My Vision is to Have No Vision: Part 2

Last updated on: May 15, 2007 at 12:34 pm by David Hayward

My Vision is to Have No Vision: Part 2 2007-05-15T12:34:26-04:00 David Hayward

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I had no idea yesterday’s post would stir up so much controversy. And even though this blog is a place for me to express my personal opinion, I have to admit that I do believe that this view of “vision” would be best for all. It was Bonhoeffer, not the nakedpastor, who said that â€œGod hates visionary dreamingâ€! Why? Because it hates and destroys the community that already exits as it is. He said, â€œWhen the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day ofâ€¦ fellowship.” He continues:

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it has sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it. But Godâ€™s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed be a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

And again:

Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

When will we learn? It is time for huge and universal change. I’m not just tired of vision and mission and goals. I’ve come to conclude that universally for the church these are deadly to what is and an affront to grace! The non-Christian philosopher Krishnamurti said,

The feeling that one must BE something is the beginning of deception, and, of course, this idealistic attitude leads to various forms of hypocrisy.

Time to stop dreaming and get down to who we are. That is enough. We’ve been practicing this, and if you need to know… it does work! But even saying that is a defiling of it. As Luther once said, “Put two lovers in a bedroom together… you won’t have to tell them what to do!” I wonder if all our strategies, mission statements, vision-casting, and goal-setting are a psycho-sexual avoidance of truth and reality.

The fine art photograph is the ingenious creation of my friend Mark Hemmings.

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