From Ekklesia to Megachurch Charlatanry

This blog post and the following blogs series that will follow, is partially inspired by Shawn McCraney's HOTM 2.0 show which I watched for time on his YouTube channel. I began listening to Shawn here and there, a video clip now and again. At that time Shawn was a typical Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian. My first encounter with the Conservative-Evangelical branch of Christianity led me to feel manipulated as I was essentially threatened with eternal conscious torment if I did not do what they said and believe the way they said to believe. I was also told that my Mormon love ones would suffer Hellfire torture for thought-crimes. Needless to say this left a bad taste in my mouth. As I saw BITE Model tactics being used. 

I also spent much time reading Systematic Theology and going to Christian book stores and reading books on the Trinity (and how to make sense of it) and reading books with titles like Five Views on Hell, or Five Views on Grace, or Five Views on the Rapture, etc. I read many 300 page books on Systematic Theology by Evangelical theologians. I watched documentaries that equated meditation and yoga with demonic possession. 

I went exploring and for a short time and attended meetings of a group called exMormons for Jesus and met exMormons who said they converted to Evangelical Christianity primarily because of fear of hell. I listened to a nice woman at exMormons for Jesus tell me how the children at her church were afraid of not knowing Jesus in case they burned in hell. When I asked her how she could be happy in heaven with loved ones burning endlessly, she said God would erase her memory. I wondered if she understood what it even meant to be a "person," as our memories makes us who we are!

All of this led me to question if this is a religion of love and transformation or fear and intimidation like the mafia. This led me to ask myself if there were things about Fundamentalist Christianity I should learn about? So I became curious about the foundations of Christianity and began to dig deep into its historical origins. This led me to reading the critics of Christianity just as I had read the critics of all religions. This, in short led me to becoming a skeptic who was anti-spirituality for a few years.

In hindsight, I see now that while -- I likely would never have become a True Believer as it just doesn't fit my personality -- I don't think the pendulum would have swung so far in the opposite direction toward worldview-atheism for me; if I had had a mentor and guide such a Shawn McCraney and his 2.0 version of his views on Christianity.  For like me, Shawn moved away from dogma-minded Fundamentalism and now presents what he calls Subjective Christianity (which I will talk about more below).

Overtime I had individually worked my way out of both worldview-physicalism and fundamentalism through reading authors such as Marcus Borg and Rob Bell and Bruce Sheiman. So when I began listening to Shawn McCraney's HOTM 2.0, off and on between 2014 and 2018 (which is him explaining his expanded faith from a more studied perspective), I began to notice that his views aligned pretty close with mine. I began to notice that while he was a devout Christian-theist (and I an "aspiring theist") and he was more Evangelical and more theologically literalistic than I was, I found myself agreeing with 90% of what he was saying. So I began listening to him more and more between 2014-2018 and his Heart of the Matter 2.0; especially when he would come into conflict with rigid Fundamentalist Dogmatists. Seeing him stand up to them respectfully and present his ideas with "authority" (not authoriTIE as Shawn puts it) led me to see that there is more than one way to be Christian. I already knew this after absorbing the work of Borg and Bell and Brian McLaren, but Shaun was one more piece in the spectrum representing a more organic church and A New Kind of Christianity. Listening to Shaun and the others just mentioned, inspired this blog series.

In this post I will use the word Form(s) a lot. What I mean is Platonic Forms. I like the analogy of Thought Bubbles and/or Speech Balloons in cartoon strips. For some Christians, Christianity is all about having the "right" thought bubbles and speech balloons (the right God concepts in your head, or right words of conviction said, down to structured syntax). Within these bubbles and balloons are strict mental constructs and linear verbage that becomes concretized as fixed-dogma with thought-patrollers acting like the Pharisees in Jesus day; who have all the right Forms in their Thought Bubble, but their hearts are far from the Jesus-Way. 

This rigidity of Thought-Concretization leads to dogma police who accuse others of thoughtcrime while acting as the thought police. In the Medieval era this led to heresy trials and heretics burned alive! The word heresy is from haireisthai meaning to "choose," so a heretic is basically a "chooser of different thoughts." While the word orthodox is from orthos (straight or right) and doxa (opinion), so orthodox basically means "right-opinion." A study of the origin and development of Christianity reveals that this is a post-Constantine development. For Judaism has a history of allowing open debate and difference of opinion. And weren't Jesus and Paul Jewish? I digress. It was the Constantine era that gave us orthodoxy and orthodox-policers of the creeds.

