REFLECTIONS on emerging IKON: God in the hands of angry sinners
by Cecil Andrews from Take Heed Ministries – 15 June 2007
Last year Pastor Gary Gilley was our invited guest to speak around Northern Ireland on 2 subjects in particular: (1) The Purpose Driven Movement and (2) The Emerging Church Movement.
In the run-up to Gary’s visit he mentioned to me that there was a local [in Belfast] ‘Emerging Church’ group called IKON that was headed up by a man called Peter Rollins. Gary asked me if I knew of him and I said ‘no’. Subsequently I did a web search and came across a website for this group called IKON and as I browsed their site I saw a web page listed under a subheading of ‘The Last supper’ and that somehow ‘rang a bell’ for me. On further investigation I found out why.
This is how ‘The Last Supper’ is described on that web page: “The Last Supper is a monthly gathering in which twelve people gather informally over food and wine to question an invited guest about what they believe and why they believe it. If the guest does not prove convincing it may turn out to be their last supper”. Listed also on this web page are links to all those who have been guests at this monthly ‘Last Supper’. Here is a short extract of the names listed.
- Ciaron O’Reilly (Catholic Worker and political activist)
- Brett Lockhart (Local Barrister)
- Prof. Tony Campolo (Sociologist and one time pastoral advisor to President Clinton)
- Bishop Pat Buckley (Rouge Catholic Priest and gay activist)
- Cecil Andrews (Fundamentalist and founder of ‘Take Heed’ Ministries)
- Christopher McKnight (Atheistic Philosopher)
- Prof. Vincent Geoghan (Political Theorist)
- Dr William Crawley (BBC Presenter)
- David Ervine (Leader of the PUP)
Now I knew why ‘The Last Supper’ heading had sounded familiar to me. From my own diary records my ‘guest appearance’ at the ‘Last Supper’ had been on 1st December 1998. In truth my recollections of what took place were not overly detailed. I had been invited along to meet with students who had an interest in ‘spirituality’ and who were mostly attending Queens Univeristy….
We had a meal and I was then asked to outline my ‘spiritual pilgrimage’ and so I gave my testimony and told of how the Lord had brought me to establish ‘Take Heed’ Ministries. This was followed by a question time and it was only at this point that it began to dawn on me that I was not actually in the company of fellow like-minded believers. They were certainly not rude to me but their questions were certainly probing and for me at times they were intellectually and philosophically rather baffling.
When I came home I shared with Margaret my ‘confusion’ of mind of how I had been with people who were friendly and enquiring but who were certainly not dedicated advocates for the Gospel of Christ and who were at times quite hostile to and dismissive of the unique claims of Christ and Him crucified. Little did I know that this group would eventually ‘give birth’ to a ‘Faith Community’ called IKON.
Today, according to extracts from their website, this is how IKON describe themselves under a number of headings:
ICONIC At Ikon we endeavour to view our religious beliefs and traditions as icons rather than idols, not approaching them as some scientifically correct rendering of Gods mind, but rather as wounded, worshipful constructions, formed in the glorious aftermath of God, which allow us to reflect upon our interaction with that which can never be reduced to the conceptual realm
APOCALYPTIC The word ‘apocalyptic’ simply refers to the incoming of a singular, unrepeatable event that is absolutely inconceivable, an event that could not have been predicted in advance of its coming and which defies all expectations. At Ikon we wish to reclaim and celebrate the apocalyptic nature of God By recognising that our religious traditions and beliefs are icons rather than idols it follows that these traditions must embrace the pseudo-concept of God as one who cannot be contained in any concept. At Ikon we recognise our dark tendency to reduce God to an object like other objects
HERETICAL Building upon the idea of our religious traditions as iconic discourses that recognise and celebrate the apocalyptic nature of God, it follows that Ikon acknowledges itself as a heretical community we endeavour to hold our current understanding of God lightly, allowing both the Spirit and other people to challenge what we believe In addition to this we acknowledge our heretical stance in relation to the larger Christian community a heretic is one who comes from the same tradition but who reads it in a different way we acknowledge and celebrate the multiplicity of ways that one can read Christianity By doing this we also endeavour to be a place of refuge for those on the edges, or outside, the traditional church system, yet who desire God we view this as a creative force that allows for a critical, two-way interaction with the larger church
EMERGING Flowing naturally from the previous statements Ikon does not view itself as having reached some final destination/destiny but rather as being on a journey we would prefer to call ourselves a community becoming Christian rather than a community of Christians The term ‘emerging’ should not then be thought of as a provisional one that will some day be replaced with the word ‘emerged’. By recognising ourselves as pilgrims and sojourners we endeavour to regularly meditate upon the direction of the movement and be open to the divine call that would draw us down paths we have not yet discovered
FAILING Finally Ikon acknowledges that it constantly fails in its desire to be an icon of the invisible our community is deeply committed to interacting with the mystical realm and demonstrating love in the world it would be inauthentic for us to sit back and declare that we have accomplished what we have set out to do we remain mindful of the fact that our attempts at forming a community of individuals who radiate divine love are, at best, the forging of a poor icon through which people can dimly perceive God.
