From: kelly@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re-expressing the faith: Dancing towards a postmodern church
Date: 6 Jan 93 06:53:01 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

Subject: Re-expressing the faith: Dancing towards a postmodern church
Newsgroup: soc.religion.christian

A posting at the end of last year on  "Night Club Dancing" has prompted me to
flag something that's happening in the churches over here in the UK, and which
has been receiving an increasingly higher profile in the Christian and secular
press, and at arts festivals like Greenbelt (cf. Cornerstone in the States). 

The phenomenon of building churches which try to work in different
subcultures in Western society has been around for a while now, but has 
always been regarded as somewhat outlandish or borderline - "rock churches",
"white metal churches" etc.  Somewhat ironically, this perception is
accentuated when Christians work from a position of being *in* the
subculture rather than "reaching out" to it (a rather revealing expression),
from across the cultural divide.  Ironic, because Christ is the ultimate
example of personal identification with those for whom he had a heart: the
mission calling is to live and express the gospel with integrity within the
cultural context in which one is living.  The  gospel should challenge and
transform the culture, being, in the process, itself  re-expressed in new,
creative forms.

Here in Britain, the last few years have seen a number of groups emerge
(some quite independently) who are critically reviewing every aspect of
'church' in order to re-communicate Christ to people of different cultures. 
It so happens, following one of the pioneering groups, that the
house-music/dance/rave culture has proved, and continues to serve as an
interesting testing ground for exploration of the issues.  The
re-expressions of faith arising from these projects is causing some
controversy within the church.  I and the others who have assisted in
composing this outline are members of one such group. 

Several key elements characterise our perspective:

- Firstly, Enlightenment values such as rationalism, materialism, mind/body
dualism are falling at a rate of knots.  Enlightenment values are the
culmination of dualistic  thought going back to classsical Greece, which
were syncretised with   Christianity in the second century in order to
authentically express the Gospel within the understanding of Mediterranean
culture. However, they have been there in Christianity so long they look
like part of the woodwork, when in fact they're just furniture. 
Empiricist, rationalist thought is now *dying*  and Christianity
consequently needs to be rediscovered and re-expressed.                         

- Thus, Western society is moving into a Postmodern era, and is becoming
increasing rootless.   Academic disciplines, (despite their sometimes
deserved flak for irrelevance) show us what is to come, and in virtually
every area - from architecture to physics to the arts to literature to the
study of culture - strong postmodernist currents are increasingly dominating
thinking and values.  For "postmodern," one might read (although it
inherently resists definition!) "a complete rejection of any value system
which might allow one to say X is better than Y, or the world can be
understood coherently in terms of the following framework..." universal
truth systems are Out. 

- Correspondingly, and symptomatic of a change in society, spiritual needs
are becoming increasingly recognised, and New Age thinking is doing a fine
job of masquerading as the solution -- pick  and mix from wherever you want;
conflicts between the belief systems from which  you sample are irrelevant -
it's whether what you trust in works for You, as God. (Christian apathy/fear
of engaging new age thought in constructive ways is not helping here). 

We as Christians have to wrestle with its ideas, not head on, clinging to
our old cultural (and not necessarily gospel) ideas, but in a way which
takes the insights it has to offer and works out a new way of bringing the
true gospel into a context where the church's record and current practices
are in many ways deserving of criticism.  To return to an earlier point, one
of the reasons the New Age is so strong is that it taps into spiritual
longings which the church has for a long time despised because of its
dualistic heritage. 

- We cannot 'evangelise' with a hit and run mentality, characteristic of
much classic evangelical practice.  The point is to export the Gospel to
redeem a new culture, from within it, not to ask people to change culture in
order to join the church. They will *become* the church when they believe,
and will need to re-express their faith in new ways, striving at the same
time not to compromise it. Thus, we cannot reach the unchurched by holding
special 'events' for a night/week, and then retreating back into the
alienating practices with which we are more comfortable

A CASE EXAMPLE

The dance/rave scene is well suited as a place to introduce Christ in
several respects (in different scenes, there will be different aspects which
lend themselves readily to Christian values).   Dance/rave emphasises
several elements which we can wholeheartedly affirm as integral to what it
is to be fully human, in relationship to God: 

- through dance, physical expression and communication of who we are and how
we feel;

- the strong sense and recognition of the importance of community and
belongingness;

- the desire for tangible experience of a greater reality than ourselves.

