Two Perspectives

There is an old anecdote in which a mystic, an evangelical pastor and a fundamentalist preacher die on the same day and awake to find themselves by the pearly gates. Upon reaching the gates they are promptly greeted by Peter, who informs them that before entering heaven they must be interviewed by Jesus concerning the state of their doctrine.

The first to be called forward is the mystic, who is quietly ushered into a room. Five hours later the mystic reappears with a smile, saying, ‘I thought I had got it all wrong.’

Then Peter signals to the evangelical pastor, who stands up and enters the room. After a full day has passed the pastor reappears with a frown and says to himself, ‘How could I have been so foolish!’

Finally Peter asks the fundamentalist to follow him. The fundamentalist picks up his well-worn Bible and walks into the room. A few days pass with no sign of the preacher, then finally the door swings open and Jesus himself appears, exclaiming, ‘How could I have got it all so wrong!’

This story is told in Peter Rollins' excellent book "How [not] to speak of God". It is a very deep, thoughtful book that provides a strong philosophical framework for the "emerging conversation." If all you've heard is sound bites against the emerging church or Emergent Village (two different things), and if you think you have some mental chops, then for the sake of intellectual honesty you owe it to yourself to read this book (or just shut up about the emerging conversation because you don't really know what you're talking about). :)

He makes a case for two kinds of idolatry - one physical, one conceptual. In each case, the object has no inherent "idolness" about it, but one's view of the object is what makes it into an idol. The conceptual idolatry he warns against is doctrines and ideologies about God which have been fashioned by men.

This is what the story above satirizes, as though the fundamentalist's ideas about God gleaned from scripture were so comprehensive and true that he could actually teach Jesus! The evangelical is really in the same boat, but with a bit more humility, while the mystic comes from a very different viewpoint.

The mystic realizes up front that he knows very little of God, even from his interpretations of things God has revealed in nature or scripture; God is simply to big to objectively know. And besides, the mystic realizes that God is really to be known SUBJECTIVELY, not objectively; God desires a RELATIONSHIP with us, not for us to study him like a college course. We are like a baby in the arms of its mother, hardly comprehending her or her thoughts at all, but knowing her love, her smile, her tenderness.

As my children grow to adulthood, they will probably understand a lot more about me; if they read my blog entries, study my song lyrics and poetry, scan my photo albums and scrapbooks my mother made of my years in little league and high school sports, they will know more about me. And yet, there is SO MUCH they don't and likely never will know. It saddens me some, because I really would like them to know me better. But I'm content with having a relationship in the now with them and letting it grow. It may never really be of eternal consequence for them to know which year I won the school spelling bee and which year I lost to Cathy Lloyd by my misspelling "occurrence".

So call me a mystic. Call me emerging. Heck, just call me - I'd rather have a relationship with you than merely know a bunch of factoids about you and delude myself into thinking that because I know about you that I somehow know you.