As I Tiptoe Towards Heresy
“In the desire to make the church safe, Christians have eliminated the critic and the prophet. As a consequence, the church is bland and irrelevant.
“A person engaged in no dialogue… A church without heretics, a sole party with no rivals, is enclosed within the permanent repetition of it’s own image.”
That’s serious shit.
The thing is, when you’re on the “prophet” end of the scale, it’s really exhuasting. And also, you’re scared all the time that one of these days, maybe really soon, you’re going to calcify and stop hearing the visionary voices around you. Then you are going to become the mummy repeting it’s own image for no purpose, for no reason.
I hate that part.
But what are you going to do? You are who you are. Like Parker Palmer says, you can’t do violence to yourself by denying yourself. I guess you just have to hope for suppleness.
I got this from my daily cup-o-blog at Mike Todd’s site who got it from Jaques Ellul. Skip on over there and check it out.
Nice stuff! Thanks for sharing the quotes. Sounds like we ought to have “resident heretics” in our communities… I wonder who our’s is? Some may say it is this guy, I’m not so sure - I think he’s more of a prophet. But heretics - yeah, I think we got a couple.
odd, I tried to put a link in that last post and it didn’t work. the “this guy” was supposed to be a link to here - http://www.kevinrains.com (but that just gives away the surprise).
ohhh…he’s one of my favorites!
Oh to be a prophet, and to be female… It’s one of God’s cruel jokes. I too am struggling with not doing violence to myself through denying myself. Finding our voice in this minefield we call the body of Christ is so precarious. Because it’s so unfamiliar I often sounds like that “clanging brass” - the point I long to make gets lost in the emotion that drives me to speak, and I am written off as a snapping snarling dog.
I’ve been following your blog and the others on this thread and am afraid that what is emerging will be as closed and cut off from our voices as what currently exists.
Thank you for your courage, and your emotions, and your anger - and most of all for your ministry. You give me hope. To see the work you are doing is extraordinary and maybe my daughter will inherit a church where her voice is as important as my son’s. Please God.
Everyone likes a prophet until s/he says something that pisses them off. I liked the quote: “In the desire to make the church safe, Christians have eliminated the critic and the prophet. As a consequence, the church is bland and irrelevant.”
But we need to be careful what we ask for…we just might get it.
What do you think of my comments concerning your article on next-wave?
Rachelle: Who wrote the two quotes at the top of this post? I like them…and want to know where they came from.
I don’t know if I’m some kind of a visionary or prophet or if I just always march to the beat of a different drummer, but I always seem to be different…crying to be heard…wanting others to be willing to look out of their own box to discover if change may be relevant.
I also fear I appear to be a barking, snarling dog…my points get mixed up in my emotion, too. I wonder whether that is because I am female, or because for so long I have not been a part of the discussions of the decision-makers…and then, is THAT because I am female?
Laurie,
Hi!! Those quotes were Jaques Ellul. Check out Mike Todd’s website (just click on his name in the blog text) and if I didn’t permalink it, go to his entry from the same date and he has an amazon link direct to the Ellul book. But, buy the book from beanbooks.com and support my pal bill bean. (title, author, publisher, and ISBN number is what you’ll need to get a price quote from him.)
Carry on!