilliant work in entangling our kingdom with the Enemy's, of leading them to believe that they can encapsulate the Truth that is the Enemy with their own paltry notions and expressions of "truth." I had always believed, and had expressed to our High Command, that such efforts were entirely too overt, too prone to being found out by any semi-intelligent and semi-dedicated potential follower of the Enemy.
But High Command is not High Command for nothing. In painstaking study of the history of the Enemy's camp, they foresaw some things that, I must admit, escaped my own thinking. These are the areas on which you must concentrate if you wish to win your patient.
High Command realized that whenever our considerable clandestine efforts within the Enemy's camp become too successful, and therefore too noticeable, a specific type of movement is initiated from within those ranks. And the movement always looks the same and, in the long run, accomplishes more for our kingdom than it does for the Enemy's. You can identify the movement by its characteristics, and this modern movement (temporarily?) called "Emerging Church" fits the pattern like a glove.
Such movements are always initiated by the "thinking class" within the Enemy's camp. This is always to our benefit, because the greatest harm to us is done by movements initiated by the "doing class" within that camp. Movements initiated by the thinking class always tend to become intellectual/theological exercises, for the most part. Certainly, it will impel many to act in accordance to the Enemy's command, but by and large, it will expend the greatest energy talking. You must encourage that tendency in your patient. Get him to talk about his new vision, debate it, analyze it. Nothing but good can come from the expenditure of so much energy to such minuscule an end.
Such movements are also characterized by a very identifiable and beneficial mindset: one that says, "We are new, we are fresh, we are cutting-edge, and you're not." Now, I certainly don't have to tell you that whatever risk your patient may have otherwise posed, if he succumbs to that mindset, you will have your man. My best advice to you to that end would be to keep your patient enamoured with the newest technological gadgets and media. Let him use those things even in furtherance of his yearning to follow the Enemy. In the long run, the means will become the end.
And finally, and this is closely correlated with the previous point, you must absolutely and without exception nurture a very powerful instinct associated with this movement, as with all such movements: the instinct that says we must break away from the Enemy's camp in order to effectuate the changes that are necessary. Rather than lift their voices of righteous indignation and allow the Enemy to work to cleanse His camp as a whole, such movement always make the critical error of tying to do the Enemy’s work for Him. Our greatest asset here is precisely their failure of patience, their failure of ultimate trust, of trust in the long-term might of the Enemy. It is, in short, a failure of faith...and once we have secured such a failure, the day is ours, as it has been. Let your patient, along with his brethren, work for their righteous reforms to be implemented now, within their lifetimes, when their King had so clearly taught and demonstrated that their task is to plant the seeds that He will eventually harvest, when their ancestral forefathers had taught them that the blood of the martyrs was (and is) the seed of the Enemy's camp. If properly nurtured, this instinct will naturally lead to the severing of the arm and the foot from the already beheaded body of the Enemy.
These are your general starting points. I will keep you posted regarding specific directives in the near future.
Your affectionate great-uncle,
Screwtape
Raffi,
I enjoyed your comments, and even though as you say you're no CS Lewis, you do a fine job at imitation. Your criticisms are both pointed and amusing. I am left with the notion that converts to the Emerging Church are also stumbling disciples...
Thanks, Dan (I think).
What if Christianity altogether, including the so called "emergent" movement has nothing whatsoever to do with God.
And is really only about worldly power and control---and always inevitably was from the moment the "church" was coopted by the Roman state. A "holy" empire being the ultimate oxymoron.
It was onward christian soldiers from then on.
And is thus also an exercise in group self-delusion.
After all Christian doctrine tells us that we are all self-possesed "sinners".
How then can groups of sinners do anything other than extend their sinfulness into everything that they do?
Anon:
I hear your question loud and clear. And I fully appreciate the ambiguity (to put it mildly) of the Constantinian settlement; though I wonder whether we are in a position to judge, given the horrible persecutions the early church had to endure prior to that. I wonder whether any group would have had the courage to say at that point, "No thank you; we'd much prefer being a persecuted minority because that way we can be more authentic." I don't know.
I'm not as certain that you will be able to hear my answer to your question about how a group of sinners can ever do anything that is of God. But I'll give it anyway. The answer (and this is a radically shorthand way of putting it) is by the Spirit of God working within the individual lives and the community of those sinners. Yes, the "sinner" part will perculate and drown out such work on many, many occasions, but somehow the dream lives on. I think Rob Bell says it better:
"She is a mystery, isn’t she? Still going after all this time. After the Crusades and the Inquisition and Christian cable television. Still going. And there continue to be people like me who believe she is one of the best ideas ever. In spite of all the ways she has veered off track. In spite of all the people who have actually turned away from God because of what they experienced in church…But she will live on. She’s indestructible. When she dies in one part of the world, she explodes in another. She’s global. She’s universal. She’s everywhere. And while she’s fragile, she’s going to endure. In every generation there will be those who see her beauty and give their lives to see her shine. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against her. That’s strong language. And it's true. She will continue to roll across the ages, serving and giving and connecting people with God and each other. And people will abuse her and manipulate her and try to control her, but they’ll pass on. And she will keep going."
Grace and Peace,
Raffi