Tony Jones » books

Almost Christian: Missional Imaginations

Tony Jones — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:09:26 +0000

I’m blogging through Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book, a theological follow up to Christian Smith’s Soul Searching. I hope you’ll join me. Find all the posts here.

In chapter five, Kenda continues a theme that she’s already introduced: cultivating missional imaginations in teens is a strong antidote to moralistic, therapeutic deism. But what, exactly, is a missional imagination?

Well, what it’s not is a week-long summer mission trip to an Indian reservation. In fact, Kenda argues that the fact that we’ve had to find an adjective — basically, to invent the word, “missional” — “testifies to the American church’s frayed ecclesiology.” Be that as it may, missional is here to stay, and she finds it a helpful term.

Kenda’s definition of a missional youth ministry parallels her understanding of the gospel, and she uses some of the same characterizations: messy, indecorous, risky. “Missional churches,” she writes, “rachet up expectations by consciously striving to point out, interpret, and embody the excessive nature of God’s love.”

A ministry that exemplifies missionality for Kenda is Outreach Red Bank, a one-time youth ministry that has “blossomed into a multigenerational church.” ORB and other missional ministries fashion their life on the cruciform pattern of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection:

“In short, the goal of missional churches is to imitate Christ in context, to participate in anamnesis, a sacramental term that means “remembering”… As communities of memory, missional churches seek to re-member God’s overwhelming love by enacting it in human form, whenever the community gathers and wherever God’s people are sent.”

In this chapter, Kenda leans on the theologies of Lamin Sanneh and Andrew Walls, and from the latter she borrows the rubric of the missional principle being the result of a two-way move: the indigenizing principle and the pilgrim principle. To those, Kenda adds the liminal principle: the paradoxical place where Christ meets us and where teenagers seem to exist. “The gospel’s liminal principle represents Christ’s ongoing revelation as he expectantly waits for us to recognize him and rejoice.”

My question for this chapter is not theological, since I very much agree with Kenda’s characterization of the gospel, nor is it developmental. It is instead, the result of one sentence in the chapter, in which she describes Christian Andrews, the pastor of ORB, who “keeps his vocation…in perspective by devouring Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics and the Bible, cover to cover, a couple of times a year.” Hyperbolic though this may be, I have met Christian and I can attest that he is extraordinarily gifted, both intellectually and charistmatically, which leads me to my question:

Is the kind of missional and theologically-robust youth ministry that Kenda (and others) call for actually possible by the average youth worker?

Almost Christian: Generative Faith

Tony Jones — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:13:18 +0000

I’m blogging through Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book, a theological follow up to Christian Smith’s Soul Searching. I hope you’ll join me. Find all the posts here.

In chapter four, Kenda turns explicitly theological, arguing that “Catechesis shapes missional imaginations, which help us recognize God’s activity in Jesus Christ and in us, as Christ calls us to participate in his redemptive work in the world.” She writes that the gospel in ineluctably missional, and that teens who are formed by a gospel imagination should also be missional. This happens by,

Claiming a Creed: Teens need not only to have a general, warm feeling about Jesus, but must be able to articulate what, exactly, is special and unique about Jesus.
Belonging to a Community: Teens need the “connectedness” that is fostered exclusively in “authoritative communities.”
Pursuing a Purpose: Teens need to live in a “morally significant universe” in which their good decisions have good consequences and their bad decisions have bad consequences.
Harboring Hope: Teens are pulled out of moralistic, therapeutic deism by hope (that God controls the future), which provides “highly devoted teenagers with a resource for getting through the present.”

Kenda goes on to explicate that “highly devoted teenagers” live out their faith and show that outwardly. She then points to the results of the Exemplary Youth Ministry Study at Luther Seminary for a list of attributes that can be found in these highly devoted teens.

For me, I come back to the question I asked earlier: Is it even developmentally possible for adolescents to articulate a creed, commit to an authoritative community, pursue a purpose, and harbor hope? My gut and experience tell me that they can do 3 and 4, but most probably cannot pull off 1 and 2.

