A call for a Post-Protestant and Post-Evangelical Christian community

Before making my point, let me begin with the dream I had on Wednesday, November 12, 2014.

The dream

1. A PhD colleague and I were in what appeared to be St. Catherine, Jamaica (one of my home parishes), driving to Western Jamaica.
2. It was late evening, and we encountered traffic.  My friend decided to pull over into a church yard, to wait for the traffic diminish.
3. We happened to pull over into a Baptist church yard (could have been any church denomination however) and it was having a late evening service.
4. I pointed out to my colleague that this church was the denomination of my wife as a child, though not in this parish (she's from Western Jamaica).
5. I suggested that we could go inside and sit and take in some of the service.
6. So we went inside and sat in the pews at the back.
7. The people were in worship with a lead singer and a live band leading them in song.
8. After listening to the praise song for a few minutes, my colleague got up, and to my surprise (and everybody else to that matter), grabbed the cordless microphone from the female lead singer and said "Thank you, sister". (My colleague was not a Christian based on my knowledge).
9. He then brought and handed the microphone to me.
10. So I began to speak "Bless the Lord..."
11. Before I could finish my sentence, the lead, grabbed the microphone back and said "you have no right to speak!"
12. My colleague departed and I followed him.
13. For the rest of our journey in the car, I embarrassingly sought to explain to him the actions of the lead and about how different denominations regulate who can speak during worship services. 

End of dream.

I will not render an analysis of the dream, but on the other hand, I find it useful to  make a point. The point that I think it can make is that we need a new Christian community and way of being to meet the needs of a new generation of skeptics and Bible doubters.

The Christianity that I was raised in has served its time. While Christianity rightly assumes that God exists and that the Bible is his revelation to humanity, the way that we go about our worship services and our mission needs to be more oriented around the teaching aspect of the great commission, and less around music and songs. Our church experience can not just be oriented around sermonizing and acknowledging God through music and liturgical ceremony. The needs of my generation no longer fit with the model in which we conduct our services or ministry. No longer are people certain that God exists and that God is good. Further, they are not so sure about the Bible.

My generation wants a community that provides answers and respond to concerns that they have about the goodness of God and the difficult passages in the Bible. My generation wants to believe in a benevolent God and want to believe in the Bible, but there is no guide or shepherd to help them process doubts and questions. Our church services do not help. Structuring it around music and praise do not meet the needs of this new generation, who need teaching and a forum for questions and answers. We need more church services structured around teaching with live Q & A.


This model is not alien to Christianity. Jesus, our chief example, did "sermons" where unbelievers could ask questions and where he gave candid answers, questions or parables in response. The church in Acts, also provide evidence that the apostles spent more time teaching and expounding upon Scriptures and the life events of Jesus than in any scripted music, song and liturgical ceremony. The early dynamic community of Christians had lots of teaching and doctrine, and seemingly had less good singing and music.

Further, if we are going to speak to each other in song, as Apostle Paul admonishes us, shouldn't we sing songs that speak to the needs and themes that we have to deal with today? The hymns of yesteryear cannot be sufficient. And contemporary songs must address the skepticism and the spirit of the age.

This is why I argue that the Billy Graham generation is over. "Crusade" style worship and evangelism will not win the souls of my generation. Today we need new anointed teachers and singers that do things differently. Teachers and singers that shake up our deeply held traditions and formats for Christian service or ministry. Teachers and singers that will centre our services, ministry and worship around Bible reading, teaching and questioning. To centre our worship around discussing the Bible and God's goodness in a world where many have questions and doubt.

The dilemma facing Protestant and Evangelical Christians in the West

The greatest dilemma today for Protestant and Evangelical Christians in the West is how to treat the Scriptures. Do we see them as the inspired words of God to live by and the standard to judge the morality of our own lives and that of society? Or do we see some of it as being inspired and other parts as not being useful or applicable today? Which portions of the Scriptures do we live by and which ones do we leave out or omit from our practice? Do we order our lives "sola scriptura", or by church traditions or by reason? Do we embrace modern scientific thinking or post-modern philosophy in helping us guide our decision-making about which Scriptures we can apply to our lives? Do we accept science to help us decide which Scriptures make sense and which ones are just parables, mythical or fables (if any?)? Or do we adopt the zeitgeist of postmodernism in determining that our faith is not the one true faith, but just one of several possible truths?

While I've been Evangelical for part of my life, I have realised from my own walk with God that I only have his Scriptures to guide me into discerning truth and error, especially in an era when Jesus himself prophesied that there will be great deceptions. And when I analyse the situation even more, I find that the disciples of Jesus and Jesus himself did not have a New Testament Bible. For them, the only Scriptures they owned were the Old Testament. With that fact in mind, Jesus and all his apostles based their doctrine and teachings around the Old Testament Scriptures (or the Torah) and through interpretations and re-interpretations of those Scriptures.

For me then, the question is not about which Scriptures are valid for instructing me and for application in today's world. All the scriptures are a standard  to show what God likes or approves of or to reveal humanity's past, present or future. As the apostle Paul declares in 2nd Timothy 3:15-17 according to the New Living Translation (NLT):

15 You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

However, the Bible is also complex, as it is compiled from various authors, contains diverse genres of content including laws, regulations, proverbial sayings, songs, folk wisdom, stories, genealogies, lists, histories, and reports. Yet despite its complexity, God uses it to help us identify what is good and what is wrong and to prepare us to do good.

Yet, the dilemma for Christians today is that our environment is changing. Historically, we moved from a persecuted minority religion to a popular majority in the Wes during the age of Constantine's reign in Rome. We in the West have enjoyed that status and the many privileges since then, perhaps taking our privileges and status as State sanctioned religion for granted, while Eastern Christians faced persecution for holding to their beliefs. Now as the West becomes diversified, our privileges and status are being taken away. Out of fear we attempt to preserve such through politics and legislation.

Yet, we forget our history, that when the disciples and apostles were preaching their doctrines, things that were practiced then in the 1st century are only now becoming legal and respectable int he 21st century (child sacrifice or abortion, witchcraft, paedophilia, homosexuality etc.). Somehow, when Christianity became legal, legitimate and the popular majority, such things were outlawed and driven underground.

So we must now see ourselves in the proper perspective. Do we believe the Scriptures only when the law and scholarship (or university intellectuals) are on our side? This is the test of our time. Just as how Job was tested, Satan accuses God about  our service to God. As illustrated in Job 1:8-10 in the New International Version (NIV):

8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

This charge is now being brought against us. Do we serve Christ because our faith is privileged or protected by our state?