Sticking with the title of this blog, by formality (or formalism) I mean the enactment of legalistic Form-fixated creedalism; which the New Testament Jesus constantly criticizes. The only "beliefs" that are deal breakers in the New Testament, is Jesus' emphasis of belief in the basic Jewish shema and Paul's gospel (proclamation) of spiritual rescue from s.i.n. and death occurs via allegiance alone or devotion to Jesus as Messiah (in contrast to a violent military Messiah) and Jesus as Lord (in contrast to Caesar as Lord). Jesus' activities are almost exclusively devoted to enacting The Way via Poetry, Spirituality, and Inner Transformation; as he spends most of his time demonstrating righteous behavior while criticizing the religious fakery of the legalistic dogmatists of his day, who are stuck in Form and Formality and demanding Conformity.

Note that whenever I use the word behavioral in this post I am not referring to what one does with their genitals (which is post-Augustinian anti-sexuality not present in a careful reading of the NT) or legalistic law-code "ceremonial works" that Paul opposes. So what I mean by behavioral practices is how we treat our neighbor, as the title of Joshua Jipps' book puts it, Saved by Faith and Hospitality; I am talking about letting your light so shine, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, open table fellowship, and how we treat the marginalized, the "least of these," etc.

In my reading of the Bible while studying biblical scholarship, I hear Paul saying not to be conformed to Thought Bubbles or greco-logical philosophy or Platonic Forms:

As Paul says in Romans 12:2 (EXB):


Do not be ·shaped by [conformed to; pressed into a mold by] this ·world [age]; instead be ·changed within [transformed] by ·a new way of thinking [or changing the way you think; L the renewing of your mind]. Then you will be able to ·decide [discern; test and approve] what ·God wants for you [is God’s will]; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect.

The ESV translation of this verse in the footnotes calls the age here the Greek age. That would be the world of Form under Plato's influence. So what kind of "thinking" is Paul talking about? I think he is talking about a mystic way of thinking that is aligned with embodying a Christ-consciousness (which I have a whole blog series about), where your thinking conforms to the "spirit" of Christ:

1 Corinthians 2:16 (EXB):
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Who has been able to ·teach [advise; counsel] him [Is. 40:13]?”
But we have the mind of Christ [C the Holy Spirit reveals God and his ways to us; Rom. 11:34].

2 Corinthians 10:5 (EXB):


... and every ·proud thing [pretension; exalted opinion; L high thing] that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it obey Christ.

In Paul's gospel it is not about the intellect but the spirit. This mystic-knowing, the thinking-as-Christ and taking noble action via Christ-in-you (not orthodox intellectualizing) is further elaborated on in 1 Peter 1:13 (EXB):


13 ·So [Therefore; For this reason] ·prepare your minds for service [prepare your minds for action; or, be alert; L gird the loins of your mind] and ·have self-control [be disciplined]. ·All your hope should be for [Focus all your hope on] the gift of grace that will be ·yours [brought/given to you] ·when Jesus Christ is shown to you [L at the revelation of Jesus Christ].

As I have written elsewhere on this blog, for Paul "spirit possession" (i.e. being possessed by the Messiah) was a real phenomenon for Paul. As David B. Hart says in his response to N.T. Wright on his Bible translation:

We do not want to hear Paul speak of “scripture’s obsolescence” (Romans 7:6), or say that “scripture slays” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Surely, we cry, he cannot mean that in some sense scripture has been surpassed by God’s self-revelation in the face of Christ! Except that he does, and explicitly so. One need only read what follows in 2 Corinthians, all the way to verse 18, to grasp this. ...

Source: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2018/01/16/a-reply-to-n-t-wright/ 

When reading the CJB I saw many places in the footnotes where Paul would use midrash to reinterpret the Hebrew Bible. It is clear to me that Paul was not a Hebrew Fundamentalist but an artistic Christ-follower, who believed that Christ possessed him and drove his mind, heart, and behavior to search the scriptures and refigure their meaning in a new light. 