However, there are also significant aspects of life about which it has very
little to say, given its emphasis on experience and human potential, for
instance, coping with the 'dark night of the soul', the antithesis of the rave
mentality. 

Ravers lose themselves in the raw energy of music and movement, reaching out
(literally) to each other and to 'something/one' out there - the higher
reality/experience of which so much dance music and imagery speaks (often in
the context of psychedelic drugs, admittedly).  As Christians, we woul argue
that all this ambiguously expressed longing can only be truly fulfilled in
Christ. 

Raves are thus a classic example of "happenings without the main event."  What
they are doing is placing upfront an aspect of worship which often goes
unrecognised and unfulfilled in the church, namely, the sense of corporate
belonging, physically, emotionally, and socially which coming together before
the creator should provoke.  Too often, "having fellowship" seems to be
restricted to some ethereal spiritual level which strips out the 'lower'
physical/social aspects of what's going on, or should be going on, in church -
we are warm, physical, human beings who need each other.  In this sense, the
church needs to be 'despiritualised' by affirming the celebratory and social
dimensions of The Body in order to re-spiritualise the rest of life. 

In the more mainstream nightclubs (in answer to the message which originally
sparked this), there is an obvious difference in atmosphere, largely because
they are a product of mainstream culture.  I'm by no means saying they're Bad
Things To Go To per se, but there is an undeniable contrast with the more
tribal element of the rave scene which captures so much of what the church
often misses out on. 

FAITH AND WORSHIP RE-EXPRESSED

In the small congregation of which I am part, we seek to integrate symbols and
form from Christian tradition (appropriate ritual, symbolism, incense, candles,
plain and gregorian chant) with the tools of modern technology (dance music,
video, slides), plus short, non-linear, 'multimedia' teaching, in order to
explore Christ's personality and teaching.   We write our own music, as well as
use what's already out there, much of which is either instrumental, or has
lyrics with which we can express ourselves to God (there is also a small amount
of material by Christian artists). Outside this larger meeting, other values to
which we hold are 

(i) 'no splits' living which affirms the sacred, spiritual dimension of all
of life without losing discernment about right and wrong.

(ii) committed community in structures appropriate to the 90s, as our
response to the gospel.    

(iii) the authority of scripture, coupled with the highly interactive nature
of a relationship with God, through his Spirit.

(iv) passion, vitality, and creativity!   

The encouraging thing is that we and others seem to be meeting a need for
people who are seeking God, but feel (indeed are) alienated from many
churches.

SUMMARY: 

As society becomes increasingly diverse, the church *must* respond if it is
to become effective in the next century.  The gospel must be contextualised
to many different cultures, with an understanding of where people are coming
from which comes from *living* that life amongst non-believing friends.  The
apparent emphasis on the rave scene at present is hopefully only the start -
just one instance of the critical reassessment which the whole church needs
to undertake to establish believers for the next decades.

SOME QUESTIONS

- do you vehemently (or even mildly) agree/disagree with what we've
  described?

- what do you see as the issues which need to be confronted in this kind of
  work?

  Hint:	a biggy is how to communicate Christ as absolute truth and life in a
	world which is rapidly moving towards the conclusion that the only
	absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth... 

	A subQuestion: how to communicate propositional truths without being
		verbal?  Can we do it the way the media gets its message
		over - by fleeting images and impressions a la MTV? 

- out of interest, what's happening abroad?

- are you involved in anything similar?  what are your experiences? 


Look forward to constructive reaction.

Simon.

___________________ 

Although I know many who agree with the above, these views are personal, and
should not be automatically attributed to others involved in this scene.  We
are all walking slightly different, interweaving paths.


_______________________________________________________________________________
Simon Shum					   
Human-Computer Interaction Group   
Department of Psychology			   Internet:    sjs2@york.ac.uk
University of York				   	Tel:  +44 (0)904 433165
York YO1 5DD					   	Fax:  +44 (0)904 433181
UK
_______________________________________________________________________________