Having read this self-description of IKON you can perhaps understand a little why at times at my visit to the ‘Last Supper’ I found some of their questions to be, as I put it, ‘intellectually and philosophically rather baffling’.
Just a few brief comments from me on the above description of IKON. I find them to be quite open and honest about their situation and intentions and I believe they are reacting to what they perceive to be the hypocritical failing of much of professing Christendom to be what Christians ought to be and I will comment more on this later as I come now to give details of my latest encounter with Peter Rollins of the IKON community ‘a community that meets on a monthly basis in ‘The Black Box’ that is apparently a small theatre with coffee bar facilities in the Cathedral quarter of Belfast’…
Please go read the rest of this article by Cecil Andrews here: TAKE HEED MINISTRIES – IKON REFLECTIONS
Cecil Andrews wrote:
Yes, that is what they say. I think they use that as an excuse to treat previous generations with disdain and to lawlessly blow up the foundations of the Church. This is certainly the case in South Africa where the Dutch Reformed Church is held totally responsible for all social ‘injustice’ [everybody should be equally poor] and the young emergent pastors believe they can do better by taking sides with the ‘oppressed’ [in a post-apartheid democracy?] Just preaching the Word did not ‘work’. It produced ‘Christians’, but not the good works that the emergents say we must do. The idea is to use white guilt to achieve their political aims and the destruction of the Church, I think. Unless one knows what a good work is, you will fall prey to their tactics.
Chris Rosebrough was accused of not doing any good works in the comment thread of his blog Extreme Theology:
He answered:
That does not suit the emergents at all. Chris also tackled the subject on his radio program Fighting for the Faith: What is the Biblical Definition of a Good Work? Well worth the listen.
FOR THOSE RELIGIOUSNESS, THE BIBLE IS A SPIRITUAL BOOK AND YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN IN ORDER TO START UNDERSTANDING SPIRITUAL MATTERS
PHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE WILL NEVER DO AND PEOPLE WILL DENIED THE SPIRITUAL SIDE. THEY CAN’T UNDERSTAND THEIR PHYSICAL SPIRITUAL IS NOT ABLE TO DISCERN, THEY WILL DISCREDIT EVERYTHING WITH HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, IT’S BEST TO LEAVE THEM ALONE, THE BIBLE DOES SPEAK ABOUT THEM PROFESSING TO BE WISE THEY BECAME FOOLS.
SORRY TRUTH HURTS, BUT IT’S STILL TRUTH. RELIGION KILLS Jesus christianity is not religion. if anyone is not born again the bible calls them anti-christ. where do you fit?
Jesse
>> if anyone is not born again the bible calls them anti-christ
very true
Jesse R. Cano
I echo that. That is correct. Unless people have the Holy Spirit abiding in them, they are unable to understand the Bible, which is spiritual. They are not born again.