{"id":25393,"date":"2020-01-14T13:34:22","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25393"},"modified":"2020-01-14T13:35:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:35:28","slug":"traditioned-innovation-two-funerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/traditioned-innovation-two-funerals\/","title":{"rendered":"Traditioned Innovation – Two Funerals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building from a rich history and tradition, Evangelicals have the opportunity to innovate towards the next\u00a0 adjacent possible. Duke Divinity School proposes that traditioned innovation is \u201c<\/span>a way of thinking and being that holds the past and future in tension, not in opposition, [and] is crucial to the growth and vitality of Christian institutions\u201d (Faith and Leadership). The most meaningful innovative advancements are not disjoint from the past, but challenge the status quo <\/span>from<\/span><\/i> within the current time and culture.<\/span><\/i> A deep understanding of the history of Evangelicalism is necessary for the most meaningful adjustments, changes, and innovation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In that vein, D. W. Bebbington\u2019s book, <\/span>Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, <\/span><\/i>thoroughly lays the foundation of the last three hundred years of Evangelical history in Britain (and the West). It informs and surveys in a way that creates a deep well from which to draw keen insights and fresh ideas. Bebbington will go so far as to even use the word \u201cinnovation\u201d or a derivative when speaking about fields of prophecy and the understanding of scripture (88), the effects of Romanticism (104), engagement with the arts and social concern (182-183), church rituals (204), and theologians being influenced by popular thought (272). Evangelicalism, specifically, and Protestantism, generally, is by its very nature innovative and constantly changing. <\/span>Ecclesia sempre reformada<\/span><\/i> – the church is always reforming. One would do well to intimately know the complex history of Evangelicalism to capitalize on that tradition, nuance, and history when considering alternative future realities – the goal of any global leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Enlightenment and Imaginative Innovation – A Funeral<\/b><\/p>\n

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Bebbington situates Evangelicalism as a traditioned innovation around interaction with Enlightenment thinking: \u201cTo recognise the early phase of Evangelicalism as an adaptation of the Protestant tradition<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0through contact with the Enlightenment helps explain its timing\u201d (53). The Enlightenment and following counter-reaction,Romanticism, divorced intuition and imagination, and Christian thought has been trying to effectively marry them ever since. I lament as I read a eulogy of a well-known pastor, where his friend <\/span>praised<\/span><\/i> him by saying, \u201cHe waved no plumes, wreathed no garlands, but struck from the shoulder and at the vitals. He was destitute of poetry and barren of imagination\u201d (quoted in Hughes, 36). Imagine yourself sitting in a pew at a friend\u2019s funeral. The eulogy begins and you know this person is trying to think of the highest compliments and most moving way to honor and remember a someone, and the eulogizer chooses to say \u201cHe was destitute of poetry and barren of imagination\u201d.\u00a0 It was a good thing, according to the speaker, to be fully reliant on intuition and reason. What a statement to grieve!<\/span><\/p>\n

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As I consider the extremes of overemphasizing reason and imagination, my current working formula for innovation is:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Innovation = Imagination x Integrative Thinking x Implementation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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I seek to marry the imaginative approach of what God might do as he is \u201cmaking all things new\u201d (Revelation 21:5, cf. Isaiah 43:19), with the intuitive, and even scientific reasoning, found in systems or integrative thinking. All the while, their is a bias towards action and implementation. Being steeped in the biblical narrative of God\u2019s redemption should form a Christian imagination of justice, righteousness and peace. The incarnation and the new heavens and the new earth provide a vision and depth of resource that far exceeds the \u201cgods\u201d of Silicon Valley. It\u2019s not enough, however, to have this imagination for what could be, one also needs the tools of integrative thinking at their disposal, including inductive reasoning, hypotheses and an ability to handle many variables. Last, innovation is a more than a think tank with need an implementation of new ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Limits or Warnings of Innovation within Evangelicalism<\/b><\/p>\n

Bebbington\u2019s book gifts me with pause to consider the limits or warnings of attempting to innovative in an Evangelical context. In invite your input as I heed these warnings.<\/span><\/p>\n

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