What do you think?

A Note from Andrew Root

Tony Jones — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:40:35 +0000

My friend and co-conspirator, Andy Root, has a message for those of you in youth ministry:

Andrew Root (photo by Courtney Perry)

Hello Youth Ministry friends, I’m sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled blog reading, but I have broken into transmission to offer you an opportunity.

I wanted to get before you the chance to get a free copy of my book, Relationships Unfiltered. As the new school year approaches and you think about volunteer leader meetings and trainings I would like to suggest you take a look at Relationships Unfiltered. It’s written just for this setting with discussion questions and chapters filled with illustrations and stories–but also promises to get you and your team thinking theologically about your core practice this coming school year: forming relationships with young people.

Here’s what I can do: If you’ll email me I’ll send you a free copy of the book so you can look it over and decide if it would be of help to you and your volunteers.

If you’re interested in using it, you can then go to Zondervan.com or Zondervan.com/ministry and type in the code 980752 in the “source code” box. Starting August 1 this will give you a 40% discount on as many books as you’d like.

And I’ll also offer this, if you do use the book with your team, I’m willing to do a select number of skype or ichat conversations with you and your team after getting through the book.

Tony again: I’m a huge fan of Andy’s books, so this is an offer I heartily endorse! And, speaking of Andy, be sure to consider joining us at the next FirstThird Dialogue at Luther Seminary. This one, slated for September 27-29, will tackle the issue of “Ministering to Children of Divorce.” And, until August 7, registration is only $99! Info HERE.

Almost Christian: Mormon Envy

Tony Jones — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:36:13 +0000

I’m blogging through Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book, a theological follow up to Christian Smith’s Soul Searching. I hope you’ll join me. Find all the posts here.

In chapter three, Kenda’s provocative chapter title is, “Mormon Envy.” Those of us who read Soul Searching remember how Mormon teens religiously outperform their peers by every measure, from behavior (later to lose their virginity; less use of alcohol and drugs) to belief (higher attendance at church functions; better able to articulate what they believe).

In this chapter, Kenda introduces and relies upon the “cultural toolkit” theory developed by UC-Berkeley sociologist Ann Swidler (co-author of the sociological blockbuster Habits of the Heart). Swidler published an article in 1986 in which she spells out this theory, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies” (PDF), the abstract of which reads,

Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or “tool kit” of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct “strategies of action.” Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture’s causal role in shaping action.

In other words, individuals pick up “tools” in their experiences of life, add them to their “toolkit,” and develop “strategies” by which they use these tools to cope in culturally settled and unsettled periods.

Kenda nods to Swidler’s theory, writing,

Highly devoted young people seem adept at using at least four cultural tools in ways that mark them as members of their traditions: (1) they confess their tradition’s creed, or God-story; (2) they belong to a community that enacts the God-story; (3) they feel called by this story to contribute to a larger purpose; and (4) they have hope for the future promised by this story.

She then uses the results from Mormon teens as a prime example of a community of religious teens who are given and taught how to use valuable tools:

By intentionally reinforcing the significance of Mormonism’s particular God-story, by immersing young people in a community of belonging, by preparing them for a vocation and by modeling a forward-looking hope, Mormons intentionally and consistently create the conditions for consequential faith.

Kenda unpacks Mormon theology quite a bit in this chapter, and I learned some things about the Mormon conception of God that I had not previously known. Among them, as alluded to in that last quote, is the very specific eschatology that Mormons hold, to which Kenda attributes some of the deep religiosity of Mormon teens. In short: there’s something very specific for Mormons to believe in after death, and that helps Mormon teens believe during life.

It’s not till the end of the chapter that Kenda raises a theological problem with all this Mormonophilia in the NSYR, and that’s the lack of grace in Mormon theology and practice. She even puts Swidler’s theory into question, writing that “Christian formation is less about acquiring cultural tools than surrendering them…”

I’m not a huge fan of Swidler’s theory because I think it gives too much agency to the individual human being — in general, I think that we’re trapped in larger systems and structures of influence than we’re able to see. In other words, I don’t think we really choose our tools.

