“Homesick,” Being Reflexive, & Letting Remembrance Turn to Hope…

Last updated on: September 4, 2014 at 3:17 pm by Tim Conder

“Homesick,” Being Reflexive, & Letting Remembrance Turn to Hope… 2014-09-04T15:17:11-05:00 Tim Conder

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m excited – really excited. Stripping away the scant possibility of any cool detachment on my part, I am honored and energized about being the ‘4th day of the month’ convener of this emergence Christianity, emerging voices conversation.

The topic of emergence Christianity has now entered its third decade for me. I can vividly remember driving to Charlotte, NC in 1993 in our new Saturn, steering with my knees while I penciled down lyrics from a Soul Asylum song on the back of a torn envelope to use in a consultation on ‘baby busters’ for Leighton Ford Ministries. Yikes! Saturns, Soul Asylum, and simply the term baby busters all feel like relics from a world long past.

Included in this small group of ten were church planter Dieter Zander and the late-and-truly-missed theologian Stan Grenz. Dieter, speaking about New Song Church, a fellowship he planted in California in 1986, described a church that I didn’t know could exist. Stan, while confessing that he had no idea why he was invited, began to explain postmodern epistemology to the philosophically uninitiated in the group (including me). After about an hour of his philosophical instruction and a thorough baptism in neo-Star-Trek metaphors, all of us knew that something had changed that was far larger than another generation of young persons alienated from Christianity.

So much has changed for me since that time. There was a wonderful ride of leadership in the YoungLeaders Network and EmergentVillage where my critique of American Christianity was sharpened and my hopes of what could be were kindled. I left the progressive Evangelical world at the very time that ‘progressive Evangelical’ was becoming even more of an oxymoron to plant an emergent church in Durham, NC (Emmaus Way). That community is now ten years old. I became deeply involved in the Seattle School for Theology and Psychology. My kids are now collegians asking the kind of questions related to politics and faith that I could never have even conceptualized when I was their age. I’ve also spent the last ten years serving as a clergy caucus leader and strategy team leader in a grass roots political organizing community (Durham CAN & the Industrial Areas Foundation).

While my story could be described as a journey from one place to entirely another, there is also a there-and-back-again circularity to the tale. We moved to Chapel Hill in 1990 so I could start a PhD program in Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina. After being accepted in 1992, I never matriculated because life got in the way — in a beautiful way. That very painful decision yielded the marvelous space to parent some amazing kids and ride the emergent ride of the last couple of decades.

Twenty years later, I’m a PhD candidate in that same program. I study how practices, struggles, play, and imagination shape personal identities and the identities of social movements. I also write ethnographies (the narratives of peoples and groups) and do personal life narrative research. As we say in the South, ‘for heaven’s sake,’ my first academic publication was entitled “In God’s Country: Deploying Détournement to Expose the Enmeshment of Christianity within the Spectacle of Capitalism.” Long time friend, Tony Jones, commented, “With a title like that it is sure to sell tens of copies!”

He’s right! I only mention the title to mark the magnitude of the journey for me. I don’t think I would have written that twenty years ago. So much has changed on the ride. The Soul Asylum song I was listening to in 1993 as I drove to that consultation was Homesick. It includes a haunting chorus, “I’m homesick for the home I’ve never had.” Over twenty years later, I’m anything but homesick. Two decades in this conversation (and its developing practices and sensitivities) and I’m filled with a hopeful expectation of where it can go.

In my cultural studies world, we are reflexive before we write the biased and perspectival stories that we write about others. It is an act of acknowledging the inevitable and never innocent power the writer has and a step toward relinquishing some of that power to those who are telling the stories. I hope I’ve done some of that today. In the future, I hope to fill this space with the stories that emerge in community organizing, life narrative work, and ecclesial life where we are trying to remember the past and imagine what has never come to be.

Uncategorized

cultural studies

Emergence Christianity

emergent village

Previous Post

September 3, 2014

An Intro and the Skeptimergent Challenge

Next Post

September 5, 2014 In Full Disclosure

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Addiction Advent Atheism Authority Bible Cartoons Christian Year Christmas church church planting Civil Rights Community Contemplative Spirituality Culture emerging church Empire Eschatology Evangelism Events Gender Healing Humanism Islam Justice Kingdom Lent Movement Building Multi-Faith Music mysticism New Wave Emergence origins Personal Poetry politics Prayer Preaching Privilege Racism Religious naturalism Resurrection salvation SKEPTIMERGENT Theology Trauma Uncategorized

Select a Month December 2017 November 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who prophesied swords would be beaten into plowshares?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel Joel Hosea Micah