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LIQUIDTHINKING IS: Stephen Zedler Jimmy Doyle Andy Mullins Current Sountrack
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Friday, June 10, 2005
 Yin and Yang and the Manic Emergent ChurchMark, I get where you're coming from. Don't think I don't. But.... I notice this is a trend with the Emergent stuff. I see it even in that response from McLaren, et al. "Comment, critique, deconstruct, whatever... then feel guilty about it and try to regain the 'nice guy' ground by saying things like, 'They're both right!' or 'I'm just sick of criticizing.'" Then something happens to restart the cycle. Part of the problem, here, is that we want to be the complete embodiment of Christ in ourselves. I suppose this is not an ignoble goal. We are to strive to be like Christ. At the same time, we are made the way we are made. I find the eastern concept of "Yin and Yang" quite comforting sometimes ("Run for the hills! He's citing pagan philosophies!"). Not as an all-encompassing view of life, but in certain circumstances. I think it makes abundant sense that things have an uncanny way of balancing out. Example: Jimmy and I tend to be pretty critical of things at the school at which we teach. A lot of people don't like that. They see it as divisive and insubordinate. However, I had one teacher comment to me: "We need people like you to make sure that we don't get to thinking that we're so great." There is enough positive thinking and flag waving in most institutions. Many of them need some critical voices. This isn't to say that we should completely succumb to being negative and critical all the time. Obviously, there is a certain personal balance that needs to be attended to along with the cosmic balance. But, at the same time, I think it's dangerous to slip into a Christian relativism that says "Since I don't know all the answers, and these guys are Christians, and I sort of feel bad for being so harsh, then maybe I should not be critical." Okay, maybe if you think you should be less critical of the preferential stuff (worship music might be cheesy, but there's nothing "wrong" with it), but there are some things that I will never stop being critical of (like the compartmentalization of the sacred and the secular, or the continued mangling of the teaching on the tithe for self-interested reasons). Unless you're going to admit, with the ardent relativists, that nothing is really wrong (unless you're Hitler), then you have a duty to keep criticizing. It can't all be right. And there is a difference between having humility and saying that anything these institutions do is okay.
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Jimmy Doyle is a dad, husband,
teacher, friend, and other things. Currently he's just trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and be in community with others. He enjoys having conversations with fellow pilgrims on the journey.
Stephen Zedler has a wife and three kids who he loves very much. He has been called by God to study and teach history, particularly U.S.
history. He also believes that God has called him to reform the way children are educated in America.