So how did the Christian faith move from the midrashic mystic path of cruciformity to rigid dogmatic creedal conformity?

From the intimate Ekklesia to the mammon-centered Megachurch Charlatanry

A major hindrance to an organic Christianity of poetry, spirituality, and inner transformation, is post-Constantine Christianity, which gave us a Christianity based more on ego-centered Form-making, doctrinaire formalism, and intellectual conformity. Such a historical analysis of how this happened is beyond the scope of this blog post. But one can read about this transition from learning about the original organic Ekkelisa that later turned into what McCraney calls brick-and-mortar religion (and how to get back to the original Ekklesia) in the following books I highly recommend: 

> Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola and George Barna

> A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith by Brian McLaren

 > Knife to a Gun Fight: Misinterpreting the Purpose and Place of The New Testament (Kindle Edition) by Shawn McCraney

Here is a visual summary of the original Ekklesia:

Click on image to enlarge

As this image above shows, the original Ekklesia was a mystic faith, a spiritual organism with agape/love dinners and circular worship gatherings (not pyramid structures like today). On the far right of the diagram, I list Christian movements seeking to return to the original spirit of the original. 

So what went wrong? Well the next image summarizes the trajectory of the historical church from left to right, showing how the church went from an organic movement to a institutional structure; and the theologians like Calvin and revivalist orators moved the organic Ekklesia into a Romanized system of dogmatic formalism, fixated on creedal Forms and conformity; leading to the megachurch charlatanry we see today:

Click to enlarge 

Personality Differences

Shawn McCraney is right when he says that the gospel is not just for the highfalutent, left-brained, gifted orators or ivory tower intellectual types, but for the average man of all types. For it is not about Bible scripture ping pong and showing how smart you are intellectually, as Shaun's opponents often do. It's about a heart-transformation, and allowing the Hebrew poetry of the Bible to cause you to belove the Lord (as Marcus Borg puts it). 

I am not saying that all Form and Formalism or Conformity is bad or wrong. Just most of it that I see. For the Forms often confine the deity to the image of an angry god, that produces angry believers. The formality of creeds produces creedal-policers, and doctrinal conformity generates (or attracts) authoritarian personality types as they take the helm and seek control and reject any personality that rejects authoritarianism (which today we are seeing is most people). 

My reading of the NT presents not a fixed image of an angry god, but a variety of portraits of God from human beings with differing perceptions of God; yet a consistent trajectory in the texts emerge, from a god of anger, control, and violence, to God of Love, Jesus' Abba, that sends the rain on the just and the unjust; and is the kind of God that welcomes The Prodigal Son. This God is the most consistent God-concept in the scriptures, and from this God-image you produce more forgiving and loving people.

I don't recall which video it was, but sometime between 2014 and 2018, Shaun McCraney discussed how the mechanical-logical personality often differs from the visual and artistic personality types, when it comes to theology. This was his bridge building attempt to broaden the umbrella of Christianity to not just contain the left-brain dogmatizers.

I think McCraney is spot on, we are dealing with different personality styles. For example, I am a balance of left-brain and right-brained: being analytically intellectual yet a visual learner as well artistic at the same time. Hence I can write scholarly exegesis and then write a poem or cartoon with equal ease. 

My personality, background, and genetic-induced perspective may not match all types of people. 

So if you disagree with me as a Christian I still consider you my brother/sister in Christ. As Rob Bell said in an interview when he disagreed with a more conservative type Christian: (paraphrasing) when we gather round the communion table we're still Brothers in Christ.

Shaun McCraney resolves this difference in personality types by suggesting Subjective Christianity (a terminology I don't personally care for on marketing grounds). My solution is terms like Practical Christianity or Antioch Christianity or Science Friendly Christianity: where scientific methodology such as critical Bible scholarship and empirical and repeatable character driven behavior best unifies; as in, to paraphrase the NT: by their fruits you shall know them; let your light so shine; doing unto the least of these; and if you don't have love for your brother you are a liar and Christ is not in you. While he who is not against me is for me.

In other words, less Say and more Way; less creedalism and more what N.T. Wright calls image-bearing; less bibliolatry, more cruciformity; less dogma, more agape; less non-essentials and more essentials (e.g. fruits of the spirit and love-style unity per 1 Corinthians 13 and 1st John).