I also wonder if Kenda (and the NSYR researchers) underplay the fact that Mormons tend to live in community with one another, thus muting the parallels that most church-based youth workers can draw from the study. The tightness of the Mormon community is something that simply cannot be replicated by the average American youth pastor.

But, the bigger question for me is this: Are we as Christian pastors and youth workers able to learn from Mormons about what works and doesn’t work in spiritually forming teens?

Didache Video

Tony Jones — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:21:48 +0000

Here’s a trailer for the forthcoming DVD that Paraclete Press made with me. It’ll be a small group resource to be used in my book, The Teaching of the Twelve.

Book Leak

Tony Jones — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:22:01 +0000

It seems that Adam Walker-Cleaveland has acquired an illicit copy of Doug Pagitt’s new book, Church in the Inventive Age and posted some excerpts and pictures on his blog. The book does not release for a month, so I must ask you, dear reader, to not go to Pomomusings and read the excerpts.

And do not, by any means, buy the book. Thanks.

Almost Christian

Tony Jones — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:59:23 +0000

That’s the title of Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book, a theological follow up to Christian Smith’s Soul Searching. My endorsement of it reads,

“A lot of youth workers have been a bit depressed since the National Study of Youth and Religion revealed what we’d long suspected about American teen religiosity: it’s pretty darn benign. But in Almost Christian, Kenda Creasy Dean helps us turn the corner from the moralistic, therapeutic deism that afflicts our churches to a hope-filled, consequential faith that has the potential to change the lives of young people and, with a little help from the Holy Spirit, just might transform our world.”

I’m gonna blog through this book, and I’d love to have some readers join me as we go through it. If you’re interested, pick up a copy of Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church.

Buy the Teaching of the Twelve for $5!

Tony Jones — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:29:17 +0000

As Spring shifts to Summer, bookstores rotate their inventory and shift books around. That moves books in and out of publishers’ warehouses and sometimes results in some amazing deals. That sometime is now for my book, The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing and Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community.

The book is a primer on the Didache, the handbook of a very early Christian community. You can read the complete text of the Didache here, or listen to me read it:

Tony Jones reads the Didache (mp3)

It’s been used as a group use resource in several churches, and I’ve heard great things back from them. Each chapter ends with some study questions, and the Didache raises important and interesting questions about church practices like communion and baptism as well as handling money and living in community.

So, for a limited time, Paraclete is offering The Teaching of the Twelve for just FIVE BUCKS! Rather than restock a couple cases of the book in their warehouse, they’re looking to move get them in your hands. Now is the time to buy one for yourself, or a pile of them for your group this fall.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE FOR JUST $5!

Teaching as Self-Formation

Tony Jones — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:29:09 +0000

I’m teaching a D.Min. cohort at my alma mater, Fuller Theological Seminary, starting a year from now. In advance of that, I’m going to post occasionally for The Burner Blog at Fuller’s Lowell W. Berry Center for Lifelong Learning. My first post is up,

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer writes,

“The subjects we teach are as large and complex as life, so our knowledge of them is always flawed and partial.”

That’s especially true when the subject is Christian spirituality and the teacher is me.

In fact, though I feel woefully inadequate to teach the spirituality of our faith to others, there’s nothing I’d rather teach. And that’s because the very subject itself is going to force me to examine the patterns of spirituality in my own life, to read books that I’ve not yet read — and re-read books that I’ve not yet fully absorbed — and to dive more deeply into the life of the Spirit.

Go over to The Burner Blog to read the rest.

The Surprising Didache

Tony Jones — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:15:28 +0000

When I spoke last month to the Alliance of Baptists, I tried something that I’d done once before: a public reading of our new translation of the Didache from my latest book. And I was thrilled with the result. As we passed the book around the room and heard chapters read by varying voices, it was variously funny (I mean laugh-out-loud, pause-the-reading-for-the-laughter-to-subside funny), poignant, and even uncomfortable. For instance, the Didache’s prohibition of abortion (literally, “you shall not murder a child, whether it be born or unborn”) and it’s sexual ethic raised some eyebrows in the liberal crowd. But the public reading had far more passages that were heartily affirmed by those present, especially its exhortations regarding how money is to be handled in the community.

