The Anti-Formula

Posted Sunday, April 08, 2007 by Charlie Trimm

I've been pondering recently the use of formulas. Mostly this has been from my reading of material from the emerging church. They were talking about how they strongly dislike formulas, such as in church planting. I've heard stories of church planters who plant a church and the first Sunday there is already a constitution and a fully functioning church. The emerging church on the other hand spends time in the community trying to figure out what the people are like before they start the church. Now I am not happy with where the emerging church ends up taking their ideas, but the basic foundation is good: formulas can be bad. This anti-formulic thought has implications for every aspect of our Christianity. How do we do church? How do we counsel people? How do we have fellowship? How do we teach? The list could go on for a long time. Now to balance this, there are some formulaic ideas that we have to follow. For example, if a friend of mine tells me that he is sleeping with somone else's wife, I will formulaicly tell him he is sinning. Even here, though, how I tell him will differ depending on a variety of circumstances in the context. My thought overall is that we need to be careful how we use formulas. Modernism, as it was closely associated with science and rules, made formulas for everything. Postmodernism, with its disregard for consistency, has rejected formulas all together. We need to find the middle ground.

Series: Postmodernism, Modernism and Theology
Doing versus Being
Of Umpires and Postmodernism
JP Moreland, the IFCA and Philosophy
What happens if God dies?
The Anti-Formula

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 8:28 AM

Josh wrote: Pre-modern...

Could we cite the creeds of the early church as pre-modern formulas? The Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed could certainly be classified as theological formulas. This may expand our conception of formulas a little in that it seems that you are noting the emergent church's dislike of formulas with respect to doing - a creed would be more of a formula of thinking.

Now, this could certainly be abused - perhaps rote recitation without underlying understanding (okay, time to throttle back the alliteration booster) - but I think it points out the danger of being anti-formula: formulaic expressions seem to be an important part of Christianity. Rejecting formula for the sake of rejecting formula may unhinge our focus from those points which offer us something upon which to ground ourselves.

Perhaps a cause for concern can be stated this way - the emergent church's (or anyone's for that matter) reaction against the abuse and over-emphasis on formula (both real and alleged) may run the risk of moving too far in the opposite direction. For a faith that is grounded in historical events and recorded as Scripture, some objective framework is necessary. It may seem somewhat presumptuous (and no doubt it is overstating things to a degree) to worry that rejecting some tired and stale methods might lead to theological license, but when you start rejecting how things have been done, it seems like it could be difficult to avoid rejecting other things (like what things have been believed). The Christian faith has long placed (perhaps we could trace back things to structured, stylized expressions in the writings of Paul such as 1 Tim. 3:16) an importance on creeds and formulas. There needs to be some reasonable balance concerning keeping and rejecting such things.

Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:14 AM

Charlie wrote: I agree with you on this, Josh. I do think that the emerging church does go too far (they go too far in virtually every area they discuss). But they do bring up a good point. There does need to be balance between formula and anti-formula and we can't focus too much on either side. There are some things that are formulaic in theology. On the other hand, there needs to be room to express that theology in different ways in different cultures and to not make all of theology formulaic. I think that many of the modernist bent make all of theology formulaic instead of allowing for differences of views. We shouldn't make a Nicene Creed for every little detail of our theology.

Thursday, April 19, 2007 12:21 PM

Sam wrote: the pervasiveness of formulae am i missing something...it seems to me that there is no difference between a formula written down or one that is oral/cultural. the emergent church has their own formulae that they bring to their understanding of church..it just has not been formalized. i tend to think that we cannot avoid formulae, they are everywhere...the question is, how willing are we to acknowledge them, critique them and then live by them.

Friday, April 20, 2007 8:08 AM

Charlie wrote: Well, to a certain degree you are correct. Perhaps I could rephrase: anti-predetermined very specific formula. For example, a church planter is always going to have a formula. But what I am against is a church planter having a specific formula that is exactly the same in all of details for every place he could go to. I want someone to have the formula of tailoring a church to the specific context it meets. I do think that a biblical church needs to have certain things and do certain things, so some sort of formula is needed, but it should also have a large amount of openness. So I just get annoyed not at formulas, but at highly detailed and context ignoring formulas.