Today I leave for Cape Cod to film a video curriculum which will complement the book. Paraclete Press is a part of the Community of Jesus, which is located on the Cape, and they’re hosting me and producing the video. I’ll be really interested to see what angle we take on the DVD, which will be for use in small groups and adult Sunday school settings. But, whatever direction we go, I hope it will capture the same spirit of the Didache that the public reading in Nashville did.

I will say this: Having written the book, I’m even more in love with the Didache now than I was before.

On that note, the UK’s Church Times published a review recently that isn’t available online, so I’ll reprint it here:

Fr. Marx makes the point that much of what’s seen as new is really old. So it is that the hip emerging church movement has discovered the Didache, the “teaching” manual for some of the earliest practicing Christians. Most scholars agree that it dates back no later than 110 A.D. (before the Gospel of John) and perhaps to as early as 50 A.D. This places it before, or at least contemporaneous with, the Gospel of Mark and the letters of Paul.

Indeed, the Didache may be “the most important book you’ve never heard of.” Last year, Fr. Marx recommended it in these very pages. Now it has been lifted up by Tony Jones, a key figure in the emerging church movement and author of The New Christians. His most recent work is The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing and Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community. Jones is smart and plain spoken, which makes his book very helpful for understanding the broad historical backdrop. On top of this, the book also explains how the Didache informs and infuses the theology and liturgy of many modern “house churches,” particularly one called the Cymbrogi (Celtic for “companions of the heart”.) Trucker Frank, one of the leaders of the Cymbrogi, sounds a lot like Marcus Borg, only cooler. (After all, he drives a semi, not a BMW.)

The Didache begins powerfully, with a life or death proposition: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death! and there is a great difference between the two ways.” The way of life is this, “First you shall love God who made you. And second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you.” It then lays out how this translates into everyday, ordinary practice. Much is a straight from the Beatitudes, and little of it is ambiguous or up for interpretation. As Jones points out, “The Didache’s secrets are not as mysterious as the Gnostic writings that land skeptical professors on the bestseller lists these days. This is not a record of Jesus’ exploits as a divine boy, turning clay pigeons into real ones to impress his peers at recess. No, the Didache’s testimony from the first century is much simpler, and much less headline worthy…. In plain and unadorned language, it calls us to self-sacrifice, altruism and faithfulness. We’re called to love God and to love one another; to pray and fast for those who stand against us; and to give away everything we can.”

Of course, this is extremely challenging…to every one of us. Even so, there is also a pragmatic recognition that one should do “the best you can.” Jones often draws a contrast between the tone of the Didache with that of Paul. “Reading Paul’s letters one gets the impression that he was an intense and hard driving churchman with little patience for mediocrity. In the Didache, the tone is significantly more moderate, more accepting—one might even say, more graceful.” So, although it is preferable to baptize in flowing water, if you don’t have it, then cold water, lacking that, use warm water, and if that is hard to come by, pour a little on the head three times.

It is important to note one key liturgical variation: “The Didache’s version of the Lord’s Supper liturgy is dramatically different than Paul’s direction in 1 Corinthians; in the Didache, there is no mention of Jesus’ death on the cross as the reason for communion, and the traditional bread and cup is reversed, putting it at odds with even the earliest liturgies of the church.” Rather than referencing the Last Supper, the Didache points to the feeding of the five thousand. “We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.”

This will certainly appeal to many who struggle with our Eucharistic liturgy and with the theology/doctrine that underlies it. Still, the Didache is first and foremost about what you do, rather than what you say. As Trucker Frank would tell you, “By the time of the church councils, even by Ignatius, all of the concentration was on orthodoxy—right belief. But in the Didache, the focus is orthopraxy—how you live.” What better reading could there be as we enter into this new season of